timed writing essay examples

9 Tips to Ace That Timed Essay

Exams are almost upon us, and a familiar sense of foreboding has settled over the campus. One exam element that can be particularly intimidating for some students is the timed essay: an exam question which demands a full essay on a topic that is typically revealed for the first time during the test. While these kinds of questions may seem scary, there are plenty of ways to make them easy for yourself. Read on for tips about how to prepare in advance of the exam and how to approach timed essays before, during, and after the writing process.

While Preparing for the Exam: Become familiar with the course content. If the professor hasn’t told you in advance what a timed essay prompt will be, it can be intimidating to think that you will have to write about a subject you’ve never seen before. However, this thinking process does not reflect the reality of the situation. In fact, even if your teacher hasn’t given you any hints about the essay question, you do know what it will be about: the concepts and ideas you’ve discussed in the course. Therefore, if you take the time to review your notes and ensure you understand everything that was discussed, it should be difficult for the essay question to catch you off guard. As soon as you read the question, relevant course concepts will start popping into your head, and you’ll just have to organize them into a coherent essay. Start planning if you can. Although the situation described above sometimes occurs, it’s also very common for professors to give their students a fairly detailed idea of what an essay question will involve in advance of the test day. (After all, professors want to mark high-quality essays written by well-prepared students!) This heads-up gives you a great chance to prepare for the exam. If you have the time, consider mapping out a possible essay in point form before the day of the exam arrives. Consider practicing writing under time pressure. You’ve probably written dozens of essays before--the only thing that sets a timed essay apart is that it’s timed. Students often struggle to complete the full essay within the time constraints, particularly if they have to write longhand when they’re accustomed to working on the computer. For this reason, it can be helpful to simulate the conditions of a timed exam before the actual day: pick a practice question, find some lined paper, set a stopwatch, and see how you do! Before You Start Writing: Read the question carefully. The most critical part of the essay-writing process actually happens before you write your first word. When you flip to the essay question, make sure you read it as carefully as you can, noting the difference between words such as ‘contrast’ and ‘analyze’ and highlighting any details which the professor specifically instructs you to include. It’s not uncommon for excellent essays to receive low marks because the student answered a question other than the one that was asked. Make a clear and specific plan. Some students react to the time pressure of essay exams by scribbling down their introduction as soon as they’ve read the question and figuring out their points as they go. While it might seem counter-intuitive, taking five or ten minutes before you start writing in order to draw up a plan will be an enormous time saver. Decide on your thesis, the topic of each paragraph, and the arguments which you intend to cover, then jot down some quick point-form notes. This process won’t take long, and, once you complete it, all that’s left will be to expand those notes into a well-organized essay. Without a clear plan, you run the risk of realizing partway through that you’ve drifted off topic or written yourself into a corner, and fixing these mistakes will consume a ton of extra time. Schedule a set time for each paragraph. On the topic of planning, it’s important to sketch out an idea of how long you want to spend on each section of your essay. (If you know the number of paragraphs you’ll need to write ahead of time, you can do this before the exam even starts!) Take note of the amount of time allotted for the exam and split it into reasonably-sized segments, leaving some time at the end for revision if possible. Without a schedule to follow, it’s easy to become too focused on a single paragraph and run out of time to finish the essay. While You’re Writing: Write clearly and double-space. This tip may seem basic, but it’s easy to forget and it can make a big difference. Both these measures won’t just make it easier for the marker to read your paper; they'll also help you write it. If you have time left at the end of the exam for review, having the ability to skim quickly through your work and write revisions in blank spaces will be incredibly helpful.

Keep yourself on schedule.  Remember the paragraph-based schedule we discussed above? It’ll be useless if you don’t do regular check-ins during the exam. Keep an eye on the clock to ensure you’re always on track. If you realize that you’re falling dangerously behind schedule, it might be necessary to cut some arguments or examples you planned to include. Although making these omissions can be painful, it’s better to leave out a few points from one section than to leave out an entire paragraph because you ran out of time. Don’t worry too much about editing and revision before you finish. When composing essays, many students stop and read over each paragraph once they finish it, making sure that it’s well-written and free of errors before advancing to the next one. This approach is entirely logical when there’s no time pressure involved, but it can actually work against you during an exam. Perfecting paragraphs is a time-consuming process, and, if you spend too much time editing before the essay is finished, you might have to rush through the last few sections or leave them out entirely. For this reason, it’s best to focus on producing a complete first draft before you worry about edits and revisions.

After You’ve Finished Writing: Re-read the question and ensure you’ve addressed all parts. The most important part of writing an essay exam is ensuring that you’re answering the question was posed. Even if you made sure you were interpreting everything correctly before you began, you may have forgotten to address a subquestion or integrate an example as you were writing. Before you submit, read the prompt again and make sure your completed essay matches up! Edit if you have time. If you have enough time left over, read your essay again and make corrections. When you’re working under time pressure, it’s easy to make grammar mistakes or produce hard-to-follow sentences; the final few minutes are your chance to clean up those errors. Unless if you finished way ahead of schedule, don’t worry about major revisions like reorganizing the structure of the essay--it’s better to hand in an essay with an imperfect structure than a paper that’s impossible to follow because you had to stop halfway through the revision process.

Remember to have the right perspective. Once you hand your exam to the professor, relax! It’s easy to work yourself up after an essay exam when you didn’t get the chance to read your work over or you feel like your arguments were weak. However, it’s important to keep in mind that your professor understands the circumstances under which the essay was written. They’re fully aware of the time pressure you were dealing with, and they will judge your work far differently than they would judge a typical essay with a deadline set weeks after the assignment date. If you did your best to write a complete, clear, and insightful essay within the time allotted, you should have nothing to worry about. Best of luck during the upcoming exam season!

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How to Write a Timed Essay

Last Updated: August 10, 2021

This article was co-authored by Arash Fayz . Arash Fayz is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of LA Tutors 123, an academic consulting and private tutoring company based in Los Angeles, California. Arash has over 10 years of educational consulting experience, managing the tutoring of students of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds to score higher on standardized tests and gain admission to their target schools. He has a BA in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of California, Los Angeles. This article has been viewed 21,683 times.

Whether it be in a class or for a standardized test, students are often required to write a timed essay. Writing a timed essay is as much about organization and time management as it is about the quality of writing. Visit Step 1 to get started.

Divide Up Your Time

• Make sure the prompts wants you to write an essay and not just a simple short answer that could consist of a few sentences to one full paragraph.
• Pick a position/argument to organize your essay. Think in terms of the pros and cons of the arguments and what supporting details lead you to the facts you'd like to present in the essay.
• Jot down an outline on some scrap paper
• Write the essay based on the outline! Don't ever write without some notes and knowledge of the subject at hand.
• Proofread your essay. No reader ever wants grammatical and spelling errors to be present.
• Submit on time.

• Read and understand the prompt = 1.5 minutes
• Pick a position = 1.5 minutes
• Jot down an outline = 2 minutes
• Write = 21 minutes
• Revise = 3 minutes
• Submit = 1 minute

• Introduction: 3 minutes
• Paragraph 1: 6 minutes
• Paragraph 2: 5 minutes
• Paragraph 3: 5 minutes
• Conclusion: 2 minutes

During the Essay

Proofreading the Essay

Submitting the Essay

Expert Q&A

• Wear a wristwatch during your timed essay. Not every testing room will have a clock on the wall or a proctor who announces the time remaining at regular intervals. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Don't panic if you go over time on a particular section. You can make it up by going a little faster on the next section. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Pay special attention to the outlining at the beginning. If you have a solid structure and direction, the argument will seem focused and organized even if it has been written faster than you would do without a time limit. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

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• ↑ Arash Fayz. Test Prep Tutor. Expert Interview. 1 November 2019.

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How to Prepare for Timed Writing Exercises

One of the latest trends in the admissions world is requiring timed writing exercises. This new piece of the application puzzle has been popping up in the admissions process for competitive high schools and specialized BS and postgraduate programs.

The thought of crafting a succinct and meaningful response to a mystery prompt in one sitting is enough to send shivers down even the greatest of writers’ spines. luckily for you, there are still ways you can prepare for this unique assignment. , what’s the point.

The timed writing assignment serves to test your ability to write concisely, think critically on your feet, and articulate your thoughts in a clear and organized manner. With practice, you can train yourself to do this on command, and fairly well at that! 

What will the prompt be like?

Of course, it’s impossible to know the prompt before sitting down to complete the assignment. (That’s kind of the point!) That being said, here are a few examples of timed writing prompts circulating in the admissions world:

What is a topic, activity or idea that excites you? Tell us why. Examples may include hobbies, books, music, podcasts, movies, etc.    Tell us about the person who has most impacted your life and how.   Describe something you have accomplished over a significant amount of time.    Resilience is defined as the ability to adapt and learn from a difficulty. Reflect on a time when you have exhibited resilience. What growth did you see in yourself after this experience?   Describe a situation in which you came into contact with someone whose beliefs were different from your own. What did you learn from this experience and were your beliefs altered in any way? 

The common thread connecting all of these prompts is you! Admissions will likely provide a prompt that is fairly personal because they want to learn more about the person behind the application.

How does one prepare?

Set a timer for the amount of time you think you’ll have to complete the assignment. If you’re not sure how much time you’ll be given, start with ten minutes. Then attack it like this:

Choose a sample question for practice. Spend the first whole minute reading the prompt. Sit with it. Reflect on it. Make sure you fully understand what is being asked of you and then begin generating an initial concept of what you might like to say in response.

