OET Writing: The PRONOUN problem

One of the major problems students face when writing an OET letter is the correct use of pronouns. So read on to find out how you can correct and master the usage of pronouns in OET letter writing!

First let's understand what a PRONOUN is.

Pronouns are words that can be used in place of a noun or a noun phrase. As easy as this might sound, students often under the pressure of time management end up making the most common mistakes.

Let's have a look at an example from an OET case note of Mrs Cindy Shaw:

• Mrs.Cindy Shaw presented with her daughter who is concerned she may have migraines.

Do you see where am getting at? 

The reader might be in a huge dilemma as to who exactly runs the risk of migraine. Both of the subjects here are females and the usage of 'she' can be applied to both of them equally. If one of them was another sex, then this issue could have been mitigated. This is not the problem with the case note of Cindy Shaw alone. In OET letter writing, many case notes will have scenarios where the patient and the patient's relative who is to be addressed in the letter will be of the same gender.

In such cases, it is important to pay attention to the usage of pronouns as to not confuse the reader.

In the case of the example, simply switching the pronoun into its noun would do the trick.

For example: 

Mrs Cindy Shaw presented with her daughter who is concerned that Mrs Shaw may have migraines.

Let's look at a few more examples and how to correct them:

Confused version:

Sarah was being rude to her mom as she was drunk.

Corrected version:

Sarah was being rude to her mom as her mother was drunk.

Confused version:

Rayon and his dad were worried about his lung condition. 

Corrected version:

Rayon and his dad were worried about Rayon's lung condition.

Hope you have a clear idea of how to use pronouns. Now, all you need to do is take sample OET case notes, and try transforming those into sentences. Remember to select relevant data from these OET case notes, as you try transforming them.

Happy Scoring!