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HOW FAST CAN YOU WRITE?Look at your watch (you'll have to have one for the exam) or take a note of the time ...
Now copy the following three paragraphs on an
A4 sheet. Go on, do it now. Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping, and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs, fog lying out on the yards, and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog is in the eyes and throats of ancient greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin, fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little 'prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them as if they were up in a balloon, and hanging in the misty clouds.Gas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much as the sun may, from the spongy fields, be seen to loom by husbandman and ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted two hours before their time - as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling look.The raw after noon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest, near that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation: Temple Bar.(250 words) Make a note of the time NOW.
How many minutes did it take you to write 250 words? To find out
what this means, look at the following table:
If your result is in the top half of the table, relax - you can write fast enough for exam purposes. Take a note of the result, because we will be asking you to note how long it takes you to do various exam tasks. If your result is in the bottom half of the table - try the exercise again some time and try to write as fast as you can without the result being illegible or inaccurate. But don't panic. Just be aware of your writing speed as we head through other parts of the exam and adjust the relevant timings to suit yourself. (By the way, the extract is adapted from the opening of Bleak House by Charles Dickens, published 1852-53, just in case you were interested.) |