Next, jot down a quick thesis statement, the main point that you’d like to communicate through your writing. From there, think about:

• An introduction
• Two to three supporting points
• A conclusion

This outline is going to be very helpful for organization’s sake. Of course, since time is precious, there is a balance to be struck regarding how much time you take to construct beautiful verbose sentences. Try not to linger on every word, especially at the beginning of the writing process; an unexciting written word is always better than the perfect unique one that is stuck on the tip of your tongue! You’ll remember what it is you were thinking of about three hours after you’ve finished and submitted the exercise. (We don’t know why it works like this, it just does!) So, get out what you can and don’t stress over perfection.

Try, if you can, to leave yourself the last few minutes to read your response over and eliminate any obvious mistakes . Fill in any holes in your argument, double check your use of punctuation, and make sure you answered all parts of the question.

When you’re done, stand up, walk away from your computer, grab a snack, stretch, then come back. Reread everything you wrote. Consider what could be stronger and assess what someone reading this short essay might like to know that you hadn’t addressed. If you’d like, ask a trusted friend or relative to read your response and ask them for their honest assessment. 

Finally, there’s only one thing left to do, rinse and repeat. The more practice you have under your belt, the more likely you’ll be able to execute well on the day of the timed writing exercise. Try doing this exercise a few times a week, no fewer than five or six times before you have to sit down to do the real thing. 

We bet you’ll find that with each attempt, you’ll be able to work more quickly and better envision your draft using the outline format we mentioned above.

What are the pitfalls? 

Part of the challenge and beauty of the timed writing exercise is that you have to build up the confidence to commit to whatever topic you choose. It’s highly unlikely that you will have time to start over if you decide your idea isn’t giving as much as you had hoped, so whatever you decide to write about, stick with it and follow it through until the end. 

We’ve said it once and we’ll say it again: no one is submitting a perfect essay in a timed writing exercise. And admissions isn’t looking for perfection but is, rather, evaluating your ability to communicate within a set amount of time. Take a deep breath before you begin and trust yourself.

Any final tips?

If you’re applying to a specific specialized program, see if you can find examples online of past questions to get a better sense of what you can expect. The question will likely ask about your interest, motivation, and/or goals. It might be a good idea to draft a short list of reasons why you’re pursuing this career path, qualities that make you a great candidate for this line of work, and stories or anecdotes that demonstrate these reasons or qualities.

Thinking about this in advance might also help if you find yourself stumped by a question. If you find yourself in this kind of situation, we encourage you to think about the things you want admissions to know about you, then see if you can work backward and finesse your response to include some of those highlights. Happy writing! 🙂

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Time is always a limited resource. Sometimes you will write with a time limit because you only have an hour to take a test and there is a short essay section. But the most common timed writing occurs because you can only plan a limited amount of time to work on a paper because of your other commitments. Learning how to manage your time in these assignments will help you to keep a balance between your homework assignments and your personal life. 

When you are working with a limited amount of time, it is extra important to organize your time so that you can create a complete response. You do not have time to waste. Sometimes a time limit creates stress (especially in a test environment), so here are some tips to reduce your stress and focus the time you have in a productive way.

One of the challenges of timed writing is making quick decisions about content and organization. The brainstorming stage is limited and requires you to move swiftly into creating your paragraphs. Unlike most writing situations, you don't have weeks of preparation time to research ideas, revise, and get feedback on your essay. 

First, you need to be clear on what the prompt is asking you. This is true in any assignment, but it is especially important when you have limited time to make corrections. You need to recognize the type of writing (compare, describe, argue, explain) and create a thesis statement and supporting points that make a clear road map for what you will say. Additionally, you need to check the prompt to make sure that you are addressing all of the points. 

Once you have analyzed the prompt, you should be able to start creating your outline so you have all of the necessary pieces. 

Make a short list of the parts of the prompt if there are multiple questions. That is a good first step for creating a thesis and topic sentences that cover all of the necessary information. 

Understanding and including all of the parts of the prompt is important for two reasons.

The first reason is that the question is specifically designed to get you to write about the topic for a specific reason. A multi-part question signals to you the degree of complexity that the audience expects to find in your response. If you miss information from your response, your reader might assume that this means you don't know the information. 

Second, your audience may attribute missing information to a lack of language ability. This is especially true in a standardized test like the TOEFL or the GRE where the reader knows nothing about your ability other than what you show on the test. The reader might think that you chose not to write about pat of the question because you do not have the grammar or vocabulary to explain your ideas. This unfortunately might be your college professor's assuption as well, especially if a professor in a large class does not get many opportunities to speak with you one on one. 

Therefore, it's in your best interest to carefully read through the prompt and dissect it. Once you know what the reader expects, you can write a stronger response with more purposeful organization.

Outline Ideas

First of all, an outline will  always benefit you. You may think that the best idea is to immediately start writing because the time is limited, but that could lead to a very disorganized presentation of an answer. Read the prompt carefully and make a brief outline of ideas so that you know all parts of the prompt will be addressed and all of your most important details will be included. 

Your outline should include the important basics you will practice throughout this semester:

Timed Outlining

• Read the prompt carefully. 
• Brainstorm your ideas for each part of the prompt.
• Organize your ideas into a logical outline.
• Decide on what is the  most important to include.
• Write a thesis statement that directly answers the main part of the prompt.
• Write topic sentences for your main points.
• Write a restated thesis statement.

Exercise 1: Analyze Timed Writing Prompt

Read the prompts below. Identify the linguistic task. Break the prompt down into the individual parts. 

• Parks are created to protect natural spaces for future generations and for citizens to enjoy the outdoors. Why do you think society values separating these places and controlling them? Do you think that there is equal value in parks in rural areas like Yellowstone and parks in large cities like Central Park in New York? Why or why not?
• Compare your home city to Provo. What are the similarities and differences? Be careful not to include your opinion about which one is better.
• What piece of technology do you think has the biggest impact on your everday life? Why is that technology so important? What features does it have that support your daily activities? Do you think this technology is equally important to others your age? Why or why not?

Exercise 2: Timed Writing Practice

You have 30 minutes to respond to this prompt. Your answer should be around 300 words long. Before you begin, think about how you will use your timer to complete the task

Prompt: Describe an important holiday or tradition that you celebrate. This may be something specific to your family or something celebrated more widely in your country. Be sure to include details about  when ,  why , and  how  you celebrate.

This content is provided to you freely by BYU Open Learning Network.

Access it online or download it at https://open.byu.edu/academic_a_writing/timed_writing_2 .

Jerz's Literacy Weblog (est. 1999)

Timed essays: top 5 tips for writing academic papers under pressure.

Jerz > Writing > Academic

If you’re facing a timed essay very soon, this handout offers some very basic, very quick tips.

• Plan your time wisely .
• Answer the  right question .
• Collect your thoughts .
• Leave time to  revise .
• Revise your thesis statement before you turn in your paper, so it looks like the conclusion you stumbled across was the one you planned from the start. (This small step can often make a  huge difference.)

1. Plan your time wisely.

You can also plan your time during the test itself . Your professor knows which paragraphs are harder to write, and will evaluate them accordingly. Does the question ask you to “evaluate”? If so, don’t fill your page with a summary. Likewise, if the question asks for “evidence,” don’t spend all your time giving your own personal opinions.

• Start with the larger essay questions, so that you answer them before you burn out or run out of time.
• If one essay question is worth 50% of the test score, spend 50% of your time on it.
• If you finish early, you can always go back and add more detail.   (As long as your additions and changes are legible, your instructor will probably be happy to see signs of revision.)

2) Answer the right question.

Before you begin your answer, you should be sure what the question is asking. I often grade a university composition competency test, and sometimes have to fail well-written papers that fail to address the assigned topic.

If the question asks you to “explain” a topic, then a paragraph that presents your personal opinion won’t be of much help. If the question asks you to present a specific example, then a paragraph that summarizes what “some people say” about the topic won’t be very useful.

3) Collect your thoughts.

Resist the urge to start churning out words immediately. If you are going to get anywhere in an essay, you need to know where you are going.

To avoid time-consuming false starts , jot down an outline, or draw a mind map, which is like a family tree for your thesis.  Start with the “trunk” (a circle in the center of your paper).  Draw lines that connect that central idea to main branches (circles that represent subtopics), and keep fanning out in that manner.   If one particular branch is fruitful, cut it off and make it a separate entity.

If a branch doesn’t bear fruit, prune it off.   You should identify and avoid the deadwood in advance — before you find yourself out on a limb.  (Sorry… I’ll try to leaf the puns alone… I wood knot want you to be board.)

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Get right to the point .  Don’t bury your best points under an avalanche of fluff.

The author of the above passage not only wastes time composing six sentences before getting to her thesis (the very last sentence), she also clouds the issue by bringing up topics (religion, music, and Communism) that she has no intention of ever mentioning again. She could have spent that time on more depth, or on proofreading, or even on some other section of the test. If she had at the very least crossed out the unnecessary introduction, she would not have mislead the instructor.

The revised example is simply the [slightly edited] last sentence of the original wordy and vague paragraph.  This clear, direct thesis statement helps the student focus on the communication task at hand. Too often, the only revision students do is crossing out their false starts, or explaining their way out of a corner by adding to the end of their essay.

4. Leave time to revise.

Note: simply tacking on additional paragraphs or inserting words is not revision (see: “ Revision vs. Editing “).

