how to do well in examination essay

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How to Do Well in Your Exams

Last Updated: February 6, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Nathan Fox, JD . Nathan Fox is an LSAT teacher, the co-host of the Thinking LSAT Podcast, and the co-founder of LSATdemon. Nathan is the author of six LSAT books including The Fox LSAT Logical Reasoning Encyclopedia. He scored a 179 on the February 2007 LSAT and holds a JD from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 79,015 times.

Exam time is here. If you want to do well in your exams, there are a lot of different things you can do to set yourself up for success. This article will walk you through the best way to study for your exams, but also things you can do besides studying that you may not have thought of that can make a huge difference come test day. Check out the tips below to get started!

Studying Tips

• Listen to the teacher upfront.
• Take down notes on what the teacher emphasizes.

• The time you use to revise before the exam should not be the moment you try to understand and comprehend certain knowledge. Your revision moment should rightfully be the moment of merely recalling what you have known. That being said, revision should not last longer than 4 hours. It all depends, however, because sometimes we might have more topics to go through.

• Remember to always relate ideas and concepts, rather than focusing entirely on memorization. Memorization doesn't help when a certain question is twisted. To relate concepts and ideas, you need to find your own way of relating them together.
• For instance, if you are studying osmosis, try to relate the concept in daily lives; use the pickling process, for example. You could then relate to hemolysis, cremation, hypertonic or hypotonic.
• This method works best for all subjects, particularly Additional Mathematics.

• For example, if you are studying the reactivity of elements in the periodic table, picture the main ideas. What happens when going down Group 1 and what happens when going down Group 17 and 18? How does it happen? Why it happens? Why is it the reactivity increases or decreases?

Before the Exam

On the Day of the Exam

Supercharge Your Studying with this Expert Series

Expert Q&A

• Being active (running, biking, etc.) before you start studying may help you concentrate and think about the problem more carefully. Thanks Helpful 6 Not Helpful 0
• Re-write some of your vital notes out in bullet points.It's easier to remember rather than reading a big paragraph. Thanks Helpful 4 Not Helpful 1
• Take it easy and study one main chapter properly instead of hurrying yourself to study every chapter. Thanks Helpful 5 Not Helpful 0

• Don't be disappointed if your results are not good. Try harder in future exams, learning from the mistakes of this one. Review all the wrong answers in the exam so you won’t get it wrong again. Thanks Helpful 14 Not Helpful 0
• Don't let social media distract you. Thanks Helpful 14 Not Helpful 1
• Do not get into any fights or arguments with anyone. It will take a heavy toll on you and that might affect your studies. Thanks Helpful 7 Not Helpful 2
• Avoid playing video games,.watching TV, or using any gadgets. This will affect your concentration in exams. Thanks Helpful 5 Not Helpful 2

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://kidshealth.org/en/kids/studying.html
• ↑ https://www.murdoch.edu.au/news/articles/the-art-of-note-taking-what-s-really-most-effective
• ↑ https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/studying-101-study-smarter-not-harder/
• ↑ https://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/psn/2013/09/learning-secrets
• ↑ Nathan Fox, JD. LSAT Teacher, Founder of LSATdemon. Expert Interview. 15 November 2019.
• ↑ https://libguides.tees.ac.uk/ld.php?content_id=32011137
• ↑ https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2015/nov/10-ways-motivate-yourself-study
• ↑ https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/effective-note-taking-in-class/

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How to Prepare for an Essay Exam

Last Updated: April 20, 2023

This article was co-authored by Michelle Golden, PhD . Michelle Golden is an English teacher in Athens, Georgia. She received her MA in Language Arts Teacher Education in 2008 and received her PhD in English from Georgia State University in 2015. This article has been viewed 137,181 times.

The dreaded essay exam. Whether you like it or not, at some point in your life you are certain to encounter an exam composed entirely of essays. In the days leading up to the exam you may feel anxious or downright sick to your stomach. Fortunately, with a little bit of preparation and practice, you can turn any pre-exam jitters into a feeling of confidence, which will allow you to successfully tackle any essay exam.

Participating in Class

• Actively participate. It’s important to find a participation method that works for you, whether that’s asking thought-provoking questions or commenting on the reading. Active participation just means involving yourself in some way, so even if you don’t feel comfortable speaking at length in front of your peers, try to ask a question every now and then.
• Free yourself from distractions. Put away your cell phone or tablet and concentrate on listening and taking good notes. Now is not the time to work on homework for another class or to catch up with friends on Facebook.

• Always have a notebook on hand. It is helpful to use one notebook per subject or course, so that you don’t confuse yourself when looking back.
• Be sure to date your notes so that you can quickly reference or find the subject material covered on the exam.
• If you struggle with taking notes, ask the instructor if you can record the lecture. You can then go back and listen to the recording and either take notes at your own pace or review any parts of the lecture, which will be relevant for the exam.

• Take notes on what you’ve read and have questions ready for class.
• Follow the schedule for reading assignments. Typically readings are broken out in a way that is both manageable and topical. If, however, you find yourself unable to keep up with the readings, speak with your instructor about a schedule that suits your particular needs. For example, if readings are assigned for every other day of class, you may need to break it out such that you are reading a portion every day.

Reviewing the Material

• In addition to having one notebook per course, it may be helpful to also have an individual course binder or folder, which contains all course materials.
• Take your organization to the next level by categorizing according to exams. Don’t throw away previous notes or materials from past exams. They may come in handy for midterm or final exams. Instead, organize the materials as if they were chapters, with chapter one being the first exam and so forth and so on.

• Limit phone calls and any other distractions such as texting. It might help to turn your phone and other devices to silent mode while you’re studying.
• The TV should always be off while you’re preparing for an exam.
• If you want to listen to music, be sure it’s something that is relaxing or peaceful. Also, keep the music at a low level. Otherwise, music can easily become a distraction.

• Get into the habit of reviewing class materials after each course. This will help to ease anxiety leading up to the exam, as you won’t have as much to review and will be able to clear up any questions that arise, prior to the big day.
• Cramming doesn’t work. Multiple studies have shown that spacing out learning was more effective than cramming. [2] X Research source What’s more, cramming only increases the feeling of desperation which leads to panic, and then to test anxiety.

• Creating an outline will also come in handy when drafting essay responses, so give yourself some practice and start with your class materials.

Practicing Ahead of Time

• Don’t wait until the night before to outline answers. As you’re studying and organizing your class materials, come up with potential questions along the way. You can then go back and review and revise as necessary.
• Some instructors do specify a word count for essays. Don’t focus on counting words though. Write what you can and look for opportunities to flesh out your answers without being overly wordy.

• Identify - typically short and direct answers will do.
• Explain - requires a more detailed answer.
• Compare - look for connections.
• Argue - address this from your own perspective.

• This is a good opportunity to proofread your work and to look for any grammatical errors as well.
• Have a friend, parent or peer look over your essay as well. It is often helpful to have a fresh set of eyes review your work and provide feedback.

Community Q&A

• For open-notes or open-book tests, study thoroughly anyway. This will prepare you for other exams or tests where you're not allowed to use notes, and will allow for you to complete the test faster and easier because you won't need to search for everything in the book or your notes. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Be positive. If you are negative and believe you will not do well, chances are that you will perform the way you expect to. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
• Practice writing. Be sure you can write fairly well in other situations so that you can express your ideas clearly. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

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• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/essay-exams/
• ↑ http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140917-the-worst-way-to-learn

About this article

If you’re worried about an upcoming essay exam, start reviewing your class notes by topic. One helpful way to prepare for your essay exam is to create a potential outline for each theme. For example, if you’re studying Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, you might come up with an essay outline about the themes of the play. Once you have a few of these outlines, do practice essays at home under timed conditions, using old exams or questions you can see from your outline. Additionally, make it easier to prepare for future exams by attending all classes, doing the assigned readings and taking clear notes. Keep reading for more tips, including how to understand what the essay questions are asking of you. Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Essay Exams

What this handout is about.

At some time in your undergraduate career, you’re going to have to write an essay exam. This thought can inspire a fair amount of fear: we struggle enough with essays when they aren’t timed events based on unknown questions. The goal of this handout is to give you some easy and effective strategies that will help you take control of the situation and do your best.

