How many words per piece in the exam?

[bomb]

If my English teacher (who is an examiner and got a 50 in English) saw this forum, she would be horrified by some of the posts.....

Why so? The fact that we are talking about word count, or the word counts being suggested?

I tried doing a full english exam in 1.5 hours as a challenge.

I got 9/10, 8/10, 7/10 from a teacher who is generally a fair marker.

If it is any indication my word/essay went from about 1100 for the language analysis to 700 by the time I got to the last essay. All my arguments/topic sentences are already in my head, but the length IS a contributing factor, if you can't get enough "quality" writing in, you won't get a good mark.

Ive decided on settling for 3 pages for each thing now

If you're referring to memorizing essays; let's be honest, most of the best students do exactly that.

Yup, although I'm not sure I can write 3 pages an hour :S How much did you write in total?

[Nic K]

She hates when people try and count their words, or ask how many words they should write. She thinks it's a silly thing to do.

[EvangelionZeta]

She hates when people try and count their words, or ask how many words they should write. She thinks it's a silly thing to do.

It sort of is in the sense that you should worry more about content than about word count, but keeping track of your word count is an easy way of keeping track of content...

[taiga]

If my English teacher (who is an examiner and got a 50 in English) saw this forum, she would be horrified by some of the posts.....

Why so? The fact that we are talking about word count, or the word counts being suggested?

I tried doing a full english exam in 1.5 hours as a challenge.

I got 9/10, 8/10, 7/10 from a teacher who is generally a fair marker.

If it is any indication my word/essay went from about 1100 for the language analysis to 700 by the time I got to the last essay. All my arguments/topic sentences are already in my head, but the length IS a contributing factor, if you can't get enough "quality" writing in, you won't get a good mark.

Ive decided on settling for 3 pages for each thing now

If you're referring to memorizing essays; let's be honest, most of the best students do exactly that.

Yup, although I'm not sure I can write 3 pages an hour :S How much did you write in total?

I reckon you can, in our school's trial exam i got 12 in 3 hours, but my handwriting is pretty large :X

[8039]

They spend an average of 2-3 minutes per essay... no one is gonna count your words

This is a common fallacy.  Whilst you should definitely focus on quality over quantity, realistically (and to quote an ex-examiner), you're not going to get full marks on an essay unless you have 1000+ words.  Whilst they won't take marks "off" for a piece being too short, the depth of analysis required for 10/10 necessitates more space - simply put, more writing=more content, and when you're competing against people who write 1500 word context pieces, something in the 800 range doesn't stand a chance of making top marks.

Again though, word count is a symptom of, rather than "intrinsic" to success.  The reason the top essays are so long is because they have content which needs a lot of writing to pull off - just "padding" an essay isn't going to help at all.  Also, note that I'm talking 10/10s and sort of 9/10s - something in the 7-8/10 range is probably more likely to have around 800-1000 words.

1,500? no thanks. I've reviewed all the top responses in the last 3 years and on the largest I can think of was 1,200 words. Shortest being 800 and on average 900-1000.

[bomb]

I reckon you can, in our school's trial exam i got 12 in 3 hours, but my handwriting is pretty large :X

Wow, I'll try when we do a trial at school in a few weeks.

P.S, why are you redoing methods when you got a 49? If you don't mind me asking

[EvangelionZeta]

They spend an average of 2-3 minutes per essay... no one is gonna count your words

This is a common fallacy.  Whilst you should definitely focus on quality over quantity, realistically (and to quote an ex-examiner), you're not going to get full marks on an essay unless you have 1000+ words.  Whilst they won't take marks "off" for a piece being too short, the depth of analysis required for 10/10 necessitates more space - simply put, more writing=more content, and when you're competing against people who write 1500 word context pieces, something in the 800 range doesn't stand a chance of making top marks.