Sometimes, in the middle of a difficult paragraph, students will glance back at the question, and get a new idea. They will then hastily back out of their current paragraph, and provide a rough transition like: “But an even more important aspect is…”.  They continue in this manner, like a builder who keeps breaking down walls to add new wings onto a house.

• To avoid this problem before it starts, see the previous tip, or this nifty handout on “ Blueprinting .”
• To handle this problem when it occurs, don’t automatically add to the end of an essay — write in the margins, or draw a line to indicate where you want to insert a new paragraph.
• Leave space to revise too — write on every other line and leave the backs of pages blank, so you will have room to make legible insertions if you need to.
• Obviously, if you are writing your test on a computer, you should just insert and rearrange text as you would normally.

5) Revise your thesis statement

If inspiration strikes while you are in the middle of an essay, and your conclusion turns out to be nothing like you thought it would be,  change your thesis statement to match your conclusion. (Assuming, of course, that your unexpected conclusion still addresses the assigned topic.)

When a writer realizes that an essay is veering off in a new direction, and handles it by tacking more paragraphs onto the end, the result can be extremely awkward.

• Joe Student writes a thesis statement that examines the relationship between “independence” and public morals.
• Midway through his essay, Joe hits upon a different idea that relates to “prosperity.”
• To mask the transition, he writes a sentence that refers to “independence and prosperity”, as if the two concepts are interchangeable.
• After writing a few more paragraphs on “prosperity”, Joe realizes he needs to unify the two ideas in his conclusion. He writes a new paragraph that examines the connections between independence and prosperity.
• He then writes a conclusion that “proves” that independence and prosperity are inseparable.

Unfortunately, Joe started out by making a claim about independence and  public morals . If Joe tacks yet another paragraph onto the end of the paper, he will further dilute his conclusion. If he ignores the problem, his essay will appear disorganized.  Such  hasty additions will rapidly obscure the original structure .

Joe will have to wrap up his essay with something ghastly like “Therefore, this essay has discussed such important issues as A, B, C and D, all of which shed an important light on [rephrase essay question here].”

To avoid linear additions , you should ideally avoid going off on tangents.  But even a very short paper is a result of a process. If you stumble onto a good idea in the middle of your paper, go back and  change your thesis statement to account for your new ideas . Then, revise the subpoints and transitions so that your whole essay points towards that conclusion. Your professor will be pleased to see that you were able to make the connection, and your whole essay will be much stronger.

Dennis G. Jerz 04 May 2000 — first posted 26 May 2000 — typos corrected; puns added 26 Jul 2000 — minor edits 04 Dec 2002 — revision

Related Links

Writing that Demonstrates  Thinking Ability

MLA Format Papers: Step-by-Step Instructions for Formatting Research Papers in MLA Style

Thesis Statements: How to Write Them in Academic Essays

Integrating Sources: Using Quotations in an MLA Style Academic Paper

Academic Argument: Evidence-based Defense of a Non-obvious Position

18 thoughts on “ Timed Essays: Top 5 Tips for Writing Academic Papers Under Pressure ”

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Nice tips! With the help of your article i can complete my academic writing work easily. Thanks for sharing this.

Hey, Just got through your article and found it really informative. It was totally worth reading. A similar article I had read on EssayMin blog and found that good, got my basics clear now.

It is very awesome article.

I noticed that the link to the more detailed article links to this same article, and the other links are unrelated. Could you link me to the detailed version please? This one has been very helpful and would like to see more of your insight.

How frustrating! At the moment it looks like this version is the only one that’s available.

If I recall correctly I initially wrote a version that was more like an essay, but I created a “Top Tips” format to give more immediate help in a more web-friendly format. It looks like I might have buried the older version, or perhaps I carved it up and moved it to other documents, such as

https://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/creative1/personal-essays/ https://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/creative1/showing/ https://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/academic1/thesis-statement-writing-academic-essays/ https://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/academic1/writing-that-demonstrates-thinking-ability/

All of the above apply to writing any kind of essay.

If I find that longer document, and it has any content that’s not already covered on those other pages, I’ll find some way to post it.

Ok, many thanks and best of luck finding it!

Mikaela, I was able to find the old file, and as I suspected above I had moved all the remaining good stuff to another handout on a more general topic. https://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/academic1/short-research-papers/

So what this means is at the moment this page does present all my best advice that is specifically for writing a timed essay. I have edited the page to remove the reference to the longer document.

Ok, thank you!

Mr. Denis G Jerz, In the writing of your paper on ‘Timed Essays’ 04 May 2000, I note that the time to finish was seven months. From first post to last revision. Does this represent a working plan as described in your paper or merely that even professionals can suffer procrastination ?

Gregg Miller. BHort. BSc (Hon) UCrap.

There is no connection between my revision history and procrastination. After I posted the first version in 2000, I made additional changes after responding to comments from readers. The last change was 2002. I have reformatted the page since then, adding the graphic, though if I made any other changes at the time they don’t seem to have prompted me to update the revision history list.

thank you!!!…..this has been really useful to me

JJ, did you seriously think I would approve that comment?

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Thank you that was cool!! That was very very awesome and it invigorated my brain.

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19 Module 4: Timed Writing

Module introduction.

In our first module, we discussed the anxiety that living with our symbiotic technology, language, can cause us when we are in situations like job interviews when we have to communicate in specialized ways and so must suddenly be aware of how that technology is functioning. One way to get a handle on such situations is to develop a clear understanding of what is expected and then to practice that kind of specialized communication. The last two modules, which focused on narration and example writing, were meant both to inform you about the kinds of writing you often perform in college and the workplace and to help you practice how to develop that writing. This unit will put the skills you’ve developed so far to the test in a kind of “real world” simulation of communicating under pressure.

College students often have to write an essay based on a prompt or question within a limited time period. For example, an essay question on a test in a humanities class may require a short, timed essay without the benefit of resources. Moreover, many job interviews involve writing projects that require applicants to prove their ability to think under time constraints, and of course at work deadlines are always looming, so writing under pressure is an important skill to master.

This course requires students to write, and receive a passing grade on, one timed essay at a testing site. You will have 60 minutes to compose an essay on one of two prompts without benefit of references or resources. Refer to the syllabus for information about scheduling this essay.

The essay must be 400 to 500 words long and consist of four or five paragraphs including 1)an introductory paragraph with a thesis statement, 2) body paragraphs supporting the thesis statement, and 3) a concluding paragraph. Prewriting and outlining (the first two steps of the writing process we’ve discussed over the last two modules) can help you develop the key components that need to be included in these paragraphs; for example, the introductory paragraph should include your hook and thesis statement. A grading rubric is included in this module to help you understand how the timed essay will be evaluated.

In this module, you will learn techniques that will help you to succeed at timed writing, such as how to budget time, organize ideas, write an effective thesis statement, and proofread your essay. If you will approach your essay as a process and go through the recommended steps, you can avoid writer’s block and draft with confidence!  (1)

Upon completion of this module, the student will be able to:

• List the planning steps for writing a timed essay
• Differentiate grades for a timed essay, based on the criteria in the grading rubric
• Compose an essay within 60 minutes, applying the steps of the writing process adapted for timed writing  (1)
• Online Learning Unit

Lecture Content

Enc1101 learning unit 4, planning for the timed essay.

The most important part of writing a timed essay is  time management  . Study the following three-step strategy to prepare for writing the timed essay required in this course. Students may revise this strategy to accommodate their own writing style.

Step 1. 10 Minutes to Plan

• Choose one of the prompts from the two provided and come up with a  working thesis  based on the language of the prompt
• Quickly list or map the major points to develop the topic (this is the prewriting step)
• Rearrange these points in a logical order on a simple outline; for example, list them in their  order of importance  , also known as  emphatic order  (this is the outlining step)
• Draft a more developed thesis statement that might include an  essay map

Step 2. 40 Minutes to Write

• Write the essay using double spaces or, if using notebook paper, write on every other line of the paper to allow room for revision
• Write carefully and legibly
• Use an outline or map as a guide, but add and delete as new ideas and examples emerge

Step 3. 10 Minutes to Revise, Edit, and Proofread

• Read the essay for content, and add or delete material as necessary, making certain that the paper remains legible and reads smoothly overall
• Read for appropriate sentence structure and vocabulary; revise as needed
• Correct grammar and spelling errors  (1)

Looking at the First Step in More Detail

First, study the prompts given on the test. Choose the one that immediately strikes you as the more interesting or the one which relates the most to your life; this is your symbiotic technology kicking in and letting you know the right choice. The kind of assignment we are dealing with here is meant to generate a personal experience paper rather than an academic report, so all of the essay’s specific information is going to be based on your life and knowledge, so in this case your familiarity with or interest in the topic is going to make a massive difference.

An important rule to remember is that once you have selected a topic based on your instincts,  don’t return to the other topic  . Pretend the only topic is the one you have picked so you don’t end up wasting time by questioning yourself and going back to the planning stage. Once you’ve made your choice, live with it!

Another important thing to remember is to immediately develop a very basic thesis statement based on the language of the prompt you choose; this will give you a starting point for your prewriting and will ensure that you have a main idea for your paper.

For example, imagine you were given the following two prompts:

A sandwich you most regret making or A fictional character you would like to be

These topics give you language on which to build your basic thesis. You might say:

“That tuna sandwich I made last Tuesday is one I most regret..” or “Harry Potter is the fictional character I would most like to be.”