Why do instructors give essay exams?

Essay exams are a useful tool for finding out if you can sort through a large body of information, figure out what is important, and explain why it is important. Essay exams challenge you to come up with key course ideas and put them in your own words and to use the interpretive or analytical skills you’ve practiced in the course. Instructors want to see whether:

• You understand concepts that provide the basis for the course
• You can use those concepts to interpret specific materials
• You can make connections, see relationships, draw comparisons and contrasts
• You can synthesize diverse information in support of an original assertion
• You can justify your own evaluations based on appropriate criteria
• You can argue your own opinions with convincing evidence
• You can think critically and analytically about a subject

What essay questions require

Exam questions can reach pretty far into the course materials, so you cannot hope to do well on them if you do not keep up with the readings and assignments from the beginning of the course. The most successful essay exam takers are prepared for anything reasonable, and they probably have some intelligent guesses about the content of the exam before they take it. How can you be a prepared exam taker? Try some of the following suggestions during the semester:

• Do the reading as the syllabus dictates; keeping up with the reading while the related concepts are being discussed in class saves you double the effort later.
• Go to lectures (and put away your phone, the newspaper, and that crossword puzzle!).
• Take careful notes that you’ll understand months later. If this is not your strong suit or the conventions for a particular discipline are different from what you are used to, ask your TA or the Learning Center for advice.
• Participate in your discussion sections; this will help you absorb the material better so you don’t have to study as hard.
• Organize small study groups with classmates to explore and review course materials throughout the semester. Others will catch things you might miss even when paying attention. This is not cheating. As long as what you write on the essay is your own work, formulating ideas and sharing notes is okay. In fact, it is a big part of the learning process.
• As an exam approaches, find out what you can about the form it will take. This will help you forecast the questions that will be on the exam, and prepare for them.

These suggestions will save you lots of time and misery later. Remember that you can’t cram weeks of information into a single day or night of study. So why put yourself in that position?

Now let’s focus on studying for the exam. You’ll notice the following suggestions are all based on organizing your study materials into manageable chunks of related material. If you have a plan of attack, you’ll feel more confident and your answers will be more clear. Here are some tips: 

• Don’t just memorize aimlessly; clarify the important issues of the course and use these issues to focus your understanding of specific facts and particular readings.
• Try to organize and prioritize the information into a thematic pattern. Look at what you’ve studied and find a way to put things into related groups. Find the fundamental ideas that have been emphasized throughout the course and organize your notes into broad categories. Think about how different categories relate to each other.
• Find out what you don’t know, but need to know, by making up test questions and trying to answer them. Studying in groups helps as well.

Taking the exam

Read the exam carefully.

• If you are given the entire exam at once and can determine your approach on your own, read the entire exam before you get started.
• Look at how many points each part earns you, and find hints for how long your answers should be.
• Figure out how much time you have and how best to use it. Write down the actual clock time that you expect to take in each section, and stick to it. This will help you avoid spending all your time on only one section. One strategy is to divide the available time according to percentage worth of the question. You don’t want to spend half of your time on something that is only worth one tenth of the total points.
• As you read, make tentative choices of the questions you will answer (if you have a choice). Don’t just answer the first essay question you encounter. Instead, read through all of the options. Jot down really brief ideas for each question before deciding.
• Remember that the easiest-looking question is not always as easy as it looks. Focus your attention on questions for which you can explain your answer most thoroughly, rather than settle on questions where you know the answer but can’t say why.

Analyze the questions

• Decide what you are being asked to do. If you skim the question to find the main “topic” and then rush to grasp any related ideas you can recall, you may become flustered, lose concentration, and even go blank. Try looking closely at what the question is directing you to do, and try to understand the sort of writing that will be required.
• Focus on what you do know about the question, not on what you don’t.
• Look at the active verbs in the assignment—they tell you what you should be doing. We’ve included some of these below, with some suggestions on what they might mean. (For help with this sort of detective work, see the Writing Center handout titled Reading Assignments.)

Information words, such as who, what, when, where, how, and why ask you to demonstrate what you know about the subject. Information words may include:

• define—give the subject’s meaning (according to someone or something). Sometimes you have to give more than one view on the subject’s meaning.
• explain why/how—give reasons why or examples of how something happened.
• illustrate—give descriptive examples of the subject and show how each is connected with the subject.
• summarize—briefly cover the important ideas you learned about the subject.
• trace—outline how something has changed or developed from an earlier time to its current form.
• research—gather material from outside sources about the subject, often with the implication or requirement that you will analyze what you’ve found.

Relation words ask you to demonstrate how things are connected. Relation words may include:

• compare—show how two or more things are similar (and, sometimes, different).
• contrast—show how two or more things are dissimilar.
• apply—use details that you’ve been given to demonstrate how an idea, theory, or concept works in a particular situation.
• cause—show how one event or series of events made something else happen.
• relate—show or describe the connections between things.

Interpretation words ask you to defend ideas of your own about the subject. Don’t see these words as requesting opinion alone (unless the assignment specifically says so), but as requiring opinion that is supported by concrete evidence. Remember examples, principles, definitions, or concepts from class or research and use them in your interpretation. Interpretation words may include:

• prove, justify—give reasons or examples to demonstrate how or why something is the truth.
• evaluate, respond, assess—state your opinion of the subject as good, bad, or some combination of the two, with examples and reasons (you may want to compare your subject to something else).
• support—give reasons or evidence for something you believe (be sure to state clearly what it is that you believe).
• synthesize—put two or more things together that haven’t been put together before; don’t just summarize one and then the other, and say that they are similar or different—you must provide a reason for putting them together (as opposed to compare and contrast—see above).
• analyze—look closely at the components of something to figure out how it works, what it might mean, or why it is important.
• argue—take a side and defend it (with proof) against the other side.

Plan your answers

Think about your time again. How much planning time you should take depends on how much time you have for each question and how many points each question is worth. Here are some general guidelines: 

• For short-answer definitions and identifications, just take a few seconds. Skip over any you don’t recognize fairly quickly, and come back to them when another question jogs your memory.
• For answers that require a paragraph or two, jot down several important ideas or specific examples that help to focus your thoughts.
• For longer answers, you will need to develop a much more definite strategy of organization. You only have time for one draft, so allow a reasonable amount of time—as much as a quarter of the time you’ve allotted for the question—for making notes, determining a thesis, and developing an outline.
• For questions with several parts (different requests or directions, a sequence of questions), make a list of the parts so that you do not miss or minimize one part. One way to be sure you answer them all is to number them in the question and in your outline.
• You may have to try two or three outlines or clusters before you hit on a workable plan. But be realistic—you want a plan you can develop within the limited time allotted for your answer. Your outline will have to be selective—not everything you know, but what you know that you can state clearly and keep to the point in the time available.

Again, focus on what you do know about the question, not on what you don’t.

Writing your answers

As with planning, your strategy for writing depends on the length of your answer:

