Letter of Advice to J.C. — Pursuing a Veterinary Career

2018 HKDSE English Paper 2 · Q4 (Part B) · analysed 17 May 2026
Year: 2018 Part: B Question: Q4 Genre: advice column letter Grade band: 5** Marks: 20 + 21 = 41 / 42 Candidate: 2018-006

Question prompt — Q4 Learning English through Social Issues

You write an advice column for Teen magazine and you have received the following letter:

“I’ve been thinking about my future. I love animals and I’ve always wanted to be a vet. But when I told my parents, the first thing they said was ‘No!’ I feel really frustrated. What should I do?” — J.C., 16 years old

Write a letter of advice. (~400 words)

Show original handwritten pages (4)

Page 35 — opening + case study — PDF page 35 (booklet p.8) — opening + embedded case study

Page 36 — parental psychology + reframing — PDF page 36 (booklet p.9) — parental psychology + the reframe

Page 37 — practical advice — PDF page 37 (booklet p.10) — practical advice, balance, activities

Page 38 — close — PDF page 38 (booklet p.11) — close + encouragement

The writing, with corrections marked inline

Legend: ~~red strikethrough~~ = removed | green highlight = added or replaced | yellow highlight = handwriting unclear or wording almost certainly slipped. The handwriting on this piece is small and densely revised in places; transcription is best-effort and the most defensible read has been used.

Booklet p.8 (lines 1–22) — opening + case-study setup
1Dear J.C.,
2 
3How are you? I feel glad to receive your
4letter and, at the same time, I am worried about
5your future. It is understandable that you may feel
6frustrated and have lots of a lot of insecurity.
7I am here to support you. From Your worry comes from
8your loved ones, and I hope this letter would will be
9a remedy to your frustration.
10 
11To start with, let me tell you a few facts.
12First of all, I have received another letter from a
13girl who is confronted with a similar problem to yours.
14She wanted to be a doctor but her parents disapproved.
15Your case is not gloomy — there is no dead end here.
16Like that girl, you ought to keep yourself positive
17and optimistic. There’s no need to despair, as your
18parents only want the best for you.
19 
20The problem, as you have probably realised, is
21that your parents have old approaches to her parents
22only wants the best for you. So this may be one of
Booklet p.9 (lines 23–46) — parental psychology + reframing
23the reasons why they have been a little gloomy —
24there is a $50,000–$80,000 vet tuition fee, and they
25may have heard the same complaints as your parents.
26The same problem as the doctor case: many parents
27are always nervous about your hopes when you go off
28to medical school, and many students suffer from
29depression and disappointments in similar situations,
30students suffering from mental distress owing to
31overbearing schoolwork.
32 
33There is no time to despair. First, you need to
34convince your parents that you are capable of becoming
35a vet. Furthermore on the notion of reassuring your
36parents, no worries on your being too pragmatic from
37a medical point of view — you can work well with good
38time management. And For instance, work-life balance:
39you can construct a timetable for your study schedule
40everyday and follow it strictly. Not only can it help
41to convince your parents that you are a serious
42student, it can also help you to manage to have
43adequate study time every day to have satisfactory
44results. Remember to schedule breaks between studying
45— so that your hobbies can do meaningful efficacy in
46your daily life.
Booklet p.10 (lines 47–68) — practical advice, family activities
47In addition, you can organise family outings on
48holidays to show that you can balance your study
49and your family life, even though spending time with
50your family. Seeing your smiley face is certainly the
51best motivation for their worrying. Such an initiative
52shows your parents to watch movies together, and
53you can consciously be the family piece, the family
54group and acknowledge your parents’ deeds and
55energies.
56 
57Despite planning, studying and organising family
58activities, there is still no doubt that your parents
59may be a bit upset in view of your parents.
60You are only 16 years old, and that’s reasonable.
61Information and breakfast age, from your college,
62dependent on whether your determination has changed
63in charge of your dreams over time.
64If you have, then you may be more capable to
65convince them — show them that you, even after going
66through the difficulties, still want to be a vet.
67You are advised to keep yourself with extensive
68knowledge about animals, sciences, and their pay.
Booklet p.11 (lines 69–89) — close + encouragement (END OF PAPER)
69Showing them your full knowledge of the field will
70be a brilliant move — even if your parents have to
71acknowledge that you have the piece of knowledge by
72your last refusal.
73 
74Yet, please don’t be frustrated or feel despair.

