2013 Q7 — Feature article: ‘What Makes Asian Stars Shine?’ (Popular Culture elective; trend feature on Asian stars rising in the Western market)
Question prompt — Q7 (Part B, Learning English through Popular Culture elective)
Asian singers and movie stars are gaining popularity all over the world and are no longer appealing only to Asian audiences. Write an article for your school newspaper explaining why Asian stars are gaining popularity in Western countries. Give a title to your article.
About 400 words. Booklet pages 6–8. The X-box at the top of p.6 confirms Q7 selected (no other question box ticked). The candidate’s self-given title is What Makes Asian Stars Shine?. The candidate did not need the Supplementary Answer Sheet for Part B — the article closes cleanly mid-page on booklet p.8 with END OF PAPER visible below.
Marks: Part A ^15 + ^18 = 33 / 42; Part B ^19 + ^20 = 39 / 42 (closest-pair adjusted, no D3 on either). Subject mark 589 / 668 ⇒ 5** overall. Same Q7 prompt as 2013-001, with a 2-mark Part B gain; 2013-001’s Part B triggered D3 (M1=15 dropped), 2013-002’s did not.
The structural plan. Title · opening hook (five iconic Asian names — Girls’ Generation, Super Junior, Psy, Yukari Mizuno, Lin Ru-Bin) · trend statement + rhetorical-question pivot (Why is that so?) · cause 1 (no shortage of reasons — multi-talents; K-pop training pipeline; Girls’ Generation as exemplar) · cause 2 (positive image — teenagers look up to Asian idols; behave appropriately) · counter-acknowledgement (Hollywood stars found to be drug addicts) · counter-rebuttal (named Western negative-image stars: Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Justin Bieber) · cause 3 (freshness — Psy / Gangnam Style as the Asian-novelty exemplar) · tripartite cleft close. The architecture is a textbook trend-feature with a counter-rebuttal that 2013-001’s piece does not attempt. The candidate has read the brief as inviting a defence of Asian stars — not just an explanation of their rise — and has built a half-page counter-and-rebuttal to make the defence.
The standout move: the named Western counter-examples (Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Justin Bieber) are the article’s strongest single device. Where 2013-001 opens his piece with three iconic Western stars (Michael Jackson, Air Supply, Madonna) as the trend’s prior-era benchmark, 2013-002 deploys three named Western stars as negative-image counter-examples: the article’s claim is not just that Asian stars are rising, but that they are rising in part because Western stars have failed to maintain a positive image. The argument is sharper than 2013-001’s anti-zero-sum framing (Western culture is integrating good points of Asian cultures) because it identifies specific Western failures rather than a generic cultural exchange.
The structural plan. Title · opening hook (five iconic Asian names — Girls’ Generation, Super Junior, Psy, Yukari Mizuno, Lin Ru-Bin) · trend statement + rhetorical-question pivot (Why is that so?) · cause 1 (no shortage of reasons — multi-talents; K-pop training pipeline; Girls’ Generation as exemplar) · cause 2 (positive image — teenagers look up to Asian idols; behave appropriately) · counter-acknowledgement (Hollywood stars found to be drug addicts) · counter-rebuttal (named Western negative-image stars: Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Justin Bieber) · cause 3 (freshness — Psy / Gangnam Style as the Asian-novelty exemplar) · tripartite cleft close. The architecture is a textbook trend-feature with a counter-rebuttal that 2013-001’s piece does not attempt. The candidate has read the brief as inviting a defence of Asian stars — not just an explanation of their rise — and has built a half-page counter-and-rebuttal to make the defence.
The standout move: the named Western counter-examples (Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Justin Bieber) are the article’s strongest single device. Where 2013-001 opens his piece with three iconic Western stars (Michael Jackson, Air Supply, Madonna) as the trend’s prior-era benchmark, 2013-002 deploys three named Western stars as negative-image counter-examples: the article’s claim is not just that Asian stars are rising, but that they are rising in part because Western stars have failed to maintain a positive image. The argument is sharper than 2013-001’s anti-zero-sum framing (Western culture is integrating good points of Asian cultures) because it identifies specific Western failures rather than a generic cultural exchange.
