How do I practice writing an essay in the timed conditions?

This is usually what everybody worries about, as everyone can write a great essay if they have 6 hours available, but when it comes to writing an essay that you are completely proud of in 2 hours or less, it becomes slightly more challenging.

Something I found really helpful was starting to handwrite my essays in timed conditions from the beginning of the school year. However, I would do this in a particular way. First, I would take as much time as I needed to write a detailed plan, including quotes (as I could not take my books in for my exams) and small summaries of my point sentences. Then, I would turn on the timer and write my essay in the exact timed conditions. If the time ran out before I finished, I would mark where I got to, and try to beat that the next time I wrote an essay. As the exam got closer, (i.e. 4-5 months before the exam), I began to actually plan while writing. In the exam, I had exactly 1 hour for each essay, so I would spend 15 minutes reading the extract (if there was one) and planning, which would leave me with 5 minutes for an introduction, 10 minutes for each paragraph (considering I wrote 3 paragraphs), 5 minutes for my conclusion, and 5 minutes to read over my essay at the end. I found that with this practice, I was actually able to write 4 paragraphs in the exam because I had been practicing how to use the time given wisely for quite a while.

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Answered by Vittoria S. English Literature tutor

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