Marks earned: 20 + 21 = 41 / 42 (5**). M2 = 21 (full marks); M1 = ^20 (adjusted, one off perfect). The Part A in the same booklet earned 17 + 16 = 33 / 42 (Level 5), so this is the candidate’s far stronger answer and the basis of the 5** overall.

Word count. Approximately 600 words against the ~400 brief — about 50% over, in line with the strong Q4 / Q5 Part B answers across the 2018 collection.

Transcription caveat. The handwriting on this piece is small, cramped, and densely revised; multiple stretches genuinely could not be transcribed without significant guesswork. The yellow-highlighted spans mark the lowest-confidence reads. The analysis below leans on what the surface form clearly shows — structural moves, opening and closing, and the recognisable case-study technique.

What the markers are rewarding (architecture + emotional intelligence). Two moves carry this piece into 5** territory: (1) an embedded case-study of another reader (another letter from a girl who’s confronted with the same problem) that lets the columnist write from precedent rather than abstract advice; (2) a sustained reframing of the parents’ opposition as worry from love, not opposition from ignorance. The candidate consistently positions the parents as concerned, not wrong — the rhetorical move that distinguishes a magazine advice columnist from a teenager venting on a forum.

How this compares with the perfect Q4 (2018-001). Both pieces use a case study; both reframe parental opposition. 2018-001 names a specific publication (South China Morning Post) and a specific institution (CUHK medicine); candidate 2018-006 names a similar ‘wanted to be a doctor’ case but doesn’t source it. 2018-001 also lands a Steve Jobs quote and the ‘Lunch with Big Brothers’-style invented framing; candidate 2018-006 leans more on emotional empathy than on cited evidence. Both are valid Q4 strategies; the perfect-marks piece wins on specificity.

Why this isn’t a perfect 42 itself. The M1 = 20 (a notch below perfect) almost certainly reflects sentence-level wobbles — the candidate’s prose tangles in places (especially the parental-psychology paragraph and the close), which the markers will register as a Language ceiling. The Content and Organisation work is at the perfect-marks level; the surface execution carries one fewer mark.

Strengths to praise

1. The opening greets J.C. as a person before naming the problem (lines 3–5)

“How are you? I feel glad to receive your letter and at the same time, I am worried about your future.” A real advice columnist opens with the relationship, not the diagnosis. The candidate captures this exactly — warmth first, content second.

2. The embedded case-study is the strongest structural move (lines 12–14)

“I have received another letter from a girl who is confronted with a similar problem to yours. She wanted to be a doctor but her parents disapproved.” The columnist offers precedent: this isn’t a unique problem; another reader is right there with you. The parent-doctor case parallels the parent-vet case structurally, so the case-study earns its place without needing to be literal.

3. Sustained reframing of the parents’ opposition (lines 17–18, 26–27)

“Your parents only want the best for you.” The candidate returns to this framing several times across the letter — the parents aren’t against vet work, they’re worried about J.C. This is the same reframing move the perfect-marks Q4 piece uses, and it’s the rhetorical key to the advice-letter genre.

4. The work-life balance suggestion is concrete (lines 38–51)

“Construct a timetable for your study schedule every day and follow it strictly… you can organise family outings on holidays to show that you can balance your study and your family life.” The candidate moves from emotional advice to behavioural advice with specific actions (timetable, family outings on holidays). The behavioural prescription gives J.C. something to do, not just feel.

5. The empathy is genuine and consistent (line 60)

“You are only 16 years old, and that’s reasonable.” The candidate accepts J.C.’s frustration as legitimate without dismissing it or moralising. This is the columnist’s most important register: I hear you, your feelings make sense, and here’s how to think about it.

6. The closing recurrence of the ‘don’t despair’ theme (line 74)

“Yet, please don’t be frustrated or feel despair.” The piece opens with despair-acknowledgement (line 17) and closes with despair-rejection. The framing is intentional and circular — the kind of structural symmetry that suggests planning.

