"The use of Mobile Phones must be allowed in schools." Express your views either for or against the statement.

MODEL ANSWER (approximately 375 words) — arguing AGAINST the statement

I own a phone, I use it a great deal, and I think allowing it into the school day would be a mistake.

The strongest argument has nothing to do with cheating or distraction, though both are real. It has to do with attention. A phone in a pocket is not neutral: research on this is consistent and slightly alarming, finding that the mere PRESENCE of a phone within reach reduces performance on tasks requiring concentration, even when the phone is switched off and never touched. Part of the mind is engaged in not looking at it. Six hours a day of partial attention is not a small cost.

There is a second argument that matters more to me. School is one of the last places where a young person is obliged to be bored, and being bored is where a great deal of thinking happens. Every empty ten minutes I have ever had — waiting for an assembly, sitting out a free period — has been filled with something, and some of it has been useful. A phone removes the possibility of an empty ten minutes entirely.

Third, phones change the social life of a school, and not for the better. Group photographs taken without consent, conversations recorded and forwarded, and the particular cruelty of being excluded from a group chat by people sitting in the same room — these are not hypothetical, and they are far harder for a teacher to see and stop than ordinary unkindness.

The honest case for allowing phones is safety, and it deserves a serious answer rather than a dismissal. Parents want to reach their children, particularly those travelling long distances alone. But that need is met by the school office, which has a telephone and knows where every child is, and by permitting phones to be carried and deposited rather than used.

That, in the end, is my position. Let them be brought. Let them be handed in at the gate and collected at three. The safety argument is satisfied entirely, and the six hours in between remain what they are supposed to be.

WHAT THIS QUESTION SPECIFICALLY REQUIRES

The instruction is "either for OR against", so take one side and hold it.

TWO TECHNIQUES in this model are worth copying. The first is the opening concession — admitting you own a phone and use it removes the reader’s suspicion that you are simply disapproving. The second is REFUSING THE OBVIOUS ARGUMENTS: cheating and distraction are what every candidate writes, and the model names them in one clause and moves to something better.

EVIDENCE lifts an argument out of opinion. The finding about the mere presence of a phone reducing concentration is real and can be stated without a citation.

THE CLOSING MOVE is the strongest available in any argumentative essay: rather than simply refusing, it accepts the opponent’s underlying concern (safety) and proposes a way of meeting it (deposit at the gate). An essay that offers a solution beats one that only says no. FORMAT AND MARKS DIVISION: see "Composition — grade bands and marking" in the Writing Formats & Marking (Reference) chapter, along with the worked model for this composition type.

USE THIS AS A MODEL, NOT AS AN ANSWER TO MEMORISE. The question asks for an ORIGINAL composition, and every year examiners identify scripts reproduced from guide books; a memorised answer can be penalised for plagiarism and will in any case read as borrowed. Study this piece for its STRUCTURE — how it opens, how the paragraphs are ordered, where the required tasks are answered, how it ends — and then write your own, about your own school, your own family, your own town. Your own specific detail is worth more marks than anyone else’s polished sentence.