how answer essay questions

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Focus and Precision: How to Write Essays that Answer the Question

About the Author Stephanie Allen read Classics and English at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, and is currently researching a PhD in Early Modern Academic Drama at the University of Fribourg.

We’ve all been there. You’ve handed in an essay and you think it’s pretty great: it shows off all your best ideas, and contains points you’re sure no one else will have thought of.

You’re not totally convinced that what you’ve written is relevant to the title you were given – but it’s inventive, original and good. In fact, it might be better than anything that would have responded to the question. But your essay isn’t met with the lavish praise you expected. When it’s tossed back onto your desk, there are huge chunks scored through with red pen, crawling with annotations like little red fire ants: ‘IRRELEVANT’; ‘A bit of a tangent!’; ‘???’; and, right next to your best, most impressive killer point: ‘Right… so?’. The grade your teacher has scrawled at the end is nowhere near what your essay deserves. In fact, it’s pretty average. And the comment at the bottom reads something like, ‘Some good ideas, but you didn’t answer the question!’.

If this has ever happened to you (and it has happened to me, a lot), you’ll know how deeply frustrating it is – and how unfair it can seem. This might just be me, but the exhausting process of researching, having ideas, planning, writing and re-reading makes me steadily more attached to the ideas I have, and the things I’ve managed to put on the page. Each time I scroll back through what I’ve written, or planned, so far, I become steadily more convinced of its brilliance. What started off as a scribbled note in the margin, something extra to think about or to pop in if it could be made to fit the argument, sometimes comes to be backbone of a whole essay – so, when a tutor tells me my inspired paragraph about Ted Hughes’s interpretation of mythology isn’t relevant to my essay on Keats, I fail to see why. Or even if I can see why, the thought of taking it out is wrenching. Who cares if it’s a bit off-topic? It should make my essay stand out, if anything! And an examiner would probably be happy not to read yet another answer that makes exactly the same points. If you recognise yourself in the above, there are two crucial things to realise. The first is that something has to change: because doing well in high school exam or coursework essays is almost totally dependent on being able to pin down and organise lots of ideas so that an examiner can see that they convincingly answer a question. And it’s a real shame to work hard on something, have good ideas, and not get the marks you deserve. Writing a top essay is a very particular and actually quite simple challenge. It’s not actually that important how original you are, how compelling your writing is, how many ideas you get down, or how beautifully you can express yourself (though of course, all these things do have their rightful place). What you’re doing, essentially, is using a limited amount of time and knowledge to really answer a question. It sounds obvious, but a good essay should have the title or question as its focus the whole way through . It should answer it ten times over – in every single paragraph, with every fact or figure. Treat your reader (whether it’s your class teacher or an external examiner) like a child who can’t do any interpretive work of their own; imagine yourself leading them through your essay by the hand, pointing out that you’ve answered the question here , and here , and here. Now, this is all very well, I imagine you objecting, and much easier said than done. But never fear! Structuring an essay that knocks a question on the head is something you can learn to do in a couple of easy steps. In the next few hundred words, I’m going to share with you what I’ve learned through endless, mindless crossings-out, rewordings, rewritings and rethinkings.

Top tips and golden rules

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been told to ‘write the question at the top of every new page’- but for some reason, that trick simply doesn’t work for me. If it doesn’t work for you either, use this three-part process to allow the question to structure your essay:

1) Work out exactly what you’re being asked

It sounds really obvious, but lots of students have trouble answering questions because they don’t take time to figure out exactly what they’re expected to do – instead, they skim-read and then write the essay they want to write. Sussing out a question is a two-part process, and the first part is easy. It means looking at the directions the question provides as to what sort of essay you’re going to write. I call these ‘command phrases’ and will go into more detail about what they mean below. The second part involves identifying key words and phrases.

2) Be as explicit as possible

Use forceful, persuasive language to show how the points you’ve made do answer the question. My main focus so far has been on tangential or irrelevant material – but many students lose marks even though they make great points, because they don’t quite impress how relevant those points are. Again, I’ll talk about how you can do this below.

3) Be brutally honest with yourself about whether a point is relevant before you write it.

It doesn’t matter how impressive, original or interesting it is. It doesn’t matter if you’re panicking, and you can’t think of any points that do answer the question. If a point isn’t relevant, don’t bother with it. It’s a waste of time, and might actually work against you- if you put tangential material in an essay, your reader will struggle to follow the thread of your argument, and lose focus on your really good points.

Put it into action: Step One

Let’s imagine you’re writing an English essay about the role and importance of the three witches in Macbeth . You’re thinking about the different ways in which Shakespeare imagines and presents the witches, how they influence the action of the tragedy, and perhaps the extent to which we’re supposed to believe in them (stay with me – you don’t have to know a single thing about Shakespeare or Macbeth to understand this bit!). Now, you’ll probably have a few good ideas on this topic – and whatever essay you write, you’ll most likely use much of the same material. However, the detail of the phrasing of the question will significantly affect the way you write your essay. You would draw on similar material to address the following questions: Discuss Shakespeare’s representation of the three witches in Macbeth . How does Shakespeare figure the supernatural in Macbeth ? To what extent are the three witches responsible for Macbeth’s tragic downfall? Evaluate the importance of the three witches in bringing about Macbeth’s ruin. Are we supposed to believe in the three witches in Macbeth ? “Within Macbeth ’s representation of the witches, there is profound ambiguity about the actual significance and power of their malevolent intervention” (Stephen Greenblatt). Discuss. I’ve organised the examples into three groups, exemplifying the different types of questions you might have to answer in an exam. The first group are pretty open-ended: ‘discuss’- and ‘how’-questions leave you room to set the scope of the essay. You can decide what the focus should be. Beware, though – this doesn’t mean you don’t need a sturdy structure, or a clear argument, both of which should always be present in an essay. The second group are asking you to evaluate, constructing an argument that decides whether, and how far something is true. Good examples of hypotheses (which your essay would set out to prove) for these questions are:

The witches are the most important cause of tragic action in Macbeth.
The witches are partially, but not entirely responsible for Macbeth’s downfall, alongside Macbeth’s unbridled ambition, and that of his wife.
We are not supposed to believe the witches: they are a product of Macbeth’s psyche, and his downfall is his own doing.
The witches’ role in Macbeth’s downfall is deliberately unclear. Their claim to reality is shaky – finally, their ambiguity is part of an uncertain tragic universe and the great illusion of the theatre. (N.B. It’s fine to conclude that a question can’t be answered in black and white, certain terms – as long as you have a firm structure, and keep referring back to it throughout the essay).

The final question asks you to respond to a quotation. Students tend to find these sorts of questions the most difficult to answer, but once you’ve got the hang of them I think the title does most of the work for you – often implicitly providing you with a structure for your essay. The first step is breaking down the quotation into its constituent parts- the different things it says. I use brackets: ( Within Macbeth ’s representation of the witches, ) ( there is profound ambiguity ) about the ( actual significance ) ( and power ) of ( their malevolent intervention ) Examiners have a nasty habit of picking the most bewildering and terrifying-sounding quotations: but once you break them down, they’re often asking for something very simple. This quotation, for example, is asking exactly the same thing as the other questions. The trick here is making sure you respond to all the different parts. You want to make sure you discuss the following:

Do you agree that the status of the witches’ ‘malevolent intervention’ is ambiguous?
What is its significance?
How powerful is it?

Step Two: Plan

Having worked out exactly what the question is asking, write out a plan (which should be very detailed in a coursework essay, but doesn’t have to be more than a few lines long in an exam context) of the material you’ll use in each paragraph. Make sure your plan contains a sentence at the end of each point about how that point will answer the question. A point from my plan for one of the topics above might look something like this:

To what extent are we supposed to believe in the three witches in Macbeth ? Hypothesis: The witches’ role in Macbeth’s downfall is deliberately unclear. Their claim to reality is uncertain – finally, they’re part of an uncertain tragic universe and the great illusion of the theatre. Para.1: Context At the time Shakespeare wrote Macbeth , there were many examples of people being burned or drowned as witches There were also people who claimed to be able to exorcise evil demons from people who were ‘possessed’. Catholic Christianity leaves much room for the supernatural to exist This suggests that Shakespeare’s contemporary audience might, more readily than a modern one, have believed that witches were a real phenomenon and did exist.

My final sentence (highlighted in red) shows how the material discussed in the paragraph answers the question. Writing this out at the planning stage, in addition to clarifying your ideas, is a great test of whether a point is relevant: if you struggle to write the sentence, and make the connection to the question and larger argument, you might have gone off-topic.

Step Three: Paragraph beginnings and endings

The final step to making sure you pick up all the possible marks for ‘answering the question’ in an essay is ensuring that you make it explicit how your material does so. This bit relies upon getting the beginnings and endings of paragraphs just right. To reiterate what I said above, treat your reader like a child: tell them what you’re going to say; tell them how it answers the question; say it, and then tell them how you’ve answered the question. This need not feel clumsy, awkward or repetitive. The first sentence of each new paragraph or point should, without giving too much of your conclusion away, establish what you’re going to discuss, and how it answers the question. The opening sentence from the paragraph I planned above might go something like this:

Early modern political and religious contexts suggest that Shakespeare’s contemporary audience might more readily have believed in witches than his modern readers.

The sentence establishes that I’m going to discuss Jacobean religion and witch-burnings, and also what I’m going to use those contexts to show. I’d then slot in all my facts and examples in the middle of the paragraph. The final sentence (or few sentences) should be strong and decisive, making a clear connection to the question you’ve been asked:

Contemporary suspicion that witches did exist, testified to by witch-hunts and exorcisms, is crucial to our understanding of the witches in Macbeth. To the early modern consciousness, witches were a distinctly real and dangerous possibility – and the witches in the play would have seemed all-the-more potent and terrifying as a result.