Grammar notes (transcribable spans)

Issue	Explanation
(line 4) `at the meantime` → `at the same time`	The set phrase is at the same time; in the meantime works for ‘during the interval’ but not in this comparative sense.
(line 6) `have lots of insecurity` → `have a lot of insecurity` / `feel insecure`	Insecurity is usually uncountable; lots of insecurity works but a lot of insecurity is the more standard collocation. Alternatively, reframe as feel insecure.
(line 8) `I hope this letter would be` → `I hope this letter will be`	After hope, the future-indicative will is the standard form. Would would follow wish or a hypothetical conditional.
(lines 12–13) `a girl who’s confronted with this problem as you` → `a girl who is confronted with a similar problem to yours`	Same as you sounds redundant with confronted with; the cleaner version uses similar to yours.
(line 15) `your case is too gloomy` → `your case is not too gloomy` / `your case isn’t hopeless`	The candidate’s intent (this isn’t as bad as it feels) needs the negative; too gloomy as written reads as if the candidate is calling the case bleak.
(lines 17–18, 21–22) `only wants the best for you` (with plural subject ‘parents’) → `only want the best for you`	Subject-verb agreement: your parents only want.
(line 35) `Furthermore the notion of` → `Furthermore, on the notion of`	Missing preposition. On the notion of introduces the topic; furthermore alone needs a comma if leading.
(line 39) `construct a timetable for your study schedule` → `build a study schedule` / `draw up a timetable`	Construct a timetable for a schedule is doubled; either build a timetable or build a study schedule works.
(lines 48–49) `balance your study and your family life` → `balance your study and family life`	The second your is redundant; study and family life are paired without repeating the possessive.
(line 49) `even though spending time with your family` → `even while spending time with your family`	Even though introduces a clause (even though I tried); even while introduces a gerund phrase.
(line 74) `be frustrated or feel despair` → minor: `feel despair` → `feel despairing` / `despair`	Feel despair works as a noun-feel construction; despair on its own (as a verb) is tighter.
(lines 39–40) `your study schedule everyday` → `your study schedule every day`	Everyday (one word) is an adjective (everyday clothes); every day (two words) is the adverb of frequency.

Style suggestions (where 5** could become perfect)

Categories: Fluency Authenticity Text-type fit

Suggestion 1 · name the case-study reader specifically

Authenticitylines 12–14

Original: “I have received another letter from a girl who’s confronted with a similar problem to yours. She wanted to be a doctor but her parents disapproved.”

Try: “A reader I’ll call ‘K’ wrote to me last spring with almost the same letter you’ve written. She wanted to study medicine; her parents wanted accounting. They reached an agreement six months later — she’s now in pre-medical at HKU.”

A specific resolution (now in pre-medical at HKU) makes the precedent useful, not just analogous. The candidate’s case-study works as setup; adding the outcome would let J.C. picture her own possible end-state.

Suggestion 2 · the parental-psychology paragraph needs structural clean-up

Fluencylines 20–31

Original: a paragraph that mixes old approaches, vet tuition fee, medical school, depression, and overbearing schoolwork in one cascade of clauses.

Try: split into two sentences with one claim each. The opposition isn’t about you; it’s about three things: cost (vet school is expensive), uncertainty (medicine is a known career path; veterinary is less so), and protection (they’ve heard the burn-out stories).

The substance is good (the three parental worries — cost, uncertainty, protection) but the prose buries it. Listing the three worries as named anxieties gives the parent a clear map of their child’s reframing.

Suggestion 3 · the action items could be enumerated

Text-type fitlines 33–55

Original: practical advice is scattered across one long paragraph.

Try (as numbered list in prose):
First: build a daily study schedule and show your parents you can stick to it — this directly answers their worry about your maturity.
Second: organise a family activity once a month — not as a chore, but as a signal that family time is still your priority.
Third: read about veterinary careers and bring something specific to the dinner table next week — an article, a salary range, a graduate’s story.

Real advice columns enumerate action items so the reader can act on each separately. The candidate’s prose paragraph carries the same content but the reader has to do the parsing.

Suggestion 4 · the close needs a follow-up commitment

Text-type fitline 74

Original: “Yet, please don’t be frustrated or feel despair.”

Try: “Don’t despair. Try one of these things this week — whichever feels easiest. Write back in a month, even if nothing has shifted; I want to know how it went.”

Real advice columnists ask for a follow-up by a specific date. The candidate’s close lands the encouragement but doesn’t close the loop.

Suggestion 5 · compress toward 450 words

Text-type fitwhole piece

Original: ~600 words.

Aim: opening + case-study (120w) · parental reframe (100w) · three action items (180w) · close (50w). Target: ~450.

The middle paragraphs especially could absorb a 25% cut without losing substance. Tight is what would close the M1 = 20 to perfect.

Professional rewrite — the opening + case-study paragraph (text-type fit)

Professional rewrite — the warm-up + precedent setup

The candidate’s opening pair of moves — greeting + case-study — is the architectural foundation of the piece, and the marker has rewarded it with 21 from M2. A professional rewrite preserves both moves and tightens them into the kind of magazine column that gets clipped and shared.

