essay questions hard

Once you write a first draft, put it in a drawer for a week. Taking some time away from it will allow you to come back to it with fresh eyes. Then, try to read your essay from the perspective of someone who knows nothing about you. Would they be able to understand the story? Do you explain clearly what you learned? Does your intro grab the reader's attention?

It can also be helpful to ask someone you trust, such as a parent, teacher, or peer, to read your essay and give you feedback. Really listen to what they say and think about how you can improve your writing.

Finally, try reading your essay aloud. This will help you catch any weird or awkward phrasings.

What's Next?

If you're struggling with how to approach your personal statement, consider looking at some college essay examples .

The essay is just one part of the college application process. Check out our guide to applying to college for a step-by-step breakdown of what you'll need to do.

Finally, if you're planning to take the SAT or ACT , consider taking a look at our expert test-prep guides for some helpful advice on whatever you might be struggling with.

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Alex is an experienced tutor and writer. Over the past five years, she has worked with almost a hundred students and written about pop culture for a wide range of publications. She graduated with honors from University of Chicago, receiving a BA in English and Anthropology, and then went on to earn an MA at NYU in Cultural Reporting and Criticism. In high school, she was a National Merit Scholar, took 12 AP tests and scored 99 percentile scores on the SAT and ACT.

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• Focus and Precision: How to Write Essays that Answer the Question

About the Author Stephanie Allen read Classics and English at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, and is currently researching a PhD in Early Modern Academic Drama at the University of Fribourg.

We’ve all been there. You’ve handed in an essay and you think it’s pretty great: it shows off all your best ideas, and contains points you’re sure no one else will have thought of.

You’re not totally convinced that what you’ve written is relevant to the title you were given – but it’s inventive, original and good. In fact, it might be better than anything that would have responded to the question. But your essay isn’t met with the lavish praise you expected. When it’s tossed back onto your desk, there are huge chunks scored through with red pen, crawling with annotations like little red fire ants: ‘IRRELEVANT’; ‘A bit of a tangent!’; ‘???’; and, right next to your best, most impressive killer point: ‘Right… so?’. The grade your teacher has scrawled at the end is nowhere near what your essay deserves. In fact, it’s pretty average. And the comment at the bottom reads something like, ‘Some good ideas, but you didn’t answer the question!’.

If this has ever happened to you (and it has happened to me, a lot), you’ll know how deeply frustrating it is – and how unfair it can seem. This might just be me, but the exhausting process of researching, having ideas, planning, writing and re-reading makes me steadily more attached to the ideas I have, and the things I’ve managed to put on the page. Each time I scroll back through what I’ve written, or planned, so far, I become steadily more convinced of its brilliance. What started off as a scribbled note in the margin, something extra to think about or to pop in if it could be made to fit the argument, sometimes comes to be backbone of a whole essay – so, when a tutor tells me my inspired paragraph about Ted Hughes’s interpretation of mythology isn’t relevant to my essay on Keats, I fail to see why. Or even if I can see why, the thought of taking it out is wrenching. Who cares if it’s a bit off-topic? It should make my essay stand out, if anything! And an examiner would probably be happy not to read yet another answer that makes exactly the same points. If you recognise yourself in the above, there are two crucial things to realise. The first is that something has to change: because doing well in high school exam or coursework essays is almost totally dependent on being able to pin down and organise lots of ideas so that an examiner can see that they convincingly answer a question. And it’s a real shame to work hard on something, have good ideas, and not get the marks you deserve. Writing a top essay is a very particular and actually quite simple challenge. It’s not actually that important how original you are, how compelling your writing is, how many ideas you get down, or how beautifully you can express yourself (though of course, all these things do have their rightful place). What you’re doing, essentially, is using a limited amount of time and knowledge to really answer a question. It sounds obvious, but a good essay should have the title or question as its focus the whole way through . It should answer it ten times over – in every single paragraph, with every fact or figure. Treat your reader (whether it’s your class teacher or an external examiner) like a child who can’t do any interpretive work of their own; imagine yourself leading them through your essay by the hand, pointing out that you’ve answered the question here , and here , and here. Now, this is all very well, I imagine you objecting, and much easier said than done. But never fear! Structuring an essay that knocks a question on the head is something you can learn to do in a couple of easy steps. In the next few hundred words, I’m going to share with you what I’ve learned through endless, mindless crossings-out, rewordings, rewritings and rethinkings.

Top tips and golden rules

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been told to ‘write the question at the top of every new page’- but for some reason, that trick simply doesn’t work for me. If it doesn’t work for you either, use this three-part process to allow the question to structure your essay:

1)     Work out exactly what you’re being asked

It sounds really obvious, but lots of students have trouble answering questions because they don’t take time to figure out exactly what they’re expected to do – instead, they skim-read and then write the essay they want to write. Sussing out a question is a two-part process, and the first part is easy. It means looking at the directions the question provides as to what sort of essay you’re going to write. I call these ‘command phrases’ and will go into more detail about what they mean below. The second part involves identifying key words and phrases.

2)     Be as explicit as possible

Use forceful, persuasive language to show how the points you’ve made do answer the question. My main focus so far has been on tangential or irrelevant material – but many students lose marks even though they make great points, because they don’t quite impress how relevant those points are. Again, I’ll talk about how you can do this below.

3)     Be brutally honest with yourself about whether a point is relevant before you write it.

It doesn’t matter how impressive, original or interesting it is. It doesn’t matter if you’re panicking, and you can’t think of any points that do answer the question. If a point isn’t relevant, don’t bother with it. It’s a waste of time, and might actually work against you- if you put tangential material in an essay, your reader will struggle to follow the thread of your argument, and lose focus on your really good points.

Put it into action: Step One

Let’s imagine you’re writing an English essay about the role and importance of the three witches in Macbeth . You’re thinking about the different ways in which Shakespeare imagines and presents the witches, how they influence the action of the tragedy, and perhaps the extent to which we’re supposed to believe in them (stay with me – you don’t have to know a single thing about Shakespeare or Macbeth to understand this bit!). Now, you’ll probably have a few good ideas on this topic – and whatever essay you write, you’ll most likely use much of the same material. However, the detail of the phrasing of the question will significantly affect the way you write your essay. You would draw on similar material to address the following questions: Discuss Shakespeare’s representation of the three witches in Macbeth . How does Shakespeare figure the supernatural in Macbeth ?   To what extent are the three witches responsible for Macbeth’s tragic downfall? Evaluate the importance of the three witches in bringing about Macbeth’s ruin. Are we supposed to believe in the three witches in Macbeth ? “Within Macbeth ’s representation of the witches, there is profound ambiguity about the actual significance and power of their malevolent intervention” (Stephen Greenblatt). Discuss.   I’ve organised the examples into three groups, exemplifying the different types of questions you might have to answer in an exam. The first group are pretty open-ended: ‘discuss’- and ‘how’-questions leave you room to set the scope of the essay. You can decide what the focus should be. Beware, though – this doesn’t mean you don’t need a sturdy structure, or a clear argument, both of which should always be present in an essay. The second group are asking you to evaluate, constructing an argument that decides whether, and how far something is true. Good examples of hypotheses (which your essay would set out to prove) for these questions are:

• The witches are the most important cause of tragic action in Macbeth.
• The witches are partially, but not entirely responsible for Macbeth’s downfall, alongside Macbeth’s unbridled ambition, and that of his wife.
• We are not supposed to believe the witches: they are a product of Macbeth’s psyche, and his downfall is his own doing.
• The witches’ role in Macbeth’s downfall is deliberately unclear. Their claim to reality is shaky – finally, their ambiguity is part of an uncertain tragic universe and the great illusion of the theatre. (N.B. It’s fine to conclude that a question can’t be answered in black and white, certain terms – as long as you have a firm structure, and keep referring back to it throughout the essay).

