Additional Tips for Eng 92 Departmental Exam

To My Beloved Eng 92 Students,

At this point, you've done day one of the English departmental writing exam (from what I've been told). You are going back on Thursday for day two.

Here are some additional tips (or actually reminders, since I've mentioned them in the past, if you've been listening.) First of all, I hope that you did not forget to use the writing process (or some version of it, such as (1) pre-write/brainstorm on scrap paper, (2) write, (3) revise, reorganize, and proofread.)

Day one of the exam is essentially steps (1) and (2), brainstorm and write the essay. Day two of the exam is where you should do step (3) fill in any ideas you wish to include in your essay, revise and re-organize, and proofread.

Before you go into the second day of the exam, you should go over the reading again and see if you have any additional analyses or reactions. Make sure you have a thesis or main idea to focus your essay. Include the thesis statement in the introductory paragraph. Make sure all the ideas you come up with (for the body paragraphs) are in support of your thesis.

Before going into the second day of the exam, brainstorm some more and see if you want to add any more ideas to your essay. Google if you need to. Since you don't have your essay with you, try to remember what you've written and fill in any gaps. Although you can't take additional notes into the exam, go over your new ideas (notes from brainstorm and reading reactions) until you have them well-remembered. When you get to the test (day two), you should not have to spend a lot of time trying to remember which ideas to add.

The end product of your writing should be clear to the reader. They should be well organized (as much as possible within the time limits). You should do as much revising and proofreading as possible for this desired end-result. However, you should keep an eye on time, as it is limited.

If you finish earlier, that's a bad sign. You should use all the time to keep going over your writing and proofreading, to get your writing to be as clear and as perfect as possible.

God bless.


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