COR-002 READING AND WRITING SKILLS

SECOND PERFORMANCE TASK

ORGANIZATION
The idea that’s being emphasized in the given short passage is the author’s view about the
fruit “plums”. The author constantly describes his love for the fruit and its benefits. The Ideas
in the short passage is arranged in structure, since it has an introduction, a thesis statement
and a hook. The thesis statement presented in the first paragraph is the line “Plums,
however, are easy to eat, when you are finished, all you have to do is throw away the pit!”.
While the second paragraph’s thesis statement is the line “Plums are perhaps the most
attractive fruit because they come in so many colors”. And the last one is the line “The only
bad thing about plums is that them are only available for a few months out of the year”.
These sentences contain debatable subjects because of his biased claims.

COHERENCE
In the passage, it says that plums are the unique and are the easiest food you can eat. It also
stated the fact that it’s loaded with lots of vitamins. Therefore, we can say that plums are a
nutritious snack. But the part where it says, “Suppose you a bag of plums and the first one
you eat it is not very sweet, place them in a brown paper bag with a few other plums for a
day or two. They will ripen in the bag and soon you will be eating delicious pieces of fruit”,
shows no relevant detail in the short passage. This sentence is not coherent, the paragraph
does not have an idea that has anything related to the main point of the short passage.

COHESION
Cohesion is evident in the given short passage. The first two sentences in the paragraph were
highlighted as coherent due to the repetition of the key word "Plums" and the use of the
pronoun "it". The second sentence was chosen because it contains the conjunctions "such as"
and "however", both of which are coherent devices. The next paragraph of the short passage
contains pronouns, conjunctions, and a connection between the highlighted texts' ideas are
found. Conjunction "because" is used in the second to the last highlighted sentence,
pronouns are present in the texts, and the uses of ideas are linked. And in the last sentence,
the conjunction "however," as well as pronouns, are used. Those factors influenced my
decision to choose the most coherent or cohesive text from the paragraph presented in the
short passage.
 MECHANICS
Sentences with capitalization and punctuation errors can confuse the listeners and detract
them from the message's meaning. They might get left, guessing as to what the passage is
trying to convey. Capitalization may alter the sense of a passage, leading to misinformation.
Every sentence starts with a capitalization word, signaling the start of a new one. Many
sentences are not capitalized and are not meant to be capitalized, such as "to me, the plum is
a great fruit," which should be capitalized since "to" is the first word in the sentence. There
are also sentences that are punctuated incorrectly, such as "It is sweet, delicious, and
beautiful, too," which should be "It is sweet, delicious, and pretty, too." There are also
mistakes in the following sentences: "Plums are probably the most appealing fruit due to
their wide range of colors. "The dot (.) before the expression" from pale yellow to bright red
to deep purple”. Since the sentences are related and could form a full sentence, a comma (,)
should be used.

LANGUAGE USE
The essay's style and formality are weak, because the writer is only writing for himself and is
only sharing why plum is his favorite fruit, with no reference to academic, industry, or official
background. The terminology used is inappropriate for the essay's intent and message. Even
though the writer used direct and clear sentences, the essay is not easily understandable,
since certain terms are misused. If he can explain why plum is his favorite fruit without
contrasting it to other fruits, the passage does not meet the rules for vocabulary used
because it is biased to the other fruits. There are also terms that are misused, such as
"pretty," that are inappropriate for describing a fruit. Another incorrect term is "they are
nutritious snack," which causes readers to be confused because "they" is plural and "a" is
singular.