The final question asks you to respond to a quotation. Students tend to find these sorts of questions the most difficult to answer, but once you’ve got the hang of them I think the title does most of the work for you – often implicitly providing you with a structure for your essay. The first step is breaking down the quotation into its constituent parts- the different things it says. I use brackets: ( Within Macbeth ’s representation of the witches, ) ( there is profound ambiguity ) about the ( actual significance ) ( and power ) of ( their malevolent intervention ) Examiners have a nasty habit of picking the most bewildering and terrifying-sounding quotations: but once you break them down, they’re often asking for something very simple. This quotation, for example, is asking exactly the same thing as the other questions. The trick here is making sure you respond to all the different parts. You want to make sure you discuss the following:

• Do you agree that the status of the witches’ ‘malevolent intervention’ is ambiguous?
• What is its significance?
• How powerful is it?

Step Two: Plan

Having worked out exactly what the question is asking, write out a plan (which should be very detailed in a coursework essay, but doesn’t have to be more than a few lines long in an exam context) of the material you’ll use in each paragraph. Make sure your plan contains a sentence at the end of each point about how that point will answer the question. A point from my plan for one of the topics above might look something like this:

To what extent are we supposed to believe in the three witches in Macbeth ?  Hypothesis: The witches’ role in Macbeth’s downfall is deliberately unclear. Their claim to reality is uncertain – finally, they’re part of an uncertain tragic universe and the great illusion of the theatre. Para.1: Context At the time Shakespeare wrote Macbeth , there were many examples of people being burned or drowned as witches There were also people who claimed to be able to exorcise evil demons from people who were ‘possessed’. Catholic Christianity leaves much room for the supernatural to exist This suggests that Shakespeare’s contemporary audience might, more readily than a modern one, have believed that witches were a real phenomenon and did exist.

My final sentence (highlighted in red) shows how the material discussed in the paragraph answers the question. Writing this out at the planning stage, in addition to clarifying your ideas, is a great test of whether a point is relevant: if you struggle to write the sentence, and make the connection to the question and larger argument, you might have gone off-topic.

Step Three: Paragraph beginnings and endings

The final step to making sure you pick up all the possible marks for ‘answering the question’ in an essay is ensuring that you make it explicit how your material does so. This bit relies upon getting the beginnings and endings of paragraphs just right. To reiterate what I said above, treat your reader like a child: tell them what you’re going to say; tell them how it answers the question; say it, and then tell them how you’ve answered the question. This need not feel clumsy, awkward or repetitive. The first sentence of each new paragraph or point should, without giving too much of your conclusion away, establish what you’re going to discuss, and how it answers the question. The opening sentence from the paragraph I planned above might go something like this:

Early modern political and religious contexts suggest that Shakespeare’s contemporary audience might more readily have believed in witches than his modern readers.

The sentence establishes that I’m going to discuss Jacobean religion and witch-burnings, and also what I’m going to use those contexts to show. I’d then slot in all my facts and examples in the middle of the paragraph. The final sentence (or few sentences) should be strong and decisive, making a clear connection to the question you’ve been asked:

  Contemporary suspicion that witches did exist, testified to by witch-hunts and exorcisms, is crucial to our understanding of the witches in Macbeth.  To the early modern consciousness, witches were a distinctly real and dangerous possibility – and the witches in the play would have seemed all-the-more potent and terrifying as a result.

Step Four: Practice makes perfect

The best way to get really good at making sure you always ‘answer the question’ is to write essay plans rather than whole pieces. Set aside a few hours, choose a couple of essay questions from past papers, and for each:

• Write a hypothesis
• Write a rough plan of what each paragraph will contain
• Write out the first and last sentence of each paragraph

You can get your teacher, or a friend, to look through your plans and give you feedback. If you follow this advice, fingers crossed, next time you hand in an essay, it’ll be free from red-inked comments about irrelevance, and instead showered with praise for the precision with which you handled the topic, and how intently you focused on answering the question. It can seem depressing when your perfect question is just a minor tangent from the question you were actually asked, but trust me – high praise and good marks are all found in answering the question in front of you, not the one you would have liked to see. Teachers do choose the questions they set you with some care, after all; chances are the question you were set is the more illuminating and rewarding one as well.

Image credits: banner ; Keats ; Macbeth ; James I ; witches .

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70 “How To” Essay Topics

Referred to by names such as process essay or process analysis essay, the How-To essay details the steps to complete an assigned task in the most efficient way possible.

What Are the Key Steps to Writing a “How To” Essay?

How-to essays are pretty straightforward in their writing process, but there are a few key things to remember to ensure that the reader understands the steps involved.

The most important part of writing a How-To essay is ensuring that every necessary step is included in the writing – especially in the order they must be carried out.

This means that the writer shouldn’t avoid any steps, skip around, or leave out key details.

Secondly, it is essential to be concise when writing a How-To essay. Avoid detailing unnecessary steps or processes not related to the essay’s main topic.

Finally, must use sequential phrasing to denote the order of the steps. Phrases such as “first,” “second,” and “third” are helpful when writing a How-To essay.

By following these key steps, the writer can ensure that their How-To essay is clear, concise, and easy to follow!

Steps for Writing a “How To” Essay

When it comes to writing a How-To essay, the following formatting structure will ensure that the essay is easy to follow for the reader.

Introductory Paragraph

The introductory paragraph should briefly introduce the topic of the essay and provide a general overview of the steps involved. It should also introduce the main point of each individual step.

To engage the reader better, be sure to open with an attractive hook statement that will capture the reader’s attention. For example, if you are writing a How-To essay about cooking pasta, you might open with the line “Nothing beats a hot plate of mac and cheese” to grab the reader’s attention.

The introduction paragraph should also end with a thesis statement that details the essay’s main point. For example, in the case of the pasta cooking example, the thesis statement would be, “This essay will outline the steps necessary to cook a perfect plate of pasta from start to finish.”

Pro tip: Your thesis statement shouldn’t simply detail the benefits of following the steps in the essay. For example, the pasta cooking thesis statement could be rewritten as “This essay will outline the steps necessary to cook a perfect plate of pasta, which will not only save you time and money but will also taste better than if you had ordered it from a restaurant.”

Body Paragraphs

Each body paragraph should detail one step in the overall process. The individual steps should be written sequentially, not skipping any steps and providing all necessary details.

The body paragraphs should each follow the same structure:

• 1st Sentence: A topic sentence that briefly discusses the step in the process.
• 2nd Sentence: A transitional sentence that details when this step should be completed in relation to the other steps in the process
• 3rd Sentence: A detailed explanation of how to complete this step, based on a combination of research and common sense.
• 4th Sentence: A concluding sentence that briefly restates the step.

This formula should be repeated for each and every step in the process being detailed. This may only require a few paragraphs for how-to essays describing simple processes. However, for more complicated topics, this may require many sections to ensure that every step has been covered and every necessary detail included.

Concluding Paragraph

The concluding paragraph should summarize the steps outlined in the essay and restate any key points. It can also include a brief discussion of why following these steps is beneficial or potential pitfalls when skipping certain steps.

In order to avoid any confusion, the concluding paragraph should also summarize the thesis statement for the essay. For the pasta cooking example, this would be “In conclusion, this essay has outlined the steps necessary to cook a perfect plate of pasta from start to finish. By following these steps, you will ensure that your pasta is cooked perfectly every time.”

Pro tip: If you’re feeling stuck, try outlining the steps for your essay on a piece of paper. This will help you see the process as a whole and better understand where each step should fit in.

How-To essays can be a great way to teach or inform the reader about a specific topic. By following the key steps detailed above, you can ensure that your How-To essay is written with maximum clarity and follows the proper format.

70 “How To” Essay Topics

When writing a How-To essay, the biggest challenge can be choosing a topic. Essay topics too broad or general can be too difficult to cover in a single essay. On the other hand, essay topics that are too specific can be too difficult for the writer, who might accidentally leave out critical steps or details.

