[Idiom] "given text"... correct?

[learner457]

Hello everyone,

I have recently gotten an English exam returned by my new teacher and we were told that it isn't idiomatic to start a paragraph with "The given text/excerpt/passage deals with..." because that would be a Germanism and we should write "The text/excerpt/passage at hand..." instead.
I honestly don't quite trust her on this since I have written this in many exams before and have never gotten it corrected. My boyfriend (who is a native speaker) also said that it would be correct to write that.

What are your thoughts on this?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Rover_KE]

Welcome to the forum, learner 457.

Your version sounds more natural to me than your teacher's does.

 

[Tdol]

Of the two, I prefer the first.

 

[learner457]

Neither of those sounds very natural to me.

Is this the first sentence of an essay?

Thank you for your response, Piscean.

What would you consider a more natural way to express that?
It would be the first sentence of an essay.

 

[emsr2d2]

Presumably there was only one text. If that's the case, just open with "The text/excerpt/passage deals with ...".