How do I approach a short answer question in an exam?

The first thing I would advice you to do is look at the command term of the question you are about to answer because it will tell you what you need to include in your answer and what you can omit, which saves you valuable time. Examples of command terms are ‘explain’, ‘describe’, ‘evaluate’ and ‘discuss’. For the short answer question ‘explain’, ‘define’ and ‘describe’ are common command terms.

Explain = give a description and mention some causes, consequences and/or context (including only the one most relevant of these is absolutely alright).

Describe = give a detailed account (essentially, what is it?).

Define = very similar to describe but expects you to give the exact definition of a term.

Secondly, think about your thesis. Your thesis should respond to the exam question in one single sentence. For example, if the question is: Explain the effect of stereotypes on behaviour. then your thesis could be: One effect of stereotypes on behaviour is that they can make people jump to conclusions about others, without the people themselves being aware of it.

Thirdly, think of a study that would support your thesis. In this case it could be the study by Darley and Gross carried out in 1983, in which they asked participants to predict how successful a young girl would be in an intelligence test, depending on if they had seen her in a rich or poor looking environment.

And now it is time to write:

Paragraph 1: BRIEF INTRODUCTION: This is where you give some background information about the topic by responding to the command term. So in this case you would: Write down what a stereotype is, potentially include one line about where we get stereotypes from (causes) and start mentioning some effects of stereotypes (consequences) which should naturally lead you into your…

THESIS: The one sentence response you figured out earlier.

Paragraph 2: YOUR SUPPORTING STUDY: Here you briefly outline the study which you also thought about earlier. I good way of making sure you include everything you need in a description of a study (including when you take notes of it in class) you can think of the acronym FAME: F = findings A = aim M = method E = evaluation (however since you are not required to think critically for the short answer questions you can omit this step in this special case, so it would just be FAM). So having this in mind you would start with the aim of the experiment, e.g: The aim with the study carried out by Barley and Gross in 1983 was to investigate the role of schemas in social cognition. Then you would describe how the study was carried out, essentially what they had the participants do. Then write what they found out, what the results were, e.g: Participants in group one, who had watched the ”poor” girl, thought that the girl would not do very well on her test. Participants in group two, who had watched the ”rich” girl, predicted instead that she would do very well on the test. Then link these findings back to your thesis. How do these results support your point? E.g: This indicates the participants unintentionally jumped to a conclusion about the girl’s success based on very little evidence due to their stereotypes.

Paragraph 3: WRAP UP: restate your thesis (preferably in other words without changing the meaning of it but if you cannot come up with an alternative sentence, don’t worry, it is not required). FURTHER INFORMATION: Very briefly show that you understand the importance/implications of what you have just argued, by, for example, mentioning why it is important to know about the topic or if this knowledge has been applied in a real world context, in education or therapy for example. You can also in one line mention why it is a complicated topic/issue or if there is anything about it that is questionable or that we do not know anything about.

And voila, you have a solid short essay!