The writing, with corrections marked inline
Legend:
red strikethrough = removed |
green highlight = added or replaced |
yellow highlight = handwriting unclear or wording reconstructed from context |
margin numbers count handwritten lines on each booklet page
Booklet p.6 (handwritten lines 1–23) — title, five-name Asian opening, cause 1 (multi-talents), start of cause 2
What Makes Asian Stars Shine?
1Girls’ Generation, Super Junior, Psy, Yukari Mizuno,
2Lin Ru-Bin… They are all Asian stars. The They are not
3simply appealing only to are no longer appealing only to Asian people. They are also gaining
4their fans in the West. Why is that so?
5
6There is no shortage of reasons for their rising popularity.
7It is commonly said that Asian stars are well-trained. Many
8of them have multi-talents — they can sing, dance
9and act. It is always enjoyable to watch the performance
10of a K-pop group, dancing and singing
11at the same time. It is known that members of
12a K-pop group, like the ‘Girls’ Generation’, must be trained for
13several years before they are presented to the public.
14No one questions about their abilities. It is thereby
15understandable that Western people fall for these flawless
16performances.
17
18Asian stars also have a positive image. People who engage in
19personality cult of Asian stars are mainly teenagers.
20Idols are looked up to by them. Asian stars are always
21polite, behave appropriately, and show their best to their
22fans. Apart from numerous teenage fans by-product,
23Asian stars are seen to be more reliable, hence keep
Booklet p.7 (handwritten lines 24–46) — positive-image cause continues + counter-acknowledgement + named Western counter-examples + freshness paragraph opens
24a positive image in front of the public. Therefore, gaining
25support from young viewers.
26
27Apart from the above reasons, I am no way in no way should we
28neglect the freshness that Asian stars can bring to the
29West. Teenagers get bored of it and stuff easily; they
30never stop trying new styles in their lives. That is the
31reason why Psy’s ‘Gangnam Style’ welcome was welcomed by Asian culture
32and Western audiences alike. It is always exciting to watch the
33next. Teenagers get tired easily. It is therefore
34understandable that Western people fall for those fresh
35performances.
36
37Besides their abilities, Asian stars also have a better
38positive image. People who engage in personality cult of these
39stars are mainly teenagers. They always look up to their
40idols, and with that, their idols make them mimic a positive
41lifestyle. Therefore, found Hollywood stars to be drug addicts, while Hollywood
42stars are found to be drug addicts — no one is surprised by
43news of Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Justin Bieber.
44Asian stars are also seen to be more reliable, therefore
45gaining support from young viewers. They know more about
46foreign-life lifestyle. When Psy listens to an Asian song,
Booklet p.8 (handwritten lines 47–57) — freshness paragraph closes + tripartite cleft restatement + END OF PAPER
47or watches an Asian movie, they are sometimes
48overwhelmed by the foreign culture, that they have no
49idea before. All of the above-mentioned experiences brings
50freshness to the life of Western audiences, contributing to
51the rising status of Asian stars.
52
53Taking all aspects into consideration, it is manifest that
54it is the well-trained whilst Asian stars that has have made them
55shine; it is the positive Asian stars image that has has gained Asian stars
56support; and it is the freshness that Asian stars are
57able to bring to the West, that allows them to gain such popularity in the West.
END OF PAPER (printed below the candidate’s final sentence on booklet p.8)
A note on transcription difficulty. Pages 7 and 8 are the most cursive in the booklet and several mid-paragraph phrases (especially around positive image / negative rumours / Psy… listens to an Asian song) are written with the candidate’s tightest hand. The transcription above preserves the candidate’s logical flow as best the page permits, with marker tags where the cursive runs together. The article’s structural argument is clear even where individual sentences are dense: three causes (multi-talents / positive image / freshness), one Western counter-example list (Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Justin Bieber), one named Asian exemplar (Psy / Gangnam Style), and a closing tripartite restatement.