Now, these thesis statements aren’t great; their language is very basic, and they sound generic. However, they can help you clarify your main idea and develop your examples. Then, after you come up with the specific information you are going to use to support these ideas, you can refine them. We’ll come back to this in a minute.

After you’ve come up with your basic thesis (and this should happen pretty quickly), it’s time to do some prewriting. In our earlier modules we discussed several different prewriting strategies, and for timed writing the most effective ones are probably  listing and mapping  (  freewriting  is a bit too time-intensive). Questioning can also work if you are writing a narrative, but keep in mind that you are likely going to be writing example essays for in-class college assignments, so you will probably not be writing a long narrative unless it serves as an extended example (one big example story that supports your thesis statement).

Once you’ve generated a bunch of ideas to support your thesis (the reasons you are going to provide that will persuade your reader of your point), you should make sure to outline your paper. This is very important. Many students will neglect to outline an in-class essay because they fear running out of time, but  not outlining  can actually lead to more time-related issues because you are likely to get confused as you draft without having a plan of some sort. Remember,  organization is everything  when you are writing academic or professional essays, and outlining makes sure you stay organized!

As you begin filling out your outline, a major decision you need to make is in what order to put your general examples to best support your thesis. In some cases, chronological order might work; for example, in the above example about the tuna sandwich, you might have come up with a number of reasons the sandwich was a regrettable choice, and those reasons might have happened one after the other. Maybe the first reason is that the bread you got out of the pantry was old and moldy. Maybe another reason is the nasty condiments you then put on the bread from the fridge, and the final reason is the cheap and sickly tuna itself that you ended up spreading on that bread. In this silly and very basic example, each element of the sandwich was added in sequential order, so you could actually take the reader through the process chronologically, ending with the final sad step when the questionable tuna was added to the concoction.

A likely more effective organizational strategy for an in-class example essay is to use  emphatic  order to present your idea, which we discussed in our last module. This is when you move from your least important point to your most powerful reason. Sometimes when you are planning an in-class essay, this level of importance can be hard to identify, so ask yourself this question: about which of the main points I am trying to make do I have the most to say? If you look at your prewriting and you have developed a bunch of specific ideas about one of your major examples, it’s a safe bet that the example in question is the one that should go last.  (1)

Grading Criteria for the Timed Essay

The timed essay will be scored according to the grading criteria below.  (1)

The A Paper

• The essay presents or implies a thesis that is developed with noticeable coherence and provides convincing, specific support.
• The writer’s ideas are usually substantive, sophisticated, and well developed.
• The writer’s choice of language and structure is precise and purposeful, often to the point of being polished.
• Control of sentence structure, usage, and mechanics, despite an occasional flaw, contributes to the writer’s ability to communicate the purpose.
• The writer demonstrates correct usage of quotations and paraphrases.

The B Paper

• The essay presents a thesis and often suggests a plan of development, which is usually carried out.
• The writer provides enough supporting detail to accomplish the purpose of the paper.
• The writer makes competent use of language and sometimes varies the sentence structure.
• Occasional errors in sentence structure, usage, and mechanics do not interfere with the writer’s ability to communicate the purpose.

The C Paper

• The writer provides support that tends towards generalized statements or lists. In general, the support is neither sufficient nor clear enough to be convincing.
• Sentence structure tends to be pedestrian and often repetitious. Errors in sentence structure, usage, and mechanics sometimes interfere with the writer’s ability to communicate the purpose.
• Mistakes in quotations and paraphrasing lead to some awkwardness.

The D Paper

• The writer presents a poorly written thesis.
• The writer provides support that tends to be sketchy and/or illogical.
• Sentence structure may be simplistic and disjointed. Errors in sentence structure, usage, and mechanics frequently interfere with the writer’s ability to communicate the purpose.
• The writer uses quotations or paraphrases incorrectly.

The F Paper

• The essay presents a thesis that is vaguely worded or weakly asserted.
• Support, if any, tends to be rambling and/or superficial.
• The writer uses language that often becomes tangled, incoherent, and thus confusing.
• Errors in sentence structure, usage, and mechanics frequently occur.
• The writer tends to use quotations or paraphrases incorrectly.

Assignment: Proctored Timed Writing

Given two topics from which to choose, you will have 60 minutes to compose an essay without the benefit of references or resources. This assignment is worth 100 points. The timed essay will take place in a proctored exam setting.

Instructions for scheduling the timed writing and site guidelines are included in the Blackboard Tools & Resources area.

The timed essay will be completed in Blackboard.

The essay must be 400 to 500 words long and consist of four or five paragraphs including:

• an introductory paragraph with a thesis statement
• body paragraphs supporting the thesis statement
• a concluding paragraph

Prewriting and outlining (the first two steps of the writing process we’ve discussed over the last two modules) can help you develop the key components that need to be included in these paragraphs; for example, the introductory paragraph should include your hook and thesis statement.

A grading rubric is included in this module’s Learning Unit to help you understand how the timed essay will be evaluated.  (1)

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How to write damn good timed essays

Diagnostic exams. Exit exams. Placement exams. Teaching to the test. Even though most scholarship shows that the current test-crazed education culture isn’t educational, it’s a fact of life. To do well, approach timed writing from the grader ’s point of view.

High schools have to justify results to colleges through timed essays with grading achievement rubrics . Colleges use aptitude exams–the GRE , SAT , MCAT, LSAT, GMAT–which out of fairness, have to put time limits on writing. And professors overloaded with lecture-size classes use timed essays for grading. None of this is the best way to learn.

First, what NOT to Do

• Do not start with an empty statement like, “It is common knowledge that the world is a complex place” or a vague quote like, “Someone once said, ‘Practice makes perfect.’” Timed-essay graders take this as a signal that you’ve got nothing to say. First impressions!
• Do not write before you know precisely what you want to say and how you’re going to support it with details. You don’t want to write half of a 2-hour essay and then realize you should have begun somewhere else.
• Do not use clichéd language (“first and foremost” “as different and varied as the grains of sand at the beach”) or vague terms (“the American Dream” or “our universal hopes and desires”). Like vague beginnings, this shows you’re not thinking through ideas, just serving up canned thought.
• Do not write as much as you possibly can in the time given. Yeah, yeah, quality , not quantity. You know that already. But it’s true.
• Do not rely on a five-paragraph essay structure if it doesn’t seem appropriate for the prompt. Prefabricated structure can be a boon in timed writing, but if done poorly, it signals that you’re not thinking. In other words, decide on what you need to say, then how to say it.
• Do not use complex words just to sound smart (like “transpire” when you mean “happen” or “momentarily” when you mean “soon”). Graders can tell. They know this is a timed essay, and want complex, well-reasoned ideas written simply, not complex words.
• Do not hesitate to cross out words or make revisions . Believe it or not, teachers appreciate this. Neatness is somewhat important, but showing you’re thinking is critical.

Before the test

Know this: graders are mainly looking to see that you can understand the question and can respond with appropriate content. And they’re more interested in (and grade primarily) critical thinking and analysis than grammar and mechanics ( GRE ). They’re not trying to trick you.

First, find out about the exam type. Ask what your teacher mainly wants you to do. The most common types are:

• analyze an issue
• repeat facts you’ve learned
• make a persuasive argument
• reflect on your personal experience
• compare/contrast
• explain/identify

Then do what you can to build a repertoire of details and a skeleton structure for your paper. If you know the essay will come from a previous class reading, look over that text and jot down key ideas and even quotes that you can potentially insert into the essay. Also jot down a few potential connections you could make to the theme of the reading.

Test prep services often provide clients with these “knowledge banks” prior to a test, which brings up ethical issues of plagiarism. In response, testing companies have developed software to detect similar essay content .

As for prefabricating a structure, this can save loads of time, but it can also backfire. Don’t be too determined to stick to five-paragraph structure just because you’re familiar with it.

Keeping in mind these potential risks, here are some very general guidelines for timed essay structure:

Finally, before class, do some freewriting to get into the flow of composing and to prevent writer’s block

Read the question(s) carefully, and mark and circle keywords . If you do not understand the structure of the questions, ask the professor to explain. Keywords will be useful to tell you what the essay mainly should do, and it will give a sense of words to emphasize in your response:

1. In his essay “Debating the Unknowable,” Lewis Thomas says, “It is the admission of ignorance that leads to progress, not so much because the solving of a particular puzzle leads directly to a new piece of understanding but because the puzzle-if it interests enough scientists-leads to WORK.” How does this idea relate to your reading of The Hot Zone ?

2. What are the traditional characteristics of a fairy tale? Use examples to illustrate, either from your reading or your childhood memories.

In the above prompts, paying attention to keywords tells you that #1 should primarily be comparing/contrasting (“relate”), and gives you some of the key ideas to structure your response around (“ignorance,” “progress,” “work”). Details and facts (“what”, “examples”) should be the bulk of #2, and a good response will use both reading and childhood memories.

After finding keywords, always take time to form a clear outline. List main topics and points you can elaborate on. Organization always adds confidence in your writing and is the key to writing a well-written essay answer.

While you write

Don’t panic. If you start feeling frustrated or hopeless, pause, take a deep breath, and get all zenlike. Don’t waste your precious brain space worrying about how you’re running out of time.

Don’t try to be creative or highly original in your response. While creativity and iconoclasm has its place in writing, the timed-essay is not that place. Since the ultimate goal of grading timed essays is assessment (and “creativity” is not on any rubric I’ve seen), you have to answer the question the way you think the grader wants it answered.

