DESCRIPTIVE

ESSAY
DATE:
30TH & 31ST JANUARY 2020
PREPARED BY:
THIVIYAA A/P MANIAM
CHRISTINE ANUSHA
ESSAY
(NARRATIVE/DESCRIPTIVE/AUTOBIOGRAPHY/
FACTUAL/ARGUMENTATIVE)

UEC (Junior)
Paper 1
Section A
20% @ 20 marks

Suggested length: 100-150 words

Suggested time: 50 minutes
WHAT IS DESCRIPTIVE ESSAY?

• give vivid(detailed, clear) descriptions about

– an event/incident*
– person
– place
– thing
• reveal the meaning of the subject
through sensory observations
(5 senses)
• also can include how something happens – can
be overlapping with Narrative type of Essay*
, see it
EXAMPLE QUESTIONS

• Describe a movie, play or TV show that you

really enjoyed.
• Describe your favourite teacher.
• Describe an embarrassing incident in your life.
LANGUAGE FEATURES
• mixed tenses (past + present)

for events, when the to describe appearance of a

events happened, etc. person, physical characteristics of
a thing/place, etc.
• adjectives - to describe
nouns(event/person/place/thing/
feeling/etc)
- follow OSASCOMP order of adjectives
• adverbs – to describe adjectives, verbs & adverbs
LAYOUT

UEC – you are encouraged to write 36663

 CLASSWORK ESSAY TOPIC
Describe your Chinese New Year celebration.

QUESTION ANALYSIS / DISCUSSION

1. When is Chinese New Year celebrated?
2. How did you celebrate your Chinese New Year?
(Place, Food, Activities, Traditions)
3. Plan what to write in each paragraph.
4. How to write the thesis statement?
 VOCAB
• reunion = a gathering for a group of people
• fortune = chance or luck
• captivating = very beautiful
• contemporary = modern, very up to date
• fascinating = very interesting
• lively = somewhere with a lot of things going on
• picturesque = interesting in a unique way
• quaint = unusual
• Prosperous = wealthy and successful.
• Ritual= custom or practice
• Scrumptious= delicious
 Introduction paragraph

LS: My favourite festival is the Spring Festival, also

known as Chinese New Year.
BS: The festival is usually celebrated on the first
day of the first month on the Chinese Lunar
calendar.
TS: This year, my Chinese New Year celebration
was remarkable because I enjoyed lots of
scrumptious food, spent precious moments with
my family and visited many interesting places.
Body paragraph 1

TS: One of the best parts of Chinese New Year

celebration is the mouth-watering food.
SS1: Families get together on the eve of the
Chinese New Year for a big dinner at their
respective hometowns.
SD1: Some of the traditional Chinese New Year
food served are meat dumplings, sweet rice
cake, vegetables with long noodles, different
varieties of fish, chicken and so on.
Body paragraph 1 (cont.)

SS2: Besides the delicious meals, the desserts

served are also equally tempting.
SD2: The traditional Chinese New Year
desserts include Eight Treasure Rice
Pudding, Candy Tray, and Assorted
Preserved Fruits.
CS: Although all the cooking process was
tedious, we enjoyed the delicacies even
more.
Body paragraph 2
elaborate about the activities that were done
(decoration, clothes, red packets)

Body paragraph 3
about places visited (hometown, relatives’ house,
temple)

Conclusion
Overall feeling and opinion about Chinese New
Year celebration.
CHECKLIST

In the essay that we’ve written, have we…

 use the correct tenses?
 use with proper layout?
 write with proper sentence structure?
 write enough number of words?
 organise the body paragraphs according to the
thesis statement?
 use adjectives/adverbs to describe?
 check grammar, spelling, punctuation?