Nothing can take the place of knowing the subject well, so you can start preparing for an essay examination well beforehand.

Class notes

You may want to outline a reading assignment, list its main points, list and define its key terms, or briefly summarize its argument. A particularly effective method is to divide your notes into two categories, labeling each. Then, as you read, use the left side to record material from your reading, such as summaries of major points and noteworthy quotations. On the right, record questions that your reading has not answered, puzzling ideas, and your own comments. This note-taking encourages active, critical reading and, combined with careful class notes, will do much to prepare you.

In addition to taking careful, detailed notes, you can prepare by writing out essay answers to questions you think are likely to appear on the exam. Practicing ahead of time is much more effective than last-minute cramming. On the day of the exam, do ten to fifteen minutes of writing just before you go into the examination to warm up your thinking muscles.

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Question analysis

Before you begin writing, read the question carefully several times, and analyze what it asks you to do. Most essay examination questions contain two kinds of terms, strategy terms that describe your task in writing the essay and content terms that define the scope and limits of the topic.

Since not all strategy terms mean the same thing in every discipline, be sure you understand exactly what the term means in context of the material covered on the examination. In general, however, the most commonly used strategy terms have standard meanings. Don’t hesitate to ask your instructor to clarify terms you’re unsure of.

If strategy terms are not explicitly stated in an essay question, you need to infer a strategy from the content terms. For example, a question that mentions two groups working toward the same goal may imply comparison and contrast, and a question referring to events in a given time period may imply summary.

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Outlines

You may be tempted to begin writing your essay examination at once. Time is precious—but so are organizing and planning. So spend some time (about 10 percent of the allotted time is a good rule of thumb) thinking through your answer.

Begin by deciding which major points you need to make and in what order to present them. Jot down support for each point. Craft a clear, succinct thesis that satisfies the strategy term of the exam question. In most writing situations, you start from a working thesis, but when writing under pressure you will probably find it more efficient to outline (or simply jot down) your ideas and craft your thesis from your outline.

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Sample: A student’s essay preparation for an essay examination

A student in a first-year American history course had fifty-five minutes to answer two of three essay questions and three of five short-answer questions. She chose to answer the following question first.

Between 1870 and 1920, African Americans and women both struggled to establish certain rights. What did each group want? Briefly analyze the strategies each group used, and indicate how successful they were.

This student began with this question because she knew the most about this topic. With another essay and three short answers to write, she decided to devote no more than twenty minutes to this essay.

First, she analyzed what the question asked her to do, noting the strategy terms. She decided that the first sentence of the question strongly implied comparison and contrast of the two struggles. The second sentence asked for an explanation of the goals of each group, and in the third sentence, she took analyze and indicate to mean “explain what each group did and how well it succeeded.” (As it turned out, this was a very shrewd reading of the question; the instructor later remarked that those who had included a comparison and contrast produced better answers than those who did not.) Note that, in this instance, the strategy the instructor expected is not stated explicitly in the question. Instead, class members were expected to read between the lines to infer the strategy.

The student identified content terms around which to develop her answer: the groups—African Americans and women—and their actions, goals, strategies, and degrees of success. Using these terms, she spent about three minutes producing the following informal outline:

From this outline, the student crafted the following thesis: In the years between 1870 and 1920, African Americans and women were both fighting for equal rights but in significantly different ways. She then wrote a brief answer that compared the strategies and successes of each group’s struggle.

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For Multilingual Writers: Writing notes in your own language