Step Four: Practice makes perfect

The best way to get really good at making sure you always ‘answer the question’ is to write essay plans rather than whole pieces. Set aside a few hours, choose a couple of essay questions from past papers, and for each:

Write a hypothesis
Write a rough plan of what each paragraph will contain
Write out the first and last sentence of each paragraph

You can get your teacher, or a friend, to look through your plans and give you feedback . If you follow this advice, fingers crossed, next time you hand in an essay, it’ll be free from red-inked comments about irrelevance, and instead showered with praise for the precision with which you handled the topic, and how intently you focused on answering the question. It can seem depressing when your perfect question is just a minor tangent from the question you were actually asked, but trust me – high praise and good marks are all found in answering the question in front of you, not the one you would have liked to see. Teachers do choose the questions they set you with some care, after all; chances are the question you were set is the more illuminating and rewarding one as well.

Image credits: banner ; Keats ; Macbeth ; James I ; witches .

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How to Answer Essay Questions – The Ultimate Guide

Posted by Brian Stocker MA
Date November 30, 2007
Comments 7 comments

Everyone Loves Essay Questions!

“I hate essays!” This battle cry is famous to most students. That’s because essay questions are either easy or difficult. Either way, there’s no certain formula. Even if you think you know the answer - don’t be overconfident - the critical part is how you make your essay worth reading. So how do you do it?

Audio Version of this Post

Tips for Writing an Essay

Read the question more than once. Some questions can be tricky so make sure you understand it to the letter. A lot of students commit error by simply not reading instructions very well. They read and then write a long essay, only to realize very late that they did not understand the question correctly.

Familiarize yourself with your professor or teacher’s style of organization, if you can. As students, it’s your role to know how your teachers want their essays answered.

Mentally go through your lecture notes before writing anything on your paper.

Create an outline of thoughts and related topics in connection with the essay question. By doing this you are helping yourself create a more organized answer.

Construct an idea in each paragraph. Go back to your essay outline if you think you are repeating yourself or not making sense at all.

Use the terminology of the course . Be professional in knowing what type of words to use in a particular topic or subject.

Read and go back to your previous paragraphs after you are finished with one paragraph. This will help you determine your flow of thought and if you are really making a point or giving an answer.

Don’t include ideas that are off-topic.

If there are too many ideas in your outline , cut out the least important ones. As much as possible, make your idea concrete and pointed, with arguments or statements that is easy to understand.

The body of your essay should have a summary or statement.

Support your summary or statement with adequate details and specifics. If you do not know how to add details, just expand on your generic idea.

Avoid jumping from one point to another.

Avoid vague descriptions if necessary . Include specifics to get your message across.

Review the question again and again so you will not lose your thread of thinking.

If you have time to make revisions, do so.

Use all the time you have to complete your essay. Review and re-check your answers before submitting your paper.

If you have nothing to write and don’t know what to write , don’t leave your paper blank. Write something at least.

Get the Complete Guide to Studying

Get the complete guide to taking notes, taking a test complete guide to multiple choice, essay check list.

Here is a great Checklist for answering Essay Questions from Tennessee State University:

Use the following as a guide when writing answers to discussion questions and as a checklist after you have written your answer.

1. Do I understand the question? What am I being asked to do? 2. Do I have a plan? What are my major points and how am I going to present them? 3. Does the reader know, just from reading the first sentence of my essay, both the question and how I will answer it? 4. Are my major points clear and do they stand out? 5. Do I support my argument with facts and examples? 6. Do I make clear and sensible transitions between major points? 7. Is my answer clear to someone who knows nothing about this? 8. Have I answered the question completely? Have I fully covered all of the major points required to completely answer the question? 9. Is there irrelevant material? 10. Do I have a conclusion and summary statement? 11. Have I proofed my essay for common spelling and grammatical errors? 12. Is my handwriting legible? Is there room for comments or additions?

Glossary of Essay Exam Terms

When taking an exam the first thing you should do is familiarize yourself with all instructions. At times this can be confusing especially if you do not understand the terms. Below you will find some common terms used on essay exams. Learning these terms is a key step in successful completion of most essay exams.

Compare (also Compare with): Discuss the similarities between two or more given subjects.
Contrast: Discuss the differences in two or more given subjects.
Criticize: Explain the value of a finding or theory. Include both negative and positive aspects based on implementation. This could be the ease of which it is applied, examples of false findings, etc…
Define: Describe precisely a term’s meaning as it applies specifically to a given subject.
Describe: Use exact detail to explain a given term. This may call for the use of examples, definitions, or discussion of the term.
Diagram: Use a visual representation of relevant information to explain implementation of a term. This usually calls for an explicit chart or graph which is thoroughly labelled. In some cases it may call for a detailed plan as well.
Discuss: The literal meaning of discuss is talk about. To do this in an exam you must thoroughly explain your subject with words.
Enumerate: Form a list of relevant points and explain each point. This may result in an outline like answer.
Evaluate: Discuss the pros and cons of the application of your given subject from a professional point of view. This differs from criticize because personal opinion should be avoided unless instructions specify otherwise.
Explain: Define the given material and give examples of how and why it is important to the subject.
Illustrate: Use a visual aid or a clearly defined example to explain a given subject.
Interpret: Explain the given question, include you personal feelings on the subject as well as a solution.
Justify: Use factual information to argue you view of the situation presented in a given problem.
List: Brief but thorough list of information that explains the given topic.
Outline: much like writing an outline for a paper. Answer the question by creating an outline that highlights the main ideas and key points of those ideas.
Prove: Discuss the topic in a way that readers are convinced to support or reject the idea discussed. This is done through presentation of facts or the step by step illustration of logical thinking.
Relate: Discuss the connection between two or more events, people, problems, etc…
Review: Close examination of a problem accompanied by brief comments that explain the main points.
State (also Give, Specify, or Present): Explain the major points of a subject in brief for. There is typically no need for further explanation.
Summarize: Create a brief description that highlights the major points of your subject.
Trace: Explain the progress of the given subject from conception to current date. Highlight anything that is considered a major topic as well as the reason for any changes.

Don’t!

Last piece of advice – Don’t get your parents to edit it!

More Info on Essay Exams

How to Study for an Essay Exam How to Answer Essay Questions – The Ultimate Guide

Tag: Essay Questions

How to Make a Study Plan

How to solve analogy questions, you may also like.

Provincial Achievement Tests

Every thing was educational. Had a good feeling on how to deliver good papers.

Please no pictures.

This is a great tool for us.

i learned a lot – – super

I still hate essays tho

I am a big fan.

Above all are logically important and desirably topics which is value for everyone,thanks.

Essay Exams

What this handout is about.

At some time in your undergraduate career, you’re going to have to write an essay exam. This thought can inspire a fair amount of fear: we struggle enough with essays when they aren’t timed events based on unknown questions. The goal of this handout is to give you some easy and effective strategies that will help you take control of the situation and do your best.

Why do instructors give essay exams?

Essay exams are a useful tool for finding out if you can sort through a large body of information, figure out what is important, and explain why it is important. Essay exams challenge you to come up with key course ideas and put them in your own words and to use the interpretive or analytical skills you’ve practiced in the course. Instructors want to see whether:

You understand concepts that provide the basis for the course
You can use those concepts to interpret specific materials
You can make connections, see relationships, draw comparisons and contrasts
You can synthesize diverse information in support of an original assertion
You can justify your own evaluations based on appropriate criteria
You can argue your own opinions with convincing evidence
You can think critically and analytically about a subject

What essay questions require

Exam questions can reach pretty far into the course materials, so you cannot hope to do well on them if you do not keep up with the readings and assignments from the beginning of the course. The most successful essay exam takers are prepared for anything reasonable, and they probably have some intelligent guesses about the content of the exam before they take it. How can you be a prepared exam taker? Try some of the following suggestions during the semester:

Do the reading as the syllabus dictates; keeping up with the reading while the related concepts are being discussed in class saves you double the effort later.
Go to lectures (and put away your phone, the newspaper, and that crossword puzzle!).
Take careful notes that you’ll understand months later. If this is not your strong suit or the conventions for a particular discipline are different from what you are used to, ask your TA or the Learning Center for advice.
Participate in your discussion sections; this will help you absorb the material better so you don’t have to study as hard.
Organize small study groups with classmates to explore and review course materials throughout the semester. Others will catch things you might miss even when paying attention. This is not cheating. As long as what you write on the essay is your own work, formulating ideas and sharing notes is okay. In fact, it is a big part of the learning process.
As an exam approaches, find out what you can about the form it will take. This will help you forecast the questions that will be on the exam, and prepare for them.

These suggestions will save you lots of time and misery later. Remember that you can’t cram weeks of information into a single day or night of study. So why put yourself in that position?

Now let’s focus on studying for the exam. You’ll notice the following suggestions are all based on organizing your study materials into manageable chunks of related material. If you have a plan of attack, you’ll feel more confident and your answers will be more clear. Here are some tips:

Don’t just memorize aimlessly; clarify the important issues of the course and use these issues to focus your understanding of specific facts and particular readings.
Try to organize and prioritize the information into a thematic pattern. Look at what you’ve studied and find a way to put things into related groups. Find the fundamental ideas that have been emphasized throughout the course and organize your notes into broad categories. Think about how different categories relate to each other.
Find out what you don’t know, but need to know, by making up test questions and trying to answer them. Studying in groups helps as well.

Taking the exam

Read the exam carefully.

If you are given the entire exam at once and can determine your approach on your own, read the entire exam before you get started.
Look at how many points each part earns you, and find hints for how long your answers should be.
Figure out how much time you have and how best to use it. Write down the actual clock time that you expect to take in each section, and stick to it. This will help you avoid spending all your time on only one section. One strategy is to divide the available time according to percentage worth of the question. You don’t want to spend half of your time on something that is only worth one tenth of the total points.
As you read, make tentative choices of the questions you will answer (if you have a choice). Don’t just answer the first essay question you encounter. Instead, read through all of the options. Jot down really brief ideas for each question before deciding.
Remember that the easiest-looking question is not always as easy as it looks. Focus your attention on questions for which you can explain your answer most thoroughly, rather than settle on questions where you know the answer but can’t say why.

Analyze the questions

Decide what you are being asked to do. If you skim the question to find the main “topic” and then rush to grasp any related ideas you can recall, you may become flustered, lose concentration, and even go blank. Try looking closely at what the question is directing you to do, and try to understand the sort of writing that will be required.
Focus on what you do know about the question, not on what you don’t.
Look at the active verbs in the assignment—they tell you what you should be doing. We’ve included some of these below, with some suggestions on what they might mean. (For help with this sort of detective work, see the Writing Center handout titled Reading Assignments.)