• For short identifications and definitions, it is usually best to start with a general identifying statement and then move on to describe specific applications or explanations. Two sentences will almost always suffice, but make sure they are complete sentences. Find out whether the instructor wants definition alone, or definition and significance. Why is the identification term or object important?
• For longer answers, begin by stating your forecasting statement or thesis clearly and explicitly. Strive for focus, simplicity, and clarity. In stating your point and developing your answers, you may want to use important course vocabulary words from the question. For example, if the question is, “How does wisteria function as a representation of memory in Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom?” you may want to use the words wisteria, representation, memory, and Faulkner) in your thesis statement and answer. Use these important words or concepts throughout the answer.
• If you have devised a promising outline for your answer, then you will be able to forecast your overall plan and its subpoints in your opening sentence. Forecasting impresses readers and has the very practical advantage of making your answer easier to read. Also, if you don’t finish writing, it tells your reader what you would have said if you had finished (and may get you partial points).
• You might want to use briefer paragraphs than you ordinarily do and signal clear relations between paragraphs with transition phrases or sentences.
• As you move ahead with the writing, you may think of new subpoints or ideas to include in the essay. Stop briefly to make a note of these on your original outline. If they are most appropriately inserted in a section you’ve already written, write them neatly in the margin, at the top of the page, or on the last page, with arrows or marks to alert the reader to where they fit in your answer. Be as neat and clear as possible.
• Don’t pad your answer with irrelevancies and repetitions just to fill up space. Within the time available, write a comprehensive, specific answer.
• Watch the clock carefully to ensure that you do not spend too much time on one answer. You must be realistic about the time constraints of an essay exam. If you write one dazzling answer on an exam with three equally-weighted required questions, you earn only 33 points—not enough to pass at most colleges. This may seem unfair, but keep in mind that instructors plan exams to be reasonably comprehensive. They want you to write about the course materials in two or three or more ways, not just one way. Hint: if you finish a half-hour essay in 10 minutes, you may need to develop some of your ideas more fully.
• If you run out of time when you are writing an answer, jot down the remaining main ideas from your outline, just to show that you know the material and with more time could have continued your exposition.
• Double-space to leave room for additions, and strike through errors or changes with one straight line (avoid erasing or scribbling over). Keep things as clean as possible. You never know what will earn you partial credit.
• Write legibly and proofread. Remember that your instructor will likely be reading a large pile of exams. The more difficult they are to read, the more exasperated the instructor might become. Your instructor also cannot give you credit for what they cannot understand. A few minutes of careful proofreading can improve your grade.

Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind in writing essay exams is that you have a limited amount of time and space in which to get across the knowledge you have acquired and your ability to use it. Essay exams are not the place to be subtle or vague. It’s okay to have an obvious structure, even the five-paragraph essay format you may have been taught in high school. Introduce your main idea, have several paragraphs of support—each with a single point defended by specific examples, and conclude with a restatement of your main point and its significance.

Some physiological tips

Just think—we expect athletes to practice constantly and use everything in their abilities and situations in order to achieve success. Yet, somehow many students are convinced that one day’s worth of studying, no sleep, and some well-placed compliments (“Gee, Dr. So-and-so, I really enjoyed your last lecture”) are good preparation for a test. Essay exams are like any other testing situation in life: you’ll do best if you are prepared for what is expected of you, have practiced doing it before, and have arrived in the best shape to do it. You may not want to believe this, but it’s true: a good night’s sleep and a relaxed mind and body can do as much or more for you as any last-minute cram session. Colleges abound with tales of woe about students who slept through exams because they stayed up all night, wrote an essay on the wrong topic, forgot everything they studied, or freaked out in the exam and hyperventilated. If you are rested, breathing normally, and have brought along some healthy, energy-boosting snacks that you can eat or drink quietly, you are in a much better position to do a good job on the test. You aren’t going to write a good essay on something you figured out at 4 a.m. that morning. If you prepare yourself well throughout the semester, you don’t risk your whole grade on an overloaded, undernourished brain.

If for some reason you get yourself into this situation, take a minute every once in a while during the test to breathe deeply, stretch, and clear your brain. You need to be especially aware of the likelihood of errors, so check your essays thoroughly before you hand them in to make sure they answer the right questions and don’t have big oversights or mistakes (like saying “Hitler” when you really mean “Churchill”).

If you tend to go blank during exams, try studying in the same classroom in which the test will be given. Some research suggests that people attach ideas to their surroundings, so it might jog your memory to see the same things you were looking at while you studied.

Try good luck charms. Bring in something you associate with success or the support of your loved ones, and use it as a psychological boost.

Take all of the time you’ve been allotted. Reread, rework, and rethink your answers if you have extra time at the end, rather than giving up and handing the exam in the minute you’ve written your last sentence. Use every advantage you are given.

Remember that instructors do not want to see you trip up—they want to see you do well. With this in mind, try to relax and just do the best you can. The more you panic, the more mistakes you are liable to make. Put the test in perspective: will you die from a poor performance? Will you lose all of your friends? Will your entire future be destroyed? Remember: it’s just a test.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Axelrod, Rise B., and Charles R. Cooper. 2016. The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing , 11th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Fowler, Ramsay H., and Jane E. Aaron. 2016. The Little, Brown Handbook , 13th ed. Boston: Pearson.

Gefvert, Constance J. 1988. The Confident Writer: A Norton Handbook , 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.

Kirszner, Laurie G. 1988. Writing: A College Rhetoric , 2nd ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

Lunsford, Andrea A. 2015. The St. Martin’s Handbook , 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Woodman, Leonara, and Thomas P. Adler. 1988. The Writer’s Choices , 2nd ed. Northbrook, Illinois: Scott Foresman.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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How to tackle essay-based exams

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Regardless of whether they exhilarate you or exhaust you, essay-based exams are the backbone of testing in some faculties.

I used to think that just flipping through my notes was enough to study for essay-based exams—I would just write about what I remembered from the class, right?

Not so much. This type of exam does give you some flexibility in what you choose to write about, but it also requires careful studying beforehand and adjustments to how you approach essay-writing during the exam—not to mention a healthy dose of stamina to get you through.

Essay-based exams are challenging, and, as an undergrad, I often came out of them feeling like somebody had rearranged my brain with an electric mixer. However, having to prepare for and write one usually helped me understand the big picture of the course better.

You don’t have to learn to love them, but figuring out how to approach these kinds of exams can make them more manageable.

Strategically prepare with case studies and theory

Studying for an essay-based exam isn’t quite like studying for a multiple choice test . While both have their challenges, writing essays when you have a limited amount of time requires you to do a lot of active preparation beforehand. 

1. Use the review sheets to study efficiently

Most courses I’ve taken with essay-based exams have also provided a review sheet with topics and information about the exam beforehand.

This means that you often don’t have to review the entire course in depth to do well. If the professor gives you a list of say, 15 topics, and you know that there’s going to be 5 essay questions on the test, and you only need to write 3 essays in total, you can do a bit of math to figure out how many topics you’ll need to study to be prepared. 

Each essay question will probably require knowledge of more than just one topic in the course, but strategically focusing your studying can make you better prepared for the questions you’ll actually answer on the exam. 

2. Focus on flexible case studies

In courses like political science and history, I liked to spend a good portion of my prep time reviewing case studies that can be adapted for a number of essay topics. Prepare at least 3 or 4 case studies for each essay, with some backup. 

You can use these in different combinations depending on the essay question—you won’t have time to go extremely in-depth in the essay, but make sure you know the main points and how the case study relates to the theory of the course.  

3. Find links between examples and theory

Don’t neglect studying the theory—what have your course readings been arguing? Do you agree or disagree with them? It’s okay to have opinions that differ from the readings, but make sure you can back your arguments up with evidence. 

Consider what the overall themes of the course have been—how do all the topics link together? How can you link case studies together with course themes and theory?

Additionally, check out these tips if you're preparing for an English exam specifically!

Maintain a good pace while writing the exam

Once your preparation is done and you’re writing the exam itself, make sure you keep track of the time. If you have 2 hours to write 3 short essays, don’t spend 90 minutes perfecting your first essay only to realize you have half an hour to write both the second and third. 

Give yourself a few minutes at the beginning to read through the questions and plan your essays. Space out the essays so you have some time at the end as well—this gives you a bit of breathing room if you end up spending longer on a section or want to do some minor edits at the end. 

Commit to your thesis 

Whenever I wrote essays for assignments, I inevitably ended up readjusting my entire paper after I got further in my research and figured out what I actually wanted to focus on. While that freedom is nice when the due date is a week or two away, you won’t have the flexibility to change your thesis after a bit of writing in an exam scenario.

If you get halfway through your essay and feel you should've picked a different argument, you likely won’t have time to go back and restart. Whatever you end up writing, commit to it and be confident in your arguments—you’ve studied hard, so sell what you know!

Adjust your writing

The TA or professor marking your exam isn’t expecting a hyper-polished, publishable result here—they want to see that you can craft a solid argument and that you have a perspective on the course material. 

Of course, syntax, grammar, and  punctuation are still important, but keep your writing simple and to the point. Getting the information across is more important than showcasing your most eloquent writing. Focus on writing clear, straightforward sentences that reflect your understanding of the course, and save straining for colourful synonyms for your papers.

