Need help with foreign student taking a writing test for educators

[U vigilance]

An Italian friend of mine, with a summa cum laude degree in electrical
engineering & a decade of experience substitute high-school math
teaching, just failed her one-page writing test for admission for
California teaching single-subject math-teaching credentials at San Jose
State.

She's 'almost' perfectly fluent in English, in that her understanding and
grasp is nearly perfect and instantaneous; however her American English
grammar and verb tense is off a bit (I'd say about one grammatical or
tense flaw in about five sentences.

Since the test apparently includes a few paragraphs of personal writing
on a question of the tester's choice, would you guys and gals have any
advice for how better to pass the second of only two chances she will get
later on this week?

[SF Man]

Post by U vigilance
advice for how better to pass the second of only two chances she will get
later on this week?

I would advise the foreign student to stick with SHORT sentences.
I would stay in the present tense.
I would NOT use colons or semicolons; few in the US know how to use 'em.
I would tell her NOT to end any sentences with 'it' (which Italians do
frequently).
I would recommend a single line of introduction; then she could add a few
lines of exampled argument; and then she should wrap it up with a summary
which is a restatement of the original line of introduction.
I would NOT use the words "got" or any other omnibus word.

Hmmmmm what else...

PS: It's a stoopid system that fails a foreign-born math major; but it is
what it is.

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[Daniel James]

... would you guys and gals have any advice for how better to pass
the second of only two chances she will get later on this week?

Practice. There's probably some idiomatic or stylistic tic in her
written English that the examiner took exception to. I'd suggest that
she gets a friendly native speaker to set her a test in a similar format
and then go through her answer with her analysing the style and looking
for any errors and mis-usages that occur consistently.

If you have access to the original answer from the failed test that
would be even better.

Cheers,
Daniel.