how to remember an essay for an exam

How to memorise essays and long responses

Lauren Condon

Marketing Specialist at Atomi

When it comes to memorising essays or long responses for your exams, there are three big things to consider.

• Should you even try to memorise an essay?
• Do you know how to adapt your memorised response to the exam question?
• How on earth are you meant to memorise a 1,200 word essay??

It’s a lot to weigh up but we can help you out here. If you want an answer to the first question, here’s one we prepared earlier. But wait, there’s more! If you’re super keen to read more about question #2, then go ahead and click here .

And for that third point on how to actually memorise a long essay? Well, all you have to do is keep reading...

1. Break it down

Your essay/long response/creative writing piece could be anywhere between 800 and 1,200 words long. Yeah… that’s a lot. So when it comes to memorising the whole thing, it’s a lot easier to break the answer down into logical chunks and work on memorising it bit by bit.

So if you want to memorise your Discovery Essay, you might have something like this:

• Introduction
• Theme 1 with the assigned text
• Theme 1 with the related text
• Theme 2 with the assigned text
• Theme 2 with the related text

You’re going to want to memorise the paragraphs and pay attention to the structure then you can piece it all together in the exam. Having a killer structure makes it a lot easier to remember the overall bones of this situation and if you’re finding this effective, you can even break those body paragraphs down further like topic sentence > example > explanation > connection to thesis.

2. Use memory tricks

Now, there are lots of different strategies and approaches when it comes to memorising a long piece of writing. Moving in sections, you can try reading it out loud over again (slowly looking at the paper less and less) or the classic look-cover-write-check approach. If you’re really struggling, make some of your own flashcards that have the first sentence on one side and the next sentence on the back so you can test your progress.

You could also enlist the help of some creative mnemonics (memory tricks) to remind you which sentence or section needs to come next. Pick one keyword from each sentence in the paragraph and turn them into a silly sentence to help you remember the structure of the paragraph and to make sure you don’t forget one of your awesome points.

3. Play to your strengths

Not all of us are super geniuses that can just read an essay and then memorise the entire thing but we’re all going to have our own strengths. There’s going to be something whether it’s art, music, writing, performance or sport that just ‘clicks’ in your brain and this is what you want to capitalise on. So for me, I was really into debating and public speaking (hold back the jokes please) and was used to giving speeches and remembering them. So whenever I wanted to memorise a long response, I would write out the essay onto palm cards and then practice it out loud like a speech. Did it annoy my family? Yes. Was I too embarrassed to tell people my strategy? Yes. Did it work? Absolutely. 💯

Whatever your strengths are, find a way to connect them to your essay and come up with a creative way of learning your long response that will be much easier and more effective for you!

4. Start early

So you know how there’s that whole long-term/short-term memory divide? Yeah well that’s going to be pretty relevant when it comes to memorising. You’re going to have a much better chance of remembering your long response if you start early and practice it often, instead of trying to cram it in the night before… sorry.

The good news is, you still have a couple of months before the HSC so try to get your prepared response written, get good feedback from your teachers and then make it perfect so it’s ready to go for the HSC. Then, the next step is to start memorising the essay now and test yourself on it fairly regularly all the way up to your exams. This way, you have plenty of time to really lock it deep into your memory.

5. Test yourself

The final and maybe even most important step is to test yourself. And not with flashcards or the look-cover-check-repeat anymore. Once you’ve got the essay memorised pretty well, you want to spend the weeks coming up to HSC doing past questions so you can practice

• Having the essay memorised
• Being able to recall it under pressure
• Adapting it to any question so that all your hard work will actually pay off

For this to work, you really need to commit 100% to exam conditions (no cheating!) and it’s definitely worth sending those responses to your teacher to get them marked. That way, you will actually know if you’re doing a good job of remembering the core of your argument but also tailoring it perfectly to the question.

Any subject with essays or long responses can be super daunting so if you want to have a pre-written, adaptable response ready to go then it’s worth making sure you can actually memorise it for your exam. Remember to break down the essay into sections, play to your memory strengths and make sure you consistently test yourself all the way up to HSC. That should do the trick. 👌

Published on

July 28, 2017

Recommended reads

What to do in the school holidays: Term 1

Strategies for using retrieval

The syllabus: your key to smashing your studies

What's atomi.

Engaging, curriculum-specific videos and interactive lessons backed by research, so you can study smarter, not harder.

With tens of thousands of practice questions and custom revision sessions, you won’t just think you’re ready. You’ll know you are!

Study skills strategies and tips, AI-powered revision recommendations and progress insights help you stay on track.

Short, curriculum-specific videos and interactive content that’s easy to understand and backed by the latest research.

Active recall quizzes, topic-based tests and exam practice enable students to build their skills and get immediate feedback.

Our AI understands each student's progress and makes intelligent recommendations based on their strengths and weaknesses.

• ALL ARTICLES
• How To Study Effectively
• Motivation & Stress
• Smarter Study Habits
• Memorise Faster
• Ace The Exam
• Write Better Essays
• Easiest AP Classes Ranked
• Outsmart Your Exams
• Outsmart Your Studies
• Recommended Reads
• For Your Students: Revision Workshops
• For Your Teaching Staff: Memory Science CPD
• Our Research: The Revision Census
• All Courses & Resources
• For School Students and Their Parents
• For University Students
• For Professionals Taking Exams
• Study Smarter Network
• Testimonials

BEST Memorisation Techniques For Exams: The Secret Science Of How To Remember What You Study

by William Wadsworth | Feb 28, 2019

by William Wadsworth

The Cambridge-educated memory psychologist & study coach on a mission to help YOU ace your exams . Helping half a million students in 175+ countries every year to study smarter, not harder. Supercharge your studies today with our time-saving, grade-boosting “genius” study tips sheet .

Pretty recently – the last decade or so – scientists have reached broad agreement that there is one memorisation technique for exams and tests that, above all others, will solve the age-old question of how to remember what you study.

Before I tell you what the technique is, I was shocked to learn that as few as 7% of college-level students (and possibly even fewer students at high school) say they are using this technique as their main revision strategy.

So what’s the technique?

It’s called “ retrieval practice ”, and it’s based on the act of trying to pull information out of your memory.

It seems counter-intuitive at first that trying to remember something helps you to learn it, but you’ll be astonished at how powerful this strategy can be for getting information locked away in memory, ready for when you need it.

Read on to discover:

• how retrieval practice works
• why it’s so useful
• and precisely how you should be using retrieval practice memorisation techniques to prepare for exams – including some common mistakes people often make when applying it.

What is “retrieval practice” and how can it help you to remember what you study?

When psychologists talk about “retrieving” something from memory, they mean recalling it, or remembering it. So “retrieval practice” just means practising remembering a piece of information you previously read, heard or saw.

A common misunderstanding – one I held myself for many years when studying for exams in high school – is that testing yourself on what you know only serves to “check” how much you know at that point, i.e. it won’t help you actually learn information.

We now know that’s not true.

A gigantic review of hundreds of studies testing how well various memorisation techniques prepared students for exams or tests concluded that, above all other techniques, retrieval practice (or “practice testing” as the review called it) was the most powerful.

The results from many of these studies were astonishing: students often improved by a whole grade (or more!) when learning using retrieval practice.

Part of the problem is that our own intuitions as students about what learning techniques are working for us are often flawed.

I highly recommend you take a look at a guest post I’ve written for my friends at Titanium Tutors, where I explain a fascinating experiment that beautifully demonstrates how our intuitions often lead to us making bad decisions about how to revise – and what we can do about it.

Benefits of using retrieval practice to learn for exams, and how it helps you to learn information

Retrieval practice works in a number of ways:

• Helps you lock information into memory: the very act of pulling a piece of information out of your memory means you can remember it more easily later on.
• Helps you find the gaps in your knowledge: by testing yourself, you’ll have a better idea of what you know and where you need to do more work.
• Helps you apply information to new contexts: it’s not just about learning the facts, studying using retrieval practice makes it more likely that you will be able to figure out unfamiliar problems based on what you know, make leaps of intuition, and apply knowledge in new ways. These are all skills often demanded by the questions that unlock top marks in exams.

The first of these is probably the most important of these effects, but also the most surprising: it can seem strange at first that simply trying to remember something will strengthen your memory of that information, making it easier to remember it later.

But think of it like this: a big chunk of success in most exams comes down to simply being able to remember the information from your course. In other words, the exam tests your memory of what you learned.

Let me give you an analogy. If you’re training for the Olympics, you’ll train for your chosen sport first and foremost by practising that sport .

For example:

If you’re a long jumper, your most important training will be practising jumping.

But if you’re a weightlifter, your most important training will be practising lifting weights.

And if you’re a 100m runner, your most important training will be practising sprinting.

So given that, if you’re a student preparing for exams that are largely tests of memory, your most important training should be practising remembering information .

Sure, you’ll need to do other things too – the runner will need to spend time in the gym doing leg exercises, and the student will need to spend time (re-)reading unfamiliar material, or working on their exam technique, or how they structure their essays. But the focus for getting knowledge under your belt and into your memory should be retrieval practice.

I often say to my more sporty students that the moment in which you’re trying to remember a fact is the “rep” (a “rep” is a single component of an exercise that makes you stronger – a single press-up, a single bicep curl, or a single pull-up in a set).

Fascinatingly, whether you succeed in pulling the fact you’re searching for out of your memory or not, you’ll still have done some good !

How to memorise for exams with retrieval practice strategies

So how to apply all of this when studying?

Here are some of my favourite retrieval practice based memorisation techniques for exams and tests you can start using today:

• Write what you know from memory on a blank sheet: a plain sheet of paper is a very under-rated study tool! Put your books away, then scribble down everything you can remember about a topic. After you’ve squeezed out as much as you can from memory, you might like to go back and add in any missing details in a different coloured pen. Next time you train yourself on this topic, aim to have fewer missing details – until you have none at all come the week before the exam!
• Draw concept maps from memory: a slightly more sophisticated variant on the “blank sheet” method is drawing concept maps based on what you know of a topic. A concept map links ideas together visually, putting ideas in boxes, and linking them together with arrows to show how they relate. Unlike mind maps, they are quick to draw, placing more importance on getting the right information down on the page, with a sensible structure around it, rather than spending too long making the final result sumptuously beautiful (I know it’s fun… but you’re not going to be graded on your artwork at the end of the day! Unless you’re studying Art, of course…) Here’s an example of a concept map summarising what you might need to know about rates of reaction in chemistry:

Got stuck sequencing my GCSE rates lessons until I made a concept map inspired by @Mr_Raichura ’s #CogSciSci talk. It works! pic.twitter.com/a7oRW1IueW — Elizabeth Mountstevens (@DrMountstevens) August 18, 2018

• Practice questions: Work through exercises from your text book or revision guide. Answer real exam questions. Or even make up your own quiz questions – I know some students who like to revise by first reading through their notes, making a list of their own “quiz questions” they know they will need to be able to answer to prove they know that topic properly. Then they put their notes away, and take the quiz.
• Train with flash cards: start by making them, and then use them! Flash cards are my favourite way to learn large amounts of information quickly, and through long experience (both my own, and coaching students), there are some very specific steps you need to take to get the most out of studying with flash cards.

Psst… why not grab a free copy of my “science of learning cheat sheet”, which includes a deep-dive “DOs and DONTs” to get the most out of retrieval practice techniques like flash cards:

Free: Exam Success Cheat Sheet

My Top 6 Strategies To Study Smarter and Ace Your Exams

Privacy protected because life’s too short for spam. Unsubcribe anytime.

Whichever of these techniques you’re using, keep your notes away until you’ve had a good try at remembering. Then you can check your notes (or the mark scheme, if you’re doing past exam questions) and give yourself feedback on where you went wrong.

This feedback step, understanding where you missed things or slipped up, is a very important part of the overall learning process, so don’t skimp on it.

