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Taking
Essay Tests—an Overview Much of what we discovered about taking tests in general and taking objective tests in particular also applies to taking essay tests. But there are a few special considerations. First, we’ll define an essay test question as one requiring at least a short paragraph for an answer (a paragraph can have from six to twelve sentences depending upon the size of your topic). Preparation ÑAnticipate essay questions you will face. Preparing for an essay test differs from preparing for an objective test. That’s why getting the answer to The Second Great Study Skills Question (“What kind of test will I face?”) is so important. Because of the time needed to answer essay questions, an essay test will have only a limited number of questions. This you can use to your advantage because you can anticipate the questions you will face and have a good chance of guessing at least a few of the questions beforehand. Here’s how to do it: A few days before the actual essay test, review the material the test will cover. From this material, collect five or six general questions you anticipate you will see on the real test. Search for broad questions rather than detail questions since essay questions are typically about general ideas—ideas an entire lecture or a large part of a chapter covered. Write each question on a separate sheet of paper. That’s right, pretend you are the instructor and actually write out the questions you anticipate you will see on the real test. For each question, create a list of points a good answer would contain. Then “box and label” and memorize each list of points, using a catchword or catchphrase label. Remember to practice “opening the box” over and over with your catchword or catchphrase label. Why is this worth it? Let’s say the actual test has six questions, three of which you had anticipated and prepared for. That means that you, in effect, saw one-half of the real test days before you took it. Not a bad reward for the effort. Technique If all essay questions on the test are the same point value (please see Example A below), follow the advice for taking objective tests—The Eight Steps for Taking Objective Tests—found on our website and in our study skills packet: Spill out your catchword or catchphrase labels, answer the easier questions first, etc. If the essay questions are of different values (please see Example B below), answer the questions worth the most points first, working toward the questions that are less valuable. In this way, you can direct your test-taking energy to the most valuable questions when your mind is the freshest and you writing is neatest. More importantly, if you do run out of time, only the answers to the least valuable questions will be affected. ÑIf point values of the questions are not specified on the test, be sure to ask.
Time Management and the Three Steps Nowhere in school is time management more important than when taking an essay test, so control the time rather running out of it at the end because you are unaware of its passing. Quality essay answers require the following three steps to be done in a limited amount of time: Step 1: Planning (making a quick scratch outline); Step 2: Writing (actually writing the sentences and paragraphs; and Step 3: Editing (checking your writing to be sure it says what you want it to say). By far, planning is the most important step since your answer will be poor if your plan is poor. Good plans make for good answers, so before you begin writing sentences, do these things: First, locate both the subject and the structure word in the answer. The subject your answer is supposed to cover is fairly easy to locate, but many students skim over the structure word, which is almost as important. Structure words include compare, contrast, list, support, give examples, discuss, criticize, summarize, etc. Be sure your answer reflects the structure asked in the question because if it doesn’t you’ll most likely lose points even though you wrote about the correct subject. If you anticipated the particular essay question, your plan is the “box and label” list of points you memorized beforehand and wrote in the margin next to the question when you spilled out your memory training devices. Simply put this list in the proper order and you are ready for Step 2: Writing the sentences. If you did not anticipate the particular question, spend your planning minutes brainstorming and writing a list of points on a piece of scratch paper. Once your brainstormed list is complete, organize the items in the order you will write about them. Then closely follow your plan as you draft your answer. The 1-3-1 Ratio Here is one method to budget your test time: Determine how much time you can spend on each essay answer and apply the 1-3-1 ratio to it. This means that for every 3 minutes you will write sentences, you will have allowed 1 minute for planning and reserve 1 minute for editing. So if you budget 5 minutes for a particular essay answer, you will use 1 minute to plan, 3 minutes to write, and 1 minute to edit or 1-3-1. If, for example, you can budget 20 minutes for an essay answer, the 1-3-1 ratio would yield 4 minutes to plan, 12 minutes to write the sentences, and 4 minutes to edit. ÑNote that for a 20-minute question, you probably would not need all 4 of the planning minutes for planning nor would you need all 4 of the editing minutes for editing. Minutes saved on two these steps could be applied to more time to write the sentences since actually writing the sentences is the most time-consuming step in the process. Below we revisit our two essay test examples. Both examples assume we have 50 minutes to complete the essay test. In Example A, the questions are of equal value so we can budget about 10 minutes per question. Applying the 1-3-1 ratio, we budget 2 minutes to plan, 6 minutes to write sentences, and 2 minutes to edit.
The test in Example B poses a problem: Here we face questions of different values. To solve this, we just do the math. The entire test is worth 50 points and we have about 50 minutes to complete it.
Since we’ll begin with Question Five, the most valuable question, we will budget 4 minutes to plan, 12 minutes to write sentences, and reserve 4 minutes to edit our answer. We will next move to the 10-point questions, numbers three and four. The 1-3-1 ratio yields 2 minutes to plan, 6 minutes to write sentences, and 2 minutes to edit. Finally, we will finish with the two 5-point questions. For these we will budget 1 minute to plan, 3 minutes to write sentences, and 1 minute to edit. If we began this test at 10:30, our clock checkpoints would be as follows: Complete Question Five by 10:50; complete Question Three by 11:00; Question Four by 11:10; Question One by 11:15; and Question Two by 11:20. One option is to save the editing minutes for the end of the test. This has the advantage of giving our minds some “space” from our earlier answers so we can better locate mistakes to correct when we edit. The disadvantage is that we may run out of class time before we get to those editing minutes. Remember, editing can recapture anywhere from 5 to 10 percent of the points you might lose, so don’t skip this step. ÑPlease note that our technique does not allow time to recopy an essay answer. You shouldn’t need to recopy if you planned well. Editing marks are completely acceptable on essay answers, so remember that your answers have to be readable, not perfectly neat. |
