How important is it to plan my essay in the exam?

After much practice when it comes to writing essays in exams I can tell you there is nothing more important that making sure you give yourself a good plan to work from! Whilst I understand that exam conditions can be stressful and make you feel like you have little time, especially if you are a fairly slow writer, planning your essay will only help you! It helps to keep your ideas streamlined, and your work succinct and concise. If you go into writing your essay already knowing how you are going to conclude, and your key points of analysis it will make it flow better, and undoubtedly easier for the examiner to mark (which means they are more likely to give you the mark you deserve)! So how do you go about planning the essay? It depends on how much time you have in the exam and how many questions you have to answer. Say you have 45 minutes to answer 1 question, here I would suggest spending 5/10 mins giving yourself a very brief plan. Look at the question, think about what it is asking. Make sure you that your introduction refers to the question and makes reference to the points and evidence you will be using in the main body of your essay. Next write down briefly your main points for the body of the essay and any points of analysis you have that you know you will want to expand on here. Finally it is your conclusion, briefly write down what you will be concluding - be sure to always go back to answering the question. Then you are good to go! A tip of mine is as you are writing the essay tick off from your plan. That way, if worst comes to worst and you run out of time the examiner can see what else you intended to put into the essay and it might pick you up some extra marks! Trust me, planning your essays is going to make life a lot easier!