Lastly, don’t sweat the introduction and conclusion. All you need are a few sentences—the marks are in the discussion.

Writing essay-based exams takes practice, but with the right preparation you’ll find they’re a great way to cap off your understanding of the course!

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Writing Essays for Exams

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While most OWL resources recommend a longer writing process (start early, revise often, conduct thorough research, etc.), sometimes you just have to write quickly in test situations. However, these exam essays can be no less important pieces of writing than research papers because they can influence final grades for courses, and/or they can mean the difference between getting into an academic program (GED, SAT, GRE). To that end, this resource will help you prepare and write essays for exams.

What is a well written answer to an essay question?

Well Focused

Be sure to answer the question completely, that is, answer all parts of the question. Avoid "padding." A lot of rambling and ranting is a sure sign that the writer doesn't really know what the right answer is and hopes that somehow, something in that overgrown jungle of words was the correct answer.

Well Organized

Don't write in a haphazard "think-as-you-go" manner. Do some planning and be sure that what you write has a clearly marked introduction which both states the point(s) you are going to make and also, if possible, how you are going to proceed. In addition, the essay should have a clearly indicated conclusion which summarizes the material covered and emphasizes your thesis or main point.

Well Supported

Do not just assert something is true, prove it. What facts, figures, examples, tests, etc. prove your point? In many cases, the difference between an A and a B as a grade is due to the effective use of supporting evidence.

Well Packaged

People who do not use conventions of language are thought of by their readers as less competent and less educated. If you need help with these or other writing skills, come to the Writing Lab

How do you write an effective essay exam?

• Read through all the questions carefully.
• Budget your time and decide which question(s) you will answer first.
• Underline the key word(s) which tell you what to do for each question.
• Choose an organizational pattern appropriate for each key word and plan your answers on scratch paper or in the margins.
• Write your answers as quickly and as legibly as you can; do not take the time to recopy.
• Begin each answer with one or two sentence thesis which summarizes your answer. If possible, phrase the statement so that it rephrases the question's essential terms into a statement (which therefore directly answers the essay question).
• Support your thesis with specific references to the material you have studied.
• Proofread your answer and correct errors in spelling and mechanics.

Specific organizational patterns and "key words"

Most essay questions will have one or more "key words" that indicate which organizational pattern you should use in your answer. The six most common organizational patterns for essay exams are definition, analysis, cause and effect, comparison/contrast, process analysis, and thesis-support.

Typical questions

• "Define X."
• "What is an X?"
• "Choose N terms from the following list and define them."

Q: "What is a fanzine?"

A: A fanzine is a magazine written, mimeographed, and distributed by and for science fiction or comic strip enthusiasts.

Avoid constructions such as "An encounter group is where ..." and "General semantics is when ... ."

• State the term to be defined.
• State the class of objects or concepts to which the term belongs.
• Differentiate the term from other members of the class by listing the term's distinguishing characteristics.

Tools you can use

• Details which describe the term
• Examples and incidents
• Comparisons to familiar terms
• Negation to state what the term is not
• Classification (i.e., break it down into parts)
• Examination of origins or causes
• Examination of results, effects, or uses

Analysis involves breaking something down into its components and discovering the parts that make up the whole.

• "Analyze X."
• "What are the components of X?"
• "What are the five different kinds of X?"
• "Discuss the different types of X."

Q: "Discuss the different services a junior college offers a community."

A: Thesis: A junior college offers the community at least three main types of educational services: vocational education for young people, continuing education for older people, and personal development for all individuals.

Outline for supporting details and examples. For example, if you were answering the example question, an outline might include:

• Vocational education
• Continuing education
• Personal development

Write the essay, describing each part or component and making transitions between each of your descriptions. Some useful transition words include:

• first, second, third, etc.
• in addition

Conclude the essay by emphasizing how each part you have described makes up the whole you have been asked to analyze.

Cause and Effect

Cause and effect involves tracing probable or known effects of a certain cause or examining one or more effects and discussing the reasonable or known cause(s).

Typical questions:

• "What are the causes of X?"
• "What led to X?"
• "Why did X occur?"
• "Why does X happen?"
• "What would be the effects of X?"

Q: "Define recession and discuss the probable effects a recession would have on today's society."

A: Thesis: A recession, which is a nationwide lull in business activity, would be detrimental to society in the following ways: it would .......A......., it would .......B......., and it would .......C....... .

The rest of the answer would explain, in some detail, the three effects: A, B, and C.

Useful transition words:

• consequently
• for this reason
• as a result

Comparison-Contrast

• "How does X differ from Y?"
• "Compare X and Y."
• "What are the advantages and disadvantages of X and Y?"

Q: "Which would you rather own—a compact car or a full-sized car?"

A: Thesis: I would own a compact car rather than a full-sized car for the following reasons: .......A......., .......B......., .......C......., and .......D....... .

Two patterns of development:

• Full-sized car

Disadvantages

• Compact car

Useful transition words

• on the other hand
• unlike A, B ...
• in the same way
• while both A and B are ..., only B ..
• nevertheless
• on the contrary
• while A is ..., B is ...
• "Describe how X is accomplished."
• "List the steps involved in X."
• "Explain what happened in X."
• "What is the procedure involved in X?"

Process (sometimes called process analysis)

This involves giving directions or telling the reader how to do something. It may involve discussing some complex procedure as a series of discrete steps. The organization is almost always chronological.

Q: "According to Richard Bolles' What Color Is Your Parachute?, what is the best procedure for finding a job?"

A: In What Color Is Your Parachute?, Richard Bolles lists seven steps that all job-hunters should follow: .....A....., .....B....., .....C....., .....D....., .....E....., .....F....., and .....G..... .

The remainder of the answer should discuss each of these seven steps in some detail.

• following this
• after, afterwards, after this
• subsequently
• simultaneously, concurrently

Thesis and Support

• "Discuss X."
• "A noted authority has said X. Do you agree or disagree?"
• "Defend or refute X."
• "Do you think that X is valid? Defend your position."

Thesis and support involves stating a clearly worded opinion or interpretation and then defending it with all the data, examples, facts, and so on that you can draw from the material you have studied.

Q: "Despite criticism, television is useful because it aids in the socializing process of our children."

A: Television hinders rather than helps in the socializing process of our children because .......A......., .......B......., and .......C....... .

The rest of the answer is devoted to developing arguments A, B, and C.

• it follows that

A. Which of the following two answers is the better one? Why?

Question: Discuss the contribution of William Morris to book design, using as an example his edition of the works of Chaucer.

a. William Morris's Chaucer was his masterpiece. It shows his interest in the Middle Ages. The type is based on medieval manuscript writing, and the decoration around the edges of the pages is like that used in medieval books. The large initial letters are typical of medieval design. Those letters were printed from woodcuts, which was the medieval way of printing. The illustrations were by Burn-Jones, one of the best artists in England at the time. Morris was able to get the most competent people to help him because he was so famous as a poet and a designer (the Morris chair) and wallpaper and other decorative items for the home. He designed the furnishings for his own home, which was widely admired among the sort of people he associated with. In this way he started the arts and crafts movement.

b. Morris's contribution to book design was to approach the problem as an artist or fine craftsman, rather than a mere printer who reproduced texts. He wanted to raise the standards of printing, which had fallen to a low point, by showing that truly beautiful books could be produced. His Chaucer was designed as a unified work of art or high craft. Since Chaucer lived in the Middle Ages, Morris decided to design a new type based on medieval script and to imitate the format of a medieval manuscript. This involved elaborate letters and large initials at the beginnings of verses, as well as wide borders of intertwined vines with leaves, fruit, and flowers in strong colors. The effect was so unusual that the book caused great excitement and inspired other printers to design beautiful rather than purely utilitarian books.

From James M. McCrimmon, Writing with a Purpose , 7th ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1980), pp. 261-263.

B. How would you plan the structure of the answers to these essay exam questions?

1. Was the X Act a continuation of earlier government policies or did it represent a departure from prior philosophies?

2. What seems to be the source of aggression in human beings? What can be done to lower the level of aggression in our society?

3. Choose one character from Novel X and, with specific references to the work, show how he or she functions as an "existential hero."