In order to make it easier for you to choose a topic, we have compiled a list of 70 How-To Essay topics that can be broken down into a variety of categories. While this list is by no means exhaustive, it should give you a good starting point for your essay.

How-To Essay Topics About Life Skills

• How to make a bed properly
• How to pack for a trip
• How to study for a test
• How to write a resume
• How to network
• How to interview for a job
• How to give a presentation
• How to deal with stress
• How to make a budget
• How to save money
• How to cook a basic meal
• How to do laundry
• How to change a tire
• How to use public transportation
• How to ask for a raise
• How to deal with difficult people
• How to deal with passive-aggressive behavior
• How to make a good impression
• How to write a thank you letter
• How to speak in public
• How to make friends as an adult
• How to ace a job interview
• How to manage your time
• How to be an effective leader

How-To Essay Topics About Technology

• How to set up a wireless network at home
• How to download music legally online
• How to reset your browser’s homepage
• How to navigate social media sites like Facebook and Twitter
• How to use your phone’s camera
• How to set up a Bluetooth device
• How to use Zoom effectively
• How to use a VPN
• How to set up an email account
• How to use Siri on your iPhone

How-To Essay Topics About Fitness and Health

• How to get rid of belly fat
• How to lose weight fast
• How to do crunches properly
• How to do squats
• How to run faster
• How to jump higher
• How to stretch
• How to prevent sports injuries
• How to deal with pain
• How to improve your diet
• How to get in shape for summer
• How to lower blood pressure

How-To Essay Topics About Home Improvement

• How to paint a room
• How to hang curtains
• How to unclog a drain
• How to patch a hole in the wall
• How to fix a broken doorknob
• How to install crown molding
• How to install laminate flooring
• How to clean hardwood floors properly
• How to have an eco-friendly home
• How to decorate your home on a budget
• How to choose paint colors for your home
• How to make your home more energy-efficient

How To Essay Topics About Science

• How to make a volcano
• How to make a model of the solar system
• How to grow crystals
• How to make a simple electrical circuit
• How to make slime
• How to extract DNA from a strawberry
• How to make a terrarium
• How to make a potato battery
• How to measure pH level
• How to write a lab report
• How to identify different species of flora & fauna

Using these how-to writing prompts, students can have a great start to writing their own How-To essays. Remember to keep each step of the process for a smooth transition from one to another.

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IELTS Preparation with Liz: Free IELTS Tips and Lessons, 2024

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100 IELTS Essay Questions

Below are practice IELTS essay questions and topics for writing task 2. The 100 essay questions have been used many times over the years. The questions are organised under common topics and essay types. IELTS often use the similar topics for their essays but change the wording of the essay question.

In order to prepare well for writing task 2, you should prepare ideas for common topics and then practise applying them to the tasks given (to the essay questions). Also see model essays and tips  for writing task 2.

Below you will find:

• Essay Questions By Topic
• Essay Questions by Essay Type

Please also note that my new Grammar E-book is now available in my store along with my Ideas for Essay Topics E-book and Advanced Writing Lessons. To visit store, click here: Liz’s Store

1) Common IELTS Essay Questions

IELTS practice essay questions divided by topic. These topics have been reported by IELTS students in their tests. Essay questions have been recreated as accurately as possible.

• Art   (5 essay questions)
• Business & Money   (17 essay questions)
• Communication & Personality   (20 essay questions)
• Crime & Punishment   (12 essay questions)
• Education   (17 essay questions)
• Environment   (12 essay questions)
• Family & Children   (8 essay questions)
• Food & Diet (13 essay questions)
• Government (6 essay questions)
• Health   (9 essay questions)
• Housing, Buildings & Urban Planning (8 essay questions)
• Language (6 essay questions)
• Leisure (1 essay question)
• Media & Advertising   (12 essay questions)
• Reading  (5 essay questions)
• Society   (10 essay questions)
• Space Exploration (3 questions)
• Sport & Exercise   (6 essay questions)
• Technology  (6 essay questions)
• Tourism and Travel   (11 essay questions)
• Transport  (7 essay questions)
• Work (17 essay questions)

2) IELTS Essay Questions by Essay Type 

There are 5 main types of essay questions in IELTS writing task 2 (opinion essays, discussion essay, advantage/disadvantage essays, solution essay and direct question essays). Click on the links below to see some sample essay questions for each type.

• Opinion Essay Questions
• Discussion Essay Questions
• Solution Essay Questions
• Direct Questions Essay Titles 
• Advantage / Disadvantage Essay Questions

3) Recent Essay Topics

You can also track recent essay topics on this page: IELTS ESSAY TOPICS 2024

Note: you must also prepare all other topics on page above because questions are recycled each year.

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Essay Topics – List of 500+ Essay Writing Topics and Ideas

List of 500+ essay writing topics and ideas.

Essay topics in English can be difficult to come up with. While writing essays , many college and high school students face writer’s block and have a hard time to think about topics and ideas for an essay. In this article, we will list out many good essay topics from different categories like argumentative essays, essays on technology, environment essays for students from 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th grades. Following list of essay topics are for all – from kids to college students. We have the largest collection of essays. An essay is nothing but a piece of content which is written from the perception of writer or author. Essays are similar to a story, pamphlet, thesis, etc. The best thing about Essay is you can use any type of language – formal or informal. It can biography, the autobiography of anyone. Following is a great list of 100 essay topics. We will be adding 400 more soon!

But Before that you may wanna read some awesome Essay Writing Tips here .

Get the Huge list of 100+ Speech Topics here

Argumentative Essay Topics

• Should plastic be banned?
• Pollution due to Urbanization
• Education should be free
• Should Students get limited access to the Internet?
• Selling Tobacco should be banned
• Smoking in public places should be banned
• Facebook should be banned
• Students should not be allowed to play PUBG

Essay Topics on Technology

• Wonder Of Science
• Mobile Phone

Essay Topics on Festivals on Events

• Independence Day (15 August)
• Teachers Day
• Summer Vacation
• Children’s Day
• Swachh Bharat Abhiyan
• Janmashtami
• Republic Day

Essay Topics on Education

• Education Essay
• Importance of Education
• Contribution of Technology in Education

Essay Topics on Famous Leaders

• Mahatma Gandhi
• APJ Abdul Kalam
• Jawaharlal Nehru
• Swami Vivekananda
• Mother Teresa
• Rabindranath Tagore
• Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
• Subhash Chandra Bose
• Abraham Lincoln
• Martin Luther King
• Lal Bahadur Shashtri

Essay Topics on Animals and Birds

• My Favorite Animal

Essays Topics About Yourself

• My Best Friend
• My Favourite Teacher
• My Aim In Life
• My Favourite Game – Badminton
• My Favourite Game – Essay
• My Favourite Book
• My Ambition
• How I Spent My Summer Vacation
• India of My Dreams
• My School Life
• I Love My Family
• My Favourite Subject
• My Favourite Game Badminton
• My Father My Hero
• My School Library
• My Favourite Author
• My plans for summer vacation

Essay Topics Based on Environment and Nature

• Global Warming
• Environment
• Air Pollution
• Environmental Pollution
• Water Pollution
• Rainy Season
• Climate Change
• Importance Of Trees
• Winter Season
• Deforestation
• Natural Disasters
• Save Environment
• Summer Season
• Trees Our Best Friend Essay In English

Essay Topics Based on Proverbs

• Health Is Wealth
• A Stitch in Time Saves Nine
• An Apple a Day Keeps Doctor Away
• Where there is a will, there is way
• Time and Tide wait for none

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Essay Topics for Students from 6th, 7th, 8th Grade

