Timed Essays
It can be nerve-racking when the clock begins counting down as you write a timed essay from scratch. While timed writing is challenging, several strategies can make it less so. Educators use these essays to test various skills in their students, so it is crucial to improve your writing.
This article provides pointers on how to approach timed essay writing for the best results. It offers advice on how to prepare and write them effectively.
What is a Timed Essay?
Also referred to as essay exams or in-class essays, timed essays require you to produce a written paper within a limited time. Educators use these essays to test various skills in their students, including raw writing ability and thinking under pressure. Timed essays demonstrate a student's ability to recall, synthesize and write to a prompt.
A prompt is the question that demands a full essay and is typically revealed during the test. Your thesis for the timed essay is usually your answer to the prompt.
Writing Timed essays
When writing timed essays, organization and time management are as important as the quality of writing. Success in timed writing depends on your preparation before, during and after the writing process.
How to prepare before an essay
- Familiarize yourself with the course content
Educators typically, do not tell their students in advance what the timed essay prompt will be. Writing about timed essay topics you've never seen before can be intimidating. Even if the teacher has not given hints about the essay question, you can guess what it will be about from the concepts covered during the course.
To avoid being caught off guard by the timed essay question, take time to study. You should study for a timed essay like it's any other exam. Attend lectures, take detailed notes, read the assigned texts, create a study guide and form study groups. Make sure you understand the general themes in the subject matter.
An essay question will either ask you to synthesize material from different areas of the course or focus on a specific area.
- Start planning
Create a strategy you will use in writing your timed essay. Try predicting several possible timed essay topics and plan a response for each. If you can master identifying essay topics and creating an outline, you will have an advantage when writing your essay.
Since teachers prefer grading high-quality essays, they sometimes give their students an idea of what the essay question will be about before the test. This creates an excellent opportunity to prepare for the essay. Conduct exhaustive research and map out a possible essay in point form before the test.
- Practice writing under time pressure
The main thing that sets writing a timed essay apart from the rest is the time pressure. Many students struggle to write a complete essay within the time constraints. To avoid struggling during the test, you can simulate the conditions of a timed essay to practice for the actual test.
- Read the essay question carefully.
Reading and understanding the essay question is one of the most important part of writing a timed essay. Before you start writing your timed essay, read the question carefully to understand the details you are instructed to include. An excellent timed essay can receive low marks if it does not answer the specific question that has been asked.
- Make a plan
The temptation to start scribbling down immediately after reading the question is immense when the clock is ticking down. Many students make the mistake of figuring out their points as they write their essay. Doing this can result in writing yourself into a corner or drifting off-topic and taking a lot of time to fix these mistakes.
The best approach is to take a few minutes after reading the question to draw up a plan of how you will tackle the essay. Choose your thesis and the arguments you intend to discuss in each paragraph and jot down some brief point-form notes. You can then expand these notes into a well-organized essay.
- Schedule a time for each paragraph
After you've planned and made an outline of the paragraphs you will include in your essay; you should schedule a set time for each section. Split the time allotted for writing the timed essay into segments.
While writing
- Manage your time
It's easy to focus so much time on a single paragraph and run out of time to write the rest of the paper. Follow the paragraph-based schedule to keep yourself on track. Keep an eye on the clock to make sure you don't fall behind schedule. If writing a paragraph takes more time than you have planned for, cut some arguments you had planned to include and move on to the next one.
- Write good content
Start your essay with a captivating introduction that features a creative hook and a precise central claim. Your introduction should also include a brief outline of the supporting evidence in your essay.
The body of your essay should only include supporting evidence for your central claim. Conclude your essay with a brief conclusion.
Final thoughts
There are numerous timed essay topic examples that you can be asked to write about. What is common to them all is the time limit for writing. Timed essays test your ability to think and express yourself under pressure. Mastery of this writing genre requires practice and discipline.
Order Your Custom Timed Essay or Term Paper Today!