Information words, such as who, what, when, where, how, and why ask you to demonstrate what you know about the subject. Information words may include:

define—give the subject’s meaning (according to someone or something). Sometimes you have to give more than one view on the subject’s meaning.
explain why/how—give reasons why or examples of how something happened.
illustrate—give descriptive examples of the subject and show how each is connected with the subject.
summarize—briefly cover the important ideas you learned about the subject.
trace—outline how something has changed or developed from an earlier time to its current form.
research—gather material from outside sources about the subject, often with the implication or requirement that you will analyze what you’ve found.

Relation words ask you to demonstrate how things are connected. Relation words may include:

compare—show how two or more things are similar (and, sometimes, different).
contrast—show how two or more things are dissimilar.
apply—use details that you’ve been given to demonstrate how an idea, theory, or concept works in a particular situation.
cause—show how one event or series of events made something else happen.
relate—show or describe the connections between things.

Interpretation words ask you to defend ideas of your own about the subject. Don’t see these words as requesting opinion alone (unless the assignment specifically says so), but as requiring opinion that is supported by concrete evidence. Remember examples, principles, definitions, or concepts from class or research and use them in your interpretation. Interpretation words may include:

prove, justify—give reasons or examples to demonstrate how or why something is the truth.
evaluate, respond, assess—state your opinion of the subject as good, bad, or some combination of the two, with examples and reasons (you may want to compare your subject to something else).
support—give reasons or evidence for something you believe (be sure to state clearly what it is that you believe).
synthesize—put two or more things together that haven’t been put together before; don’t just summarize one and then the other, and say that they are similar or different—you must provide a reason for putting them together (as opposed to compare and contrast—see above).
analyze—look closely at the components of something to figure out how it works, what it might mean, or why it is important.
argue—take a side and defend it (with proof) against the other side.

Plan your answers

Think about your time again. How much planning time you should take depends on how much time you have for each question and how many points each question is worth. Here are some general guidelines:

For short-answer definitions and identifications, just take a few seconds. Skip over any you don’t recognize fairly quickly, and come back to them when another question jogs your memory.
For answers that require a paragraph or two, jot down several important ideas or specific examples that help to focus your thoughts.
For longer answers, you will need to develop a much more definite strategy of organization. You only have time for one draft, so allow a reasonable amount of time—as much as a quarter of the time you’ve allotted for the question—for making notes, determining a thesis, and developing an outline.
For questions with several parts (different requests or directions, a sequence of questions), make a list of the parts so that you do not miss or minimize one part. One way to be sure you answer them all is to number them in the question and in your outline.
You may have to try two or three outlines or clusters before you hit on a workable plan. But be realistic—you want a plan you can develop within the limited time allotted for your answer. Your outline will have to be selective—not everything you know, but what you know that you can state clearly and keep to the point in the time available.

Again, focus on what you do know about the question, not on what you don’t.

Writing your answers

As with planning, your strategy for writing depends on the length of your answer:

For short identifications and definitions, it is usually best to start with a general identifying statement and then move on to describe specific applications or explanations. Two sentences will almost always suffice, but make sure they are complete sentences. Find out whether the instructor wants definition alone, or definition and significance. Why is the identification term or object important?
For longer answers, begin by stating your forecasting statement or thesis clearly and explicitly. Strive for focus, simplicity, and clarity. In stating your point and developing your answers, you may want to use important course vocabulary words from the question. For example, if the question is, “How does wisteria function as a representation of memory in Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom?” you may want to use the words wisteria, representation, memory, and Faulkner) in your thesis statement and answer. Use these important words or concepts throughout the answer.
If you have devised a promising outline for your answer, then you will be able to forecast your overall plan and its subpoints in your opening sentence. Forecasting impresses readers and has the very practical advantage of making your answer easier to read. Also, if you don’t finish writing, it tells your reader what you would have said if you had finished (and may get you partial points).
You might want to use briefer paragraphs than you ordinarily do and signal clear relations between paragraphs with transition phrases or sentences.
As you move ahead with the writing, you may think of new subpoints or ideas to include in the essay. Stop briefly to make a note of these on your original outline. If they are most appropriately inserted in a section you’ve already written, write them neatly in the margin, at the top of the page, or on the last page, with arrows or marks to alert the reader to where they fit in your answer. Be as neat and clear as possible.
Don’t pad your answer with irrelevancies and repetitions just to fill up space. Within the time available, write a comprehensive, specific answer.
Watch the clock carefully to ensure that you do not spend too much time on one answer. You must be realistic about the time constraints of an essay exam. If you write one dazzling answer on an exam with three equally-weighted required questions, you earn only 33 points—not enough to pass at most colleges. This may seem unfair, but keep in mind that instructors plan exams to be reasonably comprehensive. They want you to write about the course materials in two or three or more ways, not just one way. Hint: if you finish a half-hour essay in 10 minutes, you may need to develop some of your ideas more fully.
If you run out of time when you are writing an answer, jot down the remaining main ideas from your outline, just to show that you know the material and with more time could have continued your exposition.
Double-space to leave room for additions, and strike through errors or changes with one straight line (avoid erasing or scribbling over). Keep things as clean as possible. You never know what will earn you partial credit.
Write legibly and proofread. Remember that your instructor will likely be reading a large pile of exams. The more difficult they are to read, the more exasperated the instructor might become. Your instructor also cannot give you credit for what they cannot understand. A few minutes of careful proofreading can improve your grade.

Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind in writing essay exams is that you have a limited amount of time and space in which to get across the knowledge you have acquired and your ability to use it. Essay exams are not the place to be subtle or vague. It’s okay to have an obvious structure, even the five-paragraph essay format you may have been taught in high school. Introduce your main idea, have several paragraphs of support—each with a single point defended by specific examples, and conclude with a restatement of your main point and its significance.

Some physiological tips

Just think—we expect athletes to practice constantly and use everything in their abilities and situations in order to achieve success. Yet, somehow many students are convinced that one day’s worth of studying, no sleep, and some well-placed compliments (“Gee, Dr. So-and-so, I really enjoyed your last lecture”) are good preparation for a test. Essay exams are like any other testing situation in life: you’ll do best if you are prepared for what is expected of you, have practiced doing it before, and have arrived in the best shape to do it. You may not want to believe this, but it’s true: a good night’s sleep and a relaxed mind and body can do as much or more for you as any last-minute cram session. Colleges abound with tales of woe about students who slept through exams because they stayed up all night, wrote an essay on the wrong topic, forgot everything they studied, or freaked out in the exam and hyperventilated. If you are rested, breathing normally, and have brought along some healthy, energy-boosting snacks that you can eat or drink quietly, you are in a much better position to do a good job on the test. You aren’t going to write a good essay on something you figured out at 4 a.m. that morning. If you prepare yourself well throughout the semester, you don’t risk your whole grade on an overloaded, undernourished brain.

If for some reason you get yourself into this situation, take a minute every once in a while during the test to breathe deeply, stretch, and clear your brain. You need to be especially aware of the likelihood of errors, so check your essays thoroughly before you hand them in to make sure they answer the right questions and don’t have big oversights or mistakes (like saying “Hitler” when you really mean “Churchill”).

If you tend to go blank during exams, try studying in the same classroom in which the test will be given. Some research suggests that people attach ideas to their surroundings, so it might jog your memory to see the same things you were looking at while you studied.

Try good luck charms. Bring in something you associate with success or the support of your loved ones, and use it as a psychological boost.

Take all of the time you’ve been allotted. Reread, rework, and rethink your answers if you have extra time at the end, rather than giving up and handing the exam in the minute you’ve written your last sentence. Use every advantage you are given.

Remember that instructors do not want to see you trip up—they want to see you do well. With this in mind, try to relax and just do the best you can. The more you panic, the more mistakes you are liable to make. Put the test in perspective: will you die from a poor performance? Will you lose all of your friends? Will your entire future be destroyed? Remember: it’s just a test.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Axelrod, Rise B., and Charles R. Cooper. 2016. The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing , 11th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Fowler, Ramsay H., and Jane E. Aaron. 2016. The Little, Brown Handbook , 13th ed. Boston: Pearson.

Gefvert, Constance J. 1988. The Confident Writer: A Norton Handbook , 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.

Kirszner, Laurie G. 1988. Writing: A College Rhetoric , 2nd ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

Lunsford, Andrea A. 2015. The St. Martin’s Handbook , 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Woodman, Leonara, and Thomas P. Adler. 1988. The Writer’s Choices , 2nd ed. Northbrook, Illinois: Scott Foresman.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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To answer an essay question (EQ), students must assess the purpose of the essay question: factual recall, analysis (explanation of relationships) synthesis (application/transfer of previously learned principles) opinion

How much information to include, repeat, restate (intro needed? details needed?).

The chart below outlines 4 main types of essay questions, the verbs/cues that indicate the type of essay question and its purpose, and the strategy to be used to answer it.

Read the questions very carefully at least 2 or 3 times. Circle the main verb (= action verb/imperative) in the question and decide on the necessary rhetorical strategy for answering the question (cause-effect, comparison-contrast, definition, classification, problem-solution). Make sure you understand what type of answer the main verb calls for (a diagram a summary, details, an analysis, an evaluation). Circle all the keywords in the question. Decide if you need to write a 1-paragraph or a multi-paragraph answer. Write a brief outline of all the points you want to mention in your answer. Restate the question and answer it with a topic sentence (for a 1-paragraph answer) or a thesis statement (for a multi-paragraph answer). Answer the question according to general rules of academic writing. Use indentations; begin each paragraph with a topic sentence; support the topic sentence(s) with reasons and/or examples; use transition words to show logical organization; write a conclusion. Use correct punctuation throughout. Read over your answer again and check if all the main ideas have been included. Check your answer for grammar and punctuation.

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How To Answer Essay Questions On Your English Exams

The reputation behind essay questions in English is a lot worse than their real difficulty. I remember enjoying these exam questions, but I also recall them being the bane of many students’ existence.

Why do we say that the essay answers’ reputation is overestimated? Because they’re mostly a matter of getting used to them. Paper questions require a different approach than other types of assessment methods. That’s the majority of their difficulty.