Marks earned: ^M1 = 19 + ^M2 = 20 = 39 / 42 (closest-pair adjusted, no D3 triggered, perfect 1-mark agreement). The 1-point M1–M2 gap is the smallest non-zero disagreement on the 21-point scale.
Word count. Approximately 480 words across booklet pages 6–8 (against the 400-word brief) — 20% over budget. The candidate has used every line of the booklet and did not need the Supplementary sheet. The article closes cleanly on p.8 above END OF PAPER. The over-budget is moderate; the architecture does not run out of paper.
Marks earned: ^M1 = 19 + ^M2 = 20 = 39 / 42 (closest-pair adjusted, no D3 triggered, perfect 1-mark agreement). The 1-point M1–M2 gap is the smallest non-zero disagreement on the 21-point scale.
Word count. Approximately 480 words across booklet pages 6–8 (against the 400-word brief) — 20% over budget. The candidate has used every line of the booklet and did not need the Supplementary sheet. The article closes cleanly on p.8 above END OF PAPER. The over-budget is moderate; the architecture does not run out of paper.
Strengths to praise
1. The three-cause architecture is signposted across the article
Each cause opens with an explicit transition (l.6 There is no shortage of reasons; l.18 Asian stars also have a positive image; l.27 Apart from the above reasons, in no way should we neglect the freshness). Three distinct cause-claims and a tripartite closing restatement (l.53–57) that re-names all three: well-trained, positive image, freshness.
2. The named Western counter-examples carry the ‘positive image’ cause
Lines 41–43: three named contemporary Western stars (Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Justin Bieber) used as negative-image counter-examples, all with publicly-known personal-conduct issues as of May 2013. The article doesn’t just claim Asian stars have a positive image — it names the Western stars whose tarnished images make the contrast visible.
3. The K-pop training-pipeline insight is the cause-1 anchor
Lines 11–13: members of a K-pop group, like Girls’ Generation, must be trained for several years before they are presented to the public. The candidate names the systemic explanation for K-pop performance quality — the multi-year training pipeline that SM/YG/JYP had built by 2013. The structural-economic insight underneath the surface phenomenon.
4. The counter-acknowledgement + counter-rebuttal is the move 2013-001 does not attempt
The candidate names the obvious objection (Hollywood-star scandals) and immediately rebuts it with the named Western counter-examples. 2013-001’s comparable move is an anti-zero-sum disclaimer (rhetorical-clarification form); 2013-002’s is the rhetorical-defence form. Both are at the top of the genre; 2013-002’s is the more combative.
5. The five-name iconic-Asian opening
Lines 1–2: five names spanning Korea (Girls’ Generation, Super Junior, Psy), Japan (Yukari Mizuno) and the Chinese-language pop sphere (Lin Ru-Bin). Geographically distributed: doesn’t lean on K-pop alone, which supports the article’s broader claim about Asian stars rather than Korean stars specifically.
6. The tripartite cleft closing restatement
Lines 53–57: three it is X that… cleft constructions in a row, each re-naming one of the three causes. The closing delivers exactly the ‘conclusion restates main argument’ move the rubric asks for, with a grammatical pattern (the cleft) that signals conscious rhetorical control even where the agreement (that has gained) slips.
7. The Psy / Gangnam Style anchor in the freshness cause
Lines 31–32: same exemplar 2013-001 uses for his YouTube paragraph, deployed in a different cause slot. In 2013-002’s piece the song is the ‘freshness’ anchor (something the West had not seen before); in 2013-001’s it is the ‘video-sharing technology’ anchor (the medium that carried it). Two readings of the same 2012 song doing different rhetorical work.