If you find you can’t reliably remember a particular aspect of a topic, you’ll know to prioritise giving that issue some extra time until you have it nailed.

Don’t make these mistakes when using retrieval practice

Even the best memory techniques in the world won’t work properly if not applied correctly. Some traps to avoid when you’re using retrieval practice techniques in your studies:

1. Some difficulty is good, but if it’s too hard, make it easier…

If you can barely remember anything in a topic, no matter how hard you try, you probably need to back up a step.

Going back and re-reading your notes at this point is OK, and if you’re struggling to go from re-reading to remembering at least a good chunk of what you’ve just read, you need to break it up into smaller chunks.

Take what you’re trying to learn one segment at a time, get comfortable retrieving each segment on its own, then start to string them together.

Or for tricky memory jobs, try using intermediate prompts as “stepping stones” to jog your memory while also giving it space to do at least some retrieval practice. 

Here are a few fun and creative ideas for how you could use “stepping stones” in practice, to build up gradually to remembering the whole thing from scratch. The video is about remembering English literature quotes (hard!), but some of the ideas here could easily be applied to other subjects, from recalling maths formulas to learning anatomical terms:

2. But if it’s too easy, you need to make it harder

On the other hand, if you break something up so small that it becomes trivial to remember, you’re not giving yourself enough of a memory workout and the benefits will be limited.

Say you’re trying to learn the formula for a chemical compound – you could learn it one atom at a time, and test yourself on each atom in the seconds after looking at it. With such small amounts of information and no delay before trying to remember it, you won’t even break a sweat as you recall each atom perfectly – but what you’ve learned won’t stick in memory for long.

So if it feels too easy, try going for larger chunks of knowledge, or leaving more of a gap between re-reading information and doing retrieval practice on it.

3. Don’t let yourself get away with not fully knowing something!

Let’s say you’re working with flashcards. You might feel like you almost knew it, flip the card, find something familiar, and say “ah yes, I did know that”.

But beware! You didn’t, did you?

Train with discipline: give yourself a good moment to rummage through your brain for the information, and if it’s not there, note it down as a missed effort and come back to it again.

Remember, even failing to remember something is useful memory training as long as you gave it a good try!

Though obviously your goal is to succeed in remembering things, so pay special attention to the things you couldn’t remember at the end of the session, and in your review at the end of the day.

4. Remembering something once doesn’t prove you’ll know it forever

Just because you know it today, doesn’t mean you’ll remember it tomorrow, or next week. Some scientists recommend aiming for at least 3 successful retrieval attempts before deciding you “know” something – though you might need more, depending on how long you’ve got before your exam, and how complex the information is.

5. If you’re trying to remember something complex, write it down

If you’re trying to remember a long formula, big number, quote, list, or diagram, you won’t be able to hold it all in your brain at once.

Say you need to remember a list of 7 factors.

By the time you’re trying to remember the sixth item, you can’t be sure whether you’re remembering a sixth that you hadn’t already thought of, or whether you’re actually just re-listing one of the items you’d already come up with!

So get the component parts out of your head and down on a sheet of paper as you think of them, so your memory is freed up to focus on remembering the missing information, and you can be certain you’ve got it all.

At first, retrieval practice won’t feel like the easiest way to memorise for exams, but stick with it!

You’re in elite study territory now: any student that decides to apply all of this properly will have a massive head-start on their peers when it comes to learning information for their exams.

Retrieval practice is incredibly powerful, but, let’s be honest, trying to pull information out of your brain is going to feel like harder work than just sitting back and re-reading your notes again!

A lot of students feel they prefer other ways to study for your exams: re-reading, highlighting, making notes or summarising are all very popular choices.

But here’s the thing:

Our own intuitions about what study techniques work best are really bad! Studies have repeatedly shown that “feel good” study methods that students like best (probably because they don’t take quite so much effort!) are having relatively small benefits, comparing to slightly more effortful but much more effective memorisation techniques for exams like retrieval practice.

Trust the science, and give it a go: you will be astonished at the results!

Ooooh, and just before you go… don’t leave without your copy of my “Science of Learning Cheat Sheet”: my four all-time fave strategies for studying smarter. Retrieval practice is absolutely on the list – but make sure you check out the other techniques too!

The Science Of Studying Smart

Download my free exam success cheat sheet: all my #1 must-know strategies to supercharge your learning today.

Your privacy protected. No spam. Unsubscribe any time.

• Latest Posts

• What Should You Do The Day Before An Exam? 5 Foolproof Steps To Exam-Day Confidence - 24 May 2024
• Cognitive Load Theory “Brain Hacks” For Students – Ollie Lovell [PODCAST] - 13 May 2024
• John Dunlosky: Study Like A Champ [PODCAST] - 6 May 2024

18 Comments

This is an interesting and informative post on memorization techniques that can help students remember what they study during exams. It’s great to know about the science behind effective memory retention, and I look forward to learning more from this article.

How do you do the method on a day before your exam?

How can I remember what I read on the day of exam

1. Re. how to do the methods the day before an exam – it’s exactly the same. You might also like to check out my guide to exam-week / test-taking technique https://geni.us/exams .

2. Re. how to remember what you read on the day of the exam: “READ” is the key word that jumped out at me here! If all you’re doing is reading, it’s really hard to remember. Check out more effective study methods at https://examstudyexpert.com/how-to-study-effectively/

Am definitely trying out the retrieval practice cos am about to write an exam

Brilliant – good luck with it! It will probably feel hard at first – that feeling is the feeling of your memory building, keep going 🙂

Thanks for this enlightening . It really open my understanding to some things that u have been doing that are actually mKingm my brain weaker

Okay, this is seriously the first time I actually really enjoyed what I was reading and continued it till the end (considering English is not my mother language and I normally get tired and bored pretty fast). I also listened to one of your podcasts. Your content is really fascinating and helpful. Thank you.

That’s lovely feedback – thank you so much for sharing, Florentina. I hope you’re finding some useful ideas – anything else we can do to support, just let me know!

This was one of the first articles I read from this website – and I’m so glad I did! Tried and tested these tips myself and they work wonders – smart studying is the way to go 🙂

This is one of the most incredible blogs I’ve read in a very long time. The amount of information here is stunning. Great stuff; please keep it up!

I’ve been using retrieval practice for several years, after reading about it in a book by researchers in the field. Some other things that are necessary: 1. Retrieval practice is great for improving factual information for factual exams, but is less helpful for exams that require applying remembered knowledge to new situations. The main issue here is that students need to do more than just remember things, they need to apply that knowledge. So: 2. Practice applying remembered information to new situations. 3. When doing “brain dumps” or “mind maps” filling in the missing information is important, but students should also _correct_ their mistakes. 4. A related method that I use: write questions in the margins of lecture notes and Powerpoint slides related to the information in the slide. 5. After reading the slide, and writing and reading back the question, ask yourself to answer the question. And, ask your, “What did I just learn in this slide (or paragraph or abstract or paper or movie or video or flash card)?

I should add, 6. All of this takes time, so don’t cram or study at the last minute. 7. Check out the “Method of Inquiry” (related to my point #4) from researchers at Ryerson University in Canada.

Thanks for such a quality comment, Beccles. Are you a current student? Would love to do a mini-interview (5-10 mins) with you for the Exam Study Expert podcast about your experiences with retrieval practice, and your tips for success. Would you be up for that? ( https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/exam-study-expert-study-tips-psychology-hacks-to-learn/id1456034719 )

Great tips for students!

I am preparing for my exam that I failed once. I was into feel good study mode, and now I discover this retrieval process. I will use this from now on and will try to stick with it. Better to stick with a scientific proven methods than repeating my feel good technique which didnt give me results.

Wishing you every success in your re-take! If you come up against any questions on using the techniques, I’m always happy to try and answer them – put them here or drop me an email ( https://examstudyexpert.com/about/contact/ ).

Good luck 🙂

Thank you for sharing this excellent article. I used this article to show my assignment in college. Excellent job.

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

• Five minutes a day to exam success: with retrieval journaling - OC Tuition - […] “Retrieval practice” means learning by practising remembering (or “retrieving”) what you know. Flashcards, self-testing and past paper questions all…
• Introducing: the greatest back-to-school study tip of all time - - […] journaling is based on the two most powerful principles of effective learning known to science: retrieval practice and spaced…

Submit a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Read My Test-Taking Technique Book For More Marks In Exams

Top Picks: Recommended Reading From The Blog

How To Study Effectively : Ultimate Guide [READER FAVOURITE]

Exam Memorization Secrets

Inspirational Exam Quotes

Finding The Perfect Study Routine

Pomodoro Method : 9-Step Guide

Best Books About Studying

Listen To The Podcast

• EXPLORE Random Article

How to Prepare for an Essay Exam

Last Updated: April 20, 2023

This article was co-authored by Michelle Golden, PhD . Michelle Golden is an English teacher in Athens, Georgia. She received her MA in Language Arts Teacher Education in 2008 and received her PhD in English from Georgia State University in 2015. This article has been viewed 137,196 times.

The dreaded essay exam. Whether you like it or not, at some point in your life you are certain to encounter an exam composed entirely of essays. In the days leading up to the exam you may feel anxious or downright sick to your stomach. Fortunately, with a little bit of preparation and practice, you can turn any pre-exam jitters into a feeling of confidence, which will allow you to successfully tackle any essay exam.

Participating in Class

• Actively participate. It’s important to find a participation method that works for you, whether that’s asking thought-provoking questions or commenting on the reading. Active participation just means involving yourself in some way, so even if you don’t feel comfortable speaking at length in front of your peers, try to ask a question every now and then.
• Free yourself from distractions. Put away your cell phone or tablet and concentrate on listening and taking good notes. Now is not the time to work on homework for another class or to catch up with friends on Facebook.

• Always have a notebook on hand. It is helpful to use one notebook per subject or course, so that you don’t confuse yourself when looking back.
• Be sure to date your notes so that you can quickly reference or find the subject material covered on the exam.
• If you struggle with taking notes, ask the instructor if you can record the lecture. You can then go back and listen to the recording and either take notes at your own pace or review any parts of the lecture, which will be relevant for the exam.

• Take notes on what you’ve read and have questions ready for class.
• Follow the schedule for reading assignments. Typically readings are broken out in a way that is both manageable and topical. If, however, you find yourself unable to keep up with the readings, speak with your instructor about a schedule that suits your particular needs. For example, if readings are assigned for every other day of class, you may need to break it out such that you are reading a portion every day.

Reviewing the Material

• In addition to having one notebook per course, it may be helpful to also have an individual course binder or folder, which contains all course materials.
• Take your organization to the next level by categorizing according to exams. Don’t throw away previous notes or materials from past exams. They may come in handy for midterm or final exams. Instead, organize the materials as if they were chapters, with chapter one being the first exam and so forth and so on.

• Limit phone calls and any other distractions such as texting. It might help to turn your phone and other devices to silent mode while you’re studying.
• The TV should always be off while you’re preparing for an exam.
• If you want to listen to music, be sure it’s something that is relaxing or peaceful. Also, keep the music at a low level. Otherwise, music can easily become a distraction.

• Get into the habit of reviewing class materials after each course. This will help to ease anxiety leading up to the exam, as you won’t have as much to review and will be able to clear up any questions that arise, prior to the big day.
• Cramming doesn’t work. Multiple studies have shown that spacing out learning was more effective than cramming. [2] X Research source What’s more, cramming only increases the feeling of desperation which leads to panic, and then to test anxiety.

• Creating an outline will also come in handy when drafting essay responses, so give yourself some practice and start with your class materials.

Practicing Ahead of Time

• Don’t wait until the night before to outline answers. As you’re studying and organizing your class materials, come up with potential questions along the way. You can then go back and review and revise as necessary.
• Some instructors do specify a word count for essays. Don’t focus on counting words though. Write what you can and look for opportunities to flesh out your answers without being overly wordy.

