Practice really does make perfect - students attended support sessions and completed a number of essays attained higher marks that other students who did not practice as much. Many achieved full marks in the essay questions last year!
Effective planning is critical to ensure that your essay flows smoothly through a range of relevant area while maintaining the depth that is required to score highly
Use technical vocabulary accurately - if you chuck words that you think are relevant into your essay without really knowing if they are right you will be found out! If you use terms inappropriately it will have a negative impact on your marks.
Avoid the 'Attenborough effect' - as much as we love him, and we really do love him - the range of nature and popular science programs has resulted in many students using terms that they have gleaned from documentaries. These terms are not necessarily the terms that you should be using and the descriptions and explanations used in these programs, while fascinating and suitably judged for the audience, are not to the level of detail required in A Level science.
More to follow!
Use this as the cover sheet for every practice essay question
How to maximise performance in the 25 mark essay:
Use this as the cover sheet for every practice essay question
This is a series of essay questions from old specifications
This is a guide with a range of example essay questions in
A range of example essays are here we will use these to act as guides for how to improve your essays
A range of mind-maps - this is an example of how you can plan your own essays