Grammar — small corrections
| Line | Original | Suggested | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| l.3 | They are not simply appealing only to Asian people | They are no longer appealing only to Asian audiences | The prompt’s own phrasing is no longer appealing only to Asian audiences; the candidate’s not simply appealing only to is a small mis-paraphrase that loses the temporal contrast (used to / now no longer). |
| l.8 | Many of them have multi-talents | Many of them are multi-talented / have many talents | Hyphenation / word-form. Multi-talents as a count noun is non-standard; multi-talented is the standard adjectival form. |
| l.11–12 | members of a K-pop group, like the ‘Girls’ Generation’, must be trained for several years | members of K-pop groups, such as Girls’ Generation, must be trained for several years | Three small fixes. (i) Number: K-pop groups (plural). (ii) Article: Girls’ Generation does not take the. (iii) Register: such as for naming examples in formal prose, rather than like. |
| l.14 | No one questions about their abilities | No one questions their abilities | Preposition. The verb question is transitive (no about). The candidate has crossed the verb and noun constructions. |
| l.15–16 | people fall for these flawless performance | people fall for these flawless performances | Number agreement: these + plural noun, so performances. |
| l.19 | People who engage in personality cult of Asian stars are mainly teenagers | People who engage in the personality cult around Asian stars are mainly teenagers | Two small fixes. (i) Article: the personality cult. (ii) Preposition: cult around / cult of the stars. Devoted fandom would be the cleaner school-newspaper noun. |
| l.27 | I am no way should we neglect the freshness | in no way should we neglect the freshness | The candidate has written I am no way where the intended construction is the negative-adverbial inversion in no way should we…. One preposition swap rebuilds the higher-register construction. |
| l.29 | Teenagers get bored of it and stuff easily | Teenagers get bored of things easily | Register / vocabulary. It and stuff is a colloquial filler that drops the article’s register noticeably. |
| l.30 | they never stop trying new style in their lives | they never stop trying new styles | Number: new styles plural. In the context of teenagers cycling through fashions, the plural is the standard. |
| l.31–32 | That is the reason why Psy’s ‘Gangnam Style’ welcome Asian culture | That is why Westerners welcomed Psy’s ‘Gangnam Style’ | Three small fixes. (i) That is the reason why is redundant. (ii) Gangnam Style welcome Asian culture reverses subject and object. (iii) Tense: welcomed (past). |
| l.41–43 | Therefore, found Hollywood stars to be drug addicts, no one suspecting news of Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Justin Bieber | while Hollywood stars are often found to be drug addicts — nobody is surprised by news of Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan or Justin Bieber any more | The sentence as written has lost its subject and its connective tissue; the rewrite restores both. The three named Western stars are the standout move; the syntax around them is the friction. |
| l.44–45 | Asian stars also seen to be more reliable, therefore gaining support from young viewers | Asian stars are also seen to be more reliable and therefore gain support from young viewers | Two small fixes. (i) Auxiliary missing: are also seen. (ii) Therefore gaining participial reads as a result clause; spelling it out makes cause-effect explicit. |
| l.49–50 | All of the above mentioned experience brings freshness to the life of Western audience | All of the above-mentioned experiences bring freshness to the lives of Western audiences | Number agreement across the noun phrase: experiences (plural subject) → bring (plural verb), and audiences (plural). |
| l.54 | it is the well-trained, whilst Asian stars that has gained Asian stars support | it is the well-trained quality of Asian stars that has gained them their support | Two small fixes. (i) The candidate has written well-trained, whilst Asian stars — the adjective floating without a head noun. (ii) That has gained Asian stars support stacks Asian stars in both subject and object positions; replacing the second with them is the standard fix. |
| l.57 | it is the freshness that Asian stars are able to bring to the West, allow them to gain such popularity | it is the freshness that Asian stars are able to bring to the West that allows them to gain such popularity | Cleft-construction completion: the candidate uses it is X that… twice in the closing tripartite but the third instance drops the second that, leaving a sentence fragment. Restoring the relative completes the parallelism. |
Style suggestions
Categories:
Fluency = smoother sentence rhythm |
Authenticity = how a native speaker would actually write it |
Text-type fit = right for the genre (a school-newspaper feature article on a popular-culture phenomenon, three causal claims with named counter-examples) |
line refs link each suggestion back to specific lines in the transcript above.