Once you know how essay questions work and why they exist, it will be noticeably easier to answer them. Essay writing sites receive countless requests for paper questions every week. There are definitely a lot of people in need of help. But how to choose the proper company? What are the criteria? How not to stumble upon scammers. Check out the best essay writing services review.

What is an essay question?

Merriam-Webster has a straightforward definition of essay questions. It defines them as an exam issue requiring developed answers: from a sentence to a short composition. These questions take much longer to answer. The reason is that they consist of analysis and opinion-making.

By answering various matters, students learn to analyze and formulate opinions and ideas. Answer selection tends to favor memorization instead of reasoning. So essay questions make up for that.

IELTS preparation teachers also point out several types of essay questions within the test. You can find them on topics like education, art, business, language, society, tourism, and communication. All of these are fields that require critical thinking and reasoning.

What are the types of essay questions?

Naturally, written statement questions come in different types. These categories depend on the structure of the question and how the student should approach answering that issue.

The State Library of Victoria has a great article introducing these kinds of essay questions.

Quotation and discussion

This type is one of the most common paper questions. It comes as a direct quotation, and it asks the student to discuss their thoughts about the said quote.

The focus of these matters is to work out arguments and express your thoughts. You’re free to agree or disagree with the argument as long as you can justify it and get to a conclusion.

Double-barrelled

These questions get their name from how they include different issues and ideas that you must address separately. Students tend to fail these queries. The reason is that they miss certain sections during the exam.

The best way to approach these questions is to break down the different ideas exposed before tackling each one. That way, you can spot different goals to research and write about. These issues also tend to require you to relate different ideas and explain their relationship.

General questions usually go for broad issues that students can apply to different topics. It can be confusing to know where to start. But you can also decide your essay’s scope and how you want to build the argument.

Once you understand what to cover, general matters allow for lots of freedom when answering them. Make sure to take advantage of that.

Specific issues are somewhat the opposite of general questions, as their name implies. They usually have longer descriptions and clear outlines detailing what your essay must cover.

While they’re stricter than general questions, they’re easier for many people. That’s because they basically tell the student what to do. However, it can be a double-edged sword because of their lack of room for error.

General exam essay writing tips

If you’re still doubting how to answer an essay question, we’ve found a great set of tips for you. The College Info Geek has a great set of “rules” to help you answer these questions. We’ll summarize them to offer the ultimate guide to paper questions.

Understanding fundamentals

Professors use essay questions to verify if you learned the entire course. That includes facts, synthesizing content, and formulating opinions. That means your written statement answer must show that you succeeded in doing just that. Make sure you take the facts and use them to formulate your own answer instead of repeating everything your course said.

Don’t start writing as soon as you read the question. Make sure you understand all the requirements and the ideas you must tackle. Formulate your argument in your head, and make sure it’s complete. Once you know exactly what to write, you can start doing so.

You should organize your ideas so that it’s easier to read and understand them. Ideally, you want to start with an intro summarizing your idea before diving into a detailed explanation. Once you’re done, write a conclusion synthesizing your main thesis. You can use different patterns if you’d like, but that’s the fundamentals.

Conciseness

It’s easy to get diverted while writing and producing a redundant essay. Make sure your sentences go straight to the point and don’t repeat themselves down the line. Your essay doesn’t have to be longing for quality, contrary to what many students seem to believe.

Proofreading

After you’re done, make sure your text shows your arguments in the right way. Read at least twice through the entire text: once in your mind and once out loud (but quietly). This strategy ensures your essay is clear and at its best.

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The Writing Guide

The First Thing
Step 1: Understanding the essay question

Identify task, content & limiting words in the essay question

Words, words, words..., academic writing webinar part 1.

Step 2: Critical note-taking
Step 3: Planning your assignment
Step 4a: Effective writing
Step 4b: Summarizing & paraphrasing
Step 4c: Academic language
Step 5: Editing and reviewing
Getting started with research
Working with keywords
Evaluating sources
Research file
Reading Smarter
Sample Essay
What, why, where, when, who?
Referencing styles
Writing Resources
Exams and Essay Questions

Essay topics contain key words that explain what information is required and how it is to be presented. Using the essay question below indentify task content & limiting words. Regardless of your topic or discipline, if you can identify these words in your essay topic, you can begin to consider what you will need to do to answer the question.

Task words : These are words that tell you what to do, for example “compare”, “discuss”, “critically evaluate”, “explain” etc.

Content words : These words in the essay topic will tell you which ideas and concepts should form the knowledge base of the assignment. Refer to subject specific dictionary or glossary.

Effective communication is considered a core skill in higher education and is usually conveyed through the medium of academic papers and essays. Discuss the process of writing academic essays and critically examine the importance of structure and content.

Before you scroll down to the next box, what can you unpack from this topic? What are you actually going to look for in a search tool like One Search? What are you supposed to do?

Content Words
Limiting Words
Context Words

Task words are usually verbs and they tell you what to do to complete your assignment.

You need to identify these words, because you will need to follow these instructions to pass the assignment. As you research and write your assignment, check these words occasionally to make sure you are still doing what you have been asked to do.

Here are some definitions of different academic task words. Make sure you know exactly what you need to do for your assignment.

Don't try to use them in your research - they aren't things to find, only things to do.

The task words from our sample question are:

Discuss means to "consider and offer an interpretation or evaluation of something; or give a judgment on the value of arguments for and against something"
Examine means to inspect something in detail and investigate the implications

So, you would need to give a short description of what essay writing is all about, and then offer an evaluation of the essay structure and the way it presents content.

Task Words Here are some definitions of different academic task words. Make sure you know exactly what you need to do for your assignment.

The content words are the "meat" of the question - these are things you can research.

Effective communication is considered a core skill in higher education and is usually conveyed through the medium of academic papers and essays . Discuss the process of writing academic essays and critically examine the importance of structure and content .

You will often be asked to talk about "the role" something plays or "processes", "importance", "methods" or "implementations" - but you can't really research these things just by looking for those words.

You need to find the keywords - the most concrete concepts - and search for those. The information you find about the concrete terms will tell you about the "roles" and "methods", the "process" or the "importance", but they probably won't use those words exactly.

One of the core skills of academic research is learning to extrapolate : to find the connections in the information you can find that will help you answer the questions which don't have clear, cut-and-dry answers in the books and articles.

So, the core keywords/concepts to research are:

"academic writing"
"higher education"
structure and content

Limiting words keep you focused on a particular area, and stop you from trying to research everything in the history of mankind.

They could limit you by:

Time (you may be asked to focus on the last 5 years, or the late 20th Century, for example)
Place (you may be asked to focus on Australia, or Queensland, or South-East Asia)
People groups (such as "women over the age of 50" or "people from low socio-economic backgrounds" or "Australians of Asian descent")
Extent (you are only to look at a particular area, or the details you believe are most relevant or appropriate).

In this example, you have two limits:

"higher education" is the industry focus. This could be expanded to include the tertiary or university sector.
Essays - we are concentrating on essay writing as the aspect of communication. Note that this is also a content word. There can be (and usually is) some crossover.

Sometimes it can help to add your own limits . With health sciences, you almost always limit your research to the last five or six years. Social sciences are not as strict with the date range but it's still a good idea to keep it recent. You could specifically look at the Australian context. You may decide to focus on the private sector within that industry.

With the question above you could limit yourself to only looking at first year university students.

Sometimes an assignment task will give you phrases or sentences that aren't part of the task at all: they exist to give you some context .

These can be ignored when you do your research, but you should read over them occasionally as you are writing your assignment. They help you know what the lecturer was thinking about (and wanted you to think about) when they set that task.

Effective communication is considered a core skill in higher education and is usually conveyed through the medium of academic papers and essays . Discuss the process of writing academic essays and critically examine the importance of structure and content.

You don't have to do anything with the first sentence of this question - but it does get you to think specifically about the "using essays to communicate knoweldge" - something that isn't mentioned in the task itself.

Obviously, whoever wrote the task wants you to think about the assignments as a form of writing and communication.

It is easy to get distracted and go off on tangents when doing your research . Use the context words to help you keep your focus where it should be.

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Next: Step 2: Critical note-taking >>
Last Updated: May 13, 2024 5:20 PM
URL: https://libguides.jcu.edu.au/writing

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Writing Essays for Exams

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

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What is a well written answer to an essay question?

Well Focused

Be sure to answer the question completely, that is, answer all parts of the question. Avoid "padding." A lot of rambling and ranting is a sure sign that the writer doesn't really know what the right answer is and hopes that somehow, something in that overgrown jungle of words was the correct answer.

Well Organized

Don't write in a haphazard "think-as-you-go" manner. Do some planning and be sure that what you write has a clearly marked introduction which both states the point(s) you are going to make and also, if possible, how you are going to proceed. In addition, the essay should have a clearly indicated conclusion which summarizes the material covered and emphasizes your thesis or main point.

Well Supported

Do not just assert something is true, prove it. What facts, figures, examples, tests, etc. prove your point? In many cases, the difference between an A and a B as a grade is due to the effective use of supporting evidence.

Well Packaged

People who do not use conventions of language are thought of by their readers as less competent and less educated. If you need help with these or other writing skills, come to the Writing Lab

How do you write an effective essay exam?

Read through all the questions carefully.
Budget your time and decide which question(s) you will answer first.
Underline the key word(s) which tell you what to do for each question.
Choose an organizational pattern appropriate for each key word and plan your answers on scratch paper or in the margins.
Write your answers as quickly and as legibly as you can; do not take the time to recopy.
Begin each answer with one or two sentence thesis which summarizes your answer. If possible, phrase the statement so that it rephrases the question's essential terms into a statement (which therefore directly answers the essay question).
Support your thesis with specific references to the material you have studied.
Proofread your answer and correct errors in spelling and mechanics.

Specific organizational patterns and "key words"

Most essay questions will have one or more "key words" that indicate which organizational pattern you should use in your answer. The six most common organizational patterns for essay exams are definition, analysis, cause and effect, comparison/contrast, process analysis, and thesis-support.

Typical questions

"Define X."
"What is an X?"
"Choose N terms from the following list and define them."

