How do I stop writing everything I know about a text in my answers?

You've heard it before but plan, plan, plan. Planning in an exam can always seem daunting - you panic about whether you're remembering texts correctly. One way to solve this is to plan as revision. This solves time as you don't even have to write the full answers to your exam questions each time you revise a topic. Begin by looking at past exam papers and considering prominent themes in your texts - what are future exam questions likely to be based around? Write these down and then plan each answer, including information about structure, context, close textual analysis and critical reception. That way, when the theme comes up as part of the exam question you will be able to immediately answer it, remembering the planning you did during your revision.