Suggestion 1 · let the negative-adverbial inversion land cleanly
Fluency
line 27
Original: “Apart from the above reasons, I am no way should we neglect the freshness that Asian stars can bring to the West.”
Try: “Apart from the above reasons, in no way should we neglect the freshness that Asian stars bring to the West.”
The candidate is reaching for one of the higher-register grammatical patterns — negative-adverb inversion (in no way should we…) — and slips the first preposition. The fix is one word (I am → in); the rhetorical move is otherwise intact. Worth fixing because the inversion is doing real work: it tells the marker the candidate knows the pattern, not just the vocabulary.
Suggestion 2 · the named Western counter-examples deserve their own sentence
Text-type fit
lines 41–43
Original: “Therefore, found Hollywood stars to be drug addicts, no one suspecting news of Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Justin Bieber.”
Try: “Hollywood stars, by contrast, are routinely found to have drug problems — nobody is surprised any more by news of Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, or Justin Bieber. Asian stars are seen as more reliable, and they therefore gain the support of young viewers.”
The named Western counter-examples are the article’s strongest single device, but the sentence carrying them has lost its subject and its connectives. Splitting it into separate sentences — one for the Western counter-example, one for the consequence — gives each move room to breathe. The three names are then clearly load-bearing, not buried inside a participial fragment.
Suggestion 3 · the freshness paragraph could name what Westerners find fresh
Text-type fit
lines 27–35
Original: “Apart from the above reasons, [in] no way should we neglect the freshness that Asian stars can bring to the West. Teenagers get bored of it and stuff easily; they never stop trying new style in their lives.”
Try: “Western teenagers tire of recycled formats; what Asian stars offer is something they have not seen before — choreographed group-dance numbers (Girls’ Generation, Super Junior), Korean fashion silhouettes (oversized blazers, asymmetric haircuts), and the conceptual videos that K-pop labels engineer around each song.”
The candidate’s freshness claim is the article’s most abstract; it doesn’t name what the freshness is. The Psy / Gangnam Style anchor that follows works because it is a single famous example, but the claim that ‘Asian stars bring freshness’ is generic until one or two specific freshness-elements are named.
Suggestion 4 · the closing tripartite restatement needs grammatical clean-up
Fluency
lines 53–57
Original: “Taking all aspects into consideration, it is manifest that it is the well-trained, whilst Asian stars that has gained Asian stars support; it is the positive Asian stars image that has gained Asian stars support; and it is the freshness that Asian stars are able to bring to the West, allow them to gain such popularity in the West.”
Try: “Taking all aspects into consideration, it is manifest that it is the well-trained nature of Asian stars that has earned them their fan-base; it is their positive image that has earned them young viewers’ trust; and it is the freshness they are able to bring to the West that allows them to gain such popularity.”
The closing tripartite is the article’s most rhetorically ambitious sentence — three parallel it is X that… clefts. Two grammatical frictions hold it back: the first cleft loses its head noun, and the third cleft drops its second that. Restoring both gives the closing the rhetorical land it’s reaching for.
Suggestion 5 · the ‘personality cult’ phrase could be school-magazine register
Authenticity
line 19
Original: “People who engage in personality cult of Asian stars are mainly teenagers.”
Try: “The most devoted fans of Asian stars are mainly teenagers.” or “The teenage fandom around Asian stars is the most intense.”
‘Personality cult’ is the political-science noun (the personality cult of Stalin or Mao) and reads heavier than the context wants — the candidate is talking about teenage K-pop fandom, not authoritarian politics. The most devoted fans or the teenage fandom sits at the right register for a school newspaper.
Suggestion 6 · the opening name-list could rhyme with the closing name-list (the way 2013-001’s does)
Text-type fit
lines 1–2, 53–57
Original: opening — Girls’ Generation, Super Junior, Psy, Yukari Mizuno, Lin Ru-Bin; closing — tripartite restatement with no name-callback.
Try: a closing name-callback. “So next time you hear Psy on the radio, see Girls’ Generation on TV, or read about Yukari Mizuno in a fashion magazine, you will know why the West is paying attention.”
