10 Tips for Writing Essay Exams

An essay exam is a type of examination that requires a respondent to write essays in response to exam questions. In some examinations, a single essay question or a set of essay questions will make up the entirety of an assessment. In other instances, essay examinations may also feature multiple choice questions and short answer questions in addition to an essay. Essay exams are advantageous since they measure your knowledge synthesis and capacity to organise your thoughts on paper. They allow you to show your instructor or examiner how well you comprehend the fundamental ideas that form the course's foundation and your analytical and writing abilities.

If you find writing essays in examinations difficult, look no further. In today’s post, we’ll be presenting you with 10 tips for writing essay exams.

Preparing for the Exam

Become more proficient in grammar, spelling, and punctuation:

Essays with good grammar, spelling, and punctuation are easier to grade since they are simpler to comprehend. Suppose an examiner reads student A's essay and is experiencing difficulty understanding what they are trying to convey because of poor grammar. Would they spend more time trying to understand student A's essay or move on to student B? It is essential that your grammar, spelling and punctuation are of an acceptable level to avoid being part of the “dreaded batch of papers”. Furthermore, your ability to master grammar will allow you to spend more time generating a compelling essay, reducing the amount of time you have to spend on proofreading.

Diction matters:

Your writing will be more captivating and convincing if you choose terms that are appropriate for the tone and aim of your essay. Avoid acronyms and colloquialisms, for instance, to retain a professional tone when writing a formal paper. To guarantee that you are utilising words appropriately, avoid employing words in your writing that you don't understand. A thesaurus or dictionary is an excellent tool for expanding your vocabulary and may help diversify your writing.

If you are preparing to write an English essay writing exam, look at our 50 Words To Impress Your English Examiner post.

Revise and review:

There is a possibility that you won't get a scope for the exam, but whatever the case, one thing is for sure: the concepts and ideas you discussed throughout the course are essential. Therefore, it is necessary to review all course material. As previously discussed, essay exams require you to function as the source of information. So, for you to be able to carry out this function successfully, you need to have the knowledge and understanding to do so.

So, now that we realise that there is no way around it, you may be wondering how to go about it. Creating a study plan will help you to organise your schedule, allocating adequate amounts of time to different parts of the course. Here you’ll find a guide to creating a study timetable which is instrumental in covering most of your course content. You can improve your study skills by creating a revision timetable, which allows you to break down the fundamental task of acing your exam into smaller, more manageable tasks.

If you struggle with procrastination, the Pomodoro Technique is a game changer. Read more about this time management strategy in our previous post: The Pomodoro Technique: How To Study When You Don't Know Where To Start

Use past exam papers:

Using past exam papers is one practical way to improve your essay writing skills because they will give you a good understanding of the exam structure, the types of questions provided, and the nature of the information required to cover while studying and revising material. You can find past exam papers in your institution's archives if you're at a college or university.

Write under pressure:

Although take-home assignments present an excellent opportunity to sharpen your writing and analytical skills, they often are written on a computer. Therefore, we encourage you to practice writing longhand within mirrored time constraints of an essay writing examination to help you feel best prepared for your exam day. Pick a practice question (you will become accustomed to the conditions of a timed exam and be able to identify any gaps in your understanding of the course content), set a stopwatch, and write. Through simulation, you can boost your confidence in your knowledge synthesis and ability to convey your thoughts.

Writing for the exam

Pinpoint what the question is asking:

To understand clearly what a question is asking, we recommend underlining the verbs in the question. Action words are always a part of essay exams, and these words largely determine the contents of your essay. Not only are you likely to misinterpret the question if you overlook the action word, but you are also likely to provide incorrect information.

Here are some examples of verbs found in essay writing exams:

Analyse the question in detail by breaking it down into various parts.
Argue either for or against the given point and use logical reasoning to support your position.
Assess the importance of something and weigh the positives and negatives.
Critique the given theory and describe its advantages or disadvantages, as well as provide evidence for your opinions.
Define and explain in significant detail what the phrase means; give it a precise definition or meaning.
Description and explanation in detail.
Discuss the question and provide a key argument; support this argument with reasoning to justify your position.
Explain in detail how something works or how it came about.
Identify key features of something.
Illustrate your point using relevant examples and a figure or diagram.
Outline the main features of a topic or event and how they relate.
Prove that a given claim is true or accurate by providing evidence and logical statements.
Relate by describing how certain ideas relate or connect and why they are similar.
Summarise the key points by identifying them and describing each with only one sentence.