• Noise Pollution
• Environment Pollution
• Women Empowerment
• Time and Tide Wait for none
• Science and Technology
• Importance of Sports
• Sports and Games
• Time Management
• Cleanliness is next to Godliness
• Cleanliness
• Rome was not Built in a Day
• Unemployment
• Clean India
• Cow Essay In English
• Describe Yourself
• Festivals Of India
• Ganesh Chaturthi
• Healthy Food
• Importance Of Water
• Plastic Pollution
• Value of Time
• Honesty is the Best Policy
• Gandhi Jayanti
• Human Rights
• Knowledge Is Power
• Same Sex Marriage
• Childhood Memories
• Cyber Crime
• Kalpana Chawla
• Punctuality
• Rani Lakshmi Bai
• Spring Season
• Unity In Diversity
• Artificial Intelligence
• Online Shopping
• Indian Culture
• Healthy Lifestyle
• Indian Education System
• Disaster Management
• Environmental Issues
• Freedom Fighters
• Grandparents
• Save Fuel For Better Environment
• Importance Of Newspaper
• Lal Bahadur Shastri
• Raksha Bandhan
• World Environment Day
• Narendra Modi
• What Is Religion
• Charity Begins at Home
• A Journey by Train
• Ideal student
• Save Water Save Earth
• Indian Farmer
• Safety of Women in India
• Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
• Capital Punishment
• College Life
• Natural Resources
• Peer Pressure
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What are the the most common essay questions, and how should you answer them?

A simple guide to the wording you can expect to see in exams, no matter subject what you're studying

If you managed to get through secondary school without writing an essay, you are in for a shock when you get to university. No matter what you’re studying, there will come a point when you have write an essay in an exam.

Luckily, we’ve got a handy guide to tackling the most complex essay questions you’ll ever see.

In a nutshell, “summarising” is what this paragraph is doing right now. If an exam question asks you to “summarise” something, you have to express the most important facts or ideas about something or someone in a short and clear form. 

For example, if the question asks you to “summarise the debate over gun control”, they’re asking you to state in a few simple sentences or paragraphs what people think about the issue and the arguments for and against it.

It is easy to confuse the words “contrast” and “compare” – both mean to take two or more things and point out some kind of relationship – for example, similarities or differences – between them.

While most questions might ask you to “compare and contrast”, you’re in luck if they only use one of the words. If you see the word “contrast” in a question, it most likely wants you to examine the differences between two or more things.

A question with the word “illustrate” is asking you to not only explain something, but likely also to use examples to show the meaning or truth of it more clearly.

This word should immediately tell you that your answer is meant to be argumentative. “Justify” means to attempt to use arguments and evidence to show that something is reasonable, right, or true. You’re not merely writing down the ideas; you’re actively commenting on them and backing up your comments with evidence.

Unlike the words “summarise” or “clarify”, “state” simply asks you to express information clearly and carefully. In other words, it is usually a short answer which may include important facts and other ideas.

In an exam question that deals with many different ideas or concepts, “assess” calls for the test-taker to not only write about them, but also to compare concepts to each other using examples and other methods.

This is the opposite of “assess”; it asks you to add more information or explain something that you have said, instead of analysing things and explaining what they are.

To what extent

Even to many experienced test-takers, “to what extent” is a scary phrase. At the very least, the question is asking you to summarise or clarify; at most, you have to analyse a series of ideas or different pieces of information.

Actually, “to what extent” asks you to take the middle road, without resorting to extreme descriptions or exaggerated conclusions. In answering such a question, you can show the depth of your knowledge on the given subject. You’ll be expected to describe something fully, without cherry-picking evidence.

If you see this word in a question, it’s usually asking you to make something clear or easier to understand by giving more details, or a simpler explanation. But in an essay question, it is similar to “explain”, which means including other information that could shed more light on the topic.

This article was curated in conjunction with Young Post . Better Life  is the ultimate resource for enhancing your personal and professional life.

How to write good Essay Questions

Essay questions - you either love them or you hate them. There is no in between! These require written responses, which can consist of a few short paragraphs to thousands of words.

Also known as: long answer, open ended, subjective

Use Essay Questions to Assess:

• Comprehension of material learned
• Writing skills
• User's ability to organize facts and ideas
• Problem Solving

Question Usage Ideas:

• Gain Feedback
• Gather information
• Comparison of two items

Advantages of Essay Questions:

• Test takers can elaborate and provide detailed answers
• Test takers are not able to guess and select an answer
• Can review individualized responses from each user
• Can be used for all types of subjects
• Takes less time to create questions

Disadvantages of Essay Questions:

• Takes longer to grade on paper
• Graded manually online
• Take longer to answer
• Can be graded unfairly
• Questions can be read differently resulting in not being able to answer correctly
• Will not cover as much varied content in a Test as other question types
• A user's writing skills could affect what they are trying to express

Tips for creating Essay Questions

• Only add a few essay questions per Test
• Keep essay questions per Test specific to one or two topics
• Ask the question in your own words
• Leave opinions at home when grading
• Inform users ahead of time of how grading will be completed
• Provide customized feedback per student
• Make the question clear
• Use directives such as “Compare”, “Identify”, “Explain”, “Describe”, “Define”
• Show the points an essay questions is worth.
• Provide instructions on how in depth and detailed you want in an answer.

Become a ClassMarker Guru: Pro Tips

Essay Question Features in ClassMarker.com

You're a Pro if You Know:

• After grading essay Questions, Test scores will be automatically adjusted
• You can add custom feedback for both correct/incorrect answers
• How to give individualized feedback per essay question per user
• Essay Questions are manually graded

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How to Deal with Essay Questions on Exams

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If you’re a normal person and not a weirdo like me, then you probably hate essay questions on exams.

I mean, exams are already a huge source of anxiety….but essays, too? This means that you actually have to think; you can’t just circle “B” for each answer and hope for the best.

The thing is, although you may have to sound a little bit more formal for school, writing an essay for an exam is the same as writing for any other reason :

• You want to persuade your readers of your ideas clearly and simply
• You want every sentence to make your reader want to read the next one.

This means that although it’s not as hard as we make out it to be, clear and concise writing is still hard in practice.

This post is all about how to make essay questions more bearable — and how to get a good grade for an essay answer.

And one last thing before we dive in: I wrote this post with the assumption that you have to write a series of essays for a test and not just one. The reason is that a test with a series of short essays is trickier than a single long essay: you have to manage your time while making sure you hit all the points that each question requires.

And anyways, you can totally port over the rules in this article to a longer, single-essay test.

So without further ado, let’s get into it.

Rule 1: Understand What Makes an A+ Essay

Before we get to the nuts and bolts of essay-writing, remember that professors want to see that:

• You understood the facts from the course.
• You have synthesized the information in your own way.
• You have come up with your own insights.

These 3 points make up an A+ essay. You see,

• If you just state your opinion without using the facts, then they know you didn’t actually pay attention to the material or you didn’t study it well.
• If you just regurgitate the facts without weaving them together into an argument with a unique, personal viewpoint, then all you’re demonstrating is that you memorized individual data points – not that you really understand them and how they relate to the bigger picture.

Finally, structure-wise your essay has to be logical and thorough, yet concise. Here’s a great quote from William Strunk, author of the seminal book on writing, The Elements of Style :

“Vigorous writing is concise. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.”

With these mindsets, let’s get into…

Rule 2: Create a Plan Before You Write

As soon as you open your test booklet or get the question sheet, resist the urge to start writing right away. Put down your pen, pick up the sheet, then read each prompt carefully. If the prompt is detailed, you might even want to highlight or underline points.

Depending on how many points a question has and how difficult it is for you to answer it, decide on how long you’ll take on each question. You can write out those minutes on your sheet to remind you. Try to leave 10 minutes at the very end to tie up any loose ends and look over your answers.

After you’ve decided how to tackle the test as a whole, pick up your pen and list out 2-3 bullet points for each prompt. These don’t have to be fully-fleshed out ideas, just a few points you want to hit for each essay. As you start writing and you remember answers for other prompts, feel free to add to each prompt’s list.

