Here I will share some tips for Chinese Composition in Singapore. Hope it helps! 🙂
Know the Commonly Used Local Terminologies
1) Dengue Fever, a disease caused by mosquitoes in Singapore, is called 骨痛热症. Students need to know this phrase as it is commonly tested in compositions, often in the form of “How to Prevent Dengue Fever”. （如何预防和控制骨痛热症?）
A true story is that when a teacher set 如何预防和控制骨痛热症? as the question, many students did not know the meaning of 骨痛热症 and hence interpreted it literally as “Bone Pain” and “Disease caused by Hot Weather”. Hence, their entire composition revolves around using massage to sooth bone pain, and installing fans and air-conditioners to deal with hot weather, which is totally out of point!
Students need to read more Chinese newspapers to increase their vocabulary, which will definitely help in their composition skills.
Use Good Phrases (appropriately)
The next level after students can write a passing grade essay, is to add good phrases like Idioms, Proverbs (成语，俗语，谚语） into their composition. Students need to add them appropriately and sparingly, as markers would be very wary of students “spamming” good phrases, especially in the wrong context.
Adding good phrases in the correct context would have a very beneficial effect of impressing the marker, leading to higher marks in vocabulary section of the essay.