English: How long should essays be?

captain_frances

I know they say it's quality not quantity, but three pages will get you about a C, even if they're a good three pages. Any advice? What are other peoples averages when it comes to exam essays? >.<

Vikings

I wrote 4 in the mocks but they guy behind me wrote 7. Now over the 2 papers he wrote over 20 pages so it might just have been the size of his writing.

deek

In my mocks my essay was 3 and almost a half and it got 89 it wasnt great as im not so good at english so it wasnt quality or anything so ya about that must be enough. Oh and it was corrected by an actual examiner and the teacher said shed been pretty fair so.....!

captain_frances

Maybe I just had a wench of an examiner.

Con9903

about 5

deek

Con9903 wrote:

about 5

Thats madness :eek: How big is your writing??

SineadSligo

My storey in the junior cert was about 4ish.

my cheap school didnt do mocks for the leavin cert with us!!
grrrrrrr

EdgarAllenPoo

I find that once I get close to the end of my second page I start repeating myself and rambling so I'd say two and a half to three pages is my limit, it depends on the subject.

deek

The length of the story doesnt change from the junior to the leaving, the standard of writing just gets higher.

Con9903

deek wrote:

Thats madness :eek: How big is your writing??

writing size is About average. I'm a quick writer. The layout we are told to do is five major paragraphs, and a short intro and outro. Five pages takes no time

trishemurphy

its only meant to be 3 and a half the examiner has enough to be reading they'll get sick of 7 page essays and you'll get docked for rambling/not sticking to the point

Da_IRISH_ONE4U

Its all about Quality, not Quantity

deek

Im devoid of imagination theres just a big echo-ey space in my brain where it was supposed to go so I write the speeches and advice things. Im just extremely sarcastic but it seems to work. Our mock was on "speech on relationship advice" and I basically just made fun of the way guys tried to chat up girls for the whole thing!

trishemurphy

what you get that sounds good

and yeah quality not quantity

Con9903

trishemurphy wrote:

its only meant to be 3 and a half the examiner has enough to be reading they'll get sick of 7 page essays and you'll get docked for rambling/not sticking to the point

I can't write a good story on a mere 3.5 pages. And there's no point to stick to as such because it's a story. Oh and it's quality stuff

SineadSligo

The trick though is to not forget what it is your writing about.
So every so often, go back to the begining and reread all youve wrote.

Youll kno then yourself if its bull, or youve gone off topic!!

trishemurphy

its not meant to be a novel

Waltons

5 pages is not a novel. Do as much as it takes, but I wouldn't advise doing anything under 3 if you can help it.

Con9903

Haven't read many 5 page novels lately . I've always done quite well with my essays, no one has criticised the amount I write. The only criticism I've ever heard is towards people with too much written. Once you stay on the point and write quality material within the alotted 70 minutes then I don't see a problem

trishemurphy

ok i agree with you once its quality and not 12 pages its been done believe me

spudington16

As someone else posted on a similar thread:

"An essay should be like a girl's skirt; long enough to cover what's important but short enough to keep us interested."

SineadSligo

quality!!!!!!!!

hah

trishemurphy

"An essay should be like a girl's skirt; long enough to cover what's important but short enough to keep us interested."
thats brilliant

rainbow kirby

Well... in my LC my essay was exactly 4 pages, and I got a 79 for it. That was a lot for me.

Binomate

I wrote seven and a half pages for my mocks of quality stuff and I got 80% for the composition question. I'll write about one and a half pages per question on the comprehension.

sugar lumps

deek wrote:

Im devoid of imagination theres just a big echo-ey space in my brain where it was supposed to go so I write the speeches and advice things. Im just extremely sarcastic but it seems to work. Our mock was on "speech on relationship advice" and I basically just made fun of the way guys tried to chat up girls for the whole thing!

I got that mock paper too! It was really nice and so interestesting and relevant! It was on what we spend our whole lives talking about! I hope 2moros paper will be just as nice

Pet

A good guideline I was given for English, and this applies across both papers, is to write a page for every 20 marks that the question is worth. So the 100mark essay should be ~5 pages, the 50 mark questions should be ~2.5, etc.

Binomate

Too late it's over now. \o/