Rule 3: Use a Time-Tested Essay Format

“Instructors don’t have time to treat each essay as a puzzle in need of a solution. Take the guesswork out of your essay.” – Walter Pauk

After you’ve listed out some bullet points, now you have to make sure that the order of the points in your essay makes sense. (Pro-tip: Write numbers them so you don’t forget.)

To help with the order, use The 5-Paragraph Essay format to write your essay. This has:

• An intro paragraph that summarizes your main idea, plus the supporting evidence you cover in the essay and how it ties into the main idea.
• Three body paragraphs that go into detail about each supporting piece of evidence for your argument.
• A conclusion that synthesizes the main idea and the evidence by connecting them to overarching themes in the course.

In addition to this structure, there are two main methods that you can use to write the body of the essay:

• The decreasing-importance pattern where your first body paragraph contains your strongest argument and your last body paragraph covers the weakest or least consequential one
• The chronological pattern where the paragraphs follow the sequential order of events

The method you use depends wholly on the prompt.

• If the prompt is about how espionage influenced the outcome of World War II, then you should use the decreasing-importance pattern.
• If the prompt is about tracing the events that led to the outcome of World War II, then you should use the chronological pattern.

Generally, however, the decreasing-importance pattern is my default option.

This is because decreasing-importance pattern follows the way journalists write: they start with the most important piece of news to get their reader’s attention so in case the reader doesn’t read to the bottom, they still get the gist of things.

Similarly, you want to front load your essay with the most important points because the person marking the paper is probably looking for key words and phrases; they won’t read the whole thing.

Rule 4: Get to the Point Quickly

You’ve probably read an essay where the arguments ran in circles and the same handful of ideas were repeated over and over again, except with different words. Heck, maybe you’ve written one like this yourself!

The thing is, on a timed test that’s marked by a TA who has to grade a hundred more, this method doesn’t go over well.

Instead, write clearly and simply with the Argument-Evidence method (or, as I like to call it, the Sandwich Method ). In this method, you sandwich the evidence between the arguments, like so:

• State your argument or your point
• Explain what you mean, preferably with concrete examples, quotes, or course material
• Tie your evidence back to your initial point

For example, if I’m writing an essay about how pancakes are the healthiest food you can eat for breakfast, one of my arguments could be:

Pancakes are the healthiest food you can eat for breakfast because they are a historically significant food that has powered America for generations. One excellent example of this is how lumberjacks of old would eat pancakes before going out into the cold to chop down trees. They would douse their pancakes in maple syrup, stab through a stack of three pancakes, devour them in one go, and work hard for the rest of the day. If pancakes for breakfast are enough to power people who chop down and lug heavy trees around for a living, then they are sufficient for the average American student.

See how the first and last sentences echo each other, while the middle two sentences provide an example?

Sandwiching your examples between the point makes it easier for your readers to form a picture of the message you’re trying to convey.

Rule 5: Go Through a 2-Stage Editing Process

After you’ve written your answers, you may or may not have time to edit it thoroughly. Here’s an efficient way to clean up your essay before you move on to the next one.

Stage 1: Assess the Arguments

Scan through each sentence, then each paragraph, to see if the order makes sense and that each point ties together. If you followed Rule 3 closely, you shouldn’t see any gaping holes or questionable arguments, but it’s nice to have a sanity check.

Note: In a written essay, it usually takes too long to fix faulty argumentation because you’ll have to cross things out and rewrite them, while computers will let you cut and paste paragraphs and sentences. Because of this, I usually skip this stage on written exams and move on to Stage 2.

Stage 2: Do an “Out-Loud” Check

After I finish writing an essay and checking the order of the arguments, I like to quietly read the piece, mouthing every word. This helps with identifying grammatical errors and awkward wording that I couldn’t have picked up otherwise.

From the first part of this article, you might recall that essay writing is the same as any piece of writing:

Once you understand these two main principles for good writing, the rest of the rules – planning before writing, getting to the point, editing, and synthesizing – make better sense. They merely support clear, concise, and readable writing.

Good luck on your next essay exam and happy writing!

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Join us at My IELTS Classroom today for our video courses, marking service, 1-2-1 lessons and so much more…

Analysing Difficult IELTS Essay Questions!

Every 3 or 4 months Nick and I sit down to review 6 recently reported IELTS essay questions that we think are interesting. Usually, this means choosing questions that focus on topics that we have never seen before, or questions that are in a new format (for example, new types of 2-part questions). However, this week we are doing something different. We are looking at 6 difficult IELTS essay questions. And by difficult, I mean so difficult that even after 30+ years experience teaching IELTS between us, Nick and I struggled to come up with ideas. So, we challenge you to join us in planning these IELTS questions from hell!

In fact, why not scroll down now and attempt to brainstorm ideas for each question BEFORE you listen, so that you can participate actively in the lesson?

Who knows, maybe the  the ideas that we finally came up with could save you in your IELTS exam!  As always, the questions that we are looking at today are reported IELTS essay questions from 2021. Although I am employed as a professional exam writer  (you can read more about this here ) , it is still impossible for me to be sure that the wording is 100% the same as the genuine questions, so you should use these for practice purposes only.

Below, you can find a summary of the episode, which includes all of the links to useful materials and the times of each part of the discussion (so you can go directly to the part you want to listen to)   🚀

Subscribe to My IELTS Classroom podcast on Apple podcasts   here  Subscribe to My IELTS Classroom on Google podcasts   here

Discover the secret to writing a Band 7.0+ essay

Th en download a copy of our FREE e-book, which explains the most common errors made by test-takers and how you can avoid them. Just click here for your copy.

Podcast  Summary :  Analysing Difficult IELTS Essay Questions!

Nick and I go through each of the following 6 essay questions to break down why we think that they are so difficult:

• Advances in science and technology have made the lifestyles in countries much more similar. Do you think it is a positive or negative development?
• Individual greed and selfishness have become the basis of the modern world. We need to return to traditional values of respect for family and community in order to create a better world for everyone. To what extent do you agree with these opinions?
• With the expansion of population, more and more people live in homes with small outdoor areas. Is this a negative or positive development?
• Some scientists think that there are intelligent life forms on other planets and messages should be sent to contact them. Other scientists think it is a bad idea and could be dangerous. Discuss both the views and give your opinion.
• The aim of popular TV programs should be to educate viewers on important social issues. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
• Some people find it difficult to speak in public or to give a presentation in front of an audience. Do you think public speaking is an important skill? Should public speaking be taught at school?

You can find all of our video lessons, including a full 9-hour Grammar course, on our main website www.myieltsclassroom.com.  This is where you can also sign up for our IELTS essay correction service or join one of our writing packages . 🚀

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Democrats' cover-up of Biden decline raises hard questions. When did they know the truth?

It's clear, based on his debate performance and other gaffes we've seen in public, that president joe biden's decline must have been obvious to those closest to him..

In a brief speech on Monday night from the White House , President Joe Biden appeared once again to struggle to speak without a teleprompter. He spoke for only five minutes and refused to take questions from even friendly members of the press, spurring ongoing doubts about his health.

Biden's disastrous June 27 debate performance opposite Donald Trump is front of mind for the Democratic and Republican parties, as well as American voters. As the fallout from the Biden-Trump debate continues, more questions than answers have surfaced.

Here are a few that the White House and Democrats need to answer about the health of our nation's commander in chief:

When did Biden's inner circle know the truth?

It's clear that Biden struggles to be coherent and cognizant, especially when he's required to process and respond to questions spontaneously, as opposed to giving a speech with a teleprompter. During the debate, Biden trailed off repeatedly, murmuring and slurring his words. In a few cases, he was unable to articulate a complete thought. Pundits, politicians and the American public noticed , leading to multiple calls for the Democratic Party to reconsider Biden as their nominee.

This raises one of the most pertinent questions Democrats must answer: When did members of Biden's inner circle know about the president's steep decline?

