Table 5 Body paragraph of the essay written by Student 15 (left) and raters’ comments (right)

First, I explain curious. If we don’t like math, we don’t have curious for math. At that time, if we study math, we don’t keep concentration, and don’t feel interesting. I think this lead to down the motivation for studying. From this, curious is very important for studying. Second, I explain feelings. It also lead to curious, if we feel the studying is interesting, we want to study more and more. Moreover, if we study feeling like this, the academic world spread and studying is more interesting. For example, if we learn the literature of Chinese which written a long time ago, we can the way Chinese think a long time ago, and we may be interesting in the changes the way Chinese think throughout time. Like this, we can feel interesting that study lead to study, it lead to motivation.

1. Good: exploring and exemplifying an idea. (R1)

2. some CT: logical reasoning (R5)

3. The student tries to demonstrate the connection between ‘curious’ and ‘motivation for studying’. He/She tries to give structured support for this particular issue. (R3)

4. The student tries to illustrate the connection between ‘feelings’ and ‘motivation’. He/she attempts to identify the main issues related to this particular argument and then makes a reasonable attempt to link these different factors. (R3)

5. Same again: although there are some issues with clarity here. (R1)

6. some CT: example used as support is relevant and shows original thinking (R5)