4. Define briefly the systems approach to business management. Illustrate how this differs from the traditional approach.

5. What is the cosmological argument? Does it prove that God exists?

6. Civil War historian Andy Bellum once wrote, "Blahblahblah blahed a blahblah, but of course if blahblah blahblahblahed the blah, then blahblahs are not blah but blahblah." To what extent and in what ways is the statement true? How is it false?

For more information on writing exam essays for the GED, please visit our Engagement area and go to the Community Writing and Education Station (CWEST) resources.

• Academic Skills
• Study skills
• Exam preparation

Essays in exams

How to write essays in exams.

How should I prepare?

Find out what you will be expected to do in the exam..

• How many essays will you have to write?
• How many marks will each one be worth?
• Will you have some choice or will you have to write on any and all topics covered by the subject?
• Will you be able to refer to notes or materials (open book)?
• Where will you sit the exam (at home or in an exam hall)?
• How long will you have to complete the exam?

Review your notes

Systematically review your notes and course material. As with any revision, your aim is to identify key topics, concepts and major theories or approaches.

Essays often ask you to integrate concepts from different topics and weeks, so try to take a holistic view and make connections as you review.

Review old exam papers

You can use past exam papers to:

• test yourself and monitor your progress.
• increase your knowledge and understanding of certain topics.
• help you to practise the types of questions you are going to encounter.
• familiarise yourself with the format of the exam itself.

Analyse the kinds of questions asked. Note the ‘direction’ words used, such as, ‘compare and contrast’, ‘discuss’, ‘evaluate’, ‘illustrate’.

Draft responses for the question you would find easiest and then the question you would find most difficult. This will help you to identify where your knowledge is satisfactory, incomplete or inadequate.

Look at the marks allocated to a question. How many points might you need to make to earn that many marks? Is broad coverage or depth expected?

Example of question requiring breadth :

‘Discuss the ten factors that contribute to heart disease’ - 30 marks.

Example of question requiring depth :

‘Discuss in detail two of the causes of greenhouse gas production and how they might be eliminated’ - 30 marks.

Identify possible exam topics

Looking at both your notes from this year and the past exam papers, try to anticipate the topics you will be asked to write on and possible questions.

This is a great activity to do with peers in study groups – together you’ll come up with a broader range of questions and approaches. If you work with others, don’t write out full answers and memorise them (your examiners will notice identical responses), instead jot down key points or ideas in your own words.

It won’t matter if you don’t guess exactly the question that appears in the exam. This gives your mind practice at imagining how the material could be organised in different ways to answer different questions.

What should I do during the exam?

Read all the questions carefully.

If you have a choice, identify the ones you might attempt. Re-read those and make a final selection.

Make some brief notes next to each of the questions you will attempt. Consider how you will respond to the question, the subject area/s you will be dealing with, and any main points or initial thoughts. This will give you something to start from, or build on, later in the exam when you are getting tired.

Calculate how much time you can spend on a question, relative to its mark value.

Start with the easiest task

If you have to write a few essays do the easiest one first.  If it’s just one essay, then begin with a section you’re comfortable with. This will help you to settle into the exam and develop your confidence.

Write a brief essay plan

Taing time to write a plan helps you to organise your thoughts and write efficiently. You don't have time for significant editing in an exam, so you want to get it right first time. Consider the following:

• What’s your argument regarding the essay question?
• How many paragraphs do you expect to write?
• What will be the topic of each paragraph?
• What supporting evidence or information will you provide for each major point you make?
• What is the most logical order in which to make your points so they develop and support your argument?

Write clearly

If you need to write your essay by hand, practice writing for extended periods of time. Handwriting for more than a few minutes can become uncomfortable if you’re used to typing everything and this might mean you can’t write everything you want, or worse, your examiner can’t read your writing.

Remember that the examiner will have just a few minutes to read and mark your response; don’t make their job harder.

Try to use the wording of the question in your first sentence

This helps you to stay on task and answer the question directly.

Use transition or connecting words

This will help organise your ideas and to make it easier for the examiner to follow your arguments.

For example: Firstly, … Secondly, …; In contrast to…; In addition…; As a result…

For example:

Question: ‘Compare the main features of orthogonal and oblique cutting processes ’.

Response : ‘ The main features of orthogonal and oblique cutting processes [topic] differ in three main ways. First , [connecting] …’

Include an introduction and conclusion

While introductions and conclusions can be quite basic in exam essays, they are worth including for the guidance they can provide you as a writer and especially for the examiner. Make them as clear and succinct as possible.

Include clear signal language: ‘This essay will argue that …’; ‘In conclusion, …’; ‘To sum up…’

Leave time to check your work

Check the logical flow, clarity of ideas and, most importantly, re-read the question and check that you have answered all parts of it . If you haven’t answered the question directly, you won't get the marks!

Thinking critically by connecting and evaluating ideas as you revise will help you to prepare for essay exams. While examiners do expect you to demonstrate your knowledge of the subject in your essay, they are more interested in your ability to produce a succinct response to the question in the form of a reasoned and well-organised argument.

Looking for one-on-one advice?

Get tailored advice from an Academic Skills Adviser by booking an Individual appointment, or get quick feedback from one of our Academic Writing Mentors via email through our Writing advice service.

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Taking In-Class Essay Exams

About In-Class Essays

Relax... Essay exams are really not so different from the essays you write as assignments except for two major points: you can’t get feedback from a peer or the instructor and only rarely are you given the chance to complete serious revision.

The good news is that how you communicate what you know is rewarded more than mere memorization or repetition of details. To write a successful essay, you need to be able to recall relevant information and to organize it clearly by generating a thesis and building to a conclusion.

  Preparation Before Exam Day

Take good notes throughout the course. Start reviewing them several days before the exam, and look for connections between concepts. You may want to discuss these in your essay.

If you don’t know what the exam questions will be, create your own questions from your notes, and practice answering them with a time limitation.

Look at essay exams you have written in the past. Think about what instructors have praised in your writing, and what instructors haven’t liked so much.

If you can use notes or books, make sure you know where to find important information and mark those places if allowed.

The Day of the Exam

Believe it or not, what you wear and when you’ve eaten can be important factors in your success. Studies have shown that being too warm or too full can affect your performance in exam situations. Be sure you’ve eaten well, but not too close to the exam. And don’t overdress—bring along a sweatshirt that you can take off or put on depending on your level of comfort.

Spend 15 minutes writing before class, just to warm up and break through anxiety.

Taking the Exam

Before the exam begins, budget your time: If your allotted time is 75 minutes, then prepare to spend 15 minutes planning, 50 minutes writing, and 10 minutes reviewing. Keep track of time as you write, and stick to your plan.

When you receive the exam, read the question(s) carefully. Look for keywords, especially those telling you what to do. Keywords in the question will suggest how to structure your essay. (Several of these keywords are explained on the back of this handout.)

After you decode your question, develop your thesis statement. The thesis statement should:

1. Narrow the topic you are writing about to a single idea; 2. Convey your purpose—what you are going to do—and your opinion; 3. Provide a preview of how you’ll arrange your ideas.

After you write your thesis statement, think of at least three strong ways to prove your thesis.

Then put these ideas in a logical order. To do this, you’ll use:

1. Topic sentences (telling your reader the focus of the paragraph);

2. Transitions (referring back to earlier sentences to link ideas or paragraphs)

Exam Question Keywords

Analyze : Break a topic into its parts. Identify the parts and demonstrate how they relate to each other to make the whole.

Compare : Give detailed similarities and differences between two ideas and tell why these similarities or differences are important or significant to overall meaning.

Define : Tell what a concept/thing/event is and what it is not. Place it in a general class or group, and then explain how it is different from other members of that class or group.

Discuss/Examine : The most vague of directions, this asks you to find relationships between ideas, evaluate situations, and/or interpret statements.

Evaluate/Assess : Make a judgment about something; this leaves room for you to present more than one view on a position.

Explain : Find a relationship between things, and explain how and why this relationship works.

Illustrate : Use details/examples to show relationships between things.

Interpret : Translate what something means or explain what an author means.