• Identify - typically short and direct answers will do.
• Explain - requires a more detailed answer.
• Compare - look for connections.
• Argue - address this from your own perspective.

• This is a good opportunity to proofread your work and to look for any grammatical errors as well.
• Have a friend, parent or peer look over your essay as well. It is often helpful to have a fresh set of eyes review your work and provide feedback.

Community Q&A

• For open-notes or open-book tests, study thoroughly anyway. This will prepare you for other exams or tests where you're not allowed to use notes, and will allow for you to complete the test faster and easier because you won't need to search for everything in the book or your notes. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Be positive. If you are negative and believe you will not do well, chances are that you will perform the way you expect to. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
• Practice writing. Be sure you can write fairly well in other situations so that you can express your ideas clearly. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/essay-exams/
• ↑ http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140917-the-worst-way-to-learn

About this article

If you’re worried about an upcoming essay exam, start reviewing your class notes by topic. One helpful way to prepare for your essay exam is to create a potential outline for each theme. For example, if you’re studying Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, you might come up with an essay outline about the themes of the play. Once you have a few of these outlines, do practice essays at home under timed conditions, using old exams or questions you can see from your outline. Additionally, make it easier to prepare for future exams by attending all classes, doing the assigned readings and taking clear notes. Keep reading for more tips, including how to understand what the essay questions are asking of you. Did this summary help you? Yes No

Reader Success Stories

Jun 6, 2016

Did this article help you?

Mar 25, 2017

• About wikiHow
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Do Not Sell or Share My Info
• Not Selling Info

Essay Exams

What this handout is about.

At some time in your undergraduate career, you’re going to have to write an essay exam. This thought can inspire a fair amount of fear: we struggle enough with essays when they aren’t timed events based on unknown questions. The goal of this handout is to give you some easy and effective strategies that will help you take control of the situation and do your best.

Why do instructors give essay exams?

Essay exams are a useful tool for finding out if you can sort through a large body of information, figure out what is important, and explain why it is important. Essay exams challenge you to come up with key course ideas and put them in your own words and to use the interpretive or analytical skills you’ve practiced in the course. Instructors want to see whether:

• You understand concepts that provide the basis for the course
• You can use those concepts to interpret specific materials
• You can make connections, see relationships, draw comparisons and contrasts
• You can synthesize diverse information in support of an original assertion
• You can justify your own evaluations based on appropriate criteria
• You can argue your own opinions with convincing evidence
• You can think critically and analytically about a subject

What essay questions require

Exam questions can reach pretty far into the course materials, so you cannot hope to do well on them if you do not keep up with the readings and assignments from the beginning of the course. The most successful essay exam takers are prepared for anything reasonable, and they probably have some intelligent guesses about the content of the exam before they take it. How can you be a prepared exam taker? Try some of the following suggestions during the semester:

• Do the reading as the syllabus dictates; keeping up with the reading while the related concepts are being discussed in class saves you double the effort later.
• Go to lectures (and put away your phone, the newspaper, and that crossword puzzle!).
• Take careful notes that you’ll understand months later. If this is not your strong suit or the conventions for a particular discipline are different from what you are used to, ask your TA or the Learning Center for advice.
• Participate in your discussion sections; this will help you absorb the material better so you don’t have to study as hard.
• Organize small study groups with classmates to explore and review course materials throughout the semester. Others will catch things you might miss even when paying attention. This is not cheating. As long as what you write on the essay is your own work, formulating ideas and sharing notes is okay. In fact, it is a big part of the learning process.
• As an exam approaches, find out what you can about the form it will take. This will help you forecast the questions that will be on the exam, and prepare for them.

These suggestions will save you lots of time and misery later. Remember that you can’t cram weeks of information into a single day or night of study. So why put yourself in that position?

Now let’s focus on studying for the exam. You’ll notice the following suggestions are all based on organizing your study materials into manageable chunks of related material. If you have a plan of attack, you’ll feel more confident and your answers will be more clear. Here are some tips: 

• Don’t just memorize aimlessly; clarify the important issues of the course and use these issues to focus your understanding of specific facts and particular readings.
• Try to organize and prioritize the information into a thematic pattern. Look at what you’ve studied and find a way to put things into related groups. Find the fundamental ideas that have been emphasized throughout the course and organize your notes into broad categories. Think about how different categories relate to each other.
• Find out what you don’t know, but need to know, by making up test questions and trying to answer them. Studying in groups helps as well.

Taking the exam

Read the exam carefully.

• If you are given the entire exam at once and can determine your approach on your own, read the entire exam before you get started.
• Look at how many points each part earns you, and find hints for how long your answers should be.
• Figure out how much time you have and how best to use it. Write down the actual clock time that you expect to take in each section, and stick to it. This will help you avoid spending all your time on only one section. One strategy is to divide the available time according to percentage worth of the question. You don’t want to spend half of your time on something that is only worth one tenth of the total points.
• As you read, make tentative choices of the questions you will answer (if you have a choice). Don’t just answer the first essay question you encounter. Instead, read through all of the options. Jot down really brief ideas for each question before deciding.
• Remember that the easiest-looking question is not always as easy as it looks. Focus your attention on questions for which you can explain your answer most thoroughly, rather than settle on questions where you know the answer but can’t say why.

Analyze the questions

• Decide what you are being asked to do. If you skim the question to find the main “topic” and then rush to grasp any related ideas you can recall, you may become flustered, lose concentration, and even go blank. Try looking closely at what the question is directing you to do, and try to understand the sort of writing that will be required.
• Focus on what you do know about the question, not on what you don’t.
• Look at the active verbs in the assignment—they tell you what you should be doing. We’ve included some of these below, with some suggestions on what they might mean. (For help with this sort of detective work, see the Writing Center handout titled Reading Assignments.)

Information words, such as who, what, when, where, how, and why ask you to demonstrate what you know about the subject. Information words may include:

• define—give the subject’s meaning (according to someone or something). Sometimes you have to give more than one view on the subject’s meaning.
• explain why/how—give reasons why or examples of how something happened.
• illustrate—give descriptive examples of the subject and show how each is connected with the subject.
• summarize—briefly cover the important ideas you learned about the subject.
• trace—outline how something has changed or developed from an earlier time to its current form.
• research—gather material from outside sources about the subject, often with the implication or requirement that you will analyze what you’ve found.

Relation words ask you to demonstrate how things are connected. Relation words may include:

• compare—show how two or more things are similar (and, sometimes, different).
• contrast—show how two or more things are dissimilar.
• apply—use details that you’ve been given to demonstrate how an idea, theory, or concept works in a particular situation.
• cause—show how one event or series of events made something else happen.
• relate—show or describe the connections between things.

Interpretation words ask you to defend ideas of your own about the subject. Don’t see these words as requesting opinion alone (unless the assignment specifically says so), but as requiring opinion that is supported by concrete evidence. Remember examples, principles, definitions, or concepts from class or research and use them in your interpretation. Interpretation words may include:

• prove, justify—give reasons or examples to demonstrate how or why something is the truth.
• evaluate, respond, assess—state your opinion of the subject as good, bad, or some combination of the two, with examples and reasons (you may want to compare your subject to something else).
• support—give reasons or evidence for something you believe (be sure to state clearly what it is that you believe).
• synthesize—put two or more things together that haven’t been put together before; don’t just summarize one and then the other, and say that they are similar or different—you must provide a reason for putting them together (as opposed to compare and contrast—see above).
• analyze—look closely at the components of something to figure out how it works, what it might mean, or why it is important.
• argue—take a side and defend it (with proof) against the other side.

Plan your answers

Think about your time again. How much planning time you should take depends on how much time you have for each question and how many points each question is worth. Here are some general guidelines: 

• For short-answer definitions and identifications, just take a few seconds. Skip over any you don’t recognize fairly quickly, and come back to them when another question jogs your memory.
• For answers that require a paragraph or two, jot down several important ideas or specific examples that help to focus your thoughts.
• For longer answers, you will need to develop a much more definite strategy of organization. You only have time for one draft, so allow a reasonable amount of time—as much as a quarter of the time you’ve allotted for the question—for making notes, determining a thesis, and developing an outline.
• For questions with several parts (different requests or directions, a sequence of questions), make a list of the parts so that you do not miss or minimize one part. One way to be sure you answer them all is to number them in the question and in your outline.
• You may have to try two or three outlines or clusters before you hit on a workable plan. But be realistic—you want a plan you can develop within the limited time allotted for your answer. Your outline will have to be selective—not everything you know, but what you know that you can state clearly and keep to the point in the time available.

Again, focus on what you do know about the question, not on what you don’t.

Writing your answers

As with planning, your strategy for writing depends on the length of your answer:

• For short identifications and definitions, it is usually best to start with a general identifying statement and then move on to describe specific applications or explanations. Two sentences will almost always suffice, but make sure they are complete sentences. Find out whether the instructor wants definition alone, or definition and significance. Why is the identification term or object important?
• For longer answers, begin by stating your forecasting statement or thesis clearly and explicitly. Strive for focus, simplicity, and clarity. In stating your point and developing your answers, you may want to use important course vocabulary words from the question. For example, if the question is, “How does wisteria function as a representation of memory in Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom?” you may want to use the words wisteria, representation, memory, and Faulkner) in your thesis statement and answer. Use these important words or concepts throughout the answer.
• If you have devised a promising outline for your answer, then you will be able to forecast your overall plan and its subpoints in your opening sentence. Forecasting impresses readers and has the very practical advantage of making your answer easier to read. Also, if you don’t finish writing, it tells your reader what you would have said if you had finished (and may get you partial points).
• You might want to use briefer paragraphs than you ordinarily do and signal clear relations between paragraphs with transition phrases or sentences.
• As you move ahead with the writing, you may think of new subpoints or ideas to include in the essay. Stop briefly to make a note of these on your original outline. If they are most appropriately inserted in a section you’ve already written, write them neatly in the margin, at the top of the page, or on the last page, with arrows or marks to alert the reader to where they fit in your answer. Be as neat and clear as possible.
• Don’t pad your answer with irrelevancies and repetitions just to fill up space. Within the time available, write a comprehensive, specific answer.
• Watch the clock carefully to ensure that you do not spend too much time on one answer. You must be realistic about the time constraints of an essay exam. If you write one dazzling answer on an exam with three equally-weighted required questions, you earn only 33 points—not enough to pass at most colleges. This may seem unfair, but keep in mind that instructors plan exams to be reasonably comprehensive. They want you to write about the course materials in two or three or more ways, not just one way. Hint: if you finish a half-hour essay in 10 minutes, you may need to develop some of your ideas more fully.
• If you run out of time when you are writing an answer, jot down the remaining main ideas from your outline, just to show that you know the material and with more time could have continued your exposition.
• Double-space to leave room for additions, and strike through errors or changes with one straight line (avoid erasing or scribbling over). Keep things as clean as possible. You never know what will earn you partial credit.
• Write legibly and proofread. Remember that your instructor will likely be reading a large pile of exams. The more difficult they are to read, the more exasperated the instructor might become. Your instructor also cannot give you credit for what they cannot understand. A few minutes of careful proofreading can improve your grade.

Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind in writing essay exams is that you have a limited amount of time and space in which to get across the knowledge you have acquired and your ability to use it. Essay exams are not the place to be subtle or vague. It’s okay to have an obvious structure, even the five-paragraph essay format you may have been taught in high school. Introduce your main idea, have several paragraphs of support—each with a single point defended by specific examples, and conclude with a restatement of your main point and its significance.

