how much did you write?

[flash36]

Ross Huggard said at a lecture that I went to, the essays that score 10 are generally around the 800-1000 word mark.

Seriously? That quite short =/

Yeah. That word range he says ensures the essay is succinct and uses the key evidence required to directly answer the question. That's not to say a 1500 word essay can't get a 10.

[m@tty]

Ross Huggard said at a lecture that I went to, the essays that score 10 are generally around the 800-1000 word mark.

Seriously? That quite short =/

If you are succinct with terrific expression and have only 3 paragraphs - let's say very insightful paragraphs, just so 10 is plausible - then you'd only need ~ 200 words per body. Add then another 200 or so for introduction and conclusion and you have yourself an 800 word 10/10.

The thing with very long essays is that they tend to ramble, by the end at least. And often evidence and concepts are drawn into the discussion which are not wholly relevant. Thus if you write a long essay it is easy to fall into these traps and be marked down for it.

Also, remember that the average word counts are, I think, ~550-700 words. So in comparison to the masses, an 800-1000 word essay is quite long already - and 1500 words is unheard of in most schools.

[Ghost!]

If you are succinct with terrific expression and have only 3 paragraphs - let's say very insightful paragraphs, just so 10 is plausible - then you'd only need ~ 200 words per body. Add then another 200 or so for introduction and conclusion and you have yourself an 800 word 10/10.

The thing with very long essays is that they tend to ramble, by the end at least. And often evidence and concepts are drawn into the discussion which are not wholly relevant. Thus if you write a long essay it is easy to fall into these traps and be marked down for it.

Also, remember that the average word counts are, I think, ~550-700 words. So in comparison to the masses, an 800-1000 word essay is quite long already - and 1500 words is unheard of in most schools.

Yeah the Year12's at my school this year were predominately happy with 600 words in an essay, very very annoying with the exception of the few kids that actually took VCE seriously. 1500 words seems a bit too much to be honest, often drawing in a lot of the mistakes you mentioned, particularly using a lot of irrelevant, but that's not to say I haven't read some amazing lengthy pieces. 1000-1300 is the perfect range I think.

[EvangelionZeta]

Ross Huggard said at a lecture that I went to, the essays that score 10 are generally around the 800-1000 word mark.

Putting it out there, I heard once that Ross Huggard is a bit of an idiot in general. 

I honestly believe even if you are the most succint writer in the world, fitting enough content into 800 words for a 10/10 is hard.  1000 or even 900 words (particularly the former) sounds a bit more plausible.

The thing with very long essays is that they tend to ramble, by the end at least. And often evidence and concepts are drawn into the discussion which are not wholly relevant. Thus if you write a long essay it is easy to fall into these traps and be marked down for it.

I think the thing about very long essays is that unless you feel reasonably comfortable about English, you're not going to write them anyway.  At least in my experience, people who do the whole 1200+ words gig are generally fairly confident that what they're saying is relevant.

With that said, I think we should just conclude with the usual maxim - quality over quantity.  With that said, if you've got quality down, I don't see why length would be a disadvantage to you as long as you felt it was necessary.

[werdna]

Putting it out there, I heard once that Ross Huggard is a bit of an idiot in general.

+1 - I've heard this too!  He teaches at Cranbourne SC.

[striker_pete]

Uhhh, I know this is disgustingly late. But uhh:
4.4386795 pages Text Response = 1134 words
4.5214250 pages Context = 1169 words
3.7928372 pages Language Analysis = 953 words

Yes. I am that exact.