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Tips for Taking Timed Essay Exams
A large number of people in our community are High School or College Students. Here is a list of tips to help you get good grades during a “timed essay” test, sent in by one of our own.
- Plan your time wisely. This first tip may not sound all that useful. But procrastination is probably the biggest reason why bright students sometimes get poor grades. Start early. You can also plan your time during the test itself. Your professor knows which paragraphs are harder to write, and will evaluate them accordingly. Does the question ask you to “evaluate”? If so, don’t fill your page with a summary. Likewise, if the question asks for “evidence,” don’t spend all your time giving your own personal opinions.
- Start with the larger essay questions, so that you answer them before you burn out or run out of time.
- If one essay question is worth 50% of the test score, spend 50% of your time on it.
- If you finish early, you can always go back and add more detail. (As long as your additions and changes are legible, your instructor will probably be happy to see signs of revision.)
- Answer the right question. Before you begin your answer, you should be sure what the question is asking. I often grade a university composition competency test, and sometimes have to fail well-written papers that fail to address the topic the student has been given.
- Collect your thoughts. Resist the urge to start churning out words immediately. If you are going to get anywhere in an essay, you need to know where you are going.
- Leave time to revise. Too often, the only revision students do is crossing out their false starts, or explaining their way out of a corner by adding to the end of their essay. Sometimes, in the middle of a difficult paragraph, students will glance back at the question, and get a new idea. They will then hastily back out of their current paragraph, and provide a rough transition like: “But an even more important aspect is…”. They continue in this manner, like a builder who keeps breaking down walls to add new wings onto a house.
- To handle this problem when it occurs, don’t automatically add to the end of an essay — write in the margins, or draw a line to indicate where you want to insert a new paragraph.
- Leave space to revise too — write on every other line and leave the backs of pages blank, so you will have room to make legible insertions if you need to.
- Obviously, if you are writing your test on a computer, you should just insert and rearrange text as you would normally.
- Revise your thesis statement If inspiration strikes while you are in the middle of an essay, and your conclusion turns out to be nothing like you thought it would be, change your thesis statement to match your conclusion. (Assuming, of course, that your unexpected conclusion still addresses the assigned topic.)
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10 Comments
Weight Loss Tips
March 11th, 2008
at 2:29pm
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Sean Tomo
March 11th, 2008
at 11:38am
as i am going through my gcse exams this year i have really found these Really helpful.
another thing i suggest is to go to bed two hours earlier than normal and have some strong coffee on the morning exam to make your-self more vigalant
thanks for these!
Shutout
March 11th, 2008
at 12:35pm
Good tips, these are all the perfect ways for some to write better essays. “Collect your thoughts” i find this to help me the most. I use to always just spit words out onto the paper. And that is what got me into L1 English classes. Thankfully now I’m in L3 English classes
Rene
March 11th, 2008
at 1:28pm
“If one essay question is worth 50% of the test score, spend 50% of your time on it”
-I respectfully disagree.
I would recommend spending as much time needed on a question that is worth that much. That way, you will be granted the marks you deserve (depending on your final product), as opposed to the marks that you would obtain from a half done job because you didn’t give yourself enough time. At times it is important to think about the weight of the question and make sure you have answered it thoroughly- as you said, it is worth 50% of your exam…
liberator
March 11th, 2008
at 6:56pm
spend about 5 minuets collecting your thoughts that is what i always do and it has helped me a lot
tastytreats
March 11th, 2008
at 8:27pm
This is pretty cool. I am a senior in college right now, and I’m graduating in a couple of months. After reading this , I have found that I use most, if not all, of these tips for essay exams. I also found that you can apply some of these steps with “essay” questions that are additional to an exam (like multiple choice, short answer, and essay). I would have probably done better on a few of my exams if I had know some of this when I started college.
Logic
March 11th, 2008
at 9:25pm
These are pretty basic yet helpful tips on essay writing an essay in a defined period of time. This previous wed. [March 5th 2008] in which i was required to write a total of 5.5 pages of content on European history, particularly the 18th and 19th century with a span of 1.5 hours. The problem i faced was not lack of knowledge on the subject nor did i feel pressured by the constraints of time, it was the inability to clearly express my knowledge in essay form. Do you think it would be at all possible to make a “sister” article to this one with tips on being able to portray thoughts to paper in a form thats more coherent than gibberish? That would be most appreciated.
Spaminator
March 12th, 2008
at 12:05am
Hey, great tips… I have also found that if you know the type of exam you are going into and the probable topic then planning the night before is good because you have all you resources with you and can insert as much information into a plan. After you have a plan write it out by hand a couple of times i found this to be a great help in studying for all types of exams.
Sleyder
March 12th, 2008
at 8:06pm
Hello guys most of the time when i have to take any tests in colleges I always follow some step that I cosider very useful.
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!
Michael Trimm
March 15th, 2008
at 10:17am
A tip for doing well on any essay comes from my government teacher:
“Cut the flowery language, Senator Ostrich!”
Now for the Senator Ostrich part, you just had to be there…But readers do not need to see a bunch of big “advanced” words. There’s the popular acronym of KISS…Keep It Simple, Stupid. Not only do you waste time by trying to think of big words to include, it also muddles up your paper and bogs it down.
-Mike