How much am I expected to write?

In an exam, you’ll be under time pressure, so the examiners aren’t expecting 5000 word masterpieces in response to every question. The general guide for GCSE is one mark a minute, but how much do you have to write to get one mark? It goes without saying that it’s quality over quantity, but the challenge is making sure that your essay is of a high enough quality to get all the marks. The best way to pick up as many marks as possible is to make sure you explain and justify every point you make fully, rather than just brushing over it – you’ll get one mark for making the point, and another mark for explaining exactly what you mean. The easiest way to make sure you’ve covered all your bases in terms of explanation is to follow the PEE paragraph structure. Point, evidence, explanation: so you make your point, provide a supporting quote or quotes, then explain why the quotes show what you’re trying to say. For example, say your question was on Of Mice And Men, you could say something like “Curley’s wife is portrayed as both sexual and marginalised. This is shown through the way she dresses, in “a red cotton house dress”, as the colour red has connotations of lust, passion and promiscuity. However, the fact that Steinbeck doesn’t give her a name throughout the novella demonstrates how she is denied a personhood, and is completely under the control of her husband as “Curley’s wife” portrays her as his property.” In this example, the POINT is the first sentence, the EVIDENCE is the quotes and the EXPLANATION is the rest. In an exam, this would get you two points, so on a ten mark question, you need four more of these PEE paragraphs to get full marks, so for a ten mark question the amount that you need to write is five of these short paragraphs, plus a brief introduction and conclusion summarising your ideas. It’s also worth noting that if the question offers an idea and asks you to agree or disagree, then two or three of your paragraphs should offer one side of the argument, and the others a counterargument – examiners love a balanced argument, even more so if you, in your conclusion, can come to your own answer based on all the evidence you’ve provided.