It helped me! ![Smiley :)](https://www.atarnotes.com/forum/Smileys/default/smiley.gif)
September holidays was the first time I started writing practice essays... ![Roll Eyes ::)](https://www.atarnotes.com/forum/Smileys/default/rolleyes.gif)
i never really wrote any that weren't set by my teacher until after school had finished, in the week leading up to the exam.
to be honest, writing essays was never particularly beneficial to me; i had another technique. instead of just churning out text response after text response, i'd just write the essay plan, plus a bit more.
basically, what i'd do is take an essay question on the text that i was studying (usually from a past or practice paper).
i'd write an introduction out in full.
i'd write the topic sentence to each of my main paragraphs (3-5 of them, usually aimed for 4).
i'd write dot points for the arguments i'd make in each paragraph.
i'd supply the quotes i'd use to back up these arguments.
didn't bother with a conclusion as mine were usually just reworkings of the introduction.
so basically what i'd do is analyse the question given and work out the best way to write a text response on it. using the technique above, i didn't spend nearly as much time studying: each text response plan would only take about 20 mins, tops. however, i'd feel i'd achieved just as much as writing out an essay in full. with the plan above, writing a complete response would be just filling in the blanks.