4 steps for writing an essay outline:

Just pause for a moment when you are about to start writing your essay while seated at your exam table. Before you start writing your essay, we encourage you to carry out one simple but crucial task that will ensure the remainder of the writing process is smooth.

An essay outline serves numerous purposes, including assisting you in organising your thoughts, serving as a roadmap for you to follow when writing the body paragraphs, and providing readers with a brief overview of your essay.

To get started, follow these four steps:

Take a moment to consider your thesis statement. Even if you don't have the exact phrasing yet, you should have a general idea of the primary argument or claim you'll make and how you'll support it in your essay. Every argument you raise and every piece of evidence you give must connect back to your essay's ultimate objective.
Using your brainstorming notes, select the points that will most effectively achieve your essay's goal objective.
Identify the key arguments you’ll make in your essay. These will make up your body sections.
With your key topics and supporting points clearly defined, it’s time to write your outline.

Manage your time:

There are schedules for exam writing, just like there are schedules or timetables for assessment revision. In essence, it is paramount to approximate how long you will be spending on each body section of your essay. This task will become effortless if you know the number of paragraphs you’ll produce (use your drafted essay outline to determine this). To successfully schedule set times for every segment of your essay, you need to factor in the time allotted for the entire assessment and split it into reasonably-sized chunks, leaving some time at the end for proofreading and editing (if necessary).

Always proofread your work:

When you're under time constraints, it's easy to make grammatical mistakes or write complex and challenging sentences; the final few minutes are your chance to fix such errors. Reading through your work also helps you to determine whether or not you've addressed the essay question thoroughly If you realise you didn't provide an example for a point you discussed, you can incorporate it before submitting it.

Things to avoid:

We understand that sitting down for an exam can be stressful and feeling stressed can often lead to you blanking out during the exam. You may run out of time or find that a large chunk of the exam is dedicated to a part of the course you didn't find time to revise. It is possible to avoid these negative experiences by planning and managing your time well.

When writing your essay, keep the following things in mind:

Avoid excuses:

If you are unable to complete the exam or if you did not study adequately for the exam due to extenuating circumstances, do not put this on your exam response sheet. Your course coordinator is the best person to talk to if you have any concerns. However, it's important to stress that being underprepared for the assessment is not an acceptable justification. Always be accountable for your academic progress, which includes giving yourself adequate time to review course content in depth.

Avoid the “kitchen sink” approach:

Students often summarise all their knowledge about a subject without relating it to the question. Each part of your response should support your thesis and aid in addressing the question. Don't leave it up to the examiner to find the related points; instead, explain what the material means or why it is pertinent.

Don’t “pad” your answer:

Examiners will give no credit for irrelevant or exaggerated content. Therefore, if you get stuck, you can always elaborate on what you know and not focus on what you do not know, as long as it directly relates to the question.

Considerations:

Read the question and note what kind of information the question requires you to present. Remember that this first step is the most crucial, missing one part of a question or misunderstanding it can cost you a lot of marks.
Make a list of principal arguments or points you want to include in your answer, having an answer key like this can help you not to forget crucial points and enables you to mark off each time you cover points.
Use an essay answer key: introduction, body, and conclusion. (If you run out of time to write a full conclusion, writing your thoughts in point form can still help you gain marks.
Remember to add one concept to every paragraph to provide a coherent flow of ideas.
Make sure that your handwriting is legible, instructors will only mark content they can read and understand so don’t forfeit these easy marks. Nothing is more frustrating for an examiner than spending longer reading over someone's essay exam because they are having trouble making sense of what is written.
Although grammar, punctuation and spelling aren’t as significant in an essay as an assignment (unless you are writing an essay exam for English), you should still maintain a good writing standard. If you are preparing to write an English essay writing exam, look at our 50 Words To Impress Your English Examiner post.

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