How far over the word limit can you go?

For Edexcel Spanish AS, it says 140-160 words, what if you write 165? What about 205?

Reply 1

hobnob

14

Epitomessence

For Edexcel Spanish AS, it says 140-160 words, what if you write 165? What about 205?

165 should still be OK, but 205 probably wouldn't be. I don't know specifically about Edexcel exams, but usually you're allowed to go up to 10% above word limits. Unfortunately that wouldn't be very much in your case, though, so you'd probably better aim for 150 (and write 160) anyway...

Reply 2

No, 10% rule doesn't apply here. They mark to the end of the sentence or clause - so they won't stop when you're halfway through a clause, but they will gladly stop before you've finished saying what you're saying. So 165 you could get away with, 170 or more you definitely won't.

Reply 3

yeah i thought that the end of clause thing was the rule as well..although you may be able to deceive them by writing like Word Count:160 words at the bottom of the extended writing task (it wont work with big differences, but ten you could probably get away with).

Reply 4

hobnob

14

generalebriety

No, 10% rule doesn't apply here. They mark to the end of the sentence or clause - so they won't stop when you're halfway through a clause, but they will gladly stop before you've finished saying what you're saying. So 165 you could get away with, 170 or more you definitely won't.

Ah, right, thanks for clearing that up. :smile:

Reply 5

bigforehead

yeah i thought that the end of clause thing was the rule as well..although you may be able to deceive them by writing like Word Count:160 words at the bottom of the extended writing task (it wont work with big differences, but ten you could probably get away with).

If there's anything more likely to make them count twice, I don't know what it is.

Reply 6

dans

Oh right, so for my A2 exams, if I wrote over the word count, then they would mark to the end of the clause. I agree with bigforehead, write 160 at the bottom then they will think that you have worked right up to the word limit.

Reply 7

yeah i do it all the time and i did it for my resit today, at the end of the day they have hundreds of scripts to mark, they're trained to guess/estimate that youre within the word limit (a meh, it looks about right method), and lets face it, if it looks about right and you've done the work for them then i would have thought they'd like you for it.

But that can only probably get you over by about 5-10 words, no more.

Reply 8

Epitomessence

OP

bigforehead

yeah i thought that the end of clause thing was the rule as well..although you may be able to deceive them by writing like Word Count:160 words at the bottom of the extended writing task (it wont work with big differences, but ten you could probably get away with).

Damn, I'd better get used to some adjusting (I've memorized my three best essays - all at 250 words.) :frown:

Reply 9

Epitomessence

OP

bigforehead

yeah i thought that the end of clause thing was the rule as well..although you may be able to deceive them by writing like Word Count:160 words at the bottom of the extended writing task (it wont work with big differences, but ten you could probably get away with).

Haha, the word count for Chinese was 200, and I went over by like 40 and wrote "212" a bit cheekily... they'll probably double count and penalise me for lying as well. :biggrin:

Reply 10

its best to just try and stick within the word count as best you can, thats the advice, but if there are some sentences you really don't want to get rid of them i would say if its close to the limit, then say it is. Otherwise just cut until you get to close enough.

Reply 11

brimstone

7

This is delayed, but word limit all depends on what you count as a word.

Reply 12

anthony

i did 193 for a 160 word limit in my French AS exam.
i had a whole paragraph crossed out too.
these examiners are not beasts.
If it looks within reason then there is no reason to stop reading.
If its excessively over (220+) it shows you cant follow instructions.
Another 2 lines is hardly something to penalise for, i dont know why all of you are really looking into this 10% rule.. they're not going to count every. single. word.

Reply 13

Hmm thing is it all depends on the examiner, for example is j'ai one word or two. By edexcel standards it should actually be two. Its all about it not looking over 160 and if you can get away with it then try. But don be naive if they did stop reading, its best to always try and get within it, they like you to be concise.

Reply 14

Mohit_C

10

For the Spanish A2 the word limit is 230-250 words. How would the limit be there?

Reply 15

brimstone

This is delayed, but word limit all depends on what you count as a word.

That depends what language you're talking about. In French, for example, it's simple... it is generally accepted that spaces separate words, so hyphens and apostrophes and so on don't matter. Plus the exception that "il y a" and related forms (il y avait, il y eut, y a-t-il?, ...) count as one word. So "il y en a" would be two words, for example.

German doesn't really have this problem as you don't really contract words with hyphens or apostrophes. Spanish I don't know (and I know, this entire thread's about Spanish :biggrin:

) but I imagine it's the same as German, since I've never seen hyphens or apostrophes in Spanish.

Mohit_C

For the Spanish A2 the word limit is 230-250 words. How would the limit be there?

Equally strict.

Reply 16

bigforehead

Hmm thing is it all depends on the examiner, for example is j'ai one word or two. By edexcel standards it should actually be two. Its all about it not looking over 160 and if you can get away with it then try. But don be naive if they did stop reading, its best to always try and get within it, they like you to be concise.

Oops, didn't see this post. Yeah, see my post above - "j'ai" is one word. Though this thread is about Spanish, really. :redface:

Reply 17

quintsy

17

Is stating your word count sometimes a set rule in extended tasks? If not, I'd go with Will and only do it if you have to. If you write it when it's unnecessary, it will only look more suspicious and cause them to count it twice.

Having said that, I now feel like I should have at least made some attempt to conceal my going way over the word count in GCSE French writing last Friday. :p:

My handwriting's pretty tiny, and I wrote 3/4 of a page for the 90-100 words task, and a page for the 150 words one. :redface:

The GCSE way of marking when you go over the limit is slightly different anyway though; they read all of it, but as soon as you go quite dramatically over they go back and become slightly more discerning with regards to grammar.. or "completely hammer you for it" in the words of mon prof. :p:

Supposed to penalise those who just write with no control over the language, and have gone over because they just saw the question and wrote including everything they ever knew about the language in order to get marks.

Reply 18