Much of this has been stated above, but it bears repeating:

• Make a clear statement about your point and purpose near the beginning. Continue to support your thesis throughout the essay by providing examples and description. Avoid restating it without support.
• Budget your time for a)organizing thoughts, b)composing, and c) checking/revising.
• Do not worry about spelling and grammatical mechanics.
• Structure your paragraphs clearly. Make sure each has a topic sentence and that each paragraph focuses on a single point.
• Use examples, facts, stories, hypothetical situations, and explanations to support your ideas. If teachers only see generalized statements–even if they’re on-topic–they’ll think you’re writing bull.

Restate, in your own words, what the prompt is asking. Remember: you have to demonstrate to the grader that you understand what’s being asked and the grader expects you to summarize information before analyzing , like you would in writing without prompts. One of the most common comments I make grading timed essays pertains to abrupt responses:

For a prompt asking you to analyze an immigration proposal by Governor Schwarzenegger:

Too abrupt: “I disagree. First of all…”

Too abrupt: “This an unreasonable plan because…”

Still lacking summary: “While Schwarzenegger’s plans for controlling immigration seem to be relatively reasonable, they are presented with no reason to support them.”

Better: “In his recent proposal to solve the California immigration problem, Governor Schwarzenegger proposes a plan that both deals with stopping new immigration and with immigrants already in the state. Specifically, he wants to secure the border, develop a work-visa program that would allow a temporary legal option, and assimilate immigrants into American culture. While these ideas seem reasonable and balanced, Schwarzenegger’s plans are unfeasibly optimistic, fail to consider potential risks, and use terminology that is not fully explained.”

Make a clear point about what you’re trying to accomplish in the essay. Unlike non-timed writing, where you can use a more nuanced development of ideas, you have to write for graders reading lots of essays quickly. If they don’t find a clear point, they’ll start taking off points.

In the middle

• Have clear topic sentences that show the direction of your essay as well as the main points you’re making. Again, in non-timed writing, you have the freedom to be more complex and creative with topic sentences. But due to the speed at which graders are grading, you need to put transparency foremost.
• Give examples, hypotheticals, facts, philosophies, comparisons, analogies, and even anecdotes to make concrete the points you’re making in those topic sentences.
• Without saying, “in conclusion,” reaffirm your main point.

But if you can, add some new perspective or dimension to what you’ve already said. This will show the grader that you can take a step back from the sequential analyzing of details and understand the prompt globally:

“Beyond these issues of practicality and terminology, it is important to consider why Schwarzenegger might be making a proposal like this. The fact that this statement was released prior to elections may suggest that it was primarily a political move, which would mean that…”

After you compose: always revise!

It’s crucial to save time for revision. Unfortunately most of us intuitively believe we’ll get a better grade if we spend the whole time writing. This simply isn’t so. Here’s one potential explanation for why timed-essay graders give shorter but richer, revised papers better grade: they’re under enormous time constraints to grade essays quickly. So they don’t want their time wasted. Add to that the fact that they’re reading responses to the same prompts that they know, intimately, what information is answering the prompt and what is fluff.

• If the essay is not very clear, then you might want to see if you can add short sentences and or even a paragraph that elaborates and sums up what you have applied.
• Avoid repetitiveness in the essay.
• Look for confusing or murky sentences, words, and ideas and eliminate them.
• Get rid of clichés, generalizations, and quotations that aren’t related directly to the topic.
• Check that the information you included is understandable, readable, and to the point.

Note that checking grammar is not among that list. Sure, you should be aware of grammar (and if grammar is a particular weakness of yours, do check), but generally, this will not be a large determinant of your timed-essay grade.

After the test

This one’s most important: celebrate. Do something physical, like bowling, to get all that pent up energy out. And after all that, spend a little time evaluating your performance, so that next time you can be that much better.

• Camp, Roberta. “New Views of Measurement and New Models for Writing Assessment.” Assessment of Writing: Politics, Policies, Practice. Ed. Edward M. White,William D. Lutz, and Sandra Kamusikiri. NewYork: MLA, 1996. 135-47.
• Tepper, Nana, and Rocio Costa. “Discussion: Making Assessment a Process.” Alternative Perspectives in Assessing Children’s Language and Literacy. Ed. Kathleen Holland, David Blooms, and Judith Solsken. Norwood: Alex, 1994. 157-61.
• The GRE’s list of policy and research reports on timed writing

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More Ways to Do Timed Writing

At university, students often use sources in their papers and write about topics that they have explored in classes (Carson, 2001). This type of writing may differ from what students are asked to produce on standardized English tests. In fact, many ESL classes use timed-writing prompts that are often washback from these standardized tests. Typical ESL writing assignments often use “bare” prompts without any context and ask students to write about their personal experiences. Students may have memorized responses to these generic prompts (He & Shi, 2008). For these reasons, the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), a popular standardized English test, has itself moved away from the practice of bare writing prompts, now including an integrated writing section where students read and listen before writing. Beyond this, there are other ways to make timed writing authentic and useful to students.

Faculty at the International English Center (IEC) are currently exploring different timed-writing prompts because, with a well-developed prompt, timed writing can be an effective classroom practice. From an assessment perspective, timed writing allows for more test security and can provide a clearer measure of students’ proficiency since they don’t receive outside help. Additionally, timed writing can also help develop students’ writing fluency. This fluency will serve them well at university where they will be able to complete writing assignments more efficiently. The question then is how to use timed-writing tasks effectively to assess students’ skills and to build writing fluency. This article will provide several ways of structuring timed-writing activities which can inspire both students and faculty:    

1.     Watch a Video : By providing input in the form of a video, faculty can build the students’ schema and provide content for their writing. These integrated listening and writing tasks, while still timed, are a better approximation of authentic university writing assignments. Research suggests that students may perform much better on these integrated-skills writing tasks, compared to independent writing tasks (Cumming et al., 2005; Plakans, 2008). For an example lesson for academic ESL students, see Staley (2018).

2.     Brainstorm : Faculty can also use timed writing as a way to generate ideas for other, more formal writing tasks. For example, before writing an argumentative essay on globalization, students could write for twenty minutes about what they know about globalization. The focus of these activities is not on accuracy, but on fluency. By using the timed writing to brainstorm and activate schema, students have an opportunity to think through their ideas before writing more formally.

3.     Finish an Example Essay : Faculty can use timed writing to focus students’ attention on organization and development. Rather than asking students to write an entire essay in 30-40 minutes, faculty could provide part of a sample essay and ask students to complete a body paragraph or conclusion. Then, students can demonstrate their understanding of the basic essay structure.

4.     Practice Other Styles : Students will often have weeks to produce academic papers at university; however, they will need to quickly write emails, discussion posts, etc. Faculty can promote these other styles of writing in their timed-writing assignments.

5.     Focus on Grammar : If grammar has been the focus of several lessons, then faculty could give a timed-writing prompt that elicits a certain grammar structure. The grade could be based primarily on the grammar in the writing.

6.     Write Dialog Journals : In dialog journals, students write the instructor letters about whatever they feel is important to communicate. The instructor responds to the content of the letter, creating a private dialog between the student and teacher. This activity gives students space to share something personal. These journals can be a powerful practice that builds rapport.

7.     Use Infographics : Infographics can quickly give students statistics to incorporate into their writing. This activity, inspired by Matthew Burrows at the IEC, can help students formulate ideas. It can also show how well students can cite and use outside sources. Consider providing an infographic with a traditional TOEFL-like prompt and see the difference in the development in students’ writing as they utilize this simple source. Here is an example infographic that I made using Canva, a graphic-design website.

8.     Free write : Faculty members can also give students time to free write. Like speed reading, the practice of just writing quickly and focusing on fluency is beneficial. Some research suggests that this informal practice will help students with their subsequent academic essays (Huang, 2010).

9.     Describe the Writing Process : Students can describe their own writing process, detailing how they find sources, what online tools they use, and where they receive outside help from. This can be done both before and after a formal writing assignment. Before a formal writing assignment, this can assist students with their time management and help them better reflect on their own writing process. After, it could be part of a self-reflection.

Faculty are currently doing some or all of these activities in their classes, but hopefully putting this list together in one place will remind people of all the choices there are for timed writing. It can be an inspiration for renewed creativity when making timed-writing activities. Hopefully, by having a variety of prompts, students themselves will be inspired to produce more developed and engaging timed-writing assignments.

Carson, J. (2001). A task analysis of reading and writing in academic contexts. In D. Belcher & A. Hirvela (Eds.), Linking literacies: Perspectives on L2 reading-writing connections (pp. 48-83). Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.

Cumming, A. Kantor, R., Kyoko B., Erdosy, U., Eouanzoui, K., & James, M. (2005). Differences in written  discourse in  independent and integrated  prototype  tasks  for next  generation TOEFL. Assessing Writing, 10 (1), 5-43.

He, L., & Shi, L. (2008). ESL students’ perceptions and experiences of standardized English writing tests. Assessing Writing , 13 (2), 130-149.

Hwang, J. A. (2010). A case study of the influence of freewriting on writing fluency and confidence of EFL college-level students.  University of Hawai'I Second Language Studies Paper 28 (2) .

Plakans, L. (2008). Comparing composing processes in writing-only and reading-to-write test tasks. Assessing Writing , 13 (2), 111-129.

Staley, K. (2018). Transitioning IEC Students to Mainstream University Coursework. Flatiron Forum. Retrieved from: https://www.colorado.edu/flatironsforum/2018/05/14/transitioning-iec-stu...