Q: "What is a fanzine?"

A: A fanzine is a magazine written, mimeographed, and distributed by and for science fiction or comic strip enthusiasts.

Avoid constructions such as "An encounter group is where ..." and "General semantics is when ... ."

State the term to be defined.
State the class of objects or concepts to which the term belongs.
Differentiate the term from other members of the class by listing the term's distinguishing characteristics.

Tools you can use

Details which describe the term
Examples and incidents
Comparisons to familiar terms
Negation to state what the term is not
Classification (i.e., break it down into parts)
Examination of origins or causes
Examination of results, effects, or uses

Analysis involves breaking something down into its components and discovering the parts that make up the whole.

"Analyze X."
"What are the components of X?"
"What are the five different kinds of X?"
"Discuss the different types of X."

Q: "Discuss the different services a junior college offers a community."

A: Thesis: A junior college offers the community at least three main types of educational services: vocational education for young people, continuing education for older people, and personal development for all individuals.

Outline for supporting details and examples. For example, if you were answering the example question, an outline might include:

Vocational education
Continuing education
Personal development

Write the essay, describing each part or component and making transitions between each of your descriptions. Some useful transition words include:

first, second, third, etc.
in addition

Conclude the essay by emphasizing how each part you have described makes up the whole you have been asked to analyze.

Cause and Effect

Cause and effect involves tracing probable or known effects of a certain cause or examining one or more effects and discussing the reasonable or known cause(s).

Typical questions:

"What are the causes of X?"
"What led to X?"
"Why did X occur?"
"Why does X happen?"
"What would be the effects of X?"

Q: "Define recession and discuss the probable effects a recession would have on today's society."

A: Thesis: A recession, which is a nationwide lull in business activity, would be detrimental to society in the following ways: it would .......A......., it would .......B......., and it would .......C....... .

The rest of the answer would explain, in some detail, the three effects: A, B, and C.

Useful transition words:

consequently
for this reason
as a result

Comparison-Contrast

"How does X differ from Y?"
"Compare X and Y."
"What are the advantages and disadvantages of X and Y?"

Q: "Which would you rather own—a compact car or a full-sized car?"

A: Thesis: I would own a compact car rather than a full-sized car for the following reasons: .......A......., .......B......., .......C......., and .......D....... .

Two patterns of development:

Full-sized car

Disadvantages

Compact car

Useful transition words

on the other hand
unlike A, B ...
in the same way
while both A and B are ..., only B ..
nevertheless
on the contrary
while A is ..., B is ...
"Describe how X is accomplished."
"List the steps involved in X."
"Explain what happened in X."
"What is the procedure involved in X?"

Process (sometimes called process analysis)

This involves giving directions or telling the reader how to do something. It may involve discussing some complex procedure as a series of discrete steps. The organization is almost always chronological.

Q: "According to Richard Bolles' What Color Is Your Parachute?, what is the best procedure for finding a job?"

A: In What Color Is Your Parachute?, Richard Bolles lists seven steps that all job-hunters should follow: .....A....., .....B....., .....C....., .....D....., .....E....., .....F....., and .....G..... .

The remainder of the answer should discuss each of these seven steps in some detail.

following this
after, afterwards, after this
subsequently
simultaneously, concurrently

Thesis and Support

"Discuss X."
"A noted authority has said X. Do you agree or disagree?"
"Defend or refute X."
"Do you think that X is valid? Defend your position."

Thesis and support involves stating a clearly worded opinion or interpretation and then defending it with all the data, examples, facts, and so on that you can draw from the material you have studied.

Q: "Despite criticism, television is useful because it aids in the socializing process of our children."

A: Television hinders rather than helps in the socializing process of our children because .......A......., .......B......., and .......C....... .

The rest of the answer is devoted to developing arguments A, B, and C.

it follows that

A. Which of the following two answers is the better one? Why?

Question: Discuss the contribution of William Morris to book design, using as an example his edition of the works of Chaucer.

a. William Morris's Chaucer was his masterpiece. It shows his interest in the Middle Ages. The type is based on medieval manuscript writing, and the decoration around the edges of the pages is like that used in medieval books. The large initial letters are typical of medieval design. Those letters were printed from woodcuts, which was the medieval way of printing. The illustrations were by Burn-Jones, one of the best artists in England at the time. Morris was able to get the most competent people to help him because he was so famous as a poet and a designer (the Morris chair) and wallpaper and other decorative items for the home. He designed the furnishings for his own home, which was widely admired among the sort of people he associated with. In this way he started the arts and crafts movement.

b. Morris's contribution to book design was to approach the problem as an artist or fine craftsman, rather than a mere printer who reproduced texts. He wanted to raise the standards of printing, which had fallen to a low point, by showing that truly beautiful books could be produced. His Chaucer was designed as a unified work of art or high craft. Since Chaucer lived in the Middle Ages, Morris decided to design a new type based on medieval script and to imitate the format of a medieval manuscript. This involved elaborate letters and large initials at the beginnings of verses, as well as wide borders of intertwined vines with leaves, fruit, and flowers in strong colors. The effect was so unusual that the book caused great excitement and inspired other printers to design beautiful rather than purely utilitarian books.

From James M. McCrimmon, Writing with a Purpose , 7th ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1980), pp. 261-263.

B. How would you plan the structure of the answers to these essay exam questions?

1. Was the X Act a continuation of earlier government policies or did it represent a departure from prior philosophies?

2. What seems to be the source of aggression in human beings? What can be done to lower the level of aggression in our society?

3. Choose one character from Novel X and, with specific references to the work, show how he or she functions as an "existential hero."

4. Define briefly the systems approach to business management. Illustrate how this differs from the traditional approach.

5. What is the cosmological argument? Does it prove that God exists?

6. Civil War historian Andy Bellum once wrote, "Blahblahblah blahed a blahblah, but of course if blahblah blahblahblahed the blah, then blahblahs are not blah but blahblah." To what extent and in what ways is the statement true? How is it false?

For more information on writing exam essays for the GED, please visit our Engagement area and go to the Community Writing and Education Station (CWEST) resources.

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How to Tackle Exam Questions

Learn more about how to tackle different kinds of exams and exam questions.

We cover the following topics on exam preparation on this page:

Quantitative Questions
Multiple Choice Questions
Essay Questions

First, Let’s Think About De-Coding Different Types of Exam Questions

It’s helpful to understand the kinds of question that are asked on a exam, because the response you need to come up with depends on the type of question. Knowing about different types of exam questions can help you activate appropriate strategies for formulating answers and reduce exam-taking anxiety.

Exam questions generally fall into one of three categories: 1

“Green Light”

Go right ahead!
These are factual questions, and the answers are straight-forward. You either know the answer or you don’t; it’s right there in your head or it’s not.
Some green light questions can be very difficult, and your ability to recall details is often tested with this typeof question.
Study for this type of question by using recitation, making flash cards, quizzing yourself or a study partner, etc.
If you don’t know the answer to a green light question right away, circle it and move on; often the answer will pop into your head later on during the exam.

“Yellow Light”

These questions are more detailed than green light questions, but are based on the same idea: you either know the answer or you don’t.
Often you’ll have to put multiple or “green light” details together.
Similar strategies work for yellow and green questions, but with yellow light questions you’ll need to recall many ideas, concepts, formulas, etc., just to answer one question.

These questions ask you to make inferences or apply your knowledge to new situations, which is sometimes called “critical thinking”.
You need to know the material being covered to answer these questions at the “green light” level, but the exam question is not asking you to simply regurgitate it. You will need to take what you know and use it in ways you have not yet used it.
This type of question sometimes flummoxes students, because they are surprised to they are being asked a question that wasn’t exactly covered in class. Remember that with red light questions you are not supposed to already know the answer. You have to come up with the answer yourself, it is not already in your head. (You will need to know the basic information, though, to be able to answer this type of question.)
Red light questions are asked more frequently in college than in high school.
To study for red light questions, make diagrams or concept maps that link ideas or topics from the course together. Think about how what you’re learning relates to what you’ve learned in other classes. Sit down with friends or classmates and talk about how one might use information from the class in a job setting.

See this link for a pdf of Decoding exam questions.

How to Tackle: Problem-Solving and Quantitative Questions

Study for problem-based exams by practicing (new!) problems

As you work on the problems, remember:

DO let yourself be stuck.* (yes, we mean that!)
DON’T sneak a peak at the answer if you get stuck. (keep trying!)
Check your answer only after you’ve put something–anything–down. Think partial credit, which is better than no credit if you freeze when you get stuck on hard problems on the test.

* You need to get your “stuck” muscles stronger so you know what to do on tests when you feel stuck.

Watch: LSC’s Mike Chen Shares “The Key to Problem-Solving Tests”

Taking problem-based exams

1. Understand the problem: Determine what you are supposed to find, what you need to find it, and what the unknown is (and if there is extra information). Consider whether drawing a sketch will help. Also – note each part of the question. Not answering each part is an easy way to lose points.

2. Determine a way to solve the problem: Write down all that is given or known. Draw a sketch when appropriate to show relations. Write down all relevant formulas.

3. Carry out the procedure you have devised: For numerical problems, try and estimate an answer first. This will help you to check your work later. Neat, careful work keeps you from making mistakes, and allows you to find them when you do make them (show your units!!). Additionally, when the instructor can see your work clearly, he or she may give you partial credit for what you do know, even if your ultimate answer is incorrect.

4. Check your Answers: This requires the same quality of thought originally used to solve the problem. Is your answer what you thought it would be in your original estimate? Is it a quantity that makes sense? Is your answer in the correct units? If your answer does not seem reasonable, rework the problem.

How to Tackle: Multiple Choice Questions

1. Read the stem: First, read the stem and make sure you understand what it is getting at. Look out for double negatives or other twists in wording before you consider the answer.

2. Try to come up with the correct answer: Before you look at the answer choices, try to come up with the correct answer. This will help you to rule out choices that are similar to the correct answer. Now read and consider each option carefully.

3. Look for clues in the stem: Look for clues in the stem that suggest the correct answer or rule out any choices. For example, if the stem indicates that the answer is plural you can rule out any answers that are singular. The basic rule is: the correct answer must make sense grammatically with the stem. Options which fail this exam can be ruled out.

