The In-Tray Exam

Doesn't time fly when you're enjoying yourself! It seems like it was yesterday we started this course on a cold, wet night in Kalmar, and now it's almost time for the In-Tray exam.

The exam itself will appear on the web site on Friday. You'll find it in Module 4 on the In-Tray Exam page. You'll see another useful page there too: In-Tray Exam procedure. So … what exactly is an In-Tray, and why are you being examined about it?

Your in-tray is the tray on your desk where all the incoming documents are placed. As you work through them, you do your day's work! The In-Tray exam sees you as a temp (worker from a temporary agency, like Manpower) who's been taken on by the three companies in the course. You have to draft responses to various documents that have come in, or situations that have arisen. These responses are going to be in the form of letters of complaint and apology, an internal memo and a brief report.

The practicalities work like this:

• you open (or download) the .pdf document which is the exam booklet
• you choose the particular tasks you want to answer (remember that there are 16 alternatives - four for each company - but you only write four in total)
• you write the documents you need to write …
• and then send them to David, either as e-mail attachments or as print-outs which you put in an envelope (it helps if you put all your four answers into the same electronic document, if you're attaching it to an e-mail, but this isn't compulsory)

What happens then …

… is that I print the document out, mark it in green ink (because people have bad memories of red ink from school!), make specific comments on each task, give each task a mark … and finally send everything back to you. I'll send you a notification of your final result by e-mail, but the actual marked tasks, together with my detailed comments are sent back to whatever address we have for you - so make sure that you've let me know, if you've moved house since the course began in February.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to get back to me.

Warm-Up 4

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!

Feedback on Warm-Up 3

I think I've now finished marking Warm-Up 3, so here's my general feedback on how you performed on the task.

This task was all about turning informal spoken English into formal written English and you've all got the right basic idea of a) turning the focus away from the people and towards the situation or phenomenon you're describing; and b) using the right kind of formal language.

It's difficult to find the right formal tone, if you're not used to this sort of language, and quite a few of you didn't realise that a 'digger' is an excavator when you're talking formally. A dumper truck, however, is the same no matter how formal you are!

We also use far fewer phrasal verbs in formal English, preferring a word of French or Latin origin instead. 'Expire' for 'run out' is one of these examples.

Then there's the problem of English having so many damn words! You ought to be able to 'certify' an excavator … except that this particular verb is chiefly used to describe what a psychologist does when he commits someone to a mental hospital! You also ought to be able to 'certificate' one, except that this verb is only used in the context of a new drug - or a new aircraft - being brought on to the market and receiving official permission to be launched from a government licensing authority.

The tool you can use to help you here is a thesaurus. Roget's Thesaurus is the standard one in English. Here's part of their entry for 'expire':

Main Entry: expire

Part of Speech: verb 1

Definition: end

Synonyms: back gate, buy it*, cease, close, conclude, conk, croak*, decease, deep six, depart, die, elapse, end, finish, go, kick off, lapse, meet maker, one-way ticket, pass, pass away, pass on, perish, quit, run out, stop, strike out*, terminate

Antonyms: begin, commence, live, start, thrive

Here's the direct link: Thesaurus.com

Use the thesaurus to find some synonyms for 'get' too - it's too colloquial for just about anything other than e-mails and memos on this course.

Apart from that, don't forget to use the full form of verbs, instead of short forms, like 'I'm' and 'won't'.

Good luck with Send-In Task 3!