Outline/Trace/Review : Organize main and subordinate points to classify the elements or stages of

development of a concept/thing/event.

Prove : Declare a point of view about a topic; then give reasons for believing it.

Thesis Statement Checklist

• Does it make an assertion (claim) about your topic?
• Does it convey your purpose, opinion, and attitude?
• Is it limited to only one strong idea?
• Is it specific?
• Does each paragraph of your essay have something to do with the thesis? 

Proofreading and Editing Checklist

• If the essay is about a literary or scholarly text, have you named the author and work in your introductory paragraph?
• If quotations have been used, have you explained why you're using them?
• Do you provide strong, clear transitions?
• Have you maintained consistent verb tense?
• Is there variety in the length, structure, and rhythm of sentences within the essay?
• Can you find any spelling errors or incorrect punctuation?
• Can you find any sentence fragments or comma splices?

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As a college student, you will often be faced with a variety of essay exams, from the short-answer essays of a few sentences to take-home exams which may require hours of planning and writing. Remember that essay exams require a comprehensive understanding of large amounts of information. Since exam questions can reach so far and wide into the course materials—and in such unpredictable ways—you cannot hope to do well on them if you are not keeping up with readings and assignments from the beginning of the course.

HOW TO PREPARE

Below are some tips to help prepare for an essay examination.

• First of all, do the reading, go to the lectures, take careful notes, participate in discussion sections and organize small study groups with classmates to explore and review course materials throughout the semester.
• As the exam approaches, find out what you can about the form it will take. Ask your instructor whether the questions will require short or long answers, how many questions there will be, whether you may choose which questions to answer, and what kinds of thinking and writing will be required of you.
• Try to avoid simply memorizing information aimlessly. As you study, you should be clarifying the important issues of the course and using these issues to focus your understanding of the specific facts and particular readings.
• Try to place all that you have learned into perspective, into a meaningful context. How do the pieces fit together? What fundamental ideas have the readings, the lectures, and the discussions seem to emphasize? How can those ideas help you to digest the information the course has covered?
• One good way to prepare yourself for an exam is by making up questions you think the instructor might give and then planning answers with classmates.
• Returning to your notes and to the assigned readings with specific questions in mind can help enormously in your process of understanding.
• It is helpful to remember that an essay exam tests more than your memory of specific information. You will often be asked to analyze and draw relationships between various texts, theories, or concepts that have been covered throughout the semester. You may even be presented with a text, theory, or concept that you have not seen before, and asked to discuss or analyze it in the context of the course materials with which you are already familiar.
• Of most importance, read the exam carefully. Before you answer a single question, read the entire exam and apportion your time realistically. Careful time management is crucial to your success on essay exams; giving some time to each question is always better than using up your time on only a few and never getting to the others.

Following are categories of exam questions, divided according to the sort of writing task involved.

Define or identify: Some questions require you to write a few sentences defining or identifying material from readings or lectures. Almost always such questions allow you only a few minutes to complete your answer.

Recall details of a specific source: Sometimes instructors will ask for straightforward summary or paraphrase of a specific source – a report, for example, or a book or film. Such questions hold the students to recounting details directly from the source and do not encourage interpretation or evaluation.

Explain the importance or significance: Another kind of essay exam question asks students to explain the importance or significance of something covered in the course. Such questions require you to use specific examples as the basis for a more general discussion of what has been studied. This will often involve interpreting a literary work by concentrating on a particular aspect of it.

Comment on a quotation: On essay exams, instructors will often ask students to comment on quotations they are seeing for the first time. Usually such quotations will express some surprising or controversial opinion that complements or challenges basic principles or ideas in the course. Sometimes the writer being quoted is identified, sometimes not. In fact, it is not unusual for instructors to write the quotation themselves.

Compare and contrast: One of the most favored essay exam questions is one which requires a comparison or contrast of the two or three principles, ideas, works, activities, or phenomena. This kind of question requires you to explore fully the relations between things of importance in the course, to analyze each thing separately, and then search out specific points of likeness or difference.

Synthesize information from various sources: In a course with several assigned readings, an instructor may give students an essay exam question which requires them to pull together (to synthesize) information from all the readings.

Summarize and explain causes and results: In humanities and social science courses much of what students study concerns the causes or results of trends, actions, and events. Therefore, it is not too surprising to find questions about causes and results on your exam. Sometimes the instructor expects students to recall causes or results from readings and lectures. At other times, the instructor may not have in mind any particular causes or results and wants to find out what students are able to propose.

Criticize or evaluate: Occasionally instructors will invite students to evaluate a concept or work. Nearly always, they want more than opinion: they expect a reasoned, documented judgment based on appropriate criteria. Such questions not only test students’ ability to recall and synthesize pertinent information; they also allow instructors to find out whether students can apply criteria taught in the course: whether they understand the standards of judgment that are basic to the subject matter.

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How to Write Good Essays in Exams (And Avoid Stress)

Blog , Pedagogy July 18, 2023

An essay is a piece of writing that presents a focused argument or explores a specific topic in a structured and coherent manner. Students often write essays in exams to assess their understanding of a subject matter, their ability to analyze and interpret information, and their skills in constructing coherent arguments. However, writing good work in exams requires careful planning, effective time management, and strong writing skills. Therefore, here is a step-by-step guide to help students write good essays for exams (and avoid stress).

Write Good Essays in Exams: A Step-By-Step Guide

Writing in exams can be challenging and stressful for many students. The step-by-step guide below will help you write good essays for exams, avoid stress and achieve better results.

Read the Instructions Carefully

Check you understand any restrictions or limitations mentioned in the instructions, such as word count, time limit, and how many questions to answer.

Read the Questions Carefully

Read through the exam paper once and then re-read each question. You might think a topic you’ve revised hasn’t come up when it is there, but the wording is unusual. Alternatively, the question might be obtuse, and you do not understand it.

Choose Your Questions Carefully

Mark any questions you might answer, and then check that you fully understand them. Do you have relevant knowledge, ideas, and evidence for the essays you plan to write?

Understand the Questions

Before you start writing, take time to read and understand the question. Underline or highlight the key points and requirements. And make sure you know what is asked of you.

Look for any keywords or phrases that indicate what you need to do, such as “explain,” “compare,” “contrast,” “define,” or “justify.”

Decide the Order You Plan to Answer Questions

Some people like to start with the topic they know best to give them a good start. Others prefer to answer their best question second because, with one essay written, they can relax, expand on their best ideas and gain a higher grade.

Plan Your Response to Write Good Essays in Exams

The stress of writing essays for exams can make all your preparation disappear. And it is essential to get your ideas across clearly and concisely in exams. So, take a few minutes to brainstorm and organize your thoughts.

Identify the main topic and discussion areas. Choose a few points or arguments about which you can write.

Make a mini-plan that puts your points/arguments in order before you start writing. This plan will serve as a roadmap for your writing and help you stay focused.

Manage Your Time

Good time management is necessary when writing essays under timed conditions. Ensure you allocate enough time for each essay section and stick to the time limit.

Divide your time according to the number of essays or sections to write.

Allocate time for each essay section, including planning, writing, and proofreading. Stick to this schedule to ensure enough time for all the necessary tasks.

Good Essays in Exams Are Clear and Concise

When writing time-constrained essays, express your ideas clearly and concisely. Avoid long, rambling sentences and focus on making your points clearly and concisely.

Write in clear and concise sentences. Avoid using overly complex language or jargon that might confuse the reader. Use specific and descriptive language to convey your ideas effectively.

Proofread and Edit

Take a few minutes at the end to review your essay. Check for any grammar, spelling, or punctuation errors. Ensure you present ideas clearly and logically. If time permits, read your work aloud to identify any awkward phrasing or unclear sentences.

Once you have finished writing, take a few minutes to edit your work. Check for spelling and grammar mistakes, and make sure your essay flows logically.

Stay Calm and Focused

Stay relaxed and focused during the exam. Read the instructions carefully, manage your time wisely, and answer the questions to the best of your ability.

Write Good Essays in Exams: Structure Your Essay

A well-structured essay will make it easier for the reader to follow your arguments and understand the ideas presented.

