Culinary diversity 饮食文化与地方特色

Flavour marks turn on the exact taste word, not a broad good/bad adjective. ✗ 这道菜很好吃。(no specific taste named) ✓ 这道菜有点辣，但是不油腻。(Zhè dào cài yǒudiǎn là, dànshì bù yóunì.) — This dish is a little spicy, but not greasy. A bare 好吃/不好吃 does not show the specific taste (辣, 清淡, 油腻) that a flavour question needs.

Asked WHY someone hesitated to try a dish, weaker candidates give what happened afterwards (the 结果) instead of the cause (原因). ✗ Q: 他为什么担心？A: 后来他吃了两碗米饭。(that is the result) ✓ 因为他平常习惯吃清淡的家常菜，很少吃辣的。(Yīnwèi tā píngcháng xíguàn chī qīngdàn de jiāchángcài, hěn shǎo chī là de.) — Because he was used to light home cooking and rarely ate spicy food. Always separate 原因 from 结果.

比 already means "more than", so 很/非常 cannot sit directly before the adjective — degree is shown with 多了, 一点儿 or 更. ✗ 川菜比粤菜很辣。 ✓ 川菜比粤菜辣多了。(Chuāncài bǐ Yuècài là duōle.) — Sichuan cuisine is much spicier than Cantonese cuisine. This is exactly the imprecise use of a simple structure that loses marks even for otherwise strong candidates.

Rewriting A比B辣多了 as a 没有……那么 sentence reverses the roles, becoming B没有A那么辣. Learners keep the original order and flip the meaning. ✗ 川菜没有粤菜那么辣。(now says Sichuan is the milder one) ✓ 粤菜没有川菜那么辣。(Yuècài méiyǒu Chuāncài nàme là.) — Cantonese cuisine is not as spicy as Sichuan cuisine. Track which cuisine is the subject in each pattern.

In reading, weaker candidates copy a whole sentence — including irrelevant clauses — instead of selecting the exact point and re-expressing it. A lifted answer with extra or wrong material is not credited, even when it contains the right point. On a food passage, name the precise reason or opinion in your own words rather than transcribing the sentence around it.

In the functional email a common lost mark is answering a near version of a bullet rather than the exact one asked — e.g. describing a dish you often eat when the bullet asks about a NEW dish you tried, or giving the price when it asks the taste. Read each bullet and answer precisely what it requests, covering all of them.

Learners treat 了 as a past-tense ending. 了 marks completion or a change of state: it is dropped with habitual actions (每天/常常), and 过 (not 了) says you have EVER done something. ✗ 我每天吃了辣的东西。 ✓ 我以前没吃过辣的东西，昨天第一次吃了一口。(Wǒ yǐqián méi chīguò là de dōngxi, zuótiān dì-yī cì chī le yì kǒu.) — I never ate spicy food before; yesterday I tried a bite. 了 marks the one-off act, not tense.

Learners over-rely on 个 as a catch-all. In fact 道 (dào) is the measure word for a dish or course, and 个 does not collocate with 菜 here. ✗ 妈妈今天做了三个菜。 ✓ 妈妈今天做了三道菜。(Māma jīntiān zuò le sān dào cài.) — Mum made three dishes today. Like 一本书 or 一杯茶, 一道菜 is a fixed collocation, not interchangeable with 个.