4. Cross off any options you know are incorrect: As you rule out options cross them off with your pencil. This will help you focus on the remaining choices and eliminates the chance of returning to an item and selecting an option you had already eliminated.

5. Come back to items you were unsure of: Put a mark next to any questions you are unsure of. If you complete the entire exam with time to spare, review these questions – you will often get clues (or even answers) from other questions.

Take a look at some additional information on difficult “ Multiple Choice Tests ” (opens a PDF).

How to Tackle: Essay Questions

The best way to prepare for essay tests is to practice writing essays.

Anticipate questions : Make outlines of possible essay topics using your course materials so you know you’ve got a good grasp of what might be on the test. Then recreate your outlines from memory (unless it’s an open-notes test).
Practice writing at least one full essay; be mindful of the time you spend practicing and think about how much time you will have during the exam. It is also important to think about how you are organizing the information you are including in your essay — for example, if you are asked to compare and contrast two theories as they relate to an issue, you might want to define each of them, describe the issue, and then compare and contrast them.
If your exam is closed book, memorize key events, facts, and names that you will need to support your argument. If it is open-notes, then make sure you develop good outlines.

When you are taking essay tests:

Manage your time well. As with all exams, if there are multiple essay questions, be sure to look at them all at the beginning (taking note of the points each is worth), and prioritize the order you answer the questions.
Read the directions carefully. Ask yourself honestly: are you answering the actual question on the test, or the question you want to be on the test? (tip: instructors know when you aren’t really answering the exact question, so make sure you are addressing the actual question and don’t just write random information that is unrelated to the question.)
Before you write the essay, decide on your argument and quickly list your supporting evidence (it is ok to do a brain dump of all the important information that you want to include so that you have it handy when you begin writing).
Make a quick outline of what you are going to write to organize your thoughts and arguments.
Write! And, make your point right away – you don’t want to get to the end of a timed essay test with your amazing argument still unmade!
If you have time, go back and quickly proof-read your essay for errors.

You might want to take a look at some “ Words to Watch for in an Essay ” (opens a PDF).

References:

1 Taffy E. Raphael, Teaching Question Answer Relationships, Revisited, The Reading Teacher, Vol. 39, No. 6 (Feb., 1986), pp. 516-522.

Ellis, D. (1998). Becoming a Master Student. Houghton Mifflin: Boston

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Essay writing

Understanding essay questions.

The following guide has been created for you by the Student Learning Advisory Service , for more detailed guidance and to speak to one of our advisers, please book an appointment or join one of our online workshops .

Understanding the essay question is the first and most important step you will undertake with any assignment, as without fully understanding the task you cannot respond to it. Consider the key elements in the question e.g. Examine the role of women in Parliament since 1918, with reference to key Equality legislation and ask yourself:

What is the main subject of the question? (e.g. Parliament )
Is there a particular aspect of that subject the question is asking you to consider? (e.g. the role of women in Parliament)
Does the question indicate any limits to your answer? (e.g. the role of women in Parliament since 1918 )
What is the ‘instruction verb’ in the question asking you to do? (e.g. Examine the role of women in Parliament since 1918)
In addition, is the question asking you to demonstrate any specific areas of module knowledge? (e.g. Examine the role of women in Parliament since 1918 , with reference to key Equality legislation )

Identifying and understanding these different elements of your question will allow you to answer it confidently, directly and fully. If a question is long and complicated break it down into its component parts and consider what each is asking you to do.

Above all, do what the instruction verb is telling you to do:

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Academic Writing

How to Answer Essay Type Questions in Literature Examinations

Last Updated: November 14, 2023 Approved

This article was co-authored by Tristen Bonacci . Tristen Bonacci is a Licensed English Teacher with more than 20 years of experience. Tristen has taught in both the United States and overseas. She specializes in teaching in a secondary education environment and sharing wisdom with others, no matter the environment. Tristen holds a BA in English Literature from The University of Colorado and an MEd from The University of Phoenix. There are 11 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. In this case, 84% of readers who voted found the article helpful, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 143,607 times.

Answering essay questions on literature exams can be daunting, especially with timed exams. Before the test, you should have a full understanding of how the different parts of a classical argument fit together to make a whole. The best way to quickly write an organized essay is to outline your argument before you begin your answer. With a little bit of preparation, you can ensure a good grade on your exam.

Writing Your Essay

Create a bullet point for each point you choose to make in your paper.
Your first point should include the introduction, statement of facts, and thesis.
You should break up the “proof” or body paragraphs into however many points you laid out in your thesis. If you promised three points, create three bullet points. If you promised four points, create four bullet points. Remember that the body paragraphs must follow the exact order of the thesis.
Create a point for the statement of the counterargument. You can either create a new point/paragraph for your refutation of it, or keep it all in one paragraph by making the refutation a subpoint.
Create a point for the conclusion.

If you're using external sources, you should include them in your outline. You don't want to accidentally leave out a great source because you got caught up in the writing and forgot about it.

Step 3 Write your topic sentences into your outline.

Use transition words like furthermore, similarly, or indeed to transition between agreeing ideas. [4] X Research source
Use "conflict" transition words and phrases to transition between conflicting ideas — like the counterargument and your refutation of it. Examples include however, in contrast, on the other hand, or conversely.

Step 4 Use the outline to write your essay.

Make sure to refer back to your outline repeatedly during the writing process. This is the roadmap of your answer. Don't wander away from it and get off-course.

If you're being graded primarily on the content of your argument, leave grammar and spelling editing for your last step.
If you're being graded primarily on your grammar and spelling, by all means, correct your errors as you go!
In most cases, you won't be graded on one or the other. Keep your specific teacher or standardized test in mind. Have a strategy for when you plan to correct your errors before you take the test.

Step 6 Proofread your essay before submitting it.

If you're in an isolated room, read the essay aloud to yourself to look for grammar errors that sound wrong. It's easier to hear mistakes than see them on the page.
Read your sentences backwards to look for spelling errors you might skim over if you were reading the sentences normally. [5] X Research source

Structuring Your Argument

Step 1 Learn the six basic parts of the classical oration model.

Introduction (exordium)
Statement of Facts (narratio)
Thesis (partitio)
Proof (confirmatio)
Refutation (refutatio)
Conclusion (peroratio)
The introduction, statement of facts, and thesis are often grouped together in the first paragraph of the answer.

Step 2 Invite the reader into your argument in the introduction.

Another way to think of the exordium is to consider where the word "introduction" comes from. The prefix "intro" means "inward," as in introspection (looking inward). "Duction" comes from the Latin root "ducere," which means "to lead." This is where we get the modern words duke (one who leads) and orchestra conductor (one who leads together). [7] X Research source [8] X Research source
In the introduction, you want to intro + duce, or lead the reader inward, further into your argument.

Step 3 Provide background information in the statement of facts.

If your reader already knows the background information, you may be able to skip this section.
In Cicero's Latin, this section was called the "narratio," which is where we get the modern word "narrator." The narrator is the voice in a book that gives readers information that can't be delivered through dialogue or action.
The word "knowledge" itself shares a root with narration : gnoscere. [10] X Research source In this section, you give the readers the knowledge they need to follow your argument.

Step 4 Break down your argument in your thesis.

Cicero's Latin word, partitio, shares a root with the modern word "partition," which means division or separation. When Beyonce sings "Driver roll up the partition, please," she's asking the driver to roll up the window that separates him from the passengers in the back.
So the thesis is where you list out the different parts of your argument — your X, Y, and Z — in list form, separately.

Step 5 Show the readers the evidence for your claim in the proof.

Note that it's not enough to just list a bunch of quotes and statistics from sources. That's not making an argument — it's restating someone else's information or argument.

Don't include a counterargument without refuting it. To refute means to "beat back." [13] X Research source The only reason you include the opposing point of view is to beat it back and strengthen your own position.

Step 7 Synthesize your argument in the conclusion.

Do not transition into your conclusion with a signal phrase like "in conclusion" or "in summary." Find a less obvious, more sophisticated transition.

Expert Q&A

Never plagiarize another author's words or ideas. You can fail the assignment or even the entire course, or get suspended or expelled from school Thanks Helpful 2 Not Helpful 0

↑ Tristen Bonacci. Licensed English Teacher. Expert Interview. 21 December 2021.
↑ https://www.tacoma.uw.edu/sites/default/files/global/documents/library/essay_outline_worksheet.pdf
↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/engagement/2/1/29/
↑ https://www.msu.edu/~jdowell/135/transw.html
↑ http://www.stlcc.edu/Student_Resources/Academic_Resources/Writing_Resources/Writing_Handouts/proofreading.pdf
↑ http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=exhort
↑ http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=duke&searchmode=none
↑ http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=conductor&searchmode=none
↑ http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=narration&allowed_in_frame=0
↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/thesis-statements/
↑ http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=refute

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Tips to answer multiple-choice, short-answer, and essay-type questions in exams

E xams are a stressful affair and they require smart strategies and techniques to excel. While in-depth learning is crucial, different types of questions demand specific strategies and approaches for solving.

Exams may appear in several formats including multiple choice questions, short answers and essays, each requiring different techniques of answering.

Below is a comprehensive guide to solving exams with different types of question patterns:

TIPS TO ANSWER MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS

The first and foremost thing to do is to read the questions properly. Often, students miss out on important details due to a lack of focus. Paying attention to each and every piece of information and reading with attention is crucial.
After reading the question, try to predict the answer without referring to the given options. This increases your chances of selecting the correct answer through educated guessing.
Using the process of elimination can do wonders. In this method, you eliminate the options you believe are incorrect. This narrows down your choices and aids in identifying the correct response.
Paying attention to words such as 'always,' 'never,' 'sometimes,' 'most,' 'only,' 'many,' 'but,' and 'often' can help us better understand the sentence. These words tend to alter the meaning of the sentence and hence should be paid attention to and read properly.
Â Understanding concepts thoroughly enables you to grasp the context of questions accurately and answer them correctly.