Therefore, students should follow some basic guidelines to ensure their answers are concise and effectively convey their knowledge and understanding of the material.

Here are some tips to help you structure your exam essay.

• Start with a Strong Introduction : To write good essays in exams, begin your essay with a compelling introduction that grabs the reader’s attention. Clearly state your thesis or main argument. And provide a brief overview of the points you will discuss. This information shows the assessor how you understand the question and how you will answer it.
• Develop Coherent Body Paragraphs : Each body paragraph should focus on a single main idea that supports your thesis. Start each section with a topic sentence that introduces the main point and provides evidence or examples to support it. Use clear and logical transitions between paragraphs to maintain a smooth flow of ideas. Moreover, develop your story!
• Provide Evidence : Support your claims with relevant evidence such as examples, statistics, or references to authoritative sources. Make sure your evidence is accurate and supports your arguments effectively. This strategy will make your essay more convincing and help you score higher marks.
• Address Counterarguments : Acknowledge and address counterarguments or opposing viewpoints. This strategy demonstrates that you have considered different perspectives and strengthens your argument. Refute counterarguments with logical reasoning and evidence.
• Conclude Effectively : Summarize your main points in the conclusion and restate your thesis. Avoid introducing new information at this stage. End with a strong closing statement that leaves a lasting impression on the reader.

What to Do if Your Mind Goes Blank

Most students fear this happening.

If it does—put your pen down, take a deep breath, sit back, and relax for a moment.

If you’re in the middle of an answer, read through what you have written so far—what happens next?

Lastly, if you can’t progress with your writing, then leave a gap! Your thoughts will probably return once you are less anxious.

What to Do if You Are Running Out of Time

Don’t panic.

Look at the questions left to answer (or essay sections left to write) and divide your remaining time to cover all the parts.

Or, perhaps you are halfway through writing an essay with 30 minutes to finish. Remember, give yourself 15 minutes to complete (or upload) your work because you may encounter technical problems!

Write economically—make your point, support it with evidence, and then move on to the next point.

If you can’t finish on time, briefly list the points you wanted to make—they could pick you up a few marks.

Referencing in Exams

Refer by name to the theorists and researchers in your subject area, also giving the year of their major works—the best you can given the time you have.

Citing a few up-to-date references in your essay demonstrates current knowledge and understanding.

For open-book exams, provide a reference list (i.e., evidence of your reading) at the end of your essay.

A reference list is not necessary for in-person exams, which are typically shorter in duration than open-book assessments. This requirement helps students focus on writing when time is at a premium.

Note. The reference section (if you require one) does not usually count towards the word limit. Moreover, there is no penalty for minor formatting deviations.

Write Good Essays in Exams: Marking Criteria

The marking criteria for written exams have a reduced emphasis on stylistic elements (e.g., APA formatting) to allow students to write good essays in exams.

However, being mindful of your marker’s needs is essential when writing good essays. For instance, understanding what they will be looking for can help you tailor your writing to meet their expectations. Plus, this will improve your chances of receiving a good grade.

Here are some things to consider when thinking about your marker’s needs (and to achieve better grades!):

• Knowledge & Understanding : Ensure you show thorough, up-to-date knowledge and comprehension of the topic by including evidence of reading beyond the key texts.
• Analysis : Ensure you examine ideas and principles beyond those introduced in the module resourcefully and imaginatively. Synthese ideas from diverse sources. Additionally, show independence of thought with critical evaluation.
• Reading & Referencing : Show clear evidence of extensive and relevant reading.
• Essay structure : Ensure your essay structure is logical, easy to follow, addresses the title, and enhances your argument and discussion.
• Use correct language : Use excellent standard written English.

Remember, writing essays for exams can be stressful, but you can succeed with careful planning and a clear strategy. So, stay calm, stay focused, and do your best.

However, a clear strategy is not enough when writing good essays for exams. Students should also be able to analyze, interpret, and synthesize the information they have learned, thus demonstrating their understanding of the subject matter.

Good luck with your exams!

Want to get the most out of your degree? Then check out my other pedagogy articles!

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9 Tips to Ace That Timed Essay

Exams are almost upon us, and a familiar sense of foreboding has settled over the campus. One exam element that can be particularly intimidating for some students is the timed essay: an exam question which demands a full essay on a topic that is typically revealed for the first time during the test. While these kinds of questions may seem scary, there are plenty of ways to make them easy for yourself. Read on for tips about how to prepare in advance of the exam and how to approach timed essays before, during, and after the writing process.

While Preparing for the Exam: Become familiar with the course content. If the professor hasn’t told you in advance what a timed essay prompt will be, it can be intimidating to think that you will have to write about a subject you’ve never seen before. However, this thinking process does not reflect the reality of the situation. In fact, even if your teacher hasn’t given you any hints about the essay question, you do know what it will be about: the concepts and ideas you’ve discussed in the course. Therefore, if you take the time to review your notes and ensure you understand everything that was discussed, it should be difficult for the essay question to catch you off guard. As soon as you read the question, relevant course concepts will start popping into your head, and you’ll just have to organize them into a coherent essay. Start planning if you can. Although the situation described above sometimes occurs, it’s also very common for professors to give their students a fairly detailed idea of what an essay question will involve in advance of the test day. (After all, professors want to mark high-quality essays written by well-prepared students!) This heads-up gives you a great chance to prepare for the exam. If you have the time, consider mapping out a possible essay in point form before the day of the exam arrives. Consider practicing writing under time pressure. You’ve probably written dozens of essays before--the only thing that sets a timed essay apart is that it’s timed. Students often struggle to complete the full essay within the time constraints, particularly if they have to write longhand when they’re accustomed to working on the computer. For this reason, it can be helpful to simulate the conditions of a timed exam before the actual day: pick a practice question, find some lined paper, set a stopwatch, and see how you do! Before You Start Writing: Read the question carefully. The most critical part of the essay-writing process actually happens before you write your first word. When you flip to the essay question, make sure you read it as carefully as you can, noting the difference between words such as ‘contrast’ and ‘analyze’ and highlighting any details which the professor specifically instructs you to include. It’s not uncommon for excellent essays to receive low marks because the student answered a question other than the one that was asked. Make a clear and specific plan. Some students react to the time pressure of essay exams by scribbling down their introduction as soon as they’ve read the question and figuring out their points as they go. While it might seem counter-intuitive, taking five or ten minutes before you start writing in order to draw up a plan will be an enormous time saver. Decide on your thesis, the topic of each paragraph, and the arguments which you intend to cover, then jot down some quick point-form notes. This process won’t take long, and, once you complete it, all that’s left will be to expand those notes into a well-organized essay. Without a clear plan, you run the risk of realizing partway through that you’ve drifted off topic or written yourself into a corner, and fixing these mistakes will consume a ton of extra time. Schedule a set time for each paragraph. On the topic of planning, it’s important to sketch out an idea of how long you want to spend on each section of your essay. (If you know the number of paragraphs you’ll need to write ahead of time, you can do this before the exam even starts!) Take note of the amount of time allotted for the exam and split it into reasonably-sized segments, leaving some time at the end for revision if possible. Without a schedule to follow, it’s easy to become too focused on a single paragraph and run out of time to finish the essay. While You’re Writing: Write clearly and double-space. This tip may seem basic, but it’s easy to forget and it can make a big difference. Both these measures won’t just make it easier for the marker to read your paper; they'll also help you write it. If you have time left at the end of the exam for review, having the ability to skim quickly through your work and write revisions in blank spaces will be incredibly helpful.

Keep yourself on schedule.  Remember the paragraph-based schedule we discussed above? It’ll be useless if you don’t do regular check-ins during the exam. Keep an eye on the clock to ensure you’re always on track. If you realize that you’re falling dangerously behind schedule, it might be necessary to cut some arguments or examples you planned to include. Although making these omissions can be painful, it’s better to leave out a few points from one section than to leave out an entire paragraph because you ran out of time. Don’t worry too much about editing and revision before you finish. When composing essays, many students stop and read over each paragraph once they finish it, making sure that it’s well-written and free of errors before advancing to the next one. This approach is entirely logical when there’s no time pressure involved, but it can actually work against you during an exam. Perfecting paragraphs is a time-consuming process, and, if you spend too much time editing before the essay is finished, you might have to rush through the last few sections or leave them out entirely. For this reason, it’s best to focus on producing a complete first draft before you worry about edits and revisions.

