English Essay length

Dropsofjupiter

Hi guys,
Im in 6th year at the minute and was just wondering what the general guidelines your english teachers are giving you for the length of your essays..Like roughly how many A4 pages for the composition/ Hamlet/ Comparative/ poetry. I understand that its a case of quality over quantity and dependant on handwriting size but I'm only looking for a rough guide! Thanks in advance!

barbarians

Obviously dependent on hand-writing size and it's a case of quality over quantity but roughly:

Hamlet: 5 pages. Worth 60 marks

Composition: 4 pages (ish). This one really depends as you could have a 3 1/2 page essay which is brilliant and gets great marks or have a 5 page essay which gets similar marks. Also depends if you do a speech or something different. I would have anything less than 3 1/2 pages though.

Comparative: 6 pages - Not sure here haven't done it yet. Worth 70 marks though so you will need a lot of detail.

Poetry: 4 1/2 pages. Despite all the learning you have to do for it, prescribed poetry is only 50 marks at the end of the day so it's better not to write too much here and let yourself be caught for time in questions worth more.

What you should do is set a time limit to wrote out an essay e.g. 45 minutes to do poetry and if you can't get the essay done in the 45 minutes then it's too long and you should cut it down/write faster

Namlub

What I'm confused about is the comprehension, my teacher told us to aim for a page per question but I've seen in other places that it should only be around a page and a half/two pages altogether?

Bubbleope

Essay: Should be about 4 pages.
Comparative: about 5 pages, at least.
Poetry: 4 or more pages.
We haven't done a Hamlet question yet so I wouldn't know.

Namlub wrote: »

What I'm confused about is the comprehension, my teacher told us to aim for a page per question but I've seen in other places that it should only be around a page and a half/two pages altogether?

it depends on the question, plus you have to look at the marks that go with it.
if one question gives more marks than the other then you'll obviously have to write more, say about 2 pages! (:
then the smaller marked question should have at least 1 page of an answer.
I definitely won't be writing more than 2 pages on a comprehension question anyways! xD

Macushlablue

For the comprehension questions I've always recommended between half a page and a full page for a 15 marker...when you've included an introductory sentence and a concluding sentence and three main points in the answer, you'll be surprised how long it is! I would suggest between one and two pages for the twenty marker...it's worth 5% of your exam after all!

ApeLove

I don't think that any of my essays were much over three pages (in fact, I think my poetry might have even been a couple of lines under three...), and I got an A1 last year. I think trying to make your essays long because your teacher told you that five pages are a must if stupid, you just waste time and end up throwing in bull****. Your essay should be as long as the amount of relevant points you can fill it with, don't worry too much about length.

AnnaKin

ah here, i dont think anyone is the same, i'm 5 pages tops for any of them and i always get b1's in them so its more about quality i think!!


just think about how many pages we have to write in the actual exam!! D;

nlgbbbblth

My Paper II consisted of seven and a half pages.

Four questions
Drama - King Lear
Poetry - Thomas Hardy
Novel - Castle Rackrent
Drama - The Plough And The Stars

Got an A.

That was 1989 - not sure what's changed since then.

Dropsofjupiter

Thanks for all your help everybody! My teacher has a bee in her bonnet about all essays needing to be at least 5 pages long..glad to hear that's not necessarily the case!

Luno

Quality over quantity. There's no point writing loads and going off topic, if you stick to the question and answer the question correctly you should be fine.