Wonderful, thanks!!
How do the assessors mark? Like say if you didnt have time to write the last essay, but like absolutely smashed the others as you devoted the 3 hours to it, would they really take off the whole 10 marks off the essay?
Also say you didn't have enough time to write up the conclusion of the last essay, what happens? In terms of marks
Your exam isn't just marked globally by one or two people. At the end of the year, you'll have (at least) six different assessors. None of them speak to each other; each essay is marked by two different people independently, then they add the two marks per essay together for all three essays to get a score out of 60.
For example:
Section A essay: {Assessor 1: 8/10} {Assessor 2: 9/10}
Section B essay: {Assessor 3: 7/10} {Assessor 4: 7/10}
Section C essay: {Assessor 5: 5/10} {Assessor 6: 9/10} --> this would be a special case. Since there is a disparity of three or more between the marks, this essay will be given to a third assessor to mark. If they said it was an 8/10, then they'd take the 8 and the 9 and add those together. But if they thought it was only a 6, then they'd take the 5 and the 6 since they're closer. In the rare event this third assessor also gives you a widely different mark, like a 2/10 or something, then your piece just goes to the Chief Assessor and he gets the final say.
So assuming that final piece got given an 8/10 by its third assessor, your overall exam score would equate to 48/60.
To answer your question, it doesn't matter how good a single essay is; if you've left a whole section blank, you can't get any marks for it. Don't think about it as 'taking 10 marks off;' you haven't done anything to earn those marks in the first place :p The assessors don't know how well you've done on your other essays - all they see is that one piece which might be brilliant or blank, and they'll mark it accordingly. I would think that if you do end up with vastly different scores for each one (eg. A:9+10/10, B:9+9/10, C:3+4/10) then the Chief Assessor might give things a look over just to make sure you weren't marked unfairly, but this is quite a frequent occurrence so they might not worry about it so much nowadays.
With regards to conclusions, they're structural requirements in T.R. and L.A. so if you leave them out, it's possible you could lose a mark, though usually only if you've done other things wrong as well (eg. vocab was mediocre, spelling was pretty bad, some parts were repetitive AND you were missing a conclusion)
Context has no formal structure, so if you're just writing a journal article or a speech or something, you don't have to have a specific paragraph that concludes your piece, but you should still be wrapping things up at the end. For the typical expository essay, not having a conclusion can sound a bit odd.
How would I respond to a context prompt in an expository essay? I was told not to answer the prompt like a question (yes/no) but rather 'explore'.
For example using the 2012 conflict prompt "The experience of conflict changes people's priorities", I was told not to write my expository essay using 'the experience of conflict changes people's priorities and the experience does not change people's priorities' as my points because I'm responding to the prompt as if I'm answering a question. But how would I explore?
MathsNerd beat me to it, but questioning is definitely what I'd recommend too.
You never want to argue that something in Context is
completely true or
totally false; you can say something is
often true or
generally false however. Think about it - if you're reading an essay and a student writes: 'Conflict changes peoples priorities,' then it's as though they think that statement has no exceptions, which isn't necessarily the case (--> these exceptions are where we get the really interesting discussion! So what is it about a conflict or a person that determines whether or not the priorities change? Maybe we have to have an open mind, or be aware of our circumstances? Or maybe it is people who unintentionally become the victims in a conflict who are forced to alter their priorities?...) Likewise if someone says 'Conflict doesn't change priorities - ever,' you only have to think of
one exception, and their whole argument falls apart. It's much safer to have a contention like 'Although conflict can bring about a change in our values, the degree to which this change affects us depends on much more...'