TIPS TO ANSWER SHORT QUESTIONS

Read the question properly and comprehend it well. Understand whether you need to give a definition, provide examples, write a brief summary or offer comparisons.
Write the answer to the point, avoiding unnecessary explanations and using keywords. This increases your chances of scoring higher.
Use simple language and avoid complex terms, as they can confuse the examiner. The simpler your answer, the higher your score.
Write your answers in a logical and organised manner. Structure your answers with separate paragraphs, bullet points, flowcharts, tables, etc., as this makes it easier for the examiner to read and understand your answer.
During the preparatory phase, use colourful pens, flashcards, charts, and drawings to learn concepts well. This method helps in recollecting the answers during exams.
Indulge in self-testing methods by practicing sample question papers, demo tests, and solving previous year question papers to understand the probable questions and the exam pattern.
Having a time management strategy in place is important. Allocate time for different types of questions and try to solve them within the given time frame.

TIPS TO WRITE ESSAYS

Understand the topic well and follow the instructions.
Brainstorm ideas on the topic and plan the points you intend to include.
Begin with an informative yet concise introduction, followed by a detailed body and a conclusion that summarizes your essay.
Ensure the essay is well-structured and divided into a minimum of 3-4 paragraphs.
Use quotations and examples to support the information you have written.
Adhere to the specified time and word limits.
Ensure your essay is written in simple and clear language.
Always remember to proofread the essay to eliminate grammatical and spelling errors.
Make reading a regular practice to enhance language proficiency and facilitate a smoother flow of thoughts.

By implementing such strategic approaches, you can efficiently answer your questions. It is important to study diligently and practice with sample papers.

During the exam, take the time to read the question paper properly during the allocated reading time and manage your time effectively.

- Article by Nischal Narayanam,Â mathematical child prodigy, winner of the National Child Award (Gold Medal), youngest double Guinness World Record holder in memory power,Â first Indian to win the World Memory Championship title, youngest CA, andÂ Founder and Mentor at Nischals

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Tips to answer multiple-choice, short-answer, and essay-type questions in exams

What is ChatGPT? Here's everything you need to know about ChatGPT, the chatbot everyone's still talking about

ChatGPT is getting a futuristic human update.
ChatGPT has drawn users at a feverish pace and spurred Big Tech to release other AI chatbots.
Here's how ChatGPT works — and what's coming next.

OpenAI's blockbuster chatbot ChatGPT is getting a new update.

On Monday, OpenAI unveiled GPT-4o for ChatGPT, a new version of the bot that can hold conversations with users in a very human tone. The new version of the chatbot will also have vision abilities.

The futuristic reveal quickly prompted jokes about parallels to the movie "Her," with some calling the chatbot's new voice " cringe ."

The move is a big step for the future of AI-powered virtual assistants, which tech companies have been racing to develop.

Since its release in 2022, hundreds of millions of people have experimented with the tool, which is already changing how the internet looks and feels to users.

Users have flocked to ChatGPT to improve their personal lives and boost productivity . Some workers have used the AI chatbot to develop code , write real estate listings , and create lesson plans, while others have made teaching the best ways to use ChatGPT a career all to itself.

ChatGPT offers dozens of plug-ins to those who subscribe to ChatGPT Plus subscription. An Expedia one can help you book a trip, while an OpenTable one will get nab you a dinner reservation. And last month, OpenAI launched Code Interpreter, a version of ChatGPT that can code and analyze data .

While the personal tone of conversations with an AI bot like ChatGPT can evoke the experience of chatting with a human, the technology, which runs on " large language model tools, " doesn't speak with sentience and doesn't "think" the way people do.

That means that even though ChatGPT can explain quantum physics or write a poem on command, a full AI takeover isn't exactly imminent , according to experts.

"There's a saying that an infinite number of monkeys will eventually give you Shakespeare," said Matthew Sag, a law professor at Emory University who studies copyright implications for training and using large language models like ChatGPT.

"There's a large number of monkeys here, giving you things that are impressive — but there is intrinsically a difference between the way that humans produce language, and the way that large language models do it," he said.

Chatbots like ChatGPT are powered by large amounts of data and computing techniques to make predictions to string words together in a meaningful way. They not only tap into a vast amount of vocabulary and information, but also understand words in context. This helps them mimic speech patterns while dispatching an encyclopedic knowledge.

Other tech companies like Google and Meta have developed their own large language model tools, which use programs that take in human prompts and devise sophisticated responses.

Despite the AI's impressive capabilities, some have called out OpenAI's chatbot for spewing misinformation , stealing personal data for training purposes , and even encouraging students to cheat and plagiarize on their assignments.

Some recent efforts to use chatbots for real-world services have proved troubling. In 2023, the mental health company Koko came under fire after its founder wrote about how the company used GPT-3 in an experiment to reply to users.

Koko cofounder Rob Morris hastened to clarify on Twitter that users weren't speaking directly to a chatbot, but that AI was used to "help craft" responses.

Read Insider's coverage on ChatGPT and some of the strange new ways that both people and companies are using chat bots:

The tech world's reception to ChatGPT:

Microsoft is chill with employees using ChatGPT — just don't share 'sensitive data' with it.

Microsoft's investment into ChatGPT's creator may be the smartest $1 billion ever spent

ChatGPT and generative AI look like tech's next boom. They could be the next bubble.

The ChatGPT and generative-AI 'gold rush' has founders flocking to San Francisco's 'Cerebral Valley'

Insider's experiments:

I asked ChatGPT to do my work and write an Insider article for me. It quickly generated an alarmingly convincing article filled with misinformation.

I asked ChatGPT and a human matchmaker to redo my Hinge and Bumble profiles. They helped show me what works.

I asked ChatGPT to reply to my Hinge matches. No one responded.

I used ChatGPT to write a resignation letter. A lawyer said it made one crucial error that could have invalidated the whole thing .

Read ChatGPT's 'insulting' and 'garbage' 'Succession' finale script

An Iowa school district asked ChatGPT if a list of books contains sex scenes, and banned them if it said yes. We put the system to the test and found a bunch of problems.

Developments in detecting ChatGPT:

Teachers rejoice! ChatGPT creators have released a tool to help detect AI-generated writing

A Princeton student built an app which can detect if ChatGPT wrote an essay to combat AI-based plagiarism

Professors want to 'ChatGPT-proof' assignments, and are returning to paper exams and requesting editing history to curb AI cheating

ChatGPT in society:

BuzzFeed writers react with a mix of disappointment and excitement at news that AI-generated content is coming to the website

ChatGPT is testing a paid version — here's what that means for free users

A top UK private school is changing its approach to homework amid the rise of ChatGPT, as educators around the world adapt to AI

Princeton computer science professor says don't panic over 'bullshit generator' ChatGPT

DoNotPay's CEO says threat of 'jail for 6 months' means plan to debut AI 'robot lawyer' in courtroom is on ice

It might be possible to fight a traffic ticket with an AI 'robot lawyer' secretly feeding you lines to your AirPods, but it could go off the rails

Online mental health company uses ChatGPT to help respond to users in experiment — raising ethical concerns around healthcare and AI technology

What public figures think about ChatGPT and other AI tools:

What Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and 12 other business leaders think about AI tools like ChatGPT

Elon Musk was reportedly 'furious' at ChatGPT's popularity after he left the company behind it, OpenAI, years ago

CEO of ChatGPT maker responds to schools' plagiarism concerns: 'We adapted to calculators and changed what we tested in math class'

A theoretical physicist says AI is just a 'glorified tape recorder' and people's fears about it are overblown

'The most stunning demo I've ever seen in my life': ChatGPT impressed Bill Gates

Ashton Kutcher says your company will probably be 'out of business' if you're 'sleeping' on AI

ChatGPT's impact on jobs:

AI systems like ChatGPT could impact 300 million full-time jobs worldwide, with administrative and legal roles some of the most at risk, Goldman Sachs report says

Jobs are now requiring experience with ChatGPT — and they'll pay as much as $800,000 a year for the skill

How AI tools like ChatGPT are changing the workforce:

10 ways artificial intelligence is changing the workplace, from writing performance reviews to making the 4-day workweek possible

Managers who use AI will replace managers who don't, says an IBM exec

How ChatGPT is shaping industries:

ChatGPT is coming for classrooms, hospitals, marketing departments, and everything else as the next great startup boom emerges

Marketing teams are using AI to generate content, boost SEO, and develop branding to help save time and money, study finds

AI is coming for Hollywood. 'It's amazing to see the sophistication of the images,' one of Christopher Nolan's VFX guy says.

AI is going to offer every student a personalized tutor, founder of Khan Academy says

A law firm was fined $5,000 after one of its lawyers used ChatGPT to write a court brief riddled with fake case references

How workers are using ChatGPT to boost productivity:

CheatGPT: The hidden wave of employees using AI on the sly

I used ChatGPT to talk to my boss for a week and she didn't notice. Here are the other ways I use it daily to get work done.

I'm a high school math and science teacher who uses ChatGPT, and it's made my job much easier

Amazon employees are already using ChatGPT for software coding. They also found the AI chatbot can answer tricky AWS customer questions and write cloud training materials.

How 6 workers are using ChatGPT to make their jobs easier

I'm a freelance editor who's embraced working with AI content. Here's how I do it and what I charge.

How people are using ChatGPT to make money:

How ChatGPT and other AI tools are helping workers make more money

Here are 5 ways ChatGPT helps me make money and complete time-consuming tasks for my business

ChatGPT course instruction is the newest side hustle on the market. Meet the teachers making thousands from the lucrative gig.

People are using ChatGPT and other AI bots to work side hustles and earn thousands of dollars — check out these 8 freelancing gigs

A guy tried using ChatGPT to turn $100 into a business making 'as much money as possible.' Here are the first 4 steps the AI chatbot gave him

We used ChatGPT to build a 7-figure newsletter. Here's how it makes our jobs easier.

I use ChatGPT and it's like having a 24/7 personal assistant for $20 a month. Here are 5 ways it's helping me make more money.

A worker who uses AI for a $670 monthly side hustle says ChatGPT has 'cut her research time in half'

How companies are navigating ChatGPT:

From Salesforce to Air India, here are the companies that are using ChatGPT

Amazon, Apple, and 12 other major companies that have restricted employees from using ChatGPT

A consultant used ChatGPT to free up time so she could focus on pitching clients. She landed $128,000 worth of new contracts in just 3 months.