After You’ve Finished Writing: Re-read the question and ensure you’ve addressed all parts. The most important part of writing an essay exam is ensuring that you’re answering the question was posed. Even if you made sure you were interpreting everything correctly before you began, you may have forgotten to address a subquestion or integrate an example as you were writing. Before you submit, read the prompt again and make sure your completed essay matches up! Edit if you have time. If you have enough time left over, read your essay again and make corrections. When you’re working under time pressure, it’s easy to make grammar mistakes or produce hard-to-follow sentences; the final few minutes are your chance to clean up those errors. Unless if you finished way ahead of schedule, don’t worry about major revisions like reorganizing the structure of the essay--it’s better to hand in an essay with an imperfect structure than a paper that’s impossible to follow because you had to stop halfway through the revision process.

Remember to have the right perspective. Once you hand your exam to the professor, relax! It’s easy to work yourself up after an essay exam when you didn’t get the chance to read your work over or you feel like your arguments were weak. However, it’s important to keep in mind that your professor understands the circumstances under which the essay was written. They’re fully aware of the time pressure you were dealing with, and they will judge your work far differently than they would judge a typical essay with a deadline set weeks after the assignment date. If you did your best to write a complete, clear, and insightful essay within the time allotted, you should have nothing to worry about. Best of luck during the upcoming exam season!

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By Anna Borges

Multitasking is just the way many of us live. How often do you text while stuck in traffic, lose track of a podcast while doing chores, or flutter between the news and your inbox?

“We get stuck in this multitasking trap even without realizing that we’re doing it,” said Nicole Byers, a neuropsychologist in Calgary, Alberta, who specializes in treating people with burnout.

There are a few reasons for our collective habit, she added. Most of us avoid boredom if we can, Dr. Byers explained, and multitasking is a reliable way to ward it off.

There’s also a lot of pressure to do it. “How many times have we seen a job posting that says, ‘Must be an excellent multitasker’?” she asked. “Our modern world — where so many of us spend most of the day on screens — really forces our brain to multitask.”

The fact remains that we’re not great at doing it, and it’s not great for us. But there are ways we can be smarter in our approach.

Your brain on multitasking

First, “multitask” itself is typically a misnomer. According to experts, it’s not possible to do two things at once — unless we can do one without much thinking (like taking a walk while catching up with a friend).

“Usually, when people think they’re multitasking, they’re actually switching their attention back and forth between two separate tasks,” said Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, and author of “Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity.”

Let’s consider what happens when you engage in a single task like cooking dinner. From the moment you decide what to make, different regions of your brain, collectively referred to as the cognitive control network, collaborate to make it happen, said Anthony Wagner, a professor of psychology at Stanford and the deputy director of the university’s Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute.

This network includes areas of your brain that are involved in executive function, or the ability to plan and carry out goal-oriented behavior. Together they create a mental model of the job at hand and what you need to accomplish it. Your brain might do this, Dr. Wagner said, by drawing on both external and internal information, like the ingredients in your fridge or your memory of the recipe.

Dr. Mark compared this process to drawing on a mental whiteboard. But if your friend calls you to rant about her day, that whiteboard gets wiped clean. “Every time you switch your attention to a new task, your brain has to reorient itself,” she said.

If you know the dish like the back of your hand or your chat is nice and breezy, switching might be simple. But the more effort each task takes, the more your brain has to sort through competing information and separate goals.

The downsides of multitasking

As you would probably expect, the potential harm varies depending on the activity and how adept you are at doing it. But, generally, “when we switch between tasks, we pay what’s been dubbed a ‘switch cost,’” Dr. Wagner said. “We’re going to be slower and less accurate than we would have been if we stayed on a single task.”

Speed and precision aren’t the only risks, either. Multitasking is more cognitively demanding, even when we’re doing things we find enjoyable or easy. When we multitask, we can tax our working memory, or our ability to hold and handle information in our mind , Dr. Byers explained. “The more we overload that system and the more we’re trying to keep in our brains at once, the more mental fatigue it can lead to,” she said. And other studies have found that multitasking can set our heart racing, raise our blood pressure, trigger anxiety, dampen our mood and negatively impact our perception of the work at hand.

How to focus on one thing at a time

Dr. Mark suggested you start by observing yourself throughout the day, noticing when and how you task-switch without realizing it. From there, the advice is simple yet challenging: You’ll need to practice monotasking, or doing one thing at a time, to gradually retrain your focus and build your tolerance.

Monotasking might be easiest during times when you mentally perform best, Dr. Mark said. It differs from person to person, but in one workplace study , she and her colleagues found that most people’s ability to tackle challenging work peaked around midmorning and midafternoon.

If you’re struggling, start small. Can you monotask for five minutes? How about 10? “When it comes to our brains, slow and steady is always a good strategy,” Dr. Byers said.

When to keep multitasking

Your life is probably going to include some level of task-switching, but there are ways to be more intentional about it.

Stick to your strengths. Certain activities “strain our systems and drain our brain power more or less than others,” Dr. Byers said. So if a task is stressful or requires a lot of mental effort when doing it solo, you probably won’t be better off multitasking. For example, you might be good at crocheting while watching TV, but a beginner might need full concentration to avoid skipping stitches.

Weigh the risks. Some tasks might feel like second nature, but there are still times when you want your wits about you. “Even if we feel able to do something without paying much attention, we cannot predict the unpredictable nature of the world,” Dr. Wagner said. “Highly skilled drivers can’t anticipate when a car will swerve into your lane.”

The stakes don’t have to be life or death for multitasking to be not worth it: It can leave the door open for serious mistakes at work or stop you from being as present as you want to be at home.

Find break points. When and how we switch tasks matters, too. Rather than pivoting at the drop of a distraction, Dr. Mark suggested swapping at what she called “break points,” places in your work flow where it will be “easy to pick it up again without having to do redundant work.” As you read this article you might try getting to the end before checking your notifications. If that’s not possible, you might aim for at least the end of this paragraph.

Use multitasking when it actually helps. Stacking habits , particularly activities you like with ones you don’t, can give your brain more positive reinforcement than monotasking alone. If, for instance, you’re more likely to do the dishes with the TV on, it’s probably worth sacrificing a bit of attention. “Our brains may not like change,” Dr. Byers said. “But they do really like rewards.”

Anna Borges is a freelance journalist and author of “The More or Less Definitive Guide to Self-Care.”

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Why Some Companies Grow Amid Uncertainty — and Others Don’t

• Simon Freakley
• David Garfield

A survey of 3,000 global executives suggests that it’s not strategic thinking that sets them apart. It’s their inclination to move quickly.

When you cannot base strategy on reasonably certain premises — or when those reasonable premises are undone by unforeseeable events — what is a company to do? You still have to make plans, allocate capital, and invest for the future. Some argue that agility is the key to thriving in disruptive times, but if all you do is pivot, you are just going around in circles. The annual AlixPartners Disruption Index surveys 3,000 global executives about what is knocking them sideways. Among other things, it shows that three out of five say that it is increasingly challenging to know which disruptive forces to prioritize. Amid all this, there is a group of companies doing very well: about one in five said their companies lead their industry in revenue growth. In this article, the authors dig into that 2024 data to find out what sets these companies apart, and what other companies can learn from them about setting growth strategy in an uncertain world.

Strategic planning plays a key role in helping companies anticipate and manage business cycles. But forces like emerging digital technologies, climate change, and deglobalization — not to mention “black swan” events like the Covid-19 pandemic and wars — have turned a rolling sea into a choppy one, where companies are beset by currents, crosscurrents, riptides, and squalls. This multiplicity of related, unrelated, and inter-related difficulties have one thing in common: They are unpredictable.

• SF Simon Freakley is the Chief Executive Officer of AlixPartners, a post he has held since 2015. He is based in New York.
• David Garfield is a Chicago-based partner and managing director of AlixPartners, and the global leader for the firm’s industry practices.

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