Some physiological tips

Just think—we expect athletes to practice constantly and use everything in their abilities and situations in order to achieve success. Yet, somehow many students are convinced that one day’s worth of studying, no sleep, and some well-placed compliments (“Gee, Dr. So-and-so, I really enjoyed your last lecture”) are good preparation for a test. Essay exams are like any other testing situation in life: you’ll do best if you are prepared for what is expected of you, have practiced doing it before, and have arrived in the best shape to do it. You may not want to believe this, but it’s true: a good night’s sleep and a relaxed mind and body can do as much or more for you as any last-minute cram session. Colleges abound with tales of woe about students who slept through exams because they stayed up all night, wrote an essay on the wrong topic, forgot everything they studied, or freaked out in the exam and hyperventilated. If you are rested, breathing normally, and have brought along some healthy, energy-boosting snacks that you can eat or drink quietly, you are in a much better position to do a good job on the test. You aren’t going to write a good essay on something you figured out at 4 a.m. that morning. If you prepare yourself well throughout the semester, you don’t risk your whole grade on an overloaded, undernourished brain.

If for some reason you get yourself into this situation, take a minute every once in a while during the test to breathe deeply, stretch, and clear your brain. You need to be especially aware of the likelihood of errors, so check your essays thoroughly before you hand them in to make sure they answer the right questions and don’t have big oversights or mistakes (like saying “Hitler” when you really mean “Churchill”).

If you tend to go blank during exams, try studying in the same classroom in which the test will be given. Some research suggests that people attach ideas to their surroundings, so it might jog your memory to see the same things you were looking at while you studied.

Try good luck charms. Bring in something you associate with success or the support of your loved ones, and use it as a psychological boost.

Take all of the time you’ve been allotted. Reread, rework, and rethink your answers if you have extra time at the end, rather than giving up and handing the exam in the minute you’ve written your last sentence. Use every advantage you are given.

Remember that instructors do not want to see you trip up—they want to see you do well. With this in mind, try to relax and just do the best you can. The more you panic, the more mistakes you are liable to make. Put the test in perspective: will you die from a poor performance? Will you lose all of your friends? Will your entire future be destroyed? Remember: it’s just a test.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Axelrod, Rise B., and Charles R. Cooper. 2016. The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing , 11th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Fowler, Ramsay H., and Jane E. Aaron. 2016. The Little, Brown Handbook , 13th ed. Boston: Pearson.

Gefvert, Constance J. 1988. The Confident Writer: A Norton Handbook , 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.

Kirszner, Laurie G. 1988. Writing: A College Rhetoric , 2nd ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

Lunsford, Andrea A. 2015. The St. Martin’s Handbook , 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Woodman, Leonara, and Thomas P. Adler. 1988. The Writer’s Choices , 2nd ed. Northbrook, Illinois: Scott Foresman.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Make a Gift

Academic Skills and Writing Development

Study tips and reflections from newcastle university's academic skills team.

Tackling essay-based exams

Exam season is almost upon us and one challenge you may find yourself facing is revising for essay-based exams. These can cause a lot of anxiety, not least because essay-based assessments are often something we are used to doing over the course of several weeks. How do you plan, structure and write an essay in the space of a couple of hours? And how on earth do you revise when you don’t know what you’ll be asked? 

Read on for our guide to effective revision and exam technique for essay-based exam questions:

What are essay exams testing?

Before you jump into your revision, it can be helpful to remember that essay exams are not just testing your memory. Instead, your lecturers are looking for evidence of how well you can  apply  the knowledge you have gained throughout the course to solve a problem or answer a question under timed conditions. Therefore, whilst memory is still important – you’ll need to be able to recall that knowledge in the exam – it’s only part of the story. You’ll also need to make sure you have an in-depth understanding of that knowledge and have practiced applying it to different questions, problems, and contexts.

How do I revise for essay exams?

You may be tempted to write a ‘generic’ essay on each of the topics you’re revising and memorise them so you can repeat them in the exam room. However, keep in mind that your lecturers are asking you to solve the specific problem they’ve set for you and simply ‘dumping’ everything that’s relevant won’t address the question and is unlikely to earn you good marks.

A more effective approach to revising for essay exams is incorporating strategies that develop your understanding of the topic so you can apply your knowledge to different problems effectively. Some revision strategies you might want to try for this are:

• Questioning and interrogating the knowledge: why does this happen? How does it happen? Does it always happen this way? Is this always true? What about if we apply it to a different context? What are the implications of this?
• Try applying the knowledge to case studies or different scenarios to get a better understanding of how theory works in practice.
• Look at past papers or devise your own questions and either answer them in full or sketch out an essay plan under timed conditions. This will help you to test your recall and practice skills you’ll be using in the exam.
• Compare and weigh up different approaches to the topic. Does everyone agree on this? Why? Why not? Which perspective is stronger?
• Identify gaps in your knowledge and do some additional reading to fill them.

What about strategies for the exam itself? 

You might be used to spending hours or even days planning, writing, and editing a coursework essay and be wondering how on earth you do all of this under timed conditions. Keep in mind that your lecturers  know  that this is a big ask and they are not expecting the same level of sophistication in the way you construct your arguments that they would be looking for in a coursework essay. However, it’s still necessary that your lecturers can follow your answer and see clearly how it addresses the question so:

• Spend some time at the beginning paying attention to what the question is asking you. Our video on question analysis offers some strategies for understanding essay questions: 
• Sketch out a basic structure to follow. This needn’t be more than the main points you want to argue and the order you want to argue them in.
• Clearly state your point or communicate your main focus at the beginning of each paragraph to help your reader get their bearings and follow your argument.
• If you find yourself running out of time, write down a few bullet points around your remaining points – you may still pick up a few extra marks for this! 

Do I need to reference sources in an essay exam?  

While you won’t be expected to reference others to the extent you do in a coursework essay, it’s worth incorporating a few references to back up your points and show how you worked out your answer.

Try to memorise a couple of key arguments and/or debates made by others for each topic as well as the authors’ surname(s) and the year of the article so that you can cite it in the exam. Don’t worry about the details – just one or two lines summarising their main argument is enough.

What about other types of exams?

Exams exist in various formats in addition to the traditional essay-based exam type. For example, your course may also have multiple choice papers, vivas/oral presentations or exams relating to specific processes, techniques and interactions. All types of exams test your ability to recall and apply your subject knowledge, so most advice on revision and exam technique is applicable to different exam types. Effective revision trains your brain both to retain and to retrieve information; a process that’s equally useful for all exam formats. However, different types of exams can also present different challenges, and transitioning from online to in-person exams is a key change for this year. For more details on this and other exam-related issues, see our  ASK Exams Collection  and our  calendar  for upcoming workshops on revision and exam preparation.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

The best ways to prepare for an essay exam

College students are often intimidated by essay exams, a common final exam format for courses in the humanities and social sciences. Because the exam itself provides so little structure for your answers, it can feel impossible to get all of your thoughts on paper in an organized way without running out of time. As someone who has graded a lot of college students’ exams, I’ve realized that students most often lose points because they don’t realize that an exam essay is a specific genre of writing that you can practice in advance , even if you don’t know the exact questions you’ll be answering. By developing a strategy for success in writing exam essays, you’ll be able to make sure that the material you worked hard all semester to learn shows up in your answers on the day of the test.

Before the Exam

1. brainstorm possible exam questions..

A good way to do this is to make two lists: one of all the lessons or units you’ve covered (for example, all the authors you’ve read for an English class, or all the historical events you’ve covered in a history class), and another of all the major concepts and key terms that you’ve talked about in the class. Then you can mix and match items from these lists to form potential questions. For example, if you were taking a theatre class, you might come up with a question like, “How do Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams use the techniques of psychological realism?”. O’Neill and Williams would come from your list of authors, and psychological realism would come from your list of key terms.

Other good examples of exam questions are discussion questions your instructor asked in class and any prompts you had for papers during the semester. While it’s unlikely your instructor will replicate any of these exact questions on the exam, reviewing what kinds of questions she asks will help you remember what key terms or concepts are particularly important to her. Write down several sample questions and outline the main ideas you would want to include in your answer.

2. Practice your essay-writing strategy using your sample questions.

I recommend practicing the three steps with a timer set for five minutes—these steps are for preparing and organizing an essay (not actually writing it), so you want to practice doing them relatively quickly. They’ll give you a clear structure to fill in.

The first thing to do when you start an essay is to quickly brainstorm a list of everything you can think of in relationship to that question: key terms, details, facts, dates, authors—whatever seems relevant. This should just be a quick task of getting everything in your head on paper.

Then figure out your claim . Answers to essay questions should have an argument that clearly answers the question and that makes a claim that is debatable (as opposed to factual or descriptive). If you’re having trouble, an easy format for writing an argument is “Although ____________, ______________.” For example, your claim could be, “Although both O’Neill and Williams use realism in their plays, Williams is more interested in how psychological realism can be achieved through design elements.” (This format works especially well for compare-contrast questions.)

Finally, outline the essay. The argument will come first, in the introduction, and then map out the main point you want to cover in each body paragraph.

During the Exam

1. keep track of time..

When the exam starts, write down the end time, and then write down when you should finish each section—for example, if it’s a three-hour exam, and you have five essays to write, you might choose to give yourself 30 minutes per essay, which leaves you 30 minutes at the end to reread your work. Make sure you stick to your schedule—you don’t want to spend a lot of time perfecting one essay and then run out of time for the rest. Many instructors will give partial credit even for an unfinished or messy essay, but they can’t give you any points for an essay you didn’t write at all. 

2. Follow the essay-writing strategy you practiced: list, claim, outline, write .

Don’t bother including big general statements like, “Playwrights are always interested in psychology,” in your essays—just get straight to the specific points you want to cover. Sticking to your outline will help keep your essay organized, which will make it easier for you to cover all your main points in the available time. Staying organized will also make it easier for your instructor to follow your train of thought when she’s grading.

Most of what you write in an essay is analysis of how the evidence you’ve chosen supports the argument you’re making. If you get stuck writing, ask yourself, “How does this evidence support my claim?” . 

3. Go in confident.

You know you’re well-prepared—don’t let nerves get in your way! Eat a good breakfast, listen to your favorite song on the way to the exam, bring a bottle of water and lots of extra pens and pencils, and show up early. (And if you have a mental health condition or learning disability that can lead to test-taking anxiety, talk to the office of disability services at your school well in advance of the exam. They may be able to provide you with test-taking accommodations like a quiet room or extra time.) An essay exam is a chance for you to show off what you’ve learned this semester—it’s not meant to trick you. (Multiple choice exams are actually the place to worry about trick questions.) Instructors generally want you to do well on the final exam, so try to think of the exam as a great capstone for your hard work in the class. Good luck! 

After growing up on a farm in Iowa, Danielle moved to Massachusetts, where she studied English with a citation (minor) in Spanish at Harvard University. At Harvard, Danielle was elected to Phi Beta Kappa as a junior and graduated summa cum laude a year later. She spent most of her free time in college in the theatre shop, building sets with power tools.  Danielle went on to earn her Master's degree in Renaissance Literature at the University of Cambridge, before accepting a Global Academic Fellowship in Writing at New York University Abu Dhabi for the following year. She is currently a PhD student in English and Theatre, and a member of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, at Columbia University.

Related Content

• Skip to Content
• Skip to Main Navigation
• Skip to Search

Indiana University Bloomington Indiana University Bloomington IU Bloomington

• Mission, Vision, and Inclusive Language Statement
• Locations & Hours
• Undergraduate Employment
• Graduate Employment
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Newsletter Archive
• Support WTS
• Schedule an Appointment
• Online Tutoring
• Before your Appointment
• WTS Policies
• Group Tutoring
• Students Referred by Instructors
• Paid External Editing Services
• Writing Guides
• Scholarly Write-in
• Dissertation Writing Groups
• Journal Article Writing Groups
• Early Career Graduate Student Writing Workshop
• Workshops for Graduate Students
• Teaching Resources
• Syllabus Information
• Course-specific Tutoring
• Nominate a Peer Tutor
• Tutoring Feedback
• Schedule Appointment
• Campus Writing Program

Writing Tutorial Services

Taking an essay exam.