2013-001’s Q7 piece on the same prompt closes with a four-name Asian roll-call (Andy Lau, Jay Chou, Wonder Girls, Jackie Chan) that mirrors his opening Western roll-call. 2013-002’s piece opens with a five-name Asian roll-call and closes with a tripartite cleft — an analytical closing rather than a name-callback closing. Both work, but closing on three or four of those same names would have doubled the article’s structural unity. This is the move that would have pushed M2’s 20 toward 21.
Professional rewrite — the counter-acknowledgement & rebuttal
Professional rewrite — the ‘positive image’ cause + named Western counter-examples, lines 18–45
For comparison only, not a correction. The named Western counter-examples (Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Justin Bieber) are the article’s strongest single device, but the sentence carrying them has lost its subject and its connective tissue, and the ‘positive image’ claim it supports is bundled together with the counter-acknowledgement in one dense paragraph. The rewrite preserves the candidate’s argument-shape (positive-image claim → Western counter-example → consequence) and gives each move its own sentence.
The candidate’s passage (lightly corrected)
Asian stars also have a positive image. People who engage in the personality cult of Asian stars are mainly teenagers. They always look up to their idols, and with that, their idols make them mimic a positive lifestyle. Asian stars are always polite, behave appropriately, and show that they sometimes feel the pressures of being famous. Therefore, while Hollywood stars are found to be drug addicts — no one is surprised by news of Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Justin Bieber. Asian stars are also seen to be more reliable, therefore gaining support from young viewers.
Rewritten by a professional feature-writer
Asian stars also project a more wholesome image — and that, in the age of celebrity scandal, is no small advantage. The most devoted teenage fans look to their idols not just for entertainment but for a lifestyle template; politeness, work ethic and visible composure under pressure are the qualities they want to imitate. The contrast with Hollywood is by now hard to miss. Britney Spears’s conservatorship years, Lindsay Lohan’s repeated DUI arrests, the troubled-Bieber news cycle — nobody is surprised by any of it any more. Against that backdrop, Asian stars look reliable; and the support of young Western fans follows naturally.
What the rewrite is doing differently:
- The claim is named in one short sentence. Asian stars also project a more wholesome image — and that, in the age of celebrity scandal, is no small advantage. The dash-clause flags the comparative-quality framing the article will spend the next four sentences building.
- The counter-example list gets its own sentence. Three named Western stars + the specific scandal-vector for each (conservatorship / DUI / news cycle) — the rewrite shows the marker exactly what the candidate knows about these three figures, which is more than the original sentence allowed her to.
- The consequence is the closing beat, not a participial appendage. Against that backdrop, Asian stars look reliable; and the support of young Western fans follows naturally. The cause-and-consequence structure that the original buried in a therefore gaining participial is now spelled out.
- The transition into the counter-example is signposted. The contrast with Hollywood is by now hard to miss — the sentence tells the reader the named-list is coming and frames it as a contrast, which is the rhetorical move the article is making.
- The register stays at school-newspaper level. Wholesome image / lifestyle template / work ethic / visible composure — magazine-feature lexicon without slipping into either the colloquial (it and stuff) or the political-science register (personality cult).
How this Q7 article compares to 2013-001’s
The cross-candidate parallel. 2013-001 and 2013-002 wrote on the same Q7 prompt: a feature article explaining why Asian stars are gaining popularity in Western countries. Both are in the top band of the 2013 corpus. The pieces share several structural features but differ in three concrete ways that map to the marks difference (37 / 42 versus 39 / 42).
Mark profiles.
Concrete differences:
Mark profiles.
- 2013-001: M1 = 15, M2 = 19, D3 = 18 — the M1/M2 gap was 4, triggering D3. Closest pair = M2 + D3 = 19 + 18 = 37 / 42. M1’s 15 was dropped.
- 2013-002: M1 = 19, M2 = 20, no D3 — the gap was 1, well under the trigger. Both marks survive: ^19 + ^20 = 39 / 42.
