How to Write Better Essays

tinuously and fluently, without interruption, until they had completed

the question.

It’s not difficult to see, therefore, that planning in the exam is vital

to produce a well written and fluently argued piece of work. Only by

preparing a plan can you maintain control over your material and

present your ideas in a logical, concise and coherent manner, with

support from well chosen, relevant evidence.

Improving your memory for the exam

The advantages don’t stop there. Not only does planning improve the

quality of your writing and your discussion in the exam, but in terms

of simple recall a plan is vital. As you probably know from your own

experience, the mind only works in structures. Think how difficult it is

to remember isolated items, like those things you’ve got to do through-

out the day, or a quotation, or a few lines from a play. Presented with

this sort of task, the mind attempts to create a structure, either out of

the thing itself, like a telephone number you remember because you

can see a descending or ascending structure within it, or by relating it

to other structured information you already have.

Remembering telephone numbers

Descending 444332

99877

Ascending 22344

6788

Groups 553377

881144

Bookends 683368

532453

Arithmetic progressions:

Even numbers 02468

Odd numbers 13579

Geometric progressions 24816

Mirror images 341143

Repeats 651651

934934

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