Welcome back, friends!

Last week I wrote about how English softens the language around labor—how we use euphemisms to look away from difficult work.

This week, I’ve been thinking about the opposite linguistic phenomenon: how English makes emotional intimacy sound transactional.

We “make” friends the way we “make” dinner or “make” a mess.

We “build” relationships like we’re constructing furniture.

We talk about “investing” in friendships, about emotional “labor,” about people being “worth” our time. It’s as if we’ve imported the vocabulary of commerce and manufacturing into the realm of human connection, turning something organic and unpredictable into a project with measurable inputs and outputs.

But here’s what’s strange: we don’t have many words for the actual moment a friendship begins. We say “we met,” but that’s just proximity. We say “we clicked,” but that’s vague, almost mystical. English gives us precise language for the end of friendships (falling out, drifting apart, cutting ties) but not for the tentative, accidental beginning—that moment when two strangers decide, without quite deciding, to let each other matter.

This week’s essay prompt: “Write a story which involves making a new friendship.”; it’s question 4 from Variant 3 of the May 2025 Paper 2 series, and next week, we’ll come to the end of May 2025 (yay!)

Here’s what makes this prompt quietly treacherous: it sounds sweet, wholesome, safe.

Students will default to heartwarming meet-cutes or bonding-over-shared-hobbies scenes. But the strongest responses understand that real friendships rarely begin in moments of joy—they begin in moments of vulnerability, crisis, or accidental revelation.

The prompt says “involves” making a friendship, not “is about” it, which means the friendship doesn’t have to be the plot; it can be the consequence of the plot.

Can you write a story where two people become friends not because they like the same things, but because they recognize the same fear in each other? Can you show friendship forming in the cracks between words, in what’s not said but understood?

This tests whether you understand that narrative isn’t just about what happens—it’s about what changes. A new friendship is a transformation: two people who were separate become permeable to each other. The challenge is making that shift feel earned rather than convenient, showing the exact moment when strangers stop performing politeness and start risking honesty. Most students will write meeting scenes. The sophisticated ones will write recognition scenes—where characters see something true in each other and decide, despite every instinct for self-protection, to be seen back.

You’ll find the essay here!

Write a story which involves making a new friendship.

The full essay is available for our premium members and is also marked and graded according to the IGCSE First Language English official rubrics and marking criteria. By reading it, you can get a clear picture of what works, as always. If you haven’t signed up already, then make sure to sign up over here!

Thank you all, and look forward to seeing you in the next one!

Welcome back, friends!

Do you like work? Or do you think that maybe it’s one of those things you’d rather run away from?

Well, I guess your attitude about it depends on how you think about it – is it only work when you lift something heavy, or if you type at your computer? In a way, when you play video games for hours on end, trying to get resources to build up your character, your castle, or anything else, isn’t that work as well? And if it isn’t, why? If it is, then how exactly do you get paid? Food for thought!

For what it’s worth, English has this peculiar way of making physical labor sound almost recreational when we add certain modifiers. “Working outdoors” sounds like fresh air and freedom—like you’re choosing to be outside rather than being required to be there regardless of weather, heat, or danger. Compare that to “outdoor work” or “outdoor labor,” which sound more honest but somehow less respectable. We’ve built an entire vocabulary around softening the reality of difficult jobs: “sanitation worker” instead of “garbage collector,” “hospitality staff” instead of “cleaner.” It’s not just political correctness—it’s how language helps us look away from the people whose labor makes our comfort possible. The person working outdoors isn’t having a pleasant experience of nature; they’re enduring exposure to it so that the rest of us can enjoy the roads, buildings, and infrastructure we take for granted.

This week’s essay prompt: “Describe someone working outdoors.”; it’s question 3 from Variant 3 of the May 2025 Paper 2 series.

Here’s what makes this prompt deceptively loaded: it sounds neutral, observational, almost gentle. But the strongest responses understand that “working outdoors” is rarely about communing with nature—it’s about exposure, vulnerability, and the physical cost of labor that happens in public view but somehow remains invisible. Most students will write about farmers, gardeners, or construction workers, focusing on the physical actions: digging, lifting, building. But here’s the sophistication test: can you write a description where the outdoor setting isn’t just backdrop but an active force? Can you show how weather, terrain, and physical elements aren’t neutral—they’re obstacles that must be constantly negotiated? The best responses understand that describing someone working outdoors is actually about power: who has to be outside and who gets to stay in air-conditioned comfort? Who builds the infrastructure and who uses it? This prompt tests whether you can use sensory detail not just to show what someone is doing, but to reveal the invisible class dynamics, the quiet expertise, and the dignity in labor that our language often works so hard to obscure.

You’ll find the essay here!

Describe someone working outdoors.

The full essay is available for our premium members and is also marked and graded according to the IGCSE First Language English official rubrics and marking criteria. By reading it, you can get a clear picture of what works, as always. If you haven’t signed up already, then make sure to sign up over here!

Thank you all, and look forward to seeing you in the next one!

“Uncomfortable” is a fascinating word.

We use it to describe a scratchy sweater, an awkward silence, a moral compromise, and existential dread. It’s become English’s polite catchall for anything that makes us want to look away, shift our weight, or pretend we didn’t notice. But here’s what fascinates me: unlike precise languages that have separate words for physical discomfort versus social discomfort versus ethical discomfort, English smooshes them all together under one vague umbrella. Maybe that’s by design. Maybe calling something “uncomfortable” is our way of minimizing it, of treating moral crisis with the same shrug we’d give a too-warm room. The word lets us acknowledge distress without actually naming what’s causing it—which means we can witness suffering and file it under “mildly unpleasant” rather than “something I should do something about.”

This week’s essay prompt: “Describe an uncomfortable ride on public transport.“; it’s question 2 from Variant 3 of the May 2025 Paper 2 series, and we need to write a descriptive essay!

Here’s what makes this prompt quietly brilliant: it drops you into a space where discomfort is compulsory. You can’t escape public transport—you’re trapped with strangers in close quarters, forced to negotiate bodies and boundaries and the unspoken rules about where to look and what to ignore. Most students will write about surface-level discomfort: crowding, heat, delays, annoying passengers. But the strongest responses understand that physical discomfort is just the entry point. The real challenge is exploring why public transport makes us uncomfortable in ways that private transport doesn’t. It strips away the illusion of control. It forces proximity with people whose lives are colliding with ours whether we consent or not. The question becomes: can you write a description where the physical discomfort (the crush, the heat, the invasion of personal space) becomes inseparable from social or moral discomfort? Can you capture that uniquely modern anxiety of being surrounded by strangers while everyone pretends to be alone? And here’s the sophistication test: can you show a moment where the narrator stops being a passive victim of discomfort and becomes someone who must decide whether to keep looking away or to finally see—really see—the person beside them?

You’ll find the essay here!

Describe an uncomfortable ride on public transport.

The full essay is available for our premium members and is also marked and graded according to the IGCSE First Language English official rubrics and marking criteria. By reading it, you can get a clear picture of what works, as always. If you haven’t signed up already, then make sure to sign up over here!

Thank you all, and look forward to seeing you in the next one!