• timed writing
• writing instruction
• writing process

• The Writing Process
• Addressing the Prompt
• Writing Skill: Development
• Originality
• Timed Writing (Expectations)
• Integrated Writing (Writing Process)
• Introduction to Academic Essays
• Organization
• Introduction Paragraphs
• Body Paragraphs
• Conclusion Paragraphs
• Example Essay 1
• Example Essay 2
• Timed Writing (The Prompt)
• Integrated Writing (TOEFL Task 1)
• Process Essays
• Process Essay Example 1
• Process Essay Example 2
• Writing Skill: Unity
• Revise A Process Essay

Timed Writing (Choose a Position)

• Integrated Writing (TOEFL Task 2)
• Comparison Essays
• Comparison Essay Example 1
• Comparison Essay Example 2
• Writing Skill: Cohesion
• Revise A Comparison Essay
• Timed Writing (Plans & Problems)
• Integrated Writing (Word Choice)
• Problem/Solution Essays
• Problem/Solution Essay Example 1
• Problem/Solution Example Essay 2
• Writing Skill: Summary
• Revise A Problem/Solution Essay
• Timed Writing (Revising)
• Integrated Writing (Summary)
• More Writing Skills
• Punctuation
• Simple Sentences
• Compound Sentences
• Complex Sentences Part 1
• Complex Sentences Part 2
• Using Academic Vocabulary
• Translations

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Questions and Tasks

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One of the most common types of timed writing you will encounter is giving your opinion with support. This type of timed essay is used for tests because it requires critical thinking of complex issues and advanced language use. In this section, you will learn strategies for quickly and effectively choosing a position.

The first thing to remember when you are asked to explain your opinion on a topic in a short time is that there is no "wrong" opinion. Your reader is not grading your response based on if you choose the correct position. Think about this on the most basic level. There is no actual correct answer if someone asks you what your favorite season is. This is why you should not use a lot of time choosing the position that is "best."

One strategy for choosing your position is to go with your first thought. Often, it will be easiest for you to explain your ideas when you go with that first reaction. It is likely that you have already gathered information over time to support that position, which is why it is so quick to think of when you read the question.

Another option is to write about the position that is easiest to support. This does not mean to be dishonest. It just means that if you do not have a strong personal belief about the question, the best thing to do is to explain the opinion that you understand or can think of most clearly. For example, maybe you personally do not have strong feelings about transportation in Provo, so you just choose to explain why we need more buses because it was the one you understand the supporting ideas for.

Rather than stressing and losing time thinking about which option to choose or which position to take, decide quickly and focus your time and energy on supporting. 

Examples of Choosing a Position

Prompt 1: Describe your ideal job. Why does that job interest you? 

• My first thought is to write about being a veterinarian. I don't really know what I want to do after I study at the ELC, and there are many different jobs I could write about. But I am going to start brainstorming and organizing my ideas about this topic so I can begin writing sooner.

Prompt 2: What is something you are afraid of? How could you work to overcome that fear?

• This topic makes me feel uncomfortable. I don't want to write about my actual answer to this question because it feels too personal. Instead, it would be easiest for me to write about a less awkward like being afraid of public speaking. This answer is also true, but it was  not  my immediate thought and will be easier for me to write about comfortably.

Can I use "I" in my response?

This depends on the task for a class. Your teacher/professor might have clear expectations for this, or you may need to ask before writing your first paper for that instructor. You may also need to look at the prompt or examples of writing for that area of study. For example, a biology lab write up would probably be an inappropriate place to use first person pronouns. However, a reflection for a marketing class might allow for that informality.

For academic college writing, many professors will ask you to avoid personal pronouns, so you may need to clarify with your instructor what you should use in your essays for class.

Supporting Ideas

Time is limited. This means you will not be able to include as many supporting details, examples, and explanations as in a drafted essay. It also means you have less time to refine your writing to make sure it is very clear.

When you choose your suppporting ideas, make sure that they are the strongest points. You do not have the time or space to include anything unnecessary like a story. Be simple, but be intentional so that your points have an impact on the reader.

Finally, make sure you read the complete prompt and consider the expectations. Do you need to talk about short-term and long-term impacts of your choice? Do you need to acknowledge the opposite point of view? Are there multiple questions in the prompt? As you write, be sure to double-check the prompt to make sure your supporting ideas have addressed everything the reader expects you to explain.

Exercise 1: Timed Writing Discussion

Discuss the prompt below with a partner. What position would you choose? What strategy did you use to quickly make that decision? Make a list of 2 topic sentences that could support each of your positions.

Prompt: Do you think that cell phones should be allowed in high school classroooms? Explain why or why not.

Exercise 2: Timed Writing Practice

You have 20 minutes to respond to this prompt. Your answer should be around 200 words long. Make a quick decision and focus your time on supporting your ideas.

Prompt: You have received a gift of $100. You have the option to save the money or spend it now. What will you do with the money? Why did you choose that option?

This content is provided to you freely by BYU-I Books.

Access it online or download it at https://books.byui.edu/academic_a_writing/timed_writing_3 .

Teaching timed writing: Beyond the SAT

by Kim Kautzer | Aug 1, 2016 | College Prep , Essays & Research Papers , High school

In 2005, the College Board added an essay portion to the SAT, causing panic among parents and students alike. Writing, an admitted weakness among many homeschooling families , had become a required element of this benchmark college entrance exam.

The SAT essay has come under fire in recent years. It seems scorers were more concerned with how students developed their points than whether those arguments were developed logically—or even truthfully. So as of 2016, the SAT essay is not only revised, it is now optional.

Does this mean you can breathe a sigh of relief and set timed writing aside? Absolutely not. For even though timed essays seem synonymous with college entrance exams, there is actually a more valid reason for teaching timed writing during your teens’ high school years: college itself .

College-bound students have the most to gain from learning to write timed essays. Most courses will require timed writing of various lengths for tests, midterms, and finals. Exams can be scary! But if you’ve prepared your students well and given them lots of experience practicing against the clock, the process will become more intuitive and they’ll be able to tackle timed essays with courage.

Begin with Basic Essay Skills

High schoolers need to know how to plan, organize, and write a solid essay . Before you dip your toes in the waters of timed writing, spend plenty of time teaching general essay skills. Start with a widely accepted model: introduction, body (developing three main points), and conclusion . Once students feel comfortable developing a simple essay and supporting each point with details, they’ll have more confidence to write timed essays.

Teach these essay-writing basics, which apply to both timed and untimed writing:

• Understand what the prompt is asking. Read it carefully and highlight key words .
• Choose your position .
• Write an outline .
• Write a thesis statement that makes your claim.
• Stay on topic. Back up claims with evidence and examples.
• Write concisely . Avoid repeating yourself.
• Use good grammar and punctuation.
• Review and revise .

Essay Prompts and Key Words

Students should feel comfortable arguing, explaining, or analyzing a point. So along with teaching basic essay structure, introduce different kinds of essays. This prepares them to respond to a variety of prompts.

Essay questions include “key words” that give clues about the kind of writing that’s expected. Here are three common essay types and sample key words to watch for:

• Argumentative essays defend a position on a topic. Key words include justify, prove, agree or disagree, argue for or against, should you or should you not, why or why not.
• Expository essays inform or explain. Key words include define, describe, demonstrate, tell how, illustrate, explain, outline the steps needed, compare or contrast, distinguish between, show cause and effect.
• Analytical essays examine information or literature. ( The new SAT essays are analytical .) Key words include interpret, examine, evaluate, give reasons, propose a solution, discuss strengths and weaknesses.

Timed writing can make students feel rushed. If in their haste they misread key words, they may not answer the prompt correctly—which will seriously impact their grade .

While the new SAT essay provides students with informational passages to read, an in-class timed essay will require them to know the material in advance . If using a textbook for history, literature, or science, look for essay questions at the end of each chapter. You can also come up with your own. Any subject you’re studying can offer an excellent launching place for an interesting essay—timed or untimed.

When developing your own questions, incorporate some of the key words mentioned earlier to stimulate critical thinking . For example:

• Argumentative: Do you agree or disagree that the New Deal was successful in solving the major problems of the Great Depression?
• Expository: Explain how photosynthesis happens. Or, what steps can be taken to restore citizens’ confidence in the political process? Who should legislate these steps?
• Analytical: What were the positive and negative outcomes of British colonialism in India?

Sometimes professors will include several essay questions to choose from. You can try this too! Giving choices frees your teen to write about the topic he feels most prepared for, making the practice session less stressful. Here are two possible prompts that could follow an ocean study:

• Argumentative : Should the United States support the protection of coral reefs by developing artificial reefs to replace those that are in decline? Why or why not?
• Expository : Discuss the causes and effects of marine pollution.

Prepare for Timed Writing

Once students can identify key words and develop and polish essays in a pressure-free setting, they are ready to begin writing against the clock . During this training period, your goal is to build confidence, familiarity, and ease through regular practice. Give plenty of grace!

Topic-specific timed essays require advance preparation . Share these tips with students:

• Don’t procrastinate. Take time to study, review notes, and skim key passages.
• Memorize important names, dates, and facts. The more details you tuck away, the easier it will be to solidly support your arguments.
• If an exam is “open book,” you still need to study so you don’t lose time on test day. Make note cards with page numbers and quotes. Bookmark pages. Use a highlighter or sticky notes to mark key passages .