The student’s paragraphs (corrected)

Dear J.C., How are you? I feel glad to receive your letter and at the same time, I am worried about your future. It is understandable that you may feel frustrated and have a lot of insecurity. I am here to support you. Your worry comes from your loved ones, and I hope this letter will be a remedy to your frustration.

To start with, let me tell you a few facts. First of all, I have received another letter from a girl who is confronted with a similar problem to yours. She wanted to be a doctor but her parents disapproved. Your case is not gloomy — there is no dead end here. Like that girl, you ought to keep yourself positive and optimistic. There’s no need to despair, as your parents only want the best for you.

Rewritten by a professional advice columnist

Dear J.C., your letter arrived last week and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. The frustration is real, and you’re right to be feeling it — but I want you to know two things before any advice. One: you are not the first reader to write me this letter. Two: of the ones I’ve answered, most of them came back a year later to tell me their parents had changed their mind. Yours can too.

I’ll call her ‘K’. She wrote to me last spring with almost the same letter as yours — only it was medicine instead of veterinary, and her parents wanted accounting. Six months and a lot of dinner-table conversations later, she’s in pre-medical at HKU. Her parents made the change, not her. What I want to do in the rest of this letter is tell you how she did it.

What the rewrite is doing differently (text-type fit + authenticity):

The opening reframes ‘don’t worry’ into ‘you’re right to worry, and here’s how it usually ends’. Real advice columns don’t dismiss the feeling; they validate it and pivot to precedent. The candidate’s I am worried about your future moves too quickly to the columnist’s concern; the pro version stays with J.C.’s.
The case-study reader is named (‘K’). Giving her a pseudonym makes the precedent feel real, not generic. The candidate’s a girl who is confronted with a similar problem is right but anonymous.
The resolution is named. Six months… pre-medical at HKU. Her parents made the change, not her. The most useful fact in a precedent case-study is the outcome. The candidate’s version stops at the setup.
The transition to advice is named. What I want to do in the rest of this letter is tell you how she did it. Tells J.C. exactly what the next paragraphs will deliver. The candidate’s version moves to advice without this signpost.

Vocabulary to notice

Word	Definition	Usage notes
remedy (to / for)	(n.) a means of solving a problem.	Pairs with find, offer, seek, propose: a remedy to / for the situation. Either preposition works in this context.
confronted with	(adj. phrase) facing a situation that must be dealt with.	Pairs with problem, choice, decision, difficulty: confronted with a similar problem, confronted with a difficult choice.
disapprove (of)	(v.) to consider unacceptable.	Standard verb takes of: her parents disapproved of her choice. The candidate’s ‘her parents disapproved’ is acceptable as elliptical.
gloomy	(adj.) dark; pessimistic; hopeless.	Pairs with view, outlook, situation, mood. The candidate’s ‘your case is not gloomy’ uses the metaphorical sense correctly.
optimistic	(adj.) hopeful and confident about the future.	Pairs with view, outlook, attitude, person. The opposite is pessimistic. Useful in advice-column vocabulary.
despair	(n./v.) complete loss of hope.	Useful as both noun (feel despair) and verb (do not despair). Slightly literary register.
overbearing	(adj.) unpleasantly overpowering.	Often applied to people or institutions: an overbearing parent, an overbearing manager, overbearing schoolwork. The candidate’s use captures the burden sense.
mental distress	(n. phrase) psychological suffering.	Clinical / journalistic register. Pairs with severe, acute, prolonged: severe mental distress.
capable (of)	(adj.) having the ability to do something.	Takes of + gerund: capable of becoming a vet, capable of doing the work.
timetable	(n., BrE / HK English) a planned schedule of activities.	Pairs with construct, build, follow, draw up. AmE equivalent: schedule.
work-life balance	(n. phrase) the equilibrium between professional and personal activities.	Standard HR / advice-column term: maintain work-life balance, achieve work-life balance. Applied to students: study-life balance.
initiative	(n.) the power to take action.	Pairs with take, show, demonstrate, on one’s own: take the initiative, show initiative.
extensive knowledge	(n. phrase) wide-ranging and deep understanding.	Pairs with of, in, about: extensive knowledge of animals, extensive knowledge in veterinary medicine.
positive and optimistic	(adj. pair) outlook contrasts.	Useful in advice writing. The candidate uses positive and optimistic together (slightly redundant); a cleaner contrast is optimistic without being naive.