Writing proficiency

The writing component takes 2 hours and 30 minutes to complete. You are asked to write an independent and critical reasoning text from a general perspective about a certain subject.

In order to pass you need to produce a text that is clear and coherent and can be understood without effort. Thoughts have been developed from a general perspective and the language does not appear to be restricted.

The task

You are asked to write a coherent text that should be about 400 words (the length of the text can vary without necessarily affecting the grade). The subject is of public interest and does not aim at any specific study orientation. It is important that the subject is treated from a general perspective, considered from different angels and that the tone is objective.

Structure

The text should consist of an introduction, a longer critical reasoning part and a conclusion.

Introduction

This part of your text tests your ability to give a background to the discussion that will follow. This is for example done by defining a term from a given issue.

Critical reasoning

The critical reasoning part should be the majority of the text. You do not have to use the inspirational sheet, but it may be of help. You have to clearly state if you refer or quote something from the inspirational sheet or any other source.

This part of your text tests your ability to reason about different approaches to a subject.

Conclusion

This part of your text tests your ability to reflect and think about what you have already written and perhaps look ahead.

Receiver

The possible reader of your text is an educated person that prefers to read non-fiction texts. Therefore it should be written in a neutral, factual tone, not overly solemn and or in everyday language.

Material

You will receive the following materials when you sit the writing test:

an instruction sheet
an inspirational sheet
papers to write on.

All the exam papers are to be collected and handed in to invigilators after the exam.

Resources

For the subtest in writing, you may bring a Swedish-Swedish word book.

Examples of word books you may bring:

Bonniers svenska ordbok
Norstedts svenska ordbok
Natur och Kulturs svenska ordbok
Svensk ordbok utgiven av Svenska Akademien.

NB!

Thesauruses or dictionaries are not allowed.
The test leader does not have to provide word books.

Test time

2 hours and 30 minutes.

Assessment

The text is assessed from the following aspects:

your ability to reason in a clear and independent way from a general perspective showing a sufficient linguistic range in terms of abstraction and variation
your ability to produce a coherent and structured text, where the different parts of the text are identifiable and the text connections, paragraphs and sentences between them are logical and varied
your linguistic correctness and precision in e.g. sentence structure, word choice, form and spelling.

At least two raters read and assess the text.

Results

There are two grades: Pass (Godkänt) and Fail (Underkänt).

To pass Tisus you have to pass all three parts of the exam. Each component is equally weighted. If one of the components is graded as Underkänt you are allowed to retake that component only.