- The two-point difference (39 vs 37) reflects the closest-pair adjustment: 2013-001’s script triggered D3 and dropped M1=15; 2013-002’s script kept both M1 and M2 in agreement.
Concrete differences:
- The framing of the trend. 2013-001 frames it as cultural integration — an anti-zero-sum, mutual-enrichment thesis. 2013-002 frames it as comparative quality (Asian stars are well-trained, positively-imaged, fresh; Western stars are tarnished). The first is the more philosophically careful; the second is the more competitive.
- The Western-star treatment. 2013-001 names three Western stars as the prior-era benchmark (Michael Jackson, Air Supply, Madonna) — respectfully, used to mark what is changing. 2013-002 names three Western stars as negative-image counter-examples (Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Justin Bieber) — critically, currently, used to mark what Asian stars are doing better. 2013-001 honours the predecessors; 2013-002 names the failures.
- The Psy treatment. Both candidates use Psy / Gangnam Style as their key exemplar. 2013-001 deploys him in the YouTube-as-cause paragraph; 2013-002 deploys him in the freshness-as-cause paragraph. Same song, two different rhetorical jobs.
- The counter-acknowledgement. 2013-001 has no formal counter-acknowledgement. 2013-002 names the obvious objection (Asian stars have scandals too) and immediately rebuts it with the named-Western-counter-examples list. This is the structural move 2013-001’s piece does not have.
- Closing strategy. 2013-001 closes with a four-name Asian roll-call that mirrors his opening Western roll-call — an exact-mirror structural callback. 2013-002 closes with a tripartite cleft restatement — an analytical closing without the structural rhyme. 2013-001’s close is the more rhetorically elegant; 2013-002’s is the more analytically explicit.
- Title strategy. 2013-001’s title (Asian stars — eliminating boundaries) frames the trend as boundary-elimination. 2013-002’s title (What Makes Asian Stars Shine?) frames it as a rhetorical question and pivots on a noun-verb pun (star → shine), which gives the piece a brightness / visibility metaphor the school-newspaper register fits.
Pedagogical takeaways
1. Counter-acknowledgement + rebuttal distinguishes a trend feature from a defence feature
If the prompt invites the candidate to explain a trend, the candidate can either explain it (three causes — 2013-001’s shape) or defend it (three causes + counter-acknowledgement + rebuttal — 2013-002’s shape). The defence shape reads as the more confident piece because the candidate has anticipated the obvious objection and rebutted it on the page. Teaching this move: when writing about any popular-culture trend, ask what the obvious objection is and decide whether to acknowledge it.
2. Named counter-examples beat generic counter-claims every time
2013-002’s counter-rebuttal names three contemporary Western stars. It would have been much weaker to write some Western stars also have scandals; the named list does the work of the unnamed claim, plus the bonus that the reader can verify it. The same lesson applies to any cause-and-effect essay: a named example carries more rhetorical weight than a generic claim of equivalent length.
3. Three-beat closings reward parallel grammar
The candidate’s closing reaches for one of the strongest essay-closing patterns — the three-clause cleft. The pattern only lands if the grammar is parallel; one of the frictions in 2013-002’s closing is a non-parallel construction in the third clause (the dropped second that). Teaching this move: write the three clauses out, then read them aloud, then make every grammatical word match across all three.
4. The same exemplar can do different rhetorical work in different paragraphs
2013-001 uses Psy / Gangnam Style as a video-sharing-technology exemplar. 2013-002 uses the same song as a freshness exemplar. Same exemplar, two different cause slots, two valid arguments. The pedagogical move: when teaching exemplification, give students the same exemplar and ask them to slot it under three different causes — the exercise teaches that exemplars don’t carry their own meaning; the paragraph around them does.
5. The closest-pair rule rewards consistency over peaks
2013-001’s Part B has standout peaks but also a marker who weighed the sentence-level frictions and gave a 15; the closest-pair rule discarded that 15. 2013-002’s Part B has fewer single-peak devices but also no marker disagreement large enough to trigger the rule. The rule rewards 39 over 37 because 2013-002’s script provoked less marker disagreement, not because it had more peaks. Teaching insight: aim for fewer frictions distributed across the piece, not more peaks concentrated in one paragraph.
