How do I plan an exam answer?

Whether you have lots to say and are rushing to get it all down or are completely stumped by the question, it's really important to start by planning your answer. It helps you to organise all your ideas, and can stimulate your thinking as well. Give yourself plenty of space to scribble down your ideas, and give yourself a good few minutes to plan before you start answering.Start by writing down everything that you might want to put in. Just put the headline for each point - you can fill in the rest when you write your answer! If your question is weighing up two different opinions 'e.g. Did violence help or hinder the Suffragettes?', then you can start putting your ideas into two columns. Once you've got everything down you can start organising it, so that you put similar ideas together and work out your strongest point. Looking at what you have written down will help you to decide what your conclusion will be, and what you want to argue throughout. Once you know where your essay is going, you can start writing, confident that you're not just making it up as you go along!