[Idiom] "given text"... correct?

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learner457

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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

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Welcome to the forum, learner 457.

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

Tdol

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Of the two, I prefer the first.
 

learner457

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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

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