Again though, word count is a symptom of, rather than "intrinsic" to success.  The reason the top essays are so long is because they have content which needs a lot of writing to pull off - just "padding" an essay isn't going to help at all.  Also, note that I'm talking 10/10s and sort of 9/10s - something in the 7-8/10 range is probably more likely to have around 800-1000 words.

1,500? no thanks. I've reviewed all the top responses in the last 3 years and on the largest I can think of was 1,200 words. Shortest being 800 and on average 900-1000.

Top responses from where?  If you mean the examiners' reports, they're usually about 8/10 quality, rather than 9-10.

[8039]

They spend an average of 2-3 minutes per essay... no one is gonna count your words

This is a common fallacy.  Whilst you should definitely focus on quality over quantity, realistically (and to quote an ex-examiner), you're not going to get full marks on an essay unless you have 1000+ words.  Whilst they won't take marks "off" for a piece being too short, the depth of analysis required for 10/10 necessitates more space - simply put, more writing=more content, and when you're competing against people who write 1500 word context pieces, something in the 800 range doesn't stand a chance of making top marks.

Again though, word count is a symptom of, rather than "intrinsic" to success.  The reason the top essays are so long is because they have content which needs a lot of writing to pull off - just "padding" an essay isn't going to help at all.  Also, note that I'm talking 10/10s and sort of 9/10s - something in the 7-8/10 range is probably more likely to have around 800-1000 words.

1,500? no thanks. I've reviewed all the top responses in the last 3 years and on the largest I can think of was 1,200 words. Shortest being 800 and on average 900-1000.

Top responses from where?  If you mean the examiners' reports, they're usually about 8/10 quality, rather than 9-10.

Yeah the handpicked example of a high marked response. I'd have to imagine those students got at least A-A+ if they were chosen to represent high quality responses.

They put a lot of emphasis on the fact that you shouldn't go in to the exam with a rigid, structured and generic response prepared. As long as you write an interesting response that addresses the prompt and shows your knowledge of the text I can't imagine they'd expect you to write over 1,200 words... given that you have 1 measly hour per response.

[kyzoo]

I can easily come up with enough content to write 1500 words for each piece but I won't have enough time to do that =X. It's kind of vexing: If I write for as long as I feel like writing, then I run out of time, yet if I artificially restrict my writing, then I feel like I haven't fully covered what I need to cover.

They put a lot of emphasis on the fact that you shouldn't go in to the exam with a rigid, structured and generic response prepared. As long as you write an interesting response that addresses the prompt and shows your knowledge of the text I can't imagine they'd expect you to write over 1,200 words... given that you have 1 measly hour per response.

Maybe, but to excel in any area means to surpass expectations.

[EvangelionZeta]

They spend an average of 2-3 minutes per essay... no one is gonna count your words

This is a common fallacy.  Whilst you should definitely focus on quality over quantity, realistically (and to quote an ex-examiner), you're not going to get full marks on an essay unless you have 1000+ words.  Whilst they won't take marks "off" for a piece being too short, the depth of analysis required for 10/10 necessitates more space - simply put, more writing=more content, and when you're competing against people who write 1500 word context pieces, something in the 800 range doesn't stand a chance of making top marks.

Again though, word count is a symptom of, rather than "intrinsic" to success.  The reason the top essays are so long is because they have content which needs a lot of writing to pull off - just "padding" an essay isn't going to help at all.  Also, note that I'm talking 10/10s and sort of 9/10s - something in the 7-8/10 range is probably more likely to have around 800-1000 words.

1,500? no thanks. I've reviewed all the top responses in the last 3 years and on the largest I can think of was 1,200 words. Shortest being 800 and on average 900-1000.

Top responses from where?  If you mean the examiners' reports, they're usually about 8/10 quality, rather than 9-10.

Yeah the handpicked example of a high marked response. I'd have to imagine those students got at least A-A+ if they were chosen to represent high quality responses.

