The synoptic essay question for AQA comes in paper 3 as the final question - question number 7 and it is worth 25 marks.
So why do teachers only start teaching their students how to write the essay late in year 2?
To be honest - it’s not their fault. The old syllabus for AQA required you to know all the content (or nearly all) before writing the 25 marker essay, however; this is no longer true for the new 2015 syllabus.
When do I start teaching the 25 marker?
In January of year 1. Why?
Because...
1. Students need to learn how to structure their paragraphs
And this structure is very specific
2. By this time, you actually have learnt enough content to put into the essay.
Unlike the old essay, it doesn’t matter where the topics come from - they can come from year 1 or year 2 or both.
3. In the exam you will only have 40 mins (plus 5 mins planning) to write the full essay.
Can you imagine writing 4 topics and 8 paragraphs in 40 minutes? That is 5 minutes per paragraph and 10 minutes per topic. This is the minimum requirement for the essay.
4. The first time students write their essay, 90% of the time they will get between 5 and 12 marks.
This is because they are not used to writing essays (unless they are doing an essay subject at A level) and they have probably never written a biological/scientific essay before.
The key is - PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.
And practice requires TIME! Time to understand the structure; time to get used to writing in a specific way and time to get your marks up with practice!
Not only that, they need to be able to write in the correct A level language, which they have never done before.
Furthermore, they need to learn how to write the importance of each topic and link it to the theme of the title, which will always be, ‘The importance of theme’.
What do you want to be thinking when you’re about to sit your exam?
Imagine going into your paper 3 exam and feeling so confident with the 25 mark essay!
This is where I want to get you…. 25 marks is a lot of marks and you don’t want to lose these marks.
If you’re interested in getting those top marks, check out my exam prep course where I will spend 3 weeks just working on the essay question!
START EARLY SO YOU CAN GET THE PRACTICE!!
If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to email me and do let me know if there’s anything particular you want me to write about.