how long should an in class essay be?

[Maz]

hey
pretty much says it in the question..
i know that it depends on the quality of the work and quality always goes over quantity- but say it was a well written
essay- how many words minimum should an in class essay be? given that someone doesn't know the question they are going to write about? but they do know the text...
thankyou so much in advance 

[Syndicate]

hey
pretty much says it in the question..
i know that it depends on the quality of the work and quality always goes over quantity- but say it was a well written
essay- how many words minimum should an in class essay be? given that someone doesn't know the question they are going to write about? but they do know the text...
thankyou so much in advance 

Depends how much time you are given. I would usually try to get atleast 450 words for every 55 minutes, and leave the 5 minutes to read through it. You should just aim to get your main contention written, and not try to go too off-topic (I mean still aim to write the context, but don't just start debating about it unless the topic asks you to do so).

[Maz]

Depends how much time you are given. I would usually try to get atleast 450 words for every 55 minutes, and leave the 5 minutes to read through it. You should just aim to get your main contention written, and not try to go too off-topic (I mean still aim to write the context, but don't just start debating about it unless the topic asks you to do so).

coolio- we are given 55 mins to write it (it's in a 1 hour period but it usually take 5 mins for everyone to sit down, get paper and their stuff

[literally lauren]

coolio- we are given 55 mins to write it (it's in a 1 hour period but it usually take 5 mins for everyone to sit down, get paper and their stuff

Lit is a tricky one if we're talking about in-class SACs, then the length can vary drastically depending on the nature of the task.

If were at a school that told you the topics for a Views and Values essay beforehand and then gives you three hours spread across three days to complete the SAC, then you'd want to be hitting the 1000+ mark with some high quality analysis in there. But if your school does the brutal exam-conditions-even-in-February thing with unseen material and an hour (or less) to finish things, then you could get a really decent score with around 700. Assuming this is your Adaptations and Transformations SAC (correct me if I'm wrong?) then you should be able to come in with a fairly good idea of what you're writing anyway since you'll have studied both the source text and the adaptation in depth beforehand, and the 'essay topics' - if you get them - won't be very restrictive in their focus.

As you say, quality > quantity, so a 600 word piece that's doing everything right will get a better score than someone who's written 800 words of waffle and nonsense, but it really depends on your writing style. My Year 12 teacher had this weird thing where she just wanted us to hit five pages... that was her only basis for critique at one point - we either hit 5 pages and got >17/20, or didn't make that cut-off and were relegated to scoring less than 17. One time, my friend and I actually typed up our respective essays to check the word count and it was like 823 vs. 824, but because I had slightly larger handwriting, my 824 piece made it to three pages and got 20/20 while my friend only got 17, and our teacher had no other comments for either of us save from 'Lauren, I'm really glad you're getting to five pages' and 'Lauren's friend, you really need to try and get to five pages next time' -.-

So you can see why obsessing over the word count (or rather page count) is highly unproductive. Just try and use it as an indicator of how much you've covered of the task so far. If you're only hitting 600 words, there are probably key elements or points of analysis you're leaving out. Whereas if you're stretching yourself to 1400, then you might be compromising clarity and quality overall.

The really rough estimate from an exam perspective is that you want to be writing in excess of 1000 words if you want to crack the 40+ SS mark, but I'm sure there are people who've disproved this in the past. Most of the really high scoring (45+ SS) pieces that the end of the year will be at least 1000 words because obviously someone who's got 1000 words of great content trumps someone who's only got 700 words of great content, but it's the greatness of the content they're more concerned with

[Swagadaktal]

Lit is a tricky one if we're talking about in-class SACs, then the length can vary drastically depending on the nature of the task.

If were at a school that told you the topics for a Views and Values essay beforehand and then gives you three hours spread across three days to complete the SAC, then you'd want to be hitting the 1000+ mark with some high quality analysis in there. But if your school does the brutal exam-conditions-even-in-February thing with unseen material and an hour (or less) to finish things, then you could get a really decent score with around 700. Assuming this is your Adaptations and Transformations SAC (correct me if I'm wrong?) then you should be able to come in with a fairly good idea of what you're writing anyway since you'll have studied both the source text and the adaptation in depth beforehand, and the 'essay topics' - if you get them - won't be very restrictive in their focus.

As you say, quality > quantity, so a 600 word piece that's doing everything right will get a better score than someone who's written 800 words of waffle and nonsense, but it really depends on your writing style. My Year 12 teacher had this weird thing where she just wanted us to hit five pages... that was her only basis for critique at one point - we either hit 5 pages and got >17/20, or didn't make that cut-off and were relegated to scoring less than 17. One time, my friend and I actually typed up our respective essays to check the word count and it was like 823 vs. 824, but because I had slightly larger handwriting, my 824 piece made it to three pages and got 20/20 while my friend only got 17, and our teacher had no other comments for either of us save from 'Lauren, I'm really glad you're getting to five pages' and 'Lauren's friend, you really need to try and get to five pages next time' -.-

So you can see why obsessing over the word count (or rather page count) is highly unproductive. Just try and use it as an indicator of how much you've covered of the task so far. If you're only hitting 600 words, there are probably key elements or points of analysis you're leaving out. Whereas if you're stretching yourself to 1400, then you might be compromising clarity and quality overall.

The really rough estimate from an exam perspective is that you want to be writing in excess of 1000 words if you want to crack the 40+ SS mark, but I'm sure there are people who've disproved this in the past. Most of the really high scoring (45+ SS) pieces that the end of the year will be at least 1000 words because obviously someone who's got 1000 words of great content trumps someone who's only got 700 words of great content, but it's the greatness of the content they're more concerned with

ok the thread has been answered so is it ok if I sort've hijack it?
For the end of year English exam, would you be writing 1000 words per essay? soo 1k words in 1 hour? Because that's generally the length of my shizzle, 250 words per body + 150 words intro/conc (so 900)

[DeezNuts]

Lauren has hit the nail on the head with her response

If you want some hard evidence, I had around 1000-1500 words in my first passage analysis in my lit exam and around 1000-1100 words in my second piece.

I think for in class SAC's it's reasonable for approx 400-500 words an hour..especially if you have had no preparation or notification beforehand

For me, SAC's with pre planning are generally easy to smash out 600-800 words an hour

Good luck

[pi]

ok the thread has been answered so is it ok if I sort've hijack it?

Um, not really? Let's keep Lit questions to the lit board, and English questions to the English board

[Maz]

Thank you so much everyone 

[Swagadaktal]

Um, not really? Let's keep Lit questions to the lit board, and English questions to the English board

ooh yeah f.e soz guys

[Hasti]

Just something I might add as well is timing yourself. If you've got a pre - written essay that you plan to write in class in the 55 or so minutes, time yourself writing it out at home under exam conditions and make sure that you have enough time to do the same in class. Also, if you're trying to write more words, then you'd need to increase your writing speed and efficiency. Try cursive writing, as well as short and skinny letters to speed up how many words you can actually write per minute! Good luck!

[Maz]

Just something I might add as well is timing yourself. If you've got a pre - written essay that you plan to write in class in the 55 or so minutes, time yourself writing it out at home under exam conditions and make sure that you have enough time to do the same in class. Also, if you're trying to write more words, then you'd need to increase your writing speed and efficiency. Try cursive writing, as well as short and skinny letters to speed up how many words you can actually write per minute! Good luck!

thankyou 
i wrote my essay today- from my practice one I'm guessing it would have been around 1300