They put a lot of emphasis on the fact that you shouldn't go in to the exam with a rigid, structured and generic response prepared. As long as you write an interesting response that addresses the prompt and shows your knowledge of the text I can't imagine they'd expect you to write over 1,200 words... given that you have 1 measly hour per response.

Again, I emphasise that they're about 8/10 level, and not 9 or 10.  An interesting response that addresses the prompt and shows your knowledge of the text is obviously what they want, but even then there are varying levels of "interesting", and the lengthier, the more information and interest you can potentially "fill" in.  And people can and WILL be able to write over 1200 words, even without having "memorised" entire slabs - to use an extreme example, James Lu of last year was filling out at least 6 pages per essay...

Yes, I'm not saying 1500 words is a requirement (I'd say at leaast 1000 should be fine, even), but you need to be aware of what you're up against.

[happyhappyland]

They spend an average of 2-3 minutes per essay... no one is gonna count your words

This is a common fallacy.  Whilst you should definitely focus on quality over quantity, realistically (and to quote an ex-examiner), you're not going to get full marks on an essay unless you have 1000+ words.  Whilst they won't take marks "off" for a piece being too short, the depth of analysis required for 10/10 necessitates more space - simply put, more writing=more content, and when you're competing against people who write 1500 word context pieces, something in the 800 range doesn't stand a chance of making top marks.

Again though, word count is a symptom of, rather than "intrinsic" to success.  The reason the top essays are so long is because they have content which needs a lot of writing to pull off - just "padding" an essay isn't going to help at all.  Also, note that I'm talking 10/10s and sort of 9/10s - something in the 7-8/10 range is probably more likely to have around 800-1000 words.

1,500? no thanks. I've reviewed all the top responses in the last 3 years and on the largest I can think of was 1,200 words. Shortest being 800 and on average 900-1000.

Top responses from where?  If you mean the examiners' reports, they're usually about 8/10 quality, rather than 9-10.

Yeah the handpicked example of a high marked response. I'd have to imagine those students got at least A-A+ if they were chosen to represent high quality responses.

They put a lot of emphasis on the fact that you shouldn't go in to the exam with a rigid, structured and generic response prepared. As long as you write an interesting response that addresses the prompt and shows your knowledge of the text I can't imagine they'd expect you to write over 1,200 words... given that you have 1 measly hour per response.

Again, I emphasise that they're about 8/10 level, and not 9 or 10.  An interesting response that addresses the prompt and shows your knowledge of the text is obviously what they want, but even then there are varying levels of "interesting", and the lengthier, the more information and interest you can potentially "fill" in.  And people can and WILL be able to write over 1200 words, even without having "memorised" entire slabs - to use an extreme example, James Lu of last year was filling out at least 6 pages per essay...

Yes, I'm not saying 1500 words is a requirement (I'd say at leaast 1000 should be fine, even), but you need to be aware of what you're up against.

So are you saying that without 1500 words its quite hard to get a 45? I know theres quality but Im writing about 1000 words for text response and 1200 for context but Im aiming for 42, can I fit enough knowledge into that amount of words to get a 45?

[m@tty]

Definitely. You should be able to get 9s with that word count, assuming you don't ramble.

And with 3 9s you have a very decent chance at 45, if your moderated SAC scores will be decent.

[brightsky]

That's more than enough. EZ isn't saying that, it's just that with 1500 words you could discuss more things than if your essay was 900 words, and hence, given that the quality is good, a 1500 essay would score higher. There are definitely examples where 45+ scores have been obtained through <1000 words, but not much less. If I remember correctly, polky , a poster here a year ago who got a 50 for English, said she frequently did essays which were ~900 words in length.

Just on this topic, don't write very long essays just for the sake of it. The old axiom still applies, quality > quantity.

[98.40_for_sure]

My essays written on the fly are usually around 700-800 words and i score 9's... teacher said there is no need to write heaps when you can write less and still get the same points across.

[m@tty]

Yeah, it's quality > quantity.

But at the same time quantity > quantity.

ie. assuming quality, more work > less work.