How to Take an Essay Test

Taking an essay test can be unnerving for many students. Writing essays may seem harder than objective tests because the answers are not clear cut and fewer questions make up the test score. By following this list of steps, students can be assured that they will increase their odds of writing good essays for class.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Read the prompt or question you are writing about very carefully. Make sure you understand exactly what you are supposed to be writing on. Look for key words, phrases or vocabulary that you have studied in class that should be addressed in the essay.

2. Prewrite before you start. Make an outline or concept map that quickly details your main idea and supporting evidence. Check to make sure that the essay is set up in a logical sequence and that important ideas are not left out.

3. Draft the essay. For an essay test, you will not be able to write multiple drafts. If you'll skip lines when writing, you can easily make corrections to your work as needed during the testing period. Write neatly from the start.

4. Revise your essay. Skim through your draft and make sure that there are no glaring mistakes, sentences that do not make sense, fragments or run-on sentences.

5. Edit the essay. Check for spelling and punctuation mistakes. Either erase to make the corrections or draw a single line through the word or words that need correction. Do not scribble out text.

6. Time yourself appropriately. Make sure you know how much time you have to complete the essay, or if there are multiple essays, divide your test time to allow you to write all of them.

7. Write for each prompt, even if you think you do not know much about the information in the prompt. You will surprise yourself most of the time by attempting to write for each prompt. You are bound to get at least partial credit for trying, but you won't get any credit if it is left blank.