How can I write an effective conclusion to a factor based question?

The conclusion is the last part of the essay that the examiner will read, and therefore you should try to explicitly link it back to the specific question. This will tell the examiner that you have understood the exact question and will help you yourself to focus your conclusion, as you can get a bit lost whilst writing the bulk of the essay. You should aim to summarise the essay, without introducing any new points or evidence.

The main point of the conclusion is to come to a final decision regarding your answer. This does not mean that you need to come to an absolute and definite answer, as in fact the bast essays discuss the various factors of the question and place them in the context of each other. Therefore, you should aim to layer your conclusion, and assess the importance of each factor in comparison to the others. For example, you could suggest which factors were more important in the short or long term, or perhaps one was more significant because it set the background for the other factors to have an impact on the event.

A good way to decide which factor is the most important is to imagine whether the event you are discussing would have happened without each contributing factor. This means you can get a clearer understanding of the historical discussion, and give a sophisticated answer.

To end your answer, try to have a summary sentence so that the ending of the answer is not abrubt. This shouldn't introduce any new material, and a good way is to finish with a final question link to emphasise your point.