It's clear, based on his debate performance and other gaffes we've seen in public, that Biden's decline must have been obvious to those closest to him.

It also explains why Biden rarely fields questions from reporters, or gives speeches without a teleprompter and is largely shielded from the public. The effort to shield Biden and to hide the truth from voters was intentional. Democratic leaders need to be honest about how long they have known Biden has been declining.

Can Biden remain president until January?

Now that it's obvious how much Biden has been struggling, even Democrats are calling for Biden to be replaced as the party's nominee. While it's a bit shocking to see how quickly Democrats have turned on their own leader, their acknowledgement of the president's problems raises other questions: If Democrats think Biden is unfit to be the nominee, how can he continue to be president? How will he function as the nation's chief executive for another six months?

Do Democrats care what foreign leaders think?

A day after the debate, I posted on X , "Just think: Foreign leaders who have met with Biden in the last year knew about his cognitive decline before you did. They knew and they snickered and felt a sense of schadenfreude."

That same day, the Wall Street Journal posted a story, "The World Saw Biden Deteriorating. Democrats Ignored the Warnings." It's a damning picture that reveals something uncomfortable: Foreign dignitaries likely knew more about Biden's health than the American people did. Biden, after all, was shielded from the American public but had to be present in person in meetings with foreign leaders.

Opinion newsletter: Sign up for our newsletter on conservative values, family and religion from columnist Nicole Russell. Get it delievered to your inbox .

Americans often forget: The world is watching us. They're watching for strength. They're also watching for weakness.

When allies and enemies meet with President Joe Biden, what have they seen? If Biden's presidential debate performance is any clue, he likely struggled to converse and articulate U.S. stances on policy and defense. Why would Democrats knowingly put the United States in a position to look anything but strong − whether in meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping or the newly defeated British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ?

In " The Art of War ," Sun Tzu said to "appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.” I fear that when foreign dignitaries have met with Biden that America has appeared weak − and has been weak.

Do Democrats think Trump is worse than Biden?

I'm no fan of former President Donald Trump . I don't think he's a good presidential candidate or a good representation of the Republican Party. He's an arrogant, thin-skinned narcissistic buffoon. He's a convicted felon battling additional indictments. Americans deserve better.

For years, Democrats have weaponized Trump's character flaws: At least our guy isn't a fraud or a felon. Yet, their guy has shown the world he isn't fit mentally or physically to be president.

Now that Biden's poor condition has been exposed, even I can't help but wonder: Is Trump actually worse than Biden?

That doesn't mean I think Trump is any good, but are we at the point where we can acknowledge that both are pretty bad, just in different ways?

The debate exposed the truth. Democrats gaslighted Americans about Biden's cognitive decline.

Let's frame this another way: Trump's flaws have long been exposed for everyone to see − and to decide for themselves his fitness to serve in elected office. But suppose the Republican Party had been propping up a guy who was in serious cognitive decline and denying to the American pubic that he actually was in decline? Would Republicans ever hear the end of it?

Wouldn't Democrats weaponize such a scandal until the end of time? Of course they would.

It's time to weigh the serious flaws of both Biden and Trump: Is one worse? Are they both awful? If so, where do we go from here?

Why did the Democratic Party hide the truth for so long?

Now that we know that Democratic leaders knew about Biden's decline, why did they hide it for so long?

The answer is important because there are only two possible responses, and neither of them is good.

Happy birthday, America: Why this aging millennial still loves America, even if Gen Z doesn't get it

Either Democrats hid Biden's poor condition because they don't respect Americans or the public's right to full disclosure.

Or Democrats hid what they knew about Biden because they want to maintain power − no matter the cost to America's well-being.

Is their thirst for power greater than their respect, empathy and goodwill toward the American public?

Do Democrats dare to answer honestly?

Nicole Russell is an opinion columnist with USA TODAY. She lives in Texas with her four kids.  Sign up for her newsletter, The Right Track , and get it delivered to your inbox.

You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page , on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter .

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Let me start with a story from my journey with cancer almost 40 years ago. In my 30s, I nearly died from a rare form of lymphoma that appeared as a very large tumor in my skull and another tumor protruding in the eighth rib of my back.

I had never been through anything this difficult or life-threatening. I was terrified at every turn. It was then that the Chinese poet from the Tang Dynasty Tu Fu visited me in a dream. Out of the yellow mist he arrived, his long beard in tow. We were on a healthy shore and he sat cross-legged in the sand, scratching delicately with a branch, his slender head down. I crouched and put it to him, “How do I block the fear?” He kept scratching the sand as if he hadn’t heard. I grew angry, “How do I block the fear?!” He lifted his head and shrugged, branch waving above him, “How does a tree block the wind?” With that, he disappeared.

I woke to realize that a tree doesn’t block the wind. It lets it through. The only way to meet fear is to face it and let it through. Our culture instructs us to hide from our fear or to conquer it. But both life strategies put us at odds with truth and keep us from its inevitable lessons.

Over the years, I have come to see all this differently. What if we are to cooperate with truth: the way a bird cooperates to glide with the wind or a fish cooperates to swim with the current that carries it? What if we looked at what we’re facing and said, “Though this is difficult, I’ll do what truth asks of me. I’ll let truth be my teacher.”

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Cooperating with truth is letting fear move through us like wind through a tree. It also means accepting the guidance of truth however it appears, even if it comes in a dream from a poet who has been dead for 1.500 years. We often reject resources because they don’t look familiar. But I had never had cancer and so I was being offered resources I had never seen. From where? By who? It doesn’t matter.

In the thick tangle of my cancer journey, I had to have several bone marrow samplings, which were utterly painful. My fear of this procedure became visceral. I didn’t know how I could face another. Finally, on the eve of the next one, I sat alone in the soft light of my bedroom. I had nowhere else to go. I closed my eyes and began to cooperate with the difficult truth before me. This enabled me to glimpse the flow of life that started before my fear, and which would continue during the pain of the procedure, and on into the future beyond my fear and pain.

I opened my eyes and could see that, difficult as this would be, the actual extracting of marrow from my hip would last only 30 seconds. I could envision life beyond this. The practice of surrender—of cooperating with what I had to face—enabled me to find a way through.

We tend to think of surrender as giving up or resigning ourselves to an unwanted outcome. But surrender is really the practice of fine-tuning our will to work with what we’re given. I no longer see surrender and cooperation as different paths. Rather, cooperating with truth is how we surrender. As meditation is comprised of the practice of breathing, surrender is comprised of the practice of cooperating with truth.

It is working with what we’re given while staying close to what we love that is a constant teacher.

I thought I was an open person, but facing death made me truly open. I began to welcome everything in order to stay alive. And I was blessed to be given some form of healing from everywhere and everyone. For instance, though I was raised Jewish, a devout Catholic woman gave me a rose petal that fell from the sky, which she believed had been dropped by Mother Mary in the Philippines. She had it tucked in a gold purse. It was so kind of her. Whether I believed that this actually happened or not wasn’t a prerequisite to accepting her help. I simply bowed my head and uttered, “Thank you.” And accepting miracles from all directions, wherever I could find them, led me to my own, which saved my life.

The truth is that I was not and am still not wise enough to know what worked and what didn’t. I was simply and profoundly called to believe in everything. Ever since, I have been a student of all paths. Perhaps this has been my greatest cooperation with truth—to find what matters and what is healing wherever I can. And all my books and all the sacred chances to teach enlist my devotion to the common center of all paths and the unique gifts of each.

Once on the other side of my cancer journey, I realized that the things we suffer and the things we love provide us with an Inner Curriculum. When we least expect it, it is working with what we’re given while staying close to what we love that is a constant teacher. And surviving cancer in my mid-30s only deepened my life of inquiry. By surrendering to the miracle of life in order to survive, my sense of listening and learning was transformed into an ongoing covenant of care.