You may often be asked in college to take essay exams. In certain ways, the same principles for writing good out-of-class essays apply to writing good in-class essays as well. For example, both kinds of essays are more successful when you take into consideration your purpose, audience and information; when you develop a thesis with support; when you prove your assertions with evidence; when you guide your readers with transitions, etc.

However, there are some differences to keep in mind as you prepare to write. The most important one is the purpose for writing. Usually you write a research paper, for example, to learn more about your selected topic; however, you write essay exams to demonstrate your knowledge. You are not only conveying information, but also proving to your audience--the examiner--that you have mastered the information and can work with it. In other words, your purpose is both informative and persuasive. Keeping this purpose in mind will help you both prepare for and write the essay.

PREPARING FOR THE EXAM

Study connections between ideas. Your instructor is not looking for a collection of unrelated pieces of information. Rather, he or she wants to see that you understand the whole picture, i.e., how the generalizations or concepts create the framework for the specific facts, and how the examples or details fill in the gaps. So, when you're studying, try to think about how the information fits together.

Prepare practice questions. Try to prepare for questions that are likely to be asked. If your instructor has given you the questions themselves or a study sheet in advance, practice answering those questions. Otherwise, try to anticipate questions your instructor is likely to ask and practice those. At the very least, outline how you would answer the test questions; however, it's better to actually write out the answers. That way, you will know where you need to study more.

TAKING THE EXAM

Again, while you're taking the exam, remember that it's not simply what you say or how much you say, but HOW you say it that's important. You want to show your instructor that you have mastered the material.

Plan your time. Although you will be working under pressure, take a few minutes to plan your time. Determine how many minutes you can devote to each answer. You will want to devote most of your time to the questions that are worth the most points, perhaps answering those questions first. On the other hand, you might want to answer first the questions that you are best prepared for.

Read the questions thoroughly. Take a few minutes before writing your essay to read the question carefully in order to determine exactly what you are being asked to do. Most essay exam questions, or "prompts," are carefully worded and contain specific instructions about WHAT you are to write about as well as HOW you should organize your answer. The prompt may use one or more of the following terms. If you see one of these terms, try to organize your essay to respond to the question or questions indicated.

classify: Into what general category/categories does this idea belong? compare: What are the similarities among these ideas? What are the differences? contrast: What are the differences between these ideas? critique: What are the strengths and weaknesses of this idea? define: What does this word or phrase mean? describe: What are the important characteristics or features of this idea? evaluate: What are the arguments for and against this idea? Which arguments are stronger? explain: Why is this the case? identify: What is this idea? What is its name? interpret: What does this idea mean? Why is it important? justify: Why is this correct? Why is this true? outline: What are the main points and essential details? summarize: Briefly, what are the important ideas? trace: What is the sequence of ideas or order of events?

Plan your answer. Jot down the main points you intend to make as you think through your answer. Then, you can use your list to help you stick to the topic. In an exam situation, it's easy to forget points if you don't write them down.

Write out your essay, using good writing techniques. As was said earlier, essay exams are like other essays, so use the same good writing strategies you use for other kinds of writing. Keep in mind that your purpose is to persuade your reader—the examiner—that you know the material.

First, create a thesis for your essay that you can defend. Often, you can turn the questions stated or implied on the exam into an answer and use it as your thesis. This sentence also functions as an introduction.

For example, suppose you are given the following prompt in your psychology class:

Define "procedural knowledge" and describe its relationship to the results of studies of amnesic patients.

The implied question is:

What is "procedural knowledge" and how is it related to the results of studies of amnesic patients?

Note how you can turn the answer to that implied question into the thesis of your exam essay. This paragraph might serve as your introduction.

"Procedural knowledge" is knowing how to perform a task, such as tying a shoe or driving a car, and studies of amnesia have shown that this type of knowledge or memory is often retained by amnesic patients. Even in amnesic patients who have lost most of their declarative memory capacity, the ability to form new procedural memories is often intact...

Then, proceed immediately to explain, develop, and support your thesis, drawing upon materials from text(s), lectures, and class discussions. Be sure to support any and all generalizations with concrete evidence, relevant facts, and specific details that will convince your reader that your thesis is valid. Make your main points stand out by writing distinct paragraphs, and indicate the relationship between them with transitions.

For example, in response to this prompt from a social work class,

Identify and give an example of four alternative solutions available in cases of family conflict.

a student wrote the following paragraph. Note the transition phrase and the generalization supported by specific evidence.

. . . The fourth alternative open in cases of family conflict is violence, and this is not an uncommon response. 25% of all homicides in the U.S. involve one family member killing another; half of these are spouse homicides. Violence usually takes one of two forms: explosive or coercive. Explosive violence is not premeditated. When the son takes and crashes the family car, for instance, the father may explode and beat him. Coercive violence, on the other hand, is pointed and intentional; it has the goal of producing compliance or obedience. Thus, a blow delivered with a threat not to repeat certain behaviors would be coercive. . . .

Finally, sum up your argument with a brief conclusion that lends your essay a clear sense of closure.

Finishing the Exam

Proofread your answer. Reserve a few minutes after completing your essay to proofread it carefully. First, make sure you stick to the question. Always answer exactly the question asked without digressing. If you find you have digressed, neatly cross out the words or paragraphs. It's better to cross out a paragraph that is irrelevant (and to replace it with a relevant one if you have time) than to allow it to stand. In this context at least, quality is always preferable to quantity. Also check sentence structure, spelling and punctuation.

Produced by Writing Tutorial Services, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN

Writing Tutorial Services social media channels

Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, how to study for a test: 17 expert tips.

Other High School

Do you have a big exam coming up, but you're not sure how to prepare for it? Are you looking to improve your grades or keep them strong but don't know the best way to do this? We're here to help! In this guide, we've compiled the 17 best tips for how to study for a test. No matter what grade you're in or what subject you're studying, these tips will give you ways to study faster and more effectively. If you're tired of studying for hours only to forget everything when it comes time to take a test, follow these tips so you can be well prepared for any exam you take.

How to Study for a Test: General Tips

The four tips below are useful for any test or class you're preparing for. Learn the best way to study for a test from these tips and be prepared for any future exams you take.

#1: Stick to a Study Schedule

If you're having trouble studying regularly, creating a study schedule can be a huge help. Doing something regularly helps your mind get used to it. If you set aside a time to regularly study and stick to it, it'll eventually become a habit that's (usually) easy to stick to. Getting into a fixed habit of studying will help you improve your concentration and mental stamina over time. And, just like any other training, your ability to study will improve with time and effort.

Take an honest look at your schedule (this includes schoolwork, extracurriculars, work, etc.) and decide how often you can study without making your schedule too packed. Aim for at least an hour twice a week. Next, decide when you want to study, such as Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays from 7-8pm, and stick to your schedule . In the beginning, you may need to tweak your schedule, but you'll eventually find the study rhythm that works best for you. The important thing is that you commit to it and study during the same times each week as often as possible.

#2: Start Studying Early and Study for Shorter Periods

Some people can cram for several hours the night before the test and still get a good grade. However, this is rarer than you may hope. Most people need to see information several times, over a period of time, for them to really commit it to memory. This means that, instead of doing a single long study session, break your studying into smaller sessions over a longer period of time. Five one-hour study sessions over a week will be less stressful and more effective than a single five-hour cram session. It may take a bit of time for you to learn how long and how often you need to study for a class, but once you do you'll be able to remember the information you need and reduce some of the stress that comes from schoolwork, tests, and studying.

#3: Remove Distractions

When you're studying, especially if it's for a subject you don't enjoy, it can be extremely tempting to take "quick breaks" from your work. There are untold distractions all around us that try to lure our concentration away from the task at hand. However, giving in to temptation can be an awful time suck. A quick glance at your phone can easily turn into an hour of wasting time on the internet, and that won't help you get the score you're looking for. In order to avoid distractions, remove distractions completely from your study space.

Eat a meal or a snack before you begin studying so you're not tempted to rummage through the fridge as a distraction. Silence your phone and keep it in an entirely different room. If you're studying on a computer, turn your WIFI off if it's not essential to have. Make a firm rule that you can't get up to check on whatever has you distracted until your allotted study time is up.

#4: Reward Yourself When You Hit a Milestone

To make studying a little more fun, give yourself a small reward whenever you hit a study milestone. For example, you might get to eat a piece of candy for every 25 flashcards you test yourself on, or get to spend 10 minutes on your phone for every hour you spend studying. You can also give yourself larger rewards for longer-term goals, such as going out to ice cream after a week of good study habits. Studying effectively isn't always easy, and by giving yourself rewards, you'll keep yourself motivated.

Our pets are not the only ones who deserve rewards.

Tips for Learning and Remembering Information

While the default method of studying is reading through class notes, this is actually one of the least effective ways of learning and remembering information. In this section we cover four much more useful methods. You'll notice they all involve active learning, where you're actively reworking the material, rather than just passively reading through notes. Active studying has been shown to be a much more effective way to understand and retain information, and it's what we recommend for any test you're preparing for.

#5: Rewrite the Material in Your Own Words

It can be easy to get lost in a textbook and look back over a page, only to realize you don't remember anything about what you just read. Fortunately, there's a way to avoid this.

For any class that requires lots of reading, be sure to stop periodically as you read. Pause at the end of a paragraph/page/chapter (how much you can read at once and still remember clearly will likely depend on the material you're reading) and—without looking!—think about what the text just stated. Re-summarize it in your own words, and write down bullet points if that helps. Now, glance back over the material and make sure you summarized the information accurately and included all the important details. Take note of whatever you missed, then pick up your reading where you left off.

Whether you choose to summarize the text aloud or write down notes, re-wording the text is a very effective study tool. By rephrasing the text in your own words, you're ensuring you're actually remembering the information and absorbing its meaning, rather than just moving your eyes across a page without taking in what you're reading.

#6: Make Flashcards

Flashcards are a popular study tool for good reason! They're easy to make, easy to carry around, easy to pull out for a quick study session, and they're a more effective way of studying than just reading through pages of notes. Making your own flashcards is especially effective because you'll remember more information just through the act of writing it down on the cards. For any subjects in which you must remember connections between terms and information, such as formulas, vocabulary, equations, or historical dates, flashcards are the way to go. We recommend using the Waterfall Method when you study with flashcards since it's the fastest way to learn all the material on the cards.

#7: Teach the Material to Someone Else

Teaching someone else is a great way to organize the information you've been studying and check your grasp of it. It also often shows you that you know more of the material than you think! Find a study-buddy, or a friend/relative/pet or even just a figurine or stuffed animal and explain the material to them as if they're hearing about it for the first time. Whether the person you're teaching is real or not, teaching material aloud requires you to re-frame the information in new ways and think more carefully about how all the elements fit together. The act of running through the material in this new way also helps you more easily lock it in your mind.

#8: Make Your Own Study Guides

Even if your teacher provides you with study guides, we highly recommend making your own study materials. Just making the materials will help the information sink into your mind, and when you make your own study guides, you can customize them to the way you learn best, whether that's flashcards, images, charts etc. For example, if you're studying for a biology test, you can draw your own cell and label the components, make a Krebs cycle diagram, map out a food chain, etc. If you're a visual learner (or just enjoy adding images to your study materials), include pictures and diagrams.

Sometimes making your own charts and diagrams will mean recreating the ones in your textbook from memory, and sometimes it will mean putting different pieces of information together yourself. Whatever the diagram type and whatever the class, writing your information down and making pictures out of it will be a great way to help you remember the material.

How to Study for a History Test

History tests are notorious for the amount of facts and dates you need to know. Make it easier to retain the information by using these two tips.

