Theme 2.2: Healthy living and lifestyle - Writing
Healthy living and lifestyle writing tasks cover describing diet and exercise habits, recounting a time of illness or injury, stating planned lifestyle changes, and giving an opinion on how healthy teenagers' lifestyles are today.
Before you start
Make sure you're comfortable with these topics first:
Method
- Read the bullets and identify which need routine present tense (reflexive verbs for daily habits), which need a one-off past event (an illness, an injury, a match you played), and which need future intentions.
- Plan vocabulary for each bullet: food and drink nouns, parts of the body if describing an injury, and at least one advice structure (hay que, se debe, tener que plus infinitive).
- Build the response with reflexive verbs conjugated correctly (me levanto, me acuesto, me entreno) and a clear preterite for the past event (me rompí, tuve, fui).
- Add range: an opinion justified with porque, a connective (por eso, sin embargo, aunque), a subordinate clause with que or cuando, and, for the harder task, an impersonal structure of advice (es importante que los jóvenes hagan ejercicio).
- Check reflexive pronoun placement and agreement (me, te, se, nos before the conjugated verb) and adjective agreement (sano, sana, cansado, cansada).
- Check accents on health-related words that need them: médico, práctica, energía, básico, and on the preterite forms that distinguish a completed action (comí) from a present one (como).
- Reread against the bullets to confirm nothing is missing - a common lost mark is forgetting the opinion bullet after focusing only on describing habits.
Worked example
Write a short paragraph in Spanish for a health blog. Mention: what you do to stay fit; a time you were ill or injured recently; one change you plan to make to be healthier.
- PLAN bullet 1: reflexive/habit verbs - me entreno, hago ejercicio, como sano, evito la comida basura.
- PLAN bullet 2: choose a specific past illness with a preterite verb - tuve gripe, me rompí el brazo, me hice daño jugando al fútbol.
- BUILD bullet 1 with a frequency marker for range: Para mantenerme en forma, hago ejercicio tres veces a la semana y como muchas verduras. Frequency phrases like tres veces a la semana add detail beyond the bare verb.
- BUILD bullet 2 in the preterite with a time marker and a subordinate clause: El mes pasado, me hice daño en la rodilla cuando jugaba al baloncesto, así que tuve que descansar dos semanas. Jugaba is imperfect (background action) against the preterite me hice, showing controlled tense contrast.
- BUILD bullet 3 with the near future and an impersonal structure for extra range: A partir de ahora, voy a dormir más porque es importante que los jóvenes descansen lo suficiente.
Practice questions
Try each question, then tap to reveal the answer.
Q1Give the yo present tense of acostarse and levantarse.Show answer
Answer: me acuesto and me levanto - both are stem-changing (o to ue / e to ie) reflexive verbs, with the reflexive pronoun me placed before the conjugated verb.
Q2Fill the gap with the correct preterite: El invierno pasado, ___ (tener) gripe durante una semana.Show answer
Answer: tuve - irregular preterite of tener: tuve, tuviste, tuvo, tuvimos, tuvisteis, tuvieron.
Q3Correct the error: 'Es importante que los estudiantes duerme lo suficiente.'Show answer
Answer: Es importante que los estudiantes duerman lo suficiente - after es importante que the verb must be in the present subjunctive, third person plural: duerman.
Q4Translate into Spanish: 'You should eat a balanced diet and avoid junk food.'Show answer
Answer: Debes comer una dieta equilibrada y evitar la comida basura.
Q5Translate into English: 'Me lesioné el tobillo mientras entrenaba para la carrera.'Show answer
Answer: I injured my ankle while I was training for the race.
Q6Give the Spanish for 'to give up smoking' and 'to be in good shape'.Show answer
Answer: dejar de fumar and estar en forma.
Q7Which advice structure is impersonal (does not need a subject pronoun): tengo que or hay que?Show answer
Answer: hay que (one has to/it is necessary to) is impersonal and never changes form; tengo que is personal and agrees with the subject (yo tengo que, ella tiene que).
Exam-style questions
Written in the style of a GCSE Spanish exam paper, with a full mark scheme.
Write about a healthy lifestyle in Spanish. Answer all four bullet points in Spanish. Write approximately 40 words in Spanish. - what you do to stay healthy - a food you try to avoid - an illness or injury you had last year - your opinion on whether teenagers today live healthily
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Your Spanish teacher has asked you to write about health and lifestyle. Write a text in Spanish. You must mention: - your current diet and exercise habits - an illness or injury you had recently and what you did about it - a change you plan to make to be healthier in future - your opinion on what schools should do to encourage healthy lifestyles
Show mark scheme
Tick each line you got. Your score builds from the marks on the scheme.
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See real GCSE Spanish past-paper questions, with official mark schemes →
Free printable worksheet
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