But my sense of surrender goes back to childhood. When 8 or 9, I fell in the schoolyard, skinning my arms and knees badly. While slightly bloodied on the ground, I was forced to be still on the Earth for the first time. I gave in to where I was. I had never realized that this massive planet was holding us up. For the first time, I had experienced something larger than any of us.

Putting ourselves in tune or rhythm with the greater forces of life is the true purpose of will. This task is at the heart of the ancient Chinese worldview known as the Tao, which simply means “the Way.” These early seekers envisioned the greater forces of life as an invisible river and saw every soul as a fish born in that river. And so, the true purpose of all our efforts is to find the current so we can swim with it, so we can be carried along with the greater forces of life. In a spiritual sense, this is cooperating with truth as a way of life. This doesn’t mean that we give up. Rather, such cooperation and alignment empowers and strengthens our gifts. It means that we can create more, repair more, hold more, and heal more.

Effort is revelation in slow motion.

One more story from my life. During the heat of my cancer journey, when things seemed dire, my parents were unable to show up. This was very painful and broke our bond. It led to 15 years of estrangement. But when my father was turning 90, I ached to see him again. I reached out and we cried. As we made arrangements for me to visit, he hemmed and stalled, saying that, after all this time, my mother didn’t want me in the house.

I was hurt and furious. This was the house I grew up in. The more I wrestled with this, the more I had to surrender to the truth of our unlikely reunion. Finally, cooperating with the harsh truth of it all, I entered a moment of grace that dilated my perspective. And I uttered out loud to no one, “Of course! Why would it be any different?!”

I called my father and said, “I will meet you anywhere, any time.” And so, I drove 300 miles to meet him in the driveway, where I kissed the neck of an old man teetering on his cane. Cooperating with the truth of our lives empowered me to make home wherever he and I might meet. Over time, I have come to see that since I was exiled from home most of my life, I have made the space in which I teach home. I have, in fact, made the world home.

Now, in my 70s, I am happy to surrender the want to be great for the great chance to be. I have found that if devoted to being wholehearted and giving, we enter a holy sequence in which surrender lets us cooperate with truth, and cooperating with truth opens us to grace.

I often think that effort is revelation in slow motion. And the reward for effort is that the complete surrender of our care allows us to enter the grace of life itself. Our ever-present call is to work for grace without intention, loving the work and cooperating with truth however it appears. For each time we dare to surrender, our inner teacher stretches the way we take things in, and this deepens our resilience and faith in life.

I leave you with this image of the ocean. For the ocean is a great teacher in how to cooperate with truth. If you watch the surf, each wave gathers, thinking it has done this by itself, when it has been lifted into being by the power of the deep. Then, it rises and crests and crashes, giving its all, thinning till there is nothing left to give. At which time, it is pulled back into the deep to do it all again. This is its glorious life, which hypnotizes us. We spend so much time trying to avoid this process when the thoroughness of it is the secret of resilience, the secret of surrender. I urge you. Go and watch the surf wherever you can and let it speak to you about how to live your life.

Questions to Walk With

• In your journal, describe a time when you were asked to cooperate with truth. How difficult was this for you? How long did it take? How did this affect you?
• In conversation with a friend or loved one, discuss the ways you try to control life and the ways you try to align with life. How do you feel and understand the difference?

Mark Nepo has moved readers and seekers all over the world with his #1 New York Times bestseller The Book of Awakening. Beloved as a poet, teacher, and storyteller, Mark has been called “one of the finest spiritual guides of our time,” “a consummate storyteller,” and “an eloquent spiritual teacher.” His work is widely accessible and his many books have been translated into more than twenty languages.

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UCAS to replace personal statement essay with three questions to help disadvantaged people

UCAS surveyed potential applicants about to start their personal statement and found more than three-quarters prefer the new three-question format.

By Claire Gilbody Dickerson, news reporter

Thursday 18 July 2024 03:37, UK

Students applying for university through UCAS will be required to answer three questions under new plans to help support people from disadvantaged backgrounds. 

Under the current system, prospective students have been filling out a free-response essay for their personal statement, which can be up to 4,000 characters long.

But amid concerns the task helps advantaged people who can get support, the essay will, as of September 2025, be replaced with three mandatory questions.

The questions are:

• Why do you want to study this course or subject?

• How have your qualifications and studies helped you to prepare for this course or subject?

• What else have you done to prepare outside of education, and why are these experiences helpful?

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Students seeking to start university in 2026 will be the first to experience the reformed application form, which will allow for the same amount of writing as the essay.

The move comes as UCAS data suggests the gap in university application rates between the most and least advantaged students has widened in the last year.

Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News

Data shows the application rate from the most disadvantaged backgrounds has fallen slightly to 25.4% in England, while the application rate for the most advantaged has marginally increased to 60.7%.

UCAS surveyed potential applicants about to start their personal statement, and found more than three-quarters prefer the new three-question format.

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Previous UCAS research found 79% of students felt that the process of writing the personal statement was difficult to complete without support.

Jo Saxton, chief executive at UCAS, said: "The changes to the personal statement, along with our recent fee waiver for students in receipt of free school meals, are all part of UCAS's contribution to the sector-wide effort to ensure more people from disadvantaged backgrounds can benefit from the life-changing opportunity of higher education."

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Application Prompts for 2024-2025

Your essay and short answer responses help us get to know you.

We’ve selected the following prompts for the UNC-specific portion for the first-year and transfer applications for 2024-2025. We’re proud of the Carolina community and how each student makes us better through their excellence, intellect, and character. In reading your responses, we hope to learn what being a part of the Carolina community would mean to you.

Short answer prompts

We’d like to know how you’d contribute to the Carolina community and ask that you respond to each prompt in up to 250 words.

• Discuss one of your personal qualities and share a story, anecdote, or memory of how it helped you make a positive impact on a community. This could be your current community or another community you have engaged.
• Discuss an academic topic that you’re excited to explore and learn more about in college. Why does this topic interest you? Topics could be a specific course of study, research interests, or any other area related to your academic experience in college.

Common Application essay

You’ll choose one Common Essay prompt to respond to in 250-650 words. These prompts are common to all schools who accept the Common Application, and you can view the prompts here. Choose the option that best helps you answer that question and write an essay of no more than 650 words, using the prompt to inspire and structure your response. Remember: 650 words is your limit, not your goal. Use the full range if you need it, but don’t feel obligated to do so. The Common Application also has an optional section where you’ll have the opportunity to write about how COVID-19 has affected you.

Your responses will be evaluated not only for admission, but also for possible selection for scholarships and other special opportunities. We look forward to learning more about you!

Advice for Your Application

First-year application, transfer application.

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Fact check: Jon Stewart's claim that Marcus Center got moved to RNC's security 'hard zone' is False

Comedian and late-night show host Jon Stewart was set to bring his popular program , “The Daily Show,” to Milwaukee this week during the 2024 Republican National Convention. 

That plan changed when former President Donald Trump, this year’s Republican nominee for president, was shot in the ear at a July 13, 2024 rally in Pennsylvania in an attempted assassination. The next day, “The Daily Show'' sent emails to ticketholders letting them know the show was off “due to logistical issues and the evolving situation in Milwaukee.” 

Stewart opened his July 16, 2024 show by explaining to viewers why he wasn’t in Milwaukee as planned. 

Because of the attempt on Trump’s life, Stewart said, the Marcus Performing Arts Center – where they were supposed to host the show – “was originally located in the ‘soft perimeter,’ they called it, security-wise” but “was shifted, understandably so, to the ‘hard perimeter.’” 

“You really don’t want to be in the ‘hard perimeter,’” he joked afterward, adding that because of the security measures around the theater, his team felt they couldn’t put on their shows effectively. 

But his explanation of those perimeters wasn’t quite right. The boundaries of the perimeter did not change following the assassination attempt, and the Marcus Center isn’t in the hard security zone. 

Let’s take a look at the details. 

