Warm-Up 4 and the end of the course

Warm-Up 4 doesn't give you any marks (!), but it is, perhaps, a way for you to see the collective wisdom of the group about two key areas in the In-Tray exam: complaining and apologising. Since you don't get any marks for it, you don't have to do it either - but I'm sure that your contributions will be gratefully received by everyone else, if you do!

You publish your Warm-Up 4s as comments to this blog post.

The In-Tray Exam is based on the idea that you work for a temporary agency (like Manpower) and have been sent in to cover the work of one of the people employed by one of the companies on this course. An in-tray is the plastic or metal tray on your desk into which all the paperwork you have to deal with is placed. When you've dealt with it, it's transferred to your 'out-tray' to be sent off or filed.

The exam itself will be posted on the course web site on Friday, 25th November (via the Module 4 section of the site). It's a .pdf document which you can either download or read directly from the screen. When you read it, you'll notice that there are four writing tasks to complete, but you're given three complete sets of tasks to choose between, one for each of the companies in the course materials.

You don't have to stick to the same company for all four tasks - you can switch from one company to another, or you can stay with the same company all the way through.

You submit your In-Tray Exam to David Richardson as a Word document by e-mail. (If you're using Microsoft Works, rather than Word or an equivalent, remember to save the document as an .rtf - Rich Text Format - document, or David won't be able to open it).

When the exam's been received, David will print it on paper, mark it manually, write a mark and commentary for each task, and, finally, add your In-Tray Exam marks to the marks you've received for your Warm-Ups and Send-Ins. When the total exceeds 60 marks, you've passed, and when the total exceeds 80 marks, you've got a 'VG'. Your marks are reported on LADOK, the Swedish national university computer, more or less the same day the exam's marked.

When everything's finished, David puts your exam, the commentary and a statement of your total marks into an envelope and posts it to whatever address we have for you (if you've recently moved, or haven't given us your address, please let us know your current address as soon as possible). He'll also send you a mail straightaway with your final result.

At the end of the final mail is a link to the on-line course evaluation. This is totally anonymous - and, besides, you've already got your mark, so you can say what you like! Feedback from you is very valuable to us (even if you don't get any direct benefit from it!) and all of us on the course team greatly appreciate hearing what you've thought of the course.

Good luck with the exam! The due date is 18th December … but, as usual, we'll be understanding if you're a little late.

General Comment on Warm-Up 3

You all did really well on this task of changing informal spoken language into formal written language. There were, however, one or two frequently-made mistakes!

1. Formal vs colloquial language

There were some tricky bits of colloquial language here. 'Dumper truck', for example, is what that piece of machinery is actually called, whilst 'digger' is definitely colloquial. In the plant hire catalogue, it's called an 'excavator'.

2. Rules/regulations/requirements/suggestions

There are a couple of very tricky pairs of words you want to use in this exercise:

rule - regulation
obligatory - compulsory

Rules are made by clubs, societies and organisations and they're obeyed on a voluntary basis, rather than having the force of law.

Let's take the Olympics! Athletes have to submit to drug tests because that's one of the rules of the Olympic Committee. If they don't want to, however, they don't get arrested … but they can't compete in the Olympics any more.

Regulations are connected with laws. If you don't follow the regulations, ultimately you've broken the law. On this course, for example, the syllabus is backed up by 'Högskolelagen', so the requirements of the course actually have the force of law (i.e. I can be disciplined if I don't follow them!)

Actions which are governed by rules are obligatory.

Actions which are governed by laws and regulations are compulsory.

Thus, most of the things the Inspector talks about are compulsory, not obligatory.

… and what the law orders you to do are requirements (i.e. not suggestions or recommendations).

3. Should - have to - must

If you say that someone should do something, you're only making a recommendation. They can choose to ignore you, in other words. I should take more exercise, for example, but it doesn't mean that I'm going to!

Have to, on the other hand, talks about something you're forced to do because of someone or something else. Must is somewhat similar, but the reason comes from a feeling rather than a law:

You have to wear a seat belt. (Why? Because you'll be fined if you don't)

You must wear a seat belt. (Why? Think of how your family would feel if you were brain-damaged through smashing your head into the windscreen.

Warm-Up 3

Warm-Up 3 is all about turning informal, spoken language into formal, written language. The prompt is the kind of thing a health-and-safety officer might say when she's on a site visit, but the written version of her recommendations will use different grammatical structures and different words … because it's written and formal, not spoken and informal.

Remember that you've only got FIVE sentences to produce - you don't need to write the entire report.