I am a fourteen year old student taking Geography and I would like a
listing of websites with tips and guidelines on how to answer five to
seven mark structured essay questions. Thank you.

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Request for Question Clarification by skermit-ga on 06 Jun 2002 08:40 PDT

Could you post a sample question or two so that the researchers know
what sort of questions you'll be asked? By all means don't post all of
'em to be answered, then you'll learn nothing! Just give us a
direction so we can better direct your answer.

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Request for Question Clarification by xemion-ga on 06 Jun 2002 10:55 PDT

How about something like this?

http://www.geog.umn.edu/courses/1301/testtips.html

Can you better define what you're looking for?  Thanks!

Hi astrophysics,

This is a very good question and basically the way I'm going to answer
it is: An essay is an essay is an essay... no matter what the subject
matter may be - in order to write a successful essay, these are the
tips and pointers you must follow.

Here are 2 websites that will supply you with all the general
direction you will need to write an excellent essay.

Clue Words in Essay Questions
[ http://www.und.edu/dept/ULC/rf-clues.htm ]

"Every essay question contains certain words called clue words that
tell you exactly what to do. Clue words are extremely important in
essay questions."

::snip::

"try to remember the six most often used clue words:

CONTRAST 
COMPARE 
CRITICIZE 
DEFINE 
DESCRIBE 
LIST"

And, another website that will give you some great guidelines:
Answering Essay Questions
[ http://www.troyst.edu/writingcenter/handouts/answering_essay_questions.html
]

"Essay test questions are designed to provide students with the
opportunity to present information that displays their understanding
of the topic as well as their clear thinking and effectiveness with
the written language. This type of test question can have positive
results if you are familiar with several stages of the writing
process."

Good Luck to you,
tlspiegel-ga

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Clarification of Answer by tlspiegel-ga on 06 Jun 2002 11:34 PDT

Hi again,
My Google keyword search:
- "clue words in essay questions", and "answering essay questions" -

Hope this helps,
tlspiegel-ga

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Clarification of Answer by tlspiegel-ga on 06 Jun 2002 20:42 PDT

Hello again,

I've been able to locate the following information for you.  Two
template examples are illustrated in Section D and E.

The entire article is:
Essay Technique by Tim Crocker & Ian Ground
[ http://cll.ncl.ac.uk/distrib/essays.htm ]


"The first section of what follows is designed to give you help with
preparing for your essay, and getting started. The second section
provides you with two templates which you can use to help you
structure your writing."


Basic Essay Structure  (this is section D)
[ http://cll.ncl.ac.uk/distrib/essays.htm#partd ]


Detailed Essay Structure - example from Philosophy  (and this is
section E)
[ http://cll.ncl.ac.uk/distrib/essays.htm#parte ]

I hope this will help you,
tlspiegel-ga

"An essay is an essay is an essay..."
I *do* know that such questions still end up being somewhat like
essays (and that I will end up doing these questions in future), but
the tips are either general or not suitable for me at this point.

Please refer to http://www.geocities.com/gfllfg/source-based.doc,
which helps answer history souce-based questions.

Hi astrophysics,

I wasn’t sure what you meant by the phrase “mark structured essay
questions” but I recalled reading about a trend toward automating the
grading of essays and wondered if maybe this is what you’re asking
about. In case it is, I found the following sites that might be
helpful to you.

http://webtools.cityu.edu.hk/news/newslett/automatedessaygrading.htm
Automated Essay Grading
This newsletter article provides a collection of comments and links on
the trends and technologies available for automating the marking of
essays.

http://led.gcal.ac.uk/ciced/Ch24.html
WRITING AND USING EXTENDED-ANSWER QUESTIONS
This is in interesting article written by a professor for fellow
instructors on how to use a extended answer questions which he
classifies into:
 -- Unstructured-essay questions
 -- Structured-essay questions
 -- Short-notes questions

Wishing you success with all your essay assignments.

czh

I was planning to confirm this question, but didn't think it would
need a confirmation.

Structured essay questions are typically questions like "Describe how
XXX technique may improve the agricultural situation in Africa". They
are based on (but not directly covered in the syllabus) contextual
knowledge, and answers are neither too short (as in a short answer
format or 3-4 lines) and not too long (as in full-blown essay form).

If I am not wrong, O Level Geography papers typically grade such
questions from five to seven marks, and essay questions twelve to
twenty.

I am looking for sites that give a basic 'template' on how to write
the answers for such questions.

Ah, sorry for the misunderstanding--the questions I am talking about
are not exactly 'essays', but they are 'extended' questions that need
more elaboration than the usual short answer questions. I do have a
Microsoft Word document that deals with the answers of (not exactly
related) history source-based questions, for a better idea--please see
http://www.geocities.com/gfllfg/source-based.doc.