Luminary, an AI-generated pop-up restaurant, just opened in Australia. Here's what's on the menu, from bioluminescent calamari to chocolate mousse.

A CEO is spending more than $2,000 a month on ChatGPT Plus accounts for all of his employees, and he says it's saving 'hours' of time

How people are using ChatGPT in their personal lives:

ChatGPT planned a family vacation to Costa Rica. A travel adviser found 3 glaring reasons why AI won't replace experts anytime soon.

A man who hated cardio asked ChatGPT to get him into running. Now, he's hooked — and he's lost 26 pounds.

A computer engineering student is using ChatGPT to overcome learning challenges linked to her dyslexia

How a coder used ChatGPT to find an apartment in Berlin in 2 weeks after struggling for months

Food blogger Nisha Vora tried ChatGPT to create a curry recipe. She says it's clear the instructions lacked a human touch — here's how.

Men are using AI to land more dates with better profiles and personalized messages, study finds

Lawsuits against OpenAI:

OpenAI could face a plagiarism lawsuit from The New York Times as tense negotiations threaten to boil over, report says

This is why comedian Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT

2 authors say OpenAI 'ingested' their books to train ChatGPT. Now they're suing, and a 'wave' of similar court cases may follow.

A lawsuit claims OpenAI stole 'massive amounts of personal data,' including medical records and information about children, to train ChatGPT

A radio host is suing OpenAI for defamation, alleging that ChatGPT created a false legal document that accused him of 'defrauding and embezzling funds'

Tips on how to write better ChatGPT prompts:

7 ways to use ChatGPT at work to boost your productivity, make your job easier, and save a ton of time

I'm an AI prompt engineer. Here are 3 ways I use ChatGPT to get the best results.

12 ways to get better at using ChatGPT: Comprehensive prompt guide

Here's 9 ways to turn ChatGPT Plus into your personal data analyst with the new Code Interpreter plug-in

OpenAI's ChatGPT can write impressive code. Here are the prompts you should use for the best results, experts say.

Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, has a global deal to allow OpenAI to train its models on its media brands' reporting.

Watch: What is ChatGPT, and should we be afraid of AI chatbots?

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Ryan Gosling has the correct answer to Colbert's question about the scariest animal

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Oscar nominee Ryan Gosling has named the mosquito as the world's scariest animal. He has a point. David Gannon/AFP via Getty Images; Paul Sarosta/Getty Images hide caption

Oscar nominee Ryan Gosling has named the mosquito as the world's scariest animal. He has a point.

Ryan Gosling, fresh off his triumphant appearance as a man who looks like Beavis but is not Beavis on Saturday Night Live , has demonstrated that he has a Ken ... er ... keen ... grasp of animal topics.

This week he took the Colbert Questionert, administered by Stephen Colbert, host of The Late Show. One question: "What is the scariest animal?"

He first answered "man." Which, who can argue? But then he did a pivot and named the mosquito.

Ding, ding, ding!

As Goats and Soda has noted in past stories, the mosquito is in fact the deadliest animal on earth.

Here's how we sized up deadly animals:

"Sharks get a lot of press. But they are overrated as killers. According to the International Shark Attack File , curated by The Florida Program for Shark Research, the confirmed 2022 total of "unprovoked" bites was 57 — down from the 2017-2021 average of 70 a year. Five people died after an attack in 2022.

"Snakes easily eclipse sharks with their lethal toll: the World Health Organization estimates that 5.4 million people a year are bitten by snakes, with 81,000 to 138,000 deaths annually.

"Still, that's nothing compared to mosquitoes. Mosquitoes can carry parasites for many diseases: dengue fever, zika ... and malaria.

"Females of the genus Anopheles can feed on a person or animal that is infected and ingest the malaria parasite, which passes through the bug's blood and eventually gets into its salivary glands. Then the bug bites, releasing its infectious – and potentially deadly — spit.

"UNICEF reports that 'In 2021, there were 247 million malaria cases globally that led to 619,000 deaths in total. Of these deaths, 77% were children under 5 years of age.'

"That makes the tiny mosquito the most dangerous animal on the planet.

"And the insects appear to be expanding their reach.

"In 2023, there were a handful of cases of local transmission [of malaria] in the U.S., something that doesn't happen that often since the massive campaign to eradicate malaria-carrying mosquitoes in the 1940s and '50s. This year's malaria victims had not traveled outside the country. Did U.S. mosquitoes bite someone who'd contracted malaria on a trip abroad — and then proceed to bite and infect an American? Or have warming temperatures meant that malaria-carrying mosquitoes are able to thrive in regions that previously would not be hospitable? The jury is still out regarding these specific U.S. cases — although climate change experts say that mosquitoes are indeed expanding their reach as temperatures rise."

So kudos to you, Ryan Gosling.

P.S. We also think you nailed the question about "best sandwich." The answer: the ice-cream sandwich. Duh, of course!

Stephen Colbert
Ryan Gosling
The Late Show
scariest animal

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The criminal trial of former president Donald Trump continued this week with testimony from the most anticipated witness in the case, Michael Cohen, the former Trump attorney and fixer.

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Answering 'how do you define success' in a job interview.

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By preparing to answer the question, “How do you define success?” you’ll learn more about yourself.

Due to rapid changes transforming the workplace, soft skills like critical thinking , adaptability and emotional intelligence are increasingly valued by employers. So, it's no wonder the question, "How do you define success?" is commonly asked in job interviews. How you define success influences your priorities, goals and worldview. Employers introduce this question because they want an insight into your personality to determine if you're a good culture fit. They also want to know how you set and motivate yourself to achieve goals. Hiring managers love this question because it’s open-ended. That means you can’t simply provide a “yes” or “no” answer. Your response must be detailed and honest enough to make a stellar first impression.

Determining culture fit is just as important for you, the interviewee. In a McKinsey survey , 70% of employees said that their work defines their sense of purpose. The more you feel aligned with the organization's purpose, the more productive and happier you will be in your job. By answering truthfully, you’ll be more likely to identify a winning team that appreciates your unique talents.

The key to any successful job interview is preparation. But even if you don’t get asked this question, formulating a response will force you to determine your priorities and articulate your thoughts. Here are a few tips to effectively answer the question, “How do you define success?”

Tip #1: Invest In Time To Self-Reflect

Job interview preparation is an exercise in self-reflection. When thinking about how to answer, “How do you define success?” look back at your proudest accomplishments. Then, look for patterns among them. For example, if your most notable achievements center on coaching and mentoring direct reports, you may define success as developing others. Or perhaps your achievements focus on overcoming obstacles. In that case, success for you may be defined as maintaining a winning mindset amid setbacks.

Tip #2: Focus On Your Soft Skills

Soft skills are in demand more than ever. According to a study by business school professor Peter Cardon, one reason is the rise of AI. Contrary to popular belief, many experts believe AI will transform companies into more human-centered organizations. As a result, qualities like character and communication will be highly valued in the workplace. So, if you define success as being a collaborative team player, don’t stop there in the job interview. Describe how you used effective communication to build strong relationships with co-workers and creativity to brainstorm innovative solutions.

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Michael cohen testifies: ex-trump fixer confirms he called trump ‘cheeto-dusted cartoon villain’ in fiery cross-examination, ios 17 5 apple issues update now warning to all iphone users, tip #3: consider how the company defines success.

Before any job interview, research the company thoroughly. When you answer the question, “How do you define success?” consider the organization’s goals and mission statement. For example, a large corporation may heavily emphasize the bottom line, while a non-profit will focus more on exerting a positive influence in the community. Using that knowledge, formulate a response reflecting your and the company's values.

Tip #4: Provide Specific Examples

Storytelling can be a great tool during a job interview. Start by understanding your audience and their biggest challenges. Then, craft a narrative using your most notable accomplishments. Lean into a storytelling approach by following a few simple steps:

Identify the most critical data you’d like to share
Use names and details to establish an emotional connection
Practice in advance so your delivery is as natural as possible

Explain to the employer what you bring and how your skills perfectly align with the company's needs. The right narrative will not only help you get noticed but also help you land the job.

Example Answers: “How Do You Define Success?”

Because success is a subjective concept, every individual views it a bit differently. Here are three sample responses to inspire you as you prepare for your job interview .

Example 1: A large company

I define success as being part of a team that can meet and exceed their goals. One of the reasons I was attracted to this position is that your organization shares the same values. For example, my primary focus this past quarter was leading the team to launch our new product by the end of June. With focus and hard work, we successfully launched by the end of May, resulting in a 20% revenue boost. At the same time, we came in substantially under budget. I'm most proud of the fact that I also created a tracking system to monitor and measure key product launch metrics that were ultimately deployed company-wide. That achievement ultimately earned me a corporate innovation award.

Example 2: A non-profit organization

For me, success is about helping others grow and thrive. When I read the press release about your recent community initiative, I knew my values aligned with your mission statement. In my current role, I developed an international strategy to increase global impact and influence to accelerate fundraising and engagement. I expanded the affiliate network, resulting in 25% growth and more than $60M in additional revenue. Even more exciting was that we were able to build another 10 primary schools in Africa to improve the lives of thousands of children.

Example 3: A start-up firm

I feel successful when I can create value, add to the culture and brainstorm new ideas. I would describe myself as a "build and grow" person who thrives in ambiguous environments. Over the last year, my role has focused on creating processes and procedures that didn’t previously exist. As a result, we've doubled the size of the marketing team in less than a year. We also just landed our first multi-million-dollar account. I love creating order out of chaos.

Everyone's concept of achievement is different. By preparing to answer the interview question, “How do you define success?” you’ll learn more about yourself and be more likely to impress your future employer.

Are you a woman who needs help changing careers? Download my FREE 22-page e-book: How Professional Women Can Master Career Change!

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Ryan Gosling correctly answers Colbert's "scariest animal" question
Ryan Gosling has the correct answer to Colbert's question about the scariest animal. Oscar nominee Ryan Gosling has named the mosquito as the world's scariest animal. He has a point.
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Answering 'How Do You Define Success?' In A Job Interview
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3) Be brutally honest with yourself about whether a point is relevant before you write it.

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Step Four: Practice makes perfect

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