Very interesting. I am basing my feelings on reading Year 13 stats reports written in New Zealand. We have word limits to try and encourage students to be concise. <2000 green light, between 2000 and 2500 orange light, >2500 red light. We don't have any authority to penalise students if they go above 2500 but we're trying to discourage the waffle. Most exemplars we issue that go to the highest grade (Excellence in NZ) are written in about 1800 words. With all that in mind and factoring students writing ability in we feel like the "Goldilocks zone" is the orange zone for us.
See this analysis - https://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/Images/426173-how-much-do-i-need-to-write-to-get-top-marks-.pdf
Very interesting. I am basing my feelings on reading Year 13 stats reports written in New Zealand. We have word limits to try and encourage students to be concise. <2000 green light, between 2000 and 2500 orange light, >2500 red light. We don't have any authority to penalise students if they go above 2500 but we're trying to discourage the waffle. Most exemplars we issue that go to the highest grade (Excellence in NZ) are written in about 1800 words. With all that in mind and factoring students writing ability in we feel like the "Goldilocks zone" is the orange zone for us.