Quickstep Online Oet Training

Go ahead 👍

How do I accurately and factually write about a patient’s lifestyle?

Healthcare professionals must be able to accurately and factually talk about a patient’s lifestyle. Using the right kinds of language can make a big difference when writing to another nurse, doctor or other healthcare professional.

During the OET Writing sub-test, you might need to write about a patient’s lifestyle and communicate aspects of it to a colleague. It is important to be as accurate and precise as possible.

In a previous blog article about Speaking, we discussed how to soften your language when speaking to patients. While you don’t need to soften your language to protect the patient from embarrassment, it is necessary to be precise and accurate when reporting a patient’s lifestyle factor.

Writing precisely and being accurate
Let’s take a look at a quick example:

Mrs Mendez is a heavy smoker.
You might feel the above sentence is clear. But what if I asked five healthcare professionals how many ci******es a heavy smoker smokes per day? I am pretty confident that I would get 5 different answers.

Part of the reason for the different meanings of heavy could be geographical. healthcare professionals in countries and regions where smoking is common might think heavy means a higher number of ci******es compared to regions where smoking is less common.

Perhaps I would get answers between 20-60+ per day. Can you see the problem? For the reader, there is quite a big difference between a patient who smokes 20 ci******es per day and a patient who smokes 60 per day in terms of the advice they might provide and the treatment they might need to quit smoking.

Write with facts, not adjectives
Instead of using adjectives to describe a patient’s lifestyle factors, it is much better to be factual and uses measurements:

Mrs Mendez smokes 30 ci******es per day.
Now there is absolute clarity for the reader.

The same is true for alcohol consumption, drug use and weight. Candidates can often create a meaning quite different from the case notes by describing these lifestyle factors using adjectives. So someone who drinks an occasional glass of alcohol on the weekend becomes a binge drinker in the candidate’s letter.

As a rule, official OET practice and test tasks will provide the measurements for lifestyle factors. It is much better to use the same words provided in the case notes for these lifestyle factors than it is to paraphrase it and potentially change the meaning. Loss of accuracy in meaning will affect your score for the Content criterion.

Here are some more common examples provided by candidates which could be improved by using measurements rather than adjectives alone:

Mr X is an alcoholic Mr X drinks 5 units of alcohol per day
Miss Y is overweight Miss Y is overweight at 80kg
Mr Z was addicted to drugs as a teenager Mr Z regularly used methamphetamines as a teenager
For more information about Writing, make sure you check out the OET Writing Guide. It’s super informative and provides examples and tasks to help you learn about the assessment criteria.

📌 Tips for future candidates:
📍 Understanding the exam is the key. Even though OET is an English proficiency exam, it has its level of difficulty, assessment criteria and techniques. Throughout this journey, I came across native English speakers who couldn’t get through the exam only because they didn’t understand the strategy properly. So, accustom yourself to the exam criteria.
📍 Use only authentic materials. Assess yourself with these first, and if you feel confident with your scores, book a test date ASAP. Trust me, your preparation enhances by multiple folds when you have a deadline.
📍 Confidence is highly important; hence, solve as many practice tests as possible. Firstly, solve all the modules and evaluate your weaknesses. After that, start focusing on those areas. I would recommend practising at least 2 modules a day and attempt at least 3 mock tests before the main exam. And these tests should be taken under the same exam condition (3 hours continuously followed by speaking sub-test) as this would help you manage your time appropriately, and you will feel at ease on the test day.
📍 Join various Facebook/WhatsApp groups and share your writing for evaluation. However, do not be let down by any negative comments.
📍 Listening and Reading modules can be assessed by yourselves, but you should seek evaluation for writing and speaking modules

😀👍