Marcus Center isn’t in the credential-only security ‘hard zone’ 

So, where exactly is the “hard zone,” known as such because it requires credentials to enter? 

It surrounds Fiserv Forum, the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena and the Baird Center, the main spaces where the convention will take place. It stretches from West McKinley Avenue on the north to just past West Wisconsin Avenue to the south, encompasses Pere Marquette Park on the east side and stretches past North Lovell Street on the west. 

A wider security footprint, which pedestrians can enter freely but vehicles must enter through a security checkpoint, stretches from the Milwaukee River past North 9th Street and from West Clybourn Street to West Cherry Street. 

The Marcus Center is located on North Water Street, on the other side of the Milwaukee River. Its box office is open by phone only during the week, and ticketing windows are closed, communications and media relations manager Jennifer Han told the Journal Sentinel . Its parking structure is open for parking during the RNC, but is only accessible from Water Street or Edison Street due to a security checkpoint on State Street. 

But although it made some adjustments to accommodate for security, Han confirmed Wednesday that the Marcus Center is not within the security perimeter of the convention.

Although Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said July 15, 2024 that the agency had “strengthened” its security plan for the convention following the attempt on Trump’s life, no specific changes to the security zone were announced. 

Han did say that at the time “The Daily Show” decided to cancel, “there were still questions” about whether the security perimeter would be shifting due to the attempted assassination of Trump in Pennsylvania. So at that time, Stewart and his team might not have known whether their chosen venue would become off-limits to members of the public who bought tickets to the show.

But at the time he was airing his reasons Tuesday night for canceling his Milwaukee trip, there were no changes to the security zone – making his statement off-base. 

Our ruling 

Stewart claimed that the Marcus Performing Arts Center, where his team was set to tape episodes of “The Daily Show” during the RNC, was originally located in the “soft” security perimeter but “was shifted, understandably so, to the ‘hard perimeter.’” 

Though there were questions at the time “The Daily Show” pulled out of the trip to Milwaukee about whether the security perimeter would change, it did not ultimately change. The Marcus Center was not and still is not inside the “hard perimeter” as Stewart claimed. 

We rate this claim False.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “Jon Stewart will host 'The Daily Show' live in Milwaukee on final night of RNC,” June 20, 2024

USA TODAY, “Trump wounded in assassination attempt. Biden calls it 'sick': Here's what we know,” July 13, 2024

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “'The Daily Show' cancels Milwaukee shows, citing 'evolving situation' after assassination attempt,” July 14, 2024

The Daily Show, “Jon Stewart Tackles the RNC and Trump Assassination Attempt,” July 16, 2024

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “Jon Stewart addresses 'The Daily Show's' Milwaukee RNC cancellation in Tuesday episode,” July 17, 2024

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “Fenced-in perimeter, demonstration areas for RNC announced. What to know,” June 21, 2024

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “Lyft drivers, Riverwalk, hospital beds, Marcus Center: Answers to your RNC questions,” July 11, 2024

Email exchange with Jennifer Han, communications and media relations manager, Marcus Performing Arts Center 

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “Republican National Convention security zone, perimeter, map: what we know about potential changes,” July 14, 2024

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Changing Partisan Coalitions in a Politically Divided Nation

1. the partisanship and ideology of american voters, table of contents.

• What this report tells us – and what it doesn’t
• Partisans and partisan leaners in the U.S. electorate
• Party identification and ideology
• Education and partisanship
• Education, race and partisanship
• Partisanship by race and gender
• Partisanship across educational and gender groups by race and ethnicity
• Gender and partisanship
• Parents are more Republican than voters without children
• Partisanship among men and women within age groups
• Race, age and partisanship
• The partisanship of generational cohorts
• Religion, race and ethnicity, and partisanship
• Party identification among atheists, agnostics and ‘nothing in particular’
• Partisanship and religious service attendance
• Partisanship by income groups
• The relationship between income and partisanship differs by education
• Union members remain more Democratic than Republican
• Homeowners are more Republican than renters
• Partisanship of military veterans
• Demographic differences in partisanship by community type
• Race and ethnicity
• Age and the U.S. electorate
• Education by race and ethnicity
• Religious affiliation
• Ideological composition of voters
• Acknowledgments
• Overview of survey methodologies
• The 2023 American Trends Panel profile survey methodology
• Measuring party identification across survey modes
• Adjusting telephone survey trends
• Appendix B: Religious category definitions
• Appendix C: Age cohort definitions

The partisan identification of registered voters is now evenly split between the two major parties: 49% of registered voters are Democrats or lean to the Democratic Party, and a nearly identical share – 48% – are Republicans or lean to the Republican Party.

The partisan balance has tightened in recent years following a clear edge in Democratic Party affiliation during the last administration.

• Four years ago, in the run-up to the 2020 election, Democrats had a 5 percentage point advantage over the GOP (51% vs. 46%).

The share of voters who are in the Democratic coalition reached 55% in 2008. For much of the last three decades of Pew Research Center surveys, the partisan composition of registered voters has been more closely divided.

About two-thirds of registered voters identify as a partisan, and they are roughly evenly split between those who say they are Republicans (32% of voters) and those who say they are Democrats (33%). Roughly a third instead say they are independents or something else (35%), with most of these voters leaning toward one of the parties. Partisan leaners often share the same political views and behaviors as those who directly identify with the party they favor.

The share of voters who identify as independent or something else is somewhat higher than in the late 1990s and early 2000s. As a result, there are more “leaners” today than in the past. Currently, 15% of voters lean toward the Republican Party and 16% lean toward the Democratic Party. By comparison, in 1994, 27% of voters leaned toward either the GOP (15%) or the Democratic Party (12%).

While the electorate overall is nearly equally divided between those who align with the Republican and Democratic parties, a greater share of registered voters say they are both ideologically conservative and associate with the Republican Party (33%) than say they are liberal and align with the Democratic Party (23%).

A quarter of voters associate with the Democratic Party and describe their views as either conservative or moderate, and 14% identify as moderates or liberals and are Republicans or Republican leaners.

The partisan and ideological composition of voters is relatively unchanged over the last five years.

(As a result of significant mode differences in measures of ideology between telephone and online surveys, there is not directly comparable data on ideology prior to 2019.)

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Top UN court says Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal

The United Nations' highest court said on Friday that Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories and settlements there are illegal and should be withdrawn as soon as possible, in its strongest findings to date on the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

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Guest Essay

The Dismissal of the Trump Classified Documents Case Is Deeply Dangerous

By Neal K. Katyal

Mr. Katyal is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center.

Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision to throw out serious national-security criminal charges in the classified documents case against Donald Trump is legally unsupported, ignores decades of precedent and is deeply dangerous.

At a time when Americans need to trust their institutions, her decision to declare that the appointment of the special counsel overseeing the case, Jack Smith, “violates the appointments clause of the United States Constitution” will undermine that trust and the legitimacy of high-level investigations in the eyes of many Americans.

Her decision is quite unlikely to survive the tests of time, or even the appeal Mr. Smith plans to make to the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. But it will further delay a case that has moved so slowly under her direction that it was already virtually certain it would never go to a jury before Election Day.

Judge Cannon asserts that no law of Congress authorizes the special counsel. That is palpably false. The special counsel regulations were drafted under specific congressional laws authorizing them.

Since 1966, Congress has had a specific law , Section 515, giving the attorney general the power to commission attorneys “specially retained under authority of the Department of Justice” as “special assistant[s] to the attorney general or special attorney[s].” Another provision in that law said that a lawyer appointed by the attorney general under the law may “conduct any kind of legal proceeding, civil or criminal,” that other U.S. attorneys are “authorized by law to conduct.”

Yet another part of that law, Section 533, says the attorney general can appoint officials “to detect and prosecute crimes against the United States.” These sections were specifically cited when Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Mr. Smith as a special counsel. If Congress doesn’t like these laws, it can repeal them. But until then, the law is the law.

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