Vocabulary the piece showcases
| Word / phrase | Used? | Definition | Usage notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| no shortage of (reasons) | used (l.6) | (n. phrase) more than enough of something. | Pairs with ideas, reasons, examples, time, supply. Standard essay-register opener for a multi-cause paragraph. |
| rising popularity | used (l.6) | (n. phrase) growing acceptance and acclaim among the public. | Pairs with rising, growing, increasing, declining. Trend-feature register collocation; pairs naturally with reasons / causes / factors. |
| multi-talents / multi-talented | used l.8 (noun form) | (adj.) having more than one skill or ability. | The candidate uses the noun-form where the standard form is the adjective (are multi-talented). Worth knowing both: he is multi-talented vs. he has many talents. |
| K-pop group | used (l.10, 12) | (n.) a popular-music ensemble in the Korean-pop genre. | Modern popular-culture register; the candidate’s naming of the genre places the cause 1 paragraph specifically rather than the broader Asian music. |
| well-trained | used (l.7, 54) | (adj.) having received thorough preparation in a skill or activity. | The candidate uses it as cause 1’s structural claim and returns to it in the closing tripartite — a deliberate keyword. |
| flawless (performance) | used (l.15) | (adj.) without any imperfections or defects; perfect. | Pairs with performance, execution, technique. Performance-review register; the candidate’s number agreement is the only friction. |
| personality cult | used (l.19, 38) | (n.) intense devotion to a particular individual, often a leader or celebrity. | Higher-register noun (originally political-science vocabulary); the candidate’s deployment for teenage K-pop fandom is a small register-mismatch (see Suggestion 5). |
| look up to | used (l.20, 39) | (v., idiomatic) to admire and respect (someone) as a role model. | Pairs with idol, role model, mentor, parents, teacher. Standard register. |
| behave appropriately | used (l.21) | (v. phrase) to act in a manner suitable for the occasion or context. | Conduct-register collocation; the candidate uses it to support the positive-image claim. |
| drug addicts | used (l.41) | (n.) people physically and psychologically dependent on illegal drugs. | The candidate’s deployment introduces the named Western counter-examples. Register is appropriate for the contrast the article is drawing. |
| reliable | used (l.23, 44) | (adj.) consistently good in quality or performance; able to be trusted. | The candidate uses it as the resolution of the positive-image counter-acknowledgement — the consequence that follows from the contrast. |
| in no way (should we…) | used l.27 (with slip) | (adv. phrase) not at all; under no circumstances. | The candidate writes I am no way — one preposition off the higher-register inversion. The construction itself is the most ambitious grammatical move in the article: negative adverbial fronted with subject-auxiliary inversion. |
| freshness | used (l.28, 50, 56) | (n.) the quality of being new, original, or invigorating. | The candidate’s cause 3 keyword; does double duty as the title’s implied subject (what makes them shine) and the closing tripartite’s third element. |
| overwhelmed (by foreign culture) | used (l.47–48) | (v., past participle) overcome completely in mind or feeling. | Standard psychological-register verb; the candidate’s deployment in the freshness paragraph captures the foreign-culture immersion the article is theorising. |
| taking all aspects into consideration | used (l.53) | (participial phrase) considering every relevant element. | Essay-closing register; the participial-phrase opener signals the start of the conclusion. The candidate’s deployment is the conventional native; only the construction that follows it (the cleft with the dropped head noun) has the friction. |
| it is manifest that | used (l.53) | (formal essay phrase) it is clearly evident that. | Higher-register conclusion-marker; manifest as an adjective for ‘clearly evident’ is more formal than clear / evident / obvious. |
| it is X that… (cleft) | used (l.54–57, three times) | (grammatical construction) cleft sentence emphasising X. | The candidate uses the cleft three times in the closing tripartite — an ambitious grammatical pattern that signals conscious rhetorical control. Worth memorising: clefts emphasise the X-element. |
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