To give hands-on experience, assign subject-related timed writing at least twice a month. Use these early timed essays to walk your teen through an essay and teach him to pace himself. Demonstrate how to break the process down, allowing a certain number of minutes for planning, writing, and proofreading.

25-minute essay

• 3-5 minutes to brainstorm, outline, write the thesis
• 15-17 minutes to write the essay
• 5 minutes to proofread

50-minute essay

• 10 minutes to brainstorm, outline, write the thesis
• 30-35 minutes to write the essay
• 5-10 minutes to proofread

Remember when your child learned to ride a bike? He started with training wheels. Then you supported and ran behind the bike until he could pedal down the street unaided.

Teaching timed writing is a lot like this. In the beginning, expect to give lots of help through prompting (“You have 10 minutes to plan. Go!”); a note card that breaks down the time for each step; and a clock. After a number of practice essays, remove supports one by one till your teen can pace himself by the clock alone.

Don’t put off teaching this important skill. Train your high schoolers in time management , planning, writing , and reviewing. Before you know it, they’ll be ready to face whatever essay tests come their way.

Copyright, 2016. Used with permission. All rights reserved by author. Originally appeared in The Old Schoolhouse ® Magazine , the family education magazine, 2016 Print Annual. Read the magazine free at www.TOSMagazine.com or read it on the go and download the free apps at www.TOSApps.com to read the magazine on your mobile devices.

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8. Review of In-Class Writing

4. examples of past timed writing prompts.

Here are some examples of past timed-writing prompts. Notice how they are organized and written. Topics typically deal with current-event issues or concepts of interest to college students in school and the community. When you see this semester’s prompts, take the time to decide which one you feel most confident and comfortable with.

1. In our society, it has always been understood that the parent’s job is to teach a child right from wrong. Doing this successfully requires discipline, which in the past has included physical discipline (spanking, for instance) as well as verbal discipline. Today, however, many people believe that physical punishment should be legally and socially unacceptable.

Should parents have the right to discipline their child in a manner they feel suitable, or are some disciplinary measures inappropriate?

2. School extracurricular activities take place outside the traditional classroom setting and range from athletics and student government to clubs and social activities. In both high school and college, students are always encouraged to get involved in extracurricular activities.

What are some of the benefits of involvement in extracurricular activities?

3. Cell phones are a part of American culture. However, since no rules seem to cover the etiquette of using cell phones, some people find their use inappropriate. For example, a recent survey asked people when they felt the use of cell phones was appropriate. Results showed that fifty-three percent thought cell phone use was acceptable in the supermarket while six percent thought it was all right to use cell phones in a movie theater.

If you were put in charge of writing guidelines for using cell phones, what would you include and why?

4. Americans are bombarded by advertising. No matter where we go or what we do, it seems that advertising follows us. It’s on TV, over the Internet and in the paper. It’s on billboards and the sides of buses and even pasted on walls of empty buildings. Each day we are probably exposed to a thousand ads.

What kind of influence has advertising had on your life? Is it something that promotes you to buy products or turns you away from products?

5. Plagiarism is on the rise in America among high-school and college students as well as scholars and professionals. It seems that stealing someone else’s ideas is the “easy way out” for many.

Why is there such an increase in plagiarism, especially among students?

1. Body piercing is a booming but largely unregulated business. Because of the dangers associated with piercing, ranging from life-threatening infections to damage to tooth enamel, some states are considering enacting laws requiring parental permission for anyone under 18 to have piercing done.

Would you agree that such laws would be a good idea, or would you oppose them? Why?

2. Clinton Community College received a visit this semester from the Middle States Accreditation Team, which looked at the strengths and weaknesses of the college community.

What recommendations would you make to most effectively improve CCC? Why would these recommendations be important to the future of the college?

3. Vending machines have become a principal source of extra money for school districts across the nation. However, with obesity and poor eating habits on the rise among the nation’s elementary, middle and high-school students, the presence of these machines is being questioned.

What do you think? Should vending machines offering the usual candy, chips and soda be allowed in schools? Why or why not?

4. This year’s Academy Award for Best Picture went to  A Beautiful Mind . However, there was some controversy surrounding the decision based on the fact that the movie did not accurately portray the life of the person it was based on.

Should movies based on actual events or real people be factually accurate, or does Hollywood have the right to “fiddle” with the facts to make the stories more interesting for the audience?

5. With a recent earthquake causing considerable amounts of damage across the North Country, we were again reminded of the potential strength and fury of “Mother Nature.”

Describe a time you were faced with nature’s power and explain what you learned from that experience.

1. Stress often seems to be a way of life for students: trying to keep up with homework, studying for midterms, getting started on that research project due in a week. Handling the stress can sometimes be just as important as doing the work.

What are some  positive  strategies you have for handling the pressures of being a student?

2. Currently under New York State law, a sixteen-year-old licensed driver is not allowed to drive after 9 p.m. unless accompanied by a parent or guardian who has a valid driver’s license.

Do you support this law, or do you feel it’s out of date and should be repealed, giving all drivers the same privileges? Why?

3. Life is full or opportunities. Some people take advantage of them and some people miss out on them.

Describe an opportunity that you took advantage of in your life or one that you missed out on. How did it affect you? How might it have changed your life?

4. Music has an impact on just about everybody. It has the power to soothe and to remove pain and stress from our lives. It also has the power to remind us of past events, both good and bad.

How does music affect your daily life?

5. Following the materialistic and hectic 1980s and 1990s, there has been a recent trend to simplify our lives. Magazines, writers and lecturers offer advice for stripping away the extraneous and living better with less.

What suggestions would you offer to someone who would want to simplify his or her life?

• Authored by : English Department. Provided by : Clinton Community College. License : CC BY: Attribution

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Relevant Timed-Essay Prompts for High Schoolers

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By request, here are some relevant timed-essay prompts for high schoolers.

We paid attention to one of the bits of advice that our homeschool graduates told us long ago: Teens need to learn to write timed essays.

Those early homeschool grads headed off to college to face “blue book essays” (remember those)? Blue books were literally  lined-page booklets with plain blue covers. On test day, the college students were given an essay prompt and a time limit. Their job was to write a coherent essay explaining all they knew about that prompt, with as many facts, quotes, examples and details as possible.

That kind of test can be pretty stressful for young college students who do not have much experience writing extemporaneously and under time pressure.

Our young homeschool graduates learned the ropes quickly but asked us to condition their siblings for writing timed essays. That way, their siblings’ college adjustment process would be easier.

Therefore, that is exactly what we did. We included timed-essay writing in each of the 7Sisters essay writing guides:

• Intermediate Guide to High School Essay Writing
• Advanced Guide to High School Essay Writing

BTW- Homeschoolers need to do a lot writing during high school.

Of course, there’s not ONE right way to handle the numbers and types of writing but we have found that these types of writing benefits teens, whether they are college-bound or non-college-bound :

• Essay writing – yearly: to teach clarity of communication and thinking (more on why to cover essay writing here )
• Research paper writing – yearly: to teach information gathering, thinking and organizational skills
• Short story writing – yearly: to teach creativity and fun
• Poetry writing – yearly: to teach powerful word usage and creativity
• Professional writing skills – senior year: to teach practical writing they will need in their adult lives
• College application essays – senior year: 7Sisters college-essay writing curriculum can help prepare teens for this special kind of essay. (Start with this post on college admissions essays .)

Here is a post with suggestions on how many papers that teens should write at various grade and interest/ability levels.

What are timed essays for homeschool high schoolers?

Timed essays are a test of a student’s knowledge, as well as the ability to apply that knowledge to a specific problem or question. In other words, timed essays are quite different than multiple choice tests where students are simply regurgitating information. Instead, in timed-essays, teens are showing they UNDERSTAND the information they have been learning.

With timed essays, therefore, students are given a prompt or problem, such as:

For American History class: The Declaration of Independence was a first-of-its-kind document. Explain the Declaration and why it was so important to American History. For Biology class: Viruses can be a big problem. Explain the structure of viruses, how they replicate and what makes them contagious. For Literature class: Some people think that The Chronicles of Narnia are books suitable only for children. Do you agree or disagree? Why? For Music Appreciation: Who is your favorite composer and why?

Then students use that prompt to write an essay in the five-paragraph format:

• Introduction with the prompt, thesis and three points
• First paragraph detailing thoughts on Point One
• Second paragraph detailing thoughts on Point Two
• Third paragraph detailing thoughts on Point Three

Incidentally, homeschool high schoolers gain solid skill in this kind of writing in 7Sisters essay writing curricula. (With practice, even reluctant writers can learn to be confident writing essays .)

Most of the time when students are writing their timed essays, they will not have access to their notes, internet or other resources

This is because timed essays are a test. Teachers want to know if a student has actually learned the material well enough that they understand it and can apply it to a prompt or problem.

To prepare for a timed essay test in a particular subject:

Students should study their course material just like they do for any test. However, it will also be good for them to be able to explain what they are learning to a peer (or their parents). If they can explain what they are learning, they most likely understand it fairly well.

• Not only that, but if they are able teens can prepare for essay tests by:
• Memorizing a few details or facts (dates, locations, biological structures, etc)
• Know two or three of specific examples or illustrations about the material being tested
• BONUS: If there is a famous quote and they memorize it, that can add some sparkle to the essay

During the test:

7Sisters essay writing curriculum coaches teens through the timed-essay process, along with practice essays. Basically, though teens will use their five-paragraph essay-writing skills. The more practice they get during high school, the easier it is when they get to college. 