#9: Know Causes and Effects

It's easy and tempting to simply review long lists of dates of important events, but this likely won't be enough for you to do well on a history test, especially if it has any writing involved. Instead of only learning the important dates of, say, WWI, focus on learning the factors that led to the war and what its lasting impacts on the world were. By understanding the cause and effects of major events, you'll be able to link them to the larger themes you're learning in history class. Also, having more context about an event can often make it easier to remember little details and dates that go along with it.

#10: Make Your Own Timelines

Sometimes you need to know a lot of dates for a history test. In these cases, don't think passively reading your notes is enough. Unless you have an amazing memory, it'll take you a long time for all those dates to sink into your head if you only read through a list of them. Instead, make your own timeline.

Make your first timeline very neat, with all the information you need to know organized in a way that makes sense to you (this will typically be chronologically, but you may also choose to organize it by theme). Make this timeline as clear and helpful as you can, using different colors, highlighting important information, drawing arrows to connecting information, etc. Then, after you've studied enough to feel you have a solid grasp of the dates, rewrite your timeline from memory. This one doesn't have to be neat and organized, but include as much information as you remember. Continue this pattern of studying and writing timelines from memory until you have all the information memorized.

Know which direction events occur in to prepare for history tests.

How to Study for a Math Test

Math tests can be particularly intimating to many students, but if you're well-prepared for them, they're often straightforward.

#11: Redo Homework Problems

More than most tests, math tests usually are quite similar to the homework problems you've been doing. This means your homework contains dozens of practice problems you can work through. Try to review practice problems from every topic you'll be tested on, and focus especially on problems that you struggled with. Remember, don't just review how you solved the problem the first time. Instead, rewrite the problem, hide your notes, and solve it from scratch. Check your answer when you're finished. That'll ensure you're committing the information to memory and actually have a solid grasp of the concepts.

#12: Make a Formula Sheet

You're likely using a lot of formulas in your math class, and it can be hard remembering what they are and when to use them. Throughout the year, as you learn a new important formula, add it to a formula sheet you've created. For each formula, write out the formula, include any notes about when to use it, and include a sample problem that uses the formula. When your next math test rolls around, you'll have a useful guide to the key information you've been learning.

How to Study for an English Test

Whether your English test involves writing or not, here are two tips to follow as you prepare for it.

#13: Take Notes as You Read

When you're assigned reading for English class, it can be tempting to get through the material as quickly as possible and then move on to something else. However, this is not a good way to retain information, and come test day, you may be struggling to remember a lot of what you read. Highlighting important passages is also too passive a way to study. The way to really retain the information you read is to take notes. This takes more time and effort, but it'll help you commit the information to memory. Plus, when it comes time to study, you'll have a handy study guide ready and won't have to frantically flip through the book to try to remember what you read. The more effort you put into your notes, the more helpful they'll be. Consider organizing them by theme, character, or however else makes sense to you.

#14: Create Sample Essay Outlines

If the test you're taking requires you to write an essay, one of the best ways to be prepared is to develop essay outlines as you study. First, think about potential essay prompts your teacher might choose you to write about. Consider major themes, characters, plots, literary comparisons, etc., you discussed in class, and write down potential essay prompts. Just doing this will get you thinking critically about the material and help you be more prepared for the test.

Next, write outlines for the prompts you came up with (or, if you came up with a lot of prompts, choose the most likely to outline). These outlines don't need to contain much information, just your thesis and a few key points for each body paragraph. Even if your teacher chooses a different prompt than what you came up with, just thinking about what to write about and how you'll organize your thoughts will help you be more prepared for the test.

Fancy pen and ink not required to write essay outlines.

What to Do the Night Before the Test

Unfortunately, the night before a test is when many students make study choices that actually hurt their chances of getting a good grade. These three tips will help you do some final review in a way that helps you be at the top of your game the next day.

#15: Get Enough Sleep

One of the absolute best ways to prepare for a test-any test-is to be well-rested when you sit down to take it. Staying up all night cramming information isn't an effective way of studying, and being tired the next day can seriously impact your test-taking skills. Aim to get a solid eight hours of sleep the night before the test so that you can wake up refreshed and at the top of your test-taking game.

#16: Review Major Concepts

It can be tempting to try to go through all your notes the night before a test to review as much information as possible, but this will likely only leave you stressed to and overwhelmed by the information you're trying to remember. If you've been regularly reviewing information throughout the class, you shouldn't need much more than a quick review of major ideas, and perhaps a few smaller details you have difficulty remembering. Even if you've gotten behind on studying and are trying to review a lot of information, resist the information to cram and focus on only a few major topics. By keeping your final night review manageable, you have a better chance of committing that information to memory, and you'll avoid lack of sleep from late night cramming.

#17: Study Right Before You Go to Sleep

Studies have shown that if you review material right before you go to sleep, you have better memory recall the next day. (This is also true if you study the information right when you wake up.) This doesn't mean you should cram all night long (remember tip #15), but if there are a few key pieces of information you especially want to review or are having trouble committing to memory, review them right before you go to bed. Sweet dreams!

Summary: The Best Way to Study for a Test

If you're not sure how to study for a test effectively, you might end up wasting hours of time only to find that you've barely learned anything at all. Overall, the best way to study for a test, whether you want to know how to study for a math test or how to study for a history test, is to study regularly and practice active learning. Cramming information and trying to remember things just by looking over notes will rarely get you the score you want. Even though the tips we suggest do take time and effort on your part, they'll be worth it when you get the score you're working towards.

What's Next?

Want tips specifically on how to study for AP exams? We've outlined the f ive steps you need to follow to ace your AP classes.

Taking the SAT and need study tips? Our guide has every study tip you should follow to reach your SAT goal score.

Or are you taking the ACT instead? We've got you covered! Read our guide to learn four different ways to study for the ACT so you can choose the study plan that's best for you.

Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

Ask a Question Below

Have any questions about this article or other topics? Ask below and we'll reply!

Improve With Our Famous Guides

• For All Students

The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 160+ SAT Points

How to Get a Perfect 1600, by a Perfect Scorer

Series: How to Get 800 on Each SAT Section:

Score 800 on SAT Math

Score 800 on SAT Reading

Score 800 on SAT Writing

Series: How to Get to 600 on Each SAT Section:

Score 600 on SAT Math

Score 600 on SAT Reading

Score 600 on SAT Writing

Free Complete Official SAT Practice Tests

What SAT Target Score Should You Be Aiming For?

15 Strategies to Improve Your SAT Essay

The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 4+ ACT Points

How to Get a Perfect 36 ACT, by a Perfect Scorer

Series: How to Get 36 on Each ACT Section:

36 on ACT English

36 on ACT Math

36 on ACT Reading

36 on ACT Science

Series: How to Get to 24 on Each ACT Section:

24 on ACT English

24 on ACT Math

24 on ACT Reading

24 on ACT Science

What ACT target score should you be aiming for?

ACT Vocabulary You Must Know

ACT Writing: 15 Tips to Raise Your Essay Score

How to Get Into Harvard and the Ivy League

How to Get a Perfect 4.0 GPA

How to Write an Amazing College Essay

What Exactly Are Colleges Looking For?

Is the ACT easier than the SAT? A Comprehensive Guide

Should you retake your SAT or ACT?

When should you take the SAT or ACT?

Stay Informed

Get the latest articles and test prep tips!

Looking for Graduate School Test Prep?

Check out our top-rated graduate blogs here:

GRE Online Prep Blog

GMAT Online Prep Blog

TOEFL Online Prep Blog

Holly R. "I am absolutely overjoyed and cannot thank you enough for helping me!”

• Peterborough

Studying for Essay Exams

• Can you study for an essay exam? 
• The challenge of essay exams
• Study Strategy 1: Create a study guide
• Study Strategy 2: Try to guess the questions
• Study Strategy 3: Study from old exams
• Study Strategy 4: Outline or write possible answers
• Study Strategy 5: Study in a group

Can you study for an essay exam?

Yes, you can! Many students mistakenly think that, because essay exams focus on analysis rather than memorization, they cannot really “study” for an essay exam. However, essay exams generally require you to pull together information from different parts of the course to create a coherent answer and to support an interpretation with specific examples. That is pretty hard to do well if you haven’t studied the course material! Indeed, there are a number of study strategies that are well-suited to preparing for an essay exam.

The Challenge of Essay Exams

Essay exams require you to interpret a complex and often lengthy question, develop a coherent thesis statement that addresses this question, and write an essay that provides specific evidence to develop and support this thesis. And, it requires you to do all of this under time pressure.

Meeting these challenges will require that you study in ways that will allow you to recognize both the major themes and ideas of the course as well as the specific facts, events, authors, or examples that are associated with those themes.

Study Strategy 1: Create a Study Guide

Essay exams require you to show connections between details, to gather up the specifics and tie them together with the major themes of the course. One of the best ways to prepare for this is to create a study guide.

A study guide is a document that attempts to identify the major themes and synthesize information from different units or weeks of the course. In a study guide, you list information from different units together under thematic categories. Here are some tips on creating a good study guide.

Step 1 : Read through lecture notes and reading notes and list the main themes of the class. This is not a list of facts, dates, events or authors, but of themes and ideas.  For example, in your History 1500, this would NOT be a list of events or dates. It would be themes: terror and the state, religion and terror, technology and terror. In English 1000, your list would NOT be a list of authors or books that you have read. Instead, it would be a list of themes that are common to them: literary techniques, self and society, gender etc.

Step 2 : Now go back and read through your notes again. This time, you are looking for details such as authors, key terms, events, and examples. Use these details to flesh out your study guide and to show how the details build your understanding of the themes.

Sample Study Guide for History 1500

Theme: Religion and Terror

Module: Witch Craze

• Catholicism and beliefs in white and dark magic
• The Reformation/Wars of Religion brought social, cultural, and economic disruption, which bred anxiety.
• Most intense hunting = 1550-1650 (religious wars = c.1540-1648)
• Proximity to religious tension increases tendency to burn witches

Module: Crusades – List relevant examples

Study Strategy 2: Try to Guess the Questions

When professors write essay questions, they usually review the material they have covered and try to choose topics that will require students to bring together the major themes of the course. By guessing the questions that will be on the exam, you will engage in the same process. Look through your syllabus, lecture and reading notes, and study guide. What concepts or themes have been developed throughout the term? What questions would you ask if you were the professor?

Study Strategy 3: Study from Old Exams

While you are guessing the questions and preparing for an essay exam, it can be very helpful to consult previous exams in the course. While it is unlikely that a professor would use exactly the same questions again on your exam, it can be helpful to get a sense of the types of questions that have been asked in the past. Some professors share old exams with their classes. However, in classes where this is not the case, you can seek out sample questions from your textbook, syllabus, or assignment instructions. There are great online sources of sample questions from textbook publishers, but take caution when searching online. Some sites that crowdsource student work encourage acts of academic dishonesty; students should  never share old exam questions or answers. 

Study Strategy 4: Outline or Write Possible Answers

Trying to identify what questions might be on the exam is, of course, only one part of studying for the exam. You also need to try to create answers to these questions. You can do this by outlining answers. Begin with a clear thesis that addresses the question, and then create a section of the outline that develops each part of your thesis. Finally, add in specific examples that you would use to support your ideas in the appropriate section.

You can also write full answers to the essay questions you devise as you study. The act of writing will help you to remember the material, and although the identical question may not appear on the exam, you will usually be able to employ the connections and supporting details in a response that addresses similar issues.

Study Strategy 5: Study in a Group

One of the best ways to learn material is to talk about it with others. As you do, you deepen your understanding not only by having to explain concepts or themes to others but also by hearing their perspective on the central issues of the course.

