ARGUMENTATIVE COMPOSITION: how to structure an argument, with a complete worked example.

THE STRUCTURE THAT SCORES

1. OPENING — state your position in one or two sentences. The instruction is usually "either for or against", so take ONE side and hold it. A composition that argues both ways has not answered the question.
2. THREE BODY PARAGRAPHS — one argument each, and each supported by a CONCRETE EXAMPLE. Unsupported assertion is the commonest weakness in this type.
3. THE COUNTER-ARGUMENT — acknowledge the strongest point on the other side and answer it. Examiners specifically reward this, because it shows you have thought rather than recited.
4. CONCLUSION — restate the position in DIFFERENT words.

REGISTER: formal and impersonal. No slang, no contractions, no piled-up rhetorical questions. Discourse markers (however, consequently, it is objected that, the honest answer is) carry expression marks.

WORKED MODEL (approximately 340 words) — on "More collaboration, less competition is the need of the hour", arguing FOR

Every problem that now threatens us is too large for anyone to solve alone. That single fact is why collaboration, and not competition, is the need of the hour.

Consider how the COVID-19 vaccines were produced. Laboratories in a dozen countries published their genetic sequencing openly within weeks, and what would ordinarily have taken a decade took eleven months. Had each institution guarded its findings in the hope of winning the race, the race itself would have been lost. The same is true of climate change: no nation can lower the temperature of a planet by acting alone, however virtuously.

Competition is also a poor teacher. In a classroom organised around rank, a student learns to hope quietly that her friend does badly. That is not ambition; it is a corrosion of character, and it persists long after the marks are forgotten. Where students work in teams, the stronger explain and so understand better, and the weaker are carried rather than shamed.

It is objected that competition drives excellence — that without rivals we would grow complacent. There is something in this, and the honest answer is that the two are not opposites. Scientists compete for recognition while sharing their data; athletes train together and race apart. What is being argued against is not effort but the belief that another’s success must come at my expense.

That belief is the real damage. It produces workplaces where information is hoarded, nations that will not share technology, and children who are anxious at thirteen. A society can survive a shortage of winners. It cannot survive a shortage of trust.

The need of the hour, then, is not to abolish competition but to demote it — to make co-operation the default and rivalry the exception. The problems we have built are collective. The solutions will have to be collective too.

WHY THIS MODEL SCORES

The position is stated in the FIRST sentence and never wavers. Each argument has an EXAMPLE attached — the vaccine effort, the ranked classroom. Naming something real is what lifts an argument above opinion. The fourth paragraph concedes the opposing case honestly ("There is something in this") and then answers it. This is the single most reliable way to gain marks in this type, and most candidates omit it. The conclusion REFINES rather than repeats: not "abolish competition" but "demote it".

SENTENCE-LEVEL TECHNIQUE Vary the length. Short sentences land the point: "That belief is the real damage." Avoid "firstly, secondly, thirdly" as a crutch. Better markers are "Consider how...", "It is objected that...", "The same is true of...".