One important tip that parents can teach their teens: Take a deep breath before writing! Oxygen helps clear the brain and lower the stress hormones. (Hopefully teens remember this from their Health curriculum .)

However, the timed-essay prompts in 7Sisters Essay Writing curriculum are not testing for knowledge!

Rather, the timed-essay prompts are simply opportunities for writing essays:

• In five-paragraph format
• Without notes or internet
• Under time pressure

In other words, the information is not what is important in these essays as much as getting teens highly comfortable with writing in the timed-essay format. Thus, there are not really right answers, only right format.

So, when your homeschool high schoolers are working on their timed essays, remind them to breathe, relax a little and remember that this is practice and skill building!

Each of the 7Sisters Essay Writing Guides include a timed-essay section, along with prompts. However, sometimes it is fun to have more essay prompt choices.

How long do you give your homeschooler to work on a timed essay?

That is up to you. You know your homeschool high schooler and where they are in their writing process. Think about giving a ninth grader longer than a twelfth grader. Give a struggling or special needs writer a long time and with breaks (use whatever adaptations they need, of course).

However, if you have a teen who tends towards perfectionism – they might think they need hours and hours to create their timed essay. This is a good time to talk about goals for timed essays:

• Instead, the goal is sharing the information they know as best they can within the time limit
• That means: NO timed essay is perfect and that is okay
• Although by college, they will not really be thinking about this because they have the format internalized.

Therefore, based on some 7th Sisters’ teens, here are relevant timed-essay prompts for high schoolers

There’s not ONE right way to practice writing with writing prompts on the timed essays. You can always switch out the prompts that are included in writing guides. You can create your own prompts based on your plans for your high schooler ‘s core subjects for the year or their interests.

Remember: these are prompts that have the purpose of getting comfortable writing timed essays.

With that in mind, we asked our 7th Sisters in the 7SistersHomeschool Facebook group what their teens are interested in, so we could create some relevant prompts. (Hey, if you are not already a member of the Facebook group, join us! Lots of encouragement…and a great place to ask questions!)

Here are a few ideas for interest-based prompts:

• Imagine you have a new friend at church whose family is not familiar with church camps. How can you explain camps to the parents and convince them they should let your friend go with you next summer?
• Church camps can provide life-changing events for young people. How has attending church camp affected your life?
• Many churches have an active youth group for their teens. Does your church have a youth group? If so, are you part of the group? Do you enjoy it? Why or why not?
• Social media can be fun. Research has shown that in some cases, it can be harmful to teens’ mental health. What is your opinion about social media? Why?
• Online gaming can be fun and a way to de-stress. It can also be addicting. Imagine you need to explain the pros and cons of gaming to your parents. What would you tell them?
• Do you enjoy fitness programs and working out? How would you explain the benefits to a friend who is just starting to think about fitness?
• Imagine that the leader of your church worship team heard that you sing well (or play an instrument well). The leader would like you to join the worship team. How would you talk to your parents about it?
• What is your hobby? Imagine explaining your hobby to new friends. How could you interest them in joining you?
• You want to get a part-time job but your parents are not sure that you can work and keep up your grades. How will you discuss the pros and cons of the job with your parents?

Here are some ideas for core subject prompts:

Language arts.

• Imagine you are convincing your friend to read your favorite book. Explain why you love this book.
• Some people say that fantasy novels are not quality literature and should not be included in high school Literature courses. Do you agree or disagree? Why?
• Think about books or writers that have changed the world around them. Do you know of one that has had influence for positive or negative change? Explain the book or writer and how they have been influential.
• Imagine you like math enough to think about a college major in mathematics. What would be the benefits of being a mathematics major in college?

Social Studies

• Pick an event in the history unit you just studied. Who were the key people involved. Why do you think they made the choices they made? Do you agree with their choices?
• Think of a topic in the science unit you just completed. Imagine you had to explain that topic to your parents. Share as much detail as you can.
• What are the benefits of learning to play an instrument? Talk about the instrument that you play and explain why a friend might want to learn to play it also.
• Some people think that the Arts are not true school subjects but rather, a waste of students’ time. What do you think? Do you agree or disagree? Why?

Here are a few irritation-based prompts:

• Sometimes teens will enjoy writing about things that irritate them. Being irritated and questioning things is often part of the adolescent developmental process , so why not make the most of it?
• Some teens feel that church music is boring (or vapid…whatever they complain about). How do you feel about music at your church? Why? What would you change, if you could change something in your church’s music?
• Algebra can be a frustrating subject for many teens. Some of them ask, “When will I ever use algebra in my adult life?” How do you feel about algebra? Should you be able to drop the subject? Why or why not?
• What is the most irritating book you have had to read for your literature class. Should students be required to read it? Why or why not?
• Some people feel that so many academic subjects are required for high schoolers that they do not have time to learn practical skills for careers and life. Do you agree? Why or why not?

BTW- Each 7Sisters Writing Guide include rubric to help you grade your high schoolers’ essays. Also, rubrics help teens to be clear on expectations for their work. Thus, they can check their own work before handing it in. This helps build homeschool high schoolers’ editing skills. For more information and encouragement on goals and grading high school writing, check out this episode of Homeschool Highschool Podcast.

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11.4: 4. Examples of Past Timed Writing Prompts

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Here are some examples of past timed-writing prompts. Notice how they are organized and written. Topics typically deal with current-event issues or concepts of interest to college students in school and the community. When you see this semester’s prompts, take the time to decide which one you feel most confident and comfortable with.

1. In our society, it has always been understood that the parent’s job is to teach a child right from wrong. Doing this successfully requires discipline, which in the past has included physical discipline (spanking, for instance) as well as verbal discipline. Today, however, many people believe that physical punishment should be legally and socially unacceptable.

Should parents have the right to discipline their child in a manner they feel suitable, or are some disciplinary measures inappropriate?

2. School extracurricular activities take place outside the traditional classroom setting and range from athletics and student government to clubs and social activities. In both high school and college, students are always encouraged to get involved in extracurricular activities.

What are some of the benefits of involvement in extracurricular activities?

3. Cell phones are a part of American culture. However, since no rules seem to cover the etiquette of using cell phones, some people find their use inappropriate. For example, a recent survey asked people when they felt the use of cell phones was appropriate. Results showed that fifty-three percent thought cell phone use was acceptable in the supermarket while six percent thought it was all right to use cell phones in a movie theater.

If you were put in charge of writing guidelines for using cell phones, what would you include and why?

4. Americans are bombarded by advertising. No matter where we go or what we do, it seems that advertising follows us. It’s on TV, over the Internet and in the paper. It’s on billboards and the sides of buses and even pasted on walls of empty buildings. Each day we are probably exposed to a thousand ads.

What kind of influence has advertising had on your life? Is it something that promotes you to buy products or turns you away from products?

5. Plagiarism is on the rise in America among high-school and college students as well as scholars and professionals. It seems that stealing someone else’s ideas is the “easy way out” for many.

Why is there such an increase in plagiarism, especially among students?

1. Body piercing is a booming but largely unregulated business. Because of the dangers associated with piercing, ranging from life-threatening infections to damage to tooth enamel, some states are considering enacting laws requiring parental permission for anyone under 18 to have piercing done.

Would you agree that such laws would be a good idea, or would you oppose them? Why?

2. Clinton Community College received a visit this semester from the Middle States Accreditation Team, which looked at the strengths and weaknesses of the college community.

What recommendations would you make to most effectively improve CCC? Why would these recommendations be important to the future of the college?

3. Vending machines have become a principal source of extra money for school districts across the nation. However, with obesity and poor eating habits on the rise among the nation’s elementary, middle and high-school students, the presence of these machines is being questioned.

What do you think? Should vending machines offering the usual candy, chips and soda be allowed in schools? Why or why not?

4. This year’s Academy Award for Best Picture went to  A Beautiful Mind . However, there was some controversy surrounding the decision based on the fact that the movie did not accurately portray the life of the person it was based on.

Should movies based on actual events or real people be factually accurate, or does Hollywood have the right to “fiddle” with the facts to make the stories more interesting for the audience?

5. With a recent earthquake causing considerable amounts of damage across the North Country, we were again reminded of the potential strength and fury of “Mother Nature.”

Describe a time you were faced with nature’s power and explain what you learned from that experience.

1. Stress often seems to be a way of life for students: trying to keep up with homework, studying for midterms, getting started on that research project due in a week. Handling the stress can sometimes be just as important as doing the work.

What are some  positive  strategies you have for handling the pressures of being a student?

2. Currently under New York State law, a sixteen-year-old licensed driver is not allowed to drive after 9 p.m. unless accompanied by a parent or guardian who has a valid driver’s license.

Do you support this law, or do you feel it’s out of date and should be repealed, giving all drivers the same privileges? Why?

3. Life is full or opportunities. Some people take advantage of them and some people miss out on them.

Describe an opportunity that you took advantage of in your life or one that you missed out on. How did it affect you? How might it have changed your life?

4. Music has an impact on just about everybody. It has the power to soothe and to remove pain and stress from our lives. It also has the power to remind us of past events, both good and bad.

How does music affect your daily life?

5. Following the materialistic and hectic 1980s and 1990s, there has been a recent trend to simplify our lives. Magazines, writers and lecturers offer advice for stripping away the extraneous and living better with less.

What suggestions would you offer to someone who would want to simplify his or her life?

• Authored by : English Department. Provided by : Clinton Community College. License : CC BY: Attribution