HAPPYH:CayennePepper:[quote=\"julialai\"]Recently this year, my nephew told me that his English teacher, who is a HOD for English, taught them that it is no longer necessary to write 'The sentence is..\" or \"It is..\" Just simply write as:\"John ate like a pig.\"This is only applicable for quoting a sentence. For quoting a word or phrase, they still have to write,\"The phrase is..\" or \"It is..\"Last year my son's HOD EL teacher also taught his class to answer without writing 'The sentence is... ' but without enclosing the sentence in quotation marks. So it would read as: John ate like a pig.Wish there're guidelines from SEAB on this... :faint:[/quote]Again, it's about schools playing it safe, because SEAB started accepting answers without 'the sentence is', HODs' start to second guess. in the end, teachers encourage pupils not to do so as it is seen as opportunity cost, in case of spelling or grammar errors. But personally, I feel this is not right as we are accepting lower standards (not answering in complete sentences) for a possibility of higher grades...