While you will ultimately take an exam, and thus need to know course information, on your own, study groups can be a great supplement to independent study activities. Each group member could come prepared with one or two potential exam questions, and then other group members could try to answer them. Or, the entire group could review the course syllabus together and identify central themes or particularly challenging material. Through the process of discussing the information with others, you will increase your understanding and thus be studying for your essay exam.

• PRO Courses Guides New Tech Help Pro Expert Videos About wikiHow Pro Upgrade Sign In
• EDIT Edit this Article
• EXPLORE Tech Help Pro About Us Random Article Quizzes Request a New Article Community Dashboard This Or That Game Popular Categories Arts and Entertainment Artwork Books Movies Computers and Electronics Computers Phone Skills Technology Hacks Health Men's Health Mental Health Women's Health Relationships Dating Love Relationship Issues Hobbies and Crafts Crafts Drawing Games Education & Communication Communication Skills Personal Development Studying Personal Care and Style Fashion Hair Care Personal Hygiene Youth Personal Care School Stuff Dating All Categories Arts and Entertainment Finance and Business Home and Garden Relationship Quizzes Cars & Other Vehicles Food and Entertaining Personal Care and Style Sports and Fitness Computers and Electronics Health Pets and Animals Travel Education & Communication Hobbies and Crafts Philosophy and Religion Work World Family Life Holidays and Traditions Relationships Youth
• Browse Articles
• Learn Something New
• Quizzes Hot
• This Or That Game
• Train Your Brain
• Explore More
• Support wikiHow
• About wikiHow
• Log in / Sign up
• Education and Communications
• Study Skills
• Memorization Skills

How to Memorise Long Text in the Shortest Amount of Time Possible

Last Updated: August 19, 2023 References

This article was co-authored by Alexander Ruiz, M.Ed. and by wikiHow staff writer, Jennifer Mueller, JD . Alexander Ruiz is an Educational Consultant and the Educational Director of Link Educational Institute, a tutoring business based in Claremont, California that provides customizable educational plans, subject and test prep tutoring, and college application consulting. With over a decade and a half of experience in the education industry, Alexander coaches students to increase their self-awareness and emotional intelligence while achieving skills and the goal of achieving skills and higher education. He holds a BA in Psychology from Florida International University and an MA in Education from Georgia Southern University. There are 14 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 407,501 times.

If you've ever tried to memorize an essay, monologue, long answer, or other text, you likely just repeated the words over and over again until you could recite them from rote memory. However, this isn't necessarily the quickest way to memorize something and if you're working with a longer text you may not have the time it would take to keep repeating it aloud. Instead, use memorization techniques that suit your learning style and focus on recalling the text rather than rote memorization. [1] X Research source

Breaking the Text into Chunks

• For example, if you're trying to memorize Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, your first chunk might be the first line of the speech, in which Lincoln talks about the founding of the United States. The second chunk might relate to Lincoln's description of the civil war, then the third to the battlefield Lincoln was consecrating that day. Despite being separate chunks, the second and third chunks make up the same paragraph. [3] X Research source
• Look for phrases you already know that you won't have to work as hard to commit to memory. For example, if you already remember the phrase "four score and seven years ago" from the Gettysburg Address, you don't need to worry about memorizing that.
• Sometimes it can also help to reformat the text. You might hand-write or type the text out with plenty of space between the chunks. You might even include separate headings for each of the chunks.

• Get a good familiarity with each of the chunks separately before you start to combine them. If there is a particular area of your original chunk that's giving you trouble, try separating it into even smaller chunks. Then you can combine those smaller chunks together once you've got them down.

• Practice the first and second chunk together until you can recite them flawlessly. Then you're ready to add the third chunk.

• If you run into rough spots, stop and go back over them until you can recite them smoothly. Then integrate that part into the rest of the chunk.
• Throughout the process, keep your eye out for transitions that you can use as triggers to combine the chunks together seamlessly. If these transitions aren't in the text, add them mentally to help you connect the chunks — just remember not to say them out loud.

Creating a Memory Palace

• It's often easiest to use your home, since you're intimately familiar with the rooms and the objects inside.
• Your place can also be a fictitious place that you're deeply familiar with. For example, if you're a big fan of Harry Potter and have a familiar map in your head of Hogwarts, you could use that.
• Your "memory palace" doesn't have to be a single building or location. It can also be a route from one place to another. For example, you might use your route from home to work or school.

• For example, if you're trying to memorize Hamlet's soliloquy, you might imagine a letter "B" on the door of a room. When you open the room, there are arrows and slingshots pelting you from a large bag of gold coins. If you close the door and move down the hall, there are arms reaching out that grab you and carry you across a turbulent ocean. [8] X Research source

• If you encounter pieces that are difficult to remember, you may want to rethink the object you have associated with that piece or break it up into smaller pieces associated with multiple objects.

• This technique may take some practice to master. If you're up against a deadline, it may not be the best time to create a memory palace. However, once you've used it a few times, you may find it enables you to memorize text more quickly.
• If you used a route rather than a place, you can travel through the text you're trying to memorize every day as you head to work or school. You could even try it in reverse as you go back home. Then you'd be able to say you know the text "backward and forward."

Trying Other Memorization Techniques

• For example, if you were trying to memorize Hamlet's soliloquy from Shakespeare's Hamlet, you would write "t b, o n t b? t i t q — w 't n i t m t s t s a a o o f, o t t a a a s o t, a, b o, e t?" [11] X Research source Then you would see how many words you could get just from those first letters.
• Circle the letters that correspond to words you couldn't remember and then go back to the text. Use your favorite memorization technique to better commit those words to your memory in the context of the text, then try the first letters again.
• This trick is also useful if you're trying to recall something you memorized a long time ago but haven't thought about since. You might be surprised how much you'll recall.

• If you're musically inclined, you could try recording yourself playing the song. You may also be able to find an instrumental version of the song on your favorite streaming service.
• Educational programs, such as "Schoolhouse Rock," often create songs for historical documents and speeches. Search the internet or your favorite video streaming service and see what you can find.

• Feel free to gesticulate as well to really get into the emotion of the text. The more passion and emotion you attach to it, the better you'll be able to remember it.

• For example, if you were trying to memorize Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, you might think of an image of your father, an image of the United States, an image of the Statue of Liberty, and an equal sign to represent the first line: "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
• If you enjoy emoji, you might try "translating" the text into emoji. Since those images are already familiar to you, it might make the text easier to remember.

• If you dislike the sound of your own voice, you can always get someone else to read the text for you. However, you'll get less of a benefit by listening to someone else's voice than you would if you listened to your own voice.
• If you're trying to memorize a relatively famous text, you may also be able to find recordings online of famous actors or other celebrities reading the text.

Expert Q&A

• Once you've found a method that works for you, practice it by memorizing speeches, monologues, or essays that spark your interest. The more you practice memorizing things, the better you'll get. Thanks Helpful 2 Not Helpful 1
• After you've memorized something, make an effort to recite it at least once every few days so it sticks in your memory. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 2

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/backstage-experts-answer-ways-quickly-memorize-lines-6719/
• ↑ https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/teaching-strategies/chunking
• ↑ http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm
• ↑ https://psychcentral.com/lib/memory-and-mnemonic-devices/
• ↑ https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-psychology/chapter/step-1-memory-encoding/
• ↑ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4056179/
• ↑ https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56965/speech-to-be-or-not-to-be-that-is-the-question
• ↑ https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/enhancing-your-memory/
• ↑ http://www.productivity501.com/how-to-memorize-verbatim-text/294/
• ↑ https://poets.org/poem/hamlet-act-iii-scene-i-be-or-not-be
• ↑ https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/sciencecommunication/2017/10/20/want-to-remember-something-better-put-it-in-a-song/
• ↑ https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/7-easy-monologue-memorization-tips/
• ↑ Alexander Ruiz, M.Ed.. Educational Consultant. Expert Interview. 18 June 2020.
• ↑ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09658211.2017.1383434

About This Article

To memorize a long text in the shortest time possible, start by splitting it into 1-2 sentence sections to make it easier to remember. Read the first section a few times. Then, cover the page and practice recalling the section from memory. You can say it aloud, in your head, or write it down on a new piece of paper. Once you’ve memorized the first section, move onto the next one. Whenever you start a new section, say or write the text from the beginning so you learn the flow between each section. Repeat the process until you’ve learned all of the sections of your text. For more tips, including how to memorize text by using pictures for each section, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

• Send fan mail to authors

Reader Success Stories

Beatriz Carvalho

Jun 30, 2016

Did this article help you?

Sep 5, 2017

Sep 3, 2017

Mayflower Summer

Jun 19, 2016

Vito Buller

Apr 5, 2016

Featured Articles

Trending Articles

Watch Articles

• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Do Not Sell or Share My Info
• Not Selling Info

Get all the best how-tos!

Sign up for wikiHow's weekly email newsletter

• Student Homepage
• Our Research
• Work with us

I’d like to learn more about Newcastle!

Your 3-step guide to revising for essay-based exams.

Essay-based exams are particularly difficult to prepare for. If you're worried about revising for your essay-based exam, read our blog from Newcastle University student, Robina, on how to get the most out of your revision.

This is the tried and tested revision method I’ve been using since college to pass essay based exams. The 3 R’s of revising…

Missed a lecture or two? It happens! Recap  is going to become your best friend over the break in helping you fill up any gaps you have in your notes.

Another thing I always find useful is to only write down what your lecturer is saying, not what's on the slide . Don't waste your time frantically scribbling down what you could easily access another time. 

Once recapped, you’ve got the basic skeleton of your essay down, now it’s time to put some meat on the bones.

Chances are you’ve got a massive reading list for each lecture. If you have no idea where to start I’d recommend following up any references already mentioned in the lecture , especially when it comes to case studies. Having relevant examples/case studies are  a MUST in essay based exams.

Every essay introduction should start with a basic definition , so look at the first few essential readings on your list, and pick out a definition you think sounds best. Work your way from there. I’d recommend including no more than three references already mentioned in the lecture or on the essential reading in your essay plan.

In order to get a 2:1, you need to show evidence that you’ve gone beyond the reading list and found your own material . So it’s best to get into the habit straight away. Looking at references within references is always a good idea, so picking a key author and seeing who they mention.

The same thing goes for your case studies and examples, refrain from just regurgitating the example your lecturer gave and try to find your own . Especially with a subject like human geography think about current events in the news, even if it is a basic example it will show the examiner that you’ve understood the concept/topic.

3. REHEARSE

This is my golden rule. What works best for me is firstly understanding the topic you’re writing about, but also actually MEMORISING your essay plans .

Do not underestimate the amount of time this step takes.

There is a general consensus amongst psychologists that the most effective way to remember information is through REHEARSAL .

Yes, you could probably cram a few days before but again, studies show that your short term memory can only retain 7+/- 2 pieces of information at any given time. So the TRICK is to get information into your LONG TERM MEMORY . And the only way I’m afraid is by going over your essay plans again and again. So highlight,  make cue cards,  say them out loud, listen to them, use pictures. Do whatever works for you but remember to keep going over them as much as possible.

When something is in your long term memory you have the ability to retrieve it at any time, so this way if you already have say 4 potential essay plans memorised it will save loads of thinking time in the exam.

We hope you have found this blog post useful, should you need a little more surviving exam season, why not read our essential blogs on what to know before accessing our libraries , and how to meditate to manage stress-levels during these especially uncertain times.

Tags: Student Stories , Study Tips

Related Articles

Supporting in-lab supervision as a phd student.

Topics: Student Stories , Study Tips

Top Student Eats in Newcastle!

Top exam study techniques to try out.

• Recent Posts
• Campus News
• Student Life
• Student Stories
• © 2019 Newcastle University All Rights Reserved

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Writing Essays for Exams

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

What is a well written answer to an essay question?

