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| 1. Successfully taking an essay exam requires sufficient out-of-class preparation, including active review of textbooks and class notes, annotating, summarizing, outlining, anticipating questions, and often writing practice responses. |
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| 2. In-class preparation can help with essay-exam responses: skimming the exam for an overview, allocating time to questions based on point value and knowledge, analyzing the exam questions, outlining, and monitoring time while drafting. |
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| 3. In-class essay exams differ from our out-of -class writing assignments in several ways, including the expert audience (your instructor), limited revision possibility, and reduced introductions and conclusions. |
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| 4. Essay exam responses are similar in most respects to our other major writing projects, including the need for pre-writing, organizing, drafting, and whatever revising and editing that time allows. |
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| 5. Essay exam responses usually involve several patterns of development and rely on specific, detailed examples with clear explanations. Names, dates, facts, statistics, and quotations are often called for. |
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| 6. Analyzing the essay question and answering all its parts are crucial to a successful essay-exam response. |
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| 7. The thesis sentence should contain key terms from the essay question and will often forecast what the essay will discuss. |
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| 8. Introductions and conclusions for essay exam responses should be concise but well- written, with a target audience in mind. |
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| 9. Transitional words and other connectors are especially important in bridging the gap between paragraphs. |
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| 10. An overall organizational pattern may be suggested by the essay question. |
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| 11. Revising and editing, even briefly, will improve the essay-exam response. |