Well Focused

Be sure to answer the question completely, that is, answer all parts of the question. Avoid "padding." A lot of rambling and ranting is a sure sign that the writer doesn't really know what the right answer is and hopes that somehow, something in that overgrown jungle of words was the correct answer.

Well Organized

Don't write in a haphazard "think-as-you-go" manner. Do some planning and be sure that what you write has a clearly marked introduction which both states the point(s) you are going to make and also, if possible, how you are going to proceed. In addition, the essay should have a clearly indicated conclusion which summarizes the material covered and emphasizes your thesis or main point.

Well Supported

Do not just assert something is true, prove it. What facts, figures, examples, tests, etc. prove your point? In many cases, the difference between an A and a B as a grade is due to the effective use of supporting evidence.

Well Packaged

People who do not use conventions of language are thought of by their readers as less competent and less educated. If you need help with these or other writing skills, come to the Writing Lab

How do you write an effective essay exam?

• Read through all the questions carefully.
• Budget your time and decide which question(s) you will answer first.
• Underline the key word(s) which tell you what to do for each question.
• Choose an organizational pattern appropriate for each key word and plan your answers on scratch paper or in the margins.
• Write your answers as quickly and as legibly as you can; do not take the time to recopy.
• Begin each answer with one or two sentence thesis which summarizes your answer. If possible, phrase the statement so that it rephrases the question's essential terms into a statement (which therefore directly answers the essay question).
• Support your thesis with specific references to the material you have studied.
• Proofread your answer and correct errors in spelling and mechanics.

Specific organizational patterns and "key words"

Most essay questions will have one or more "key words" that indicate which organizational pattern you should use in your answer. The six most common organizational patterns for essay exams are definition, analysis, cause and effect, comparison/contrast, process analysis, and thesis-support.

Typical questions

• "Define X."
• "What is an X?"
• "Choose N terms from the following list and define them."

Q: "What is a fanzine?"

A: A fanzine is a magazine written, mimeographed, and distributed by and for science fiction or comic strip enthusiasts.

Avoid constructions such as "An encounter group is where ..." and "General semantics is when ... ."

• State the term to be defined.
• State the class of objects or concepts to which the term belongs.
• Differentiate the term from other members of the class by listing the term's distinguishing characteristics.

Tools you can use

• Details which describe the term
• Examples and incidents
• Comparisons to familiar terms
• Negation to state what the term is not
• Classification (i.e., break it down into parts)
• Examination of origins or causes
• Examination of results, effects, or uses

Analysis involves breaking something down into its components and discovering the parts that make up the whole.

• "Analyze X."
• "What are the components of X?"
• "What are the five different kinds of X?"
• "Discuss the different types of X."

Q: "Discuss the different services a junior college offers a community."

A: Thesis: A junior college offers the community at least three main types of educational services: vocational education for young people, continuing education for older people, and personal development for all individuals.

Outline for supporting details and examples. For example, if you were answering the example question, an outline might include:

• Vocational education
• Continuing education
• Personal development

Write the essay, describing each part or component and making transitions between each of your descriptions. Some useful transition words include:

• first, second, third, etc.
• in addition

Conclude the essay by emphasizing how each part you have described makes up the whole you have been asked to analyze.

Cause and Effect

Cause and effect involves tracing probable or known effects of a certain cause or examining one or more effects and discussing the reasonable or known cause(s).

Typical questions:

• "What are the causes of X?"
• "What led to X?"
• "Why did X occur?"
• "Why does X happen?"
• "What would be the effects of X?"

Q: "Define recession and discuss the probable effects a recession would have on today's society."

A: Thesis: A recession, which is a nationwide lull in business activity, would be detrimental to society in the following ways: it would .......A......., it would .......B......., and it would .......C....... .

The rest of the answer would explain, in some detail, the three effects: A, B, and C.

Useful transition words:

• consequently
• for this reason
• as a result

Comparison-Contrast

• "How does X differ from Y?"
• "Compare X and Y."
• "What are the advantages and disadvantages of X and Y?"

Q: "Which would you rather own—a compact car or a full-sized car?"

A: Thesis: I would own a compact car rather than a full-sized car for the following reasons: .......A......., .......B......., .......C......., and .......D....... .

Two patterns of development:

• Full-sized car

Disadvantages

• Compact car

Useful transition words

• on the other hand
• unlike A, B ...
• in the same way
• while both A and B are ..., only B ..
• nevertheless
• on the contrary
• while A is ..., B is ...
• "Describe how X is accomplished."
• "List the steps involved in X."
• "Explain what happened in X."
• "What is the procedure involved in X?"

Process (sometimes called process analysis)

This involves giving directions or telling the reader how to do something. It may involve discussing some complex procedure as a series of discrete steps. The organization is almost always chronological.

Q: "According to Richard Bolles' What Color Is Your Parachute?, what is the best procedure for finding a job?"

A: In What Color Is Your Parachute?, Richard Bolles lists seven steps that all job-hunters should follow: .....A....., .....B....., .....C....., .....D....., .....E....., .....F....., and .....G..... .

The remainder of the answer should discuss each of these seven steps in some detail.

• following this
• after, afterwards, after this
• subsequently
• simultaneously, concurrently

Thesis and Support

• "Discuss X."
• "A noted authority has said X. Do you agree or disagree?"
• "Defend or refute X."
• "Do you think that X is valid? Defend your position."

Thesis and support involves stating a clearly worded opinion or interpretation and then defending it with all the data, examples, facts, and so on that you can draw from the material you have studied.

Q: "Despite criticism, television is useful because it aids in the socializing process of our children."

A: Television hinders rather than helps in the socializing process of our children because .......A......., .......B......., and .......C....... .

The rest of the answer is devoted to developing arguments A, B, and C.

• it follows that

A. Which of the following two answers is the better one? Why?

Question: Discuss the contribution of William Morris to book design, using as an example his edition of the works of Chaucer.

a. William Morris's Chaucer was his masterpiece. It shows his interest in the Middle Ages. The type is based on medieval manuscript writing, and the decoration around the edges of the pages is like that used in medieval books. The large initial letters are typical of medieval design. Those letters were printed from woodcuts, which was the medieval way of printing. The illustrations were by Burn-Jones, one of the best artists in England at the time. Morris was able to get the most competent people to help him because he was so famous as a poet and a designer (the Morris chair) and wallpaper and other decorative items for the home. He designed the furnishings for his own home, which was widely admired among the sort of people he associated with. In this way he started the arts and crafts movement.

b. Morris's contribution to book design was to approach the problem as an artist or fine craftsman, rather than a mere printer who reproduced texts. He wanted to raise the standards of printing, which had fallen to a low point, by showing that truly beautiful books could be produced. His Chaucer was designed as a unified work of art or high craft. Since Chaucer lived in the Middle Ages, Morris decided to design a new type based on medieval script and to imitate the format of a medieval manuscript. This involved elaborate letters and large initials at the beginnings of verses, as well as wide borders of intertwined vines with leaves, fruit, and flowers in strong colors. The effect was so unusual that the book caused great excitement and inspired other printers to design beautiful rather than purely utilitarian books.

From James M. McCrimmon, Writing with a Purpose , 7th ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1980), pp. 261-263.

B. How would you plan the structure of the answers to these essay exam questions?

1. Was the X Act a continuation of earlier government policies or did it represent a departure from prior philosophies?

2. What seems to be the source of aggression in human beings? What can be done to lower the level of aggression in our society?

3. Choose one character from Novel X and, with specific references to the work, show how he or she functions as an "existential hero."

4. Define briefly the systems approach to business management. Illustrate how this differs from the traditional approach.

5. What is the cosmological argument? Does it prove that God exists?

6. Civil War historian Andy Bellum once wrote, "Blahblahblah blahed a blahblah, but of course if blahblah blahblahblahed the blah, then blahblahs are not blah but blahblah." To what extent and in what ways is the statement true? How is it false?

For more information on writing exam essays for the GED, please visit our Engagement area and go to the Community Writing and Education Station (CWEST) resources.

• Entertainment
• Business & Economy
• About Okay.ng
• Advertising on Okay.ng
• Contact Okay.ng
• Okay.ng on WhatsApp
• Submit News to Okay.ng

2024 WAEC: Geography 1, 2 & 3 – (Essay), (Objective) (Practicals) – How to Pass the Exam Today

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) Geography exams are a pivotal part of the assessment for students across West Africa.

Excelling in these exams requires not only a good grasp of geographical concepts but also strategic preparation. This article aims to guide students on how to effectively prepare for the Geography 1 (Essay), 2 (Objective), and 3 (Practicals) papers and answer some of the most frequently asked questions.

Understanding the WAEC Geography Exam Structure

The WAEC Geography examination is divided into three parts:

• Geography 1 : This is the essay section where students are required to write detailed responses to questions.
• Geography 2 : This consists of objective questions that test a wide range of topics.
• Geography 3 : This section involves practical work, often including map reading and analysis.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can i effectively prepare for the waec geography exam.

Study Tips :

• Focus on Map Reading : Develop your skills in map interpretation and analysis.
• Understand Geographical Concepts : Ensure you have a solid understanding of physical and human geography.
• Use Past Questions : Practice with past exam papers to familiarize yourself with the question format.

Resources :

• Geography Textbooks : Use them for in-depth study of topics.
• Past Questions : These are invaluable for understanding the exam format and types of questions asked.
• Maps and Atlases : Essential for practicing map reading and analysis.

What Are the Key Topics to Focus On?

• Physical Geography : Study landforms, climate, vegetation, and soils.
• Human Geography : Focus on population, urbanization, economic activities, and environmental management.
• Map Work : Practice skills such as distance calculation, gradient determination, and interpretation of topographical maps.

How Can I Manage My Time During the Exam?

• Read All Questions Carefully : Before answering, ensure you understand what each question is asking.
• Allocate Time Wisely : Spend more time on questions that carry more marks.
• Practice With Timers : Use past questions and time yourself to improve your speed and accuracy.

Study Plan for Success

• Create a Study Schedule : Allocate specific times for studying geography and stick to it.
• Set Achievable Goals : Break down your study material into manageable sections.
• Stay Consistent : Regular study sessions will help reinforce your knowledge and improve retention.

Connect with Okay on Social

Recent posts.

UCL Final Line-Up: Courtois Starts, Reus Benched as Madrid, Dortmund Announce Teams

Exams to Proceed Despite Nationwide Strike – WAEC

Abuja DisCo Issues Disconnection Warning to Police, Defence HQ, Others Over Unpaid Bills

Reps Considering Bill to Secure Seats for Women in NASS, Says Kalu

Rivers: God Has Removed all Barriers to Our Success – Fubara

Sign in to your account

Username or Email Address

Remember Me

Watch our Memorial Day tribute to the military who sacrificed all to serve their country

Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer. It's a time to gather with friends and family for a grill out, a picnic, or maybe a trip to the beach to soak up the sun. But while it may well feel like a day of celebration, what sometimes gets forgotten is that it was conceived as a day of commemoration for the brave military members who died serving their country.  

A University of Phoenix survey found that less than half of Americans polled knew the exact purpose of Memorial Day, while around a third were unsure of the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

To clarify, Veterans Day, which takes place in November, is a tribute to all those who served honorably in the military in wartime or peacetime, whether living or dead.

The confusion is compounded by Armed Forces Day, a military celebration held in May for those currently serving. However, while the reasons differ, the sentiment of each day is the same: all three are important opportunities to show gratitude.

So, when you chow down on that hot dog, barrel down that slip 'n slide, or whatever you do for fun this Memorial Day, spare a moment to acknowledge the people in uniform whose sacrifice made a difference.

On this Memorial Day, watch the video for a surprise reunion of battle buddies bonded by the loss of their leade r

Humankind is your go-to spot for good news! Click here to submit your uplifting, cute, or inspiring video moments for us to feature. Also, click here to subscribe to our newsletter , bringing our top stories of the week straight to your inbox.