The Student Room Group
Reply 1
Pages or sides? I tend to write 3 sides for a decent A in PYA4, and 4 for a decent A in PYA5.

But as you said, it isn't quantity, it's quality. It also depends how big (or small) your handwriting is.
Reply 2
Hev456
Pages or sides? I tend to write 3 sides for a decent A in PYA4, and 4 for a decent A in PYA5.

But as you said, it isn't quantity, it's quality. It also depends how big (or small) your handwriting is.



Jesus you write a lot!

For PYA4 you get roughly 30 mins a question and i always write around about 2 sides of A4. Ive done about 6 essays for my teacher all roughly the same length and ive got 20 odd on nearly them all. 23/24 on one, so id say about 2 sides is normal.

How you can write 3 sides in 30 mins is beyond me! lol
Reply 3
ryan_forest
Jesus you write a lot!

For PYA4 you get roughly 30 mins a question and i always write around about 2 sides of A4. Ive done about 6 essays for my teacher all roughly the same length and ive got 20 odd on nearly them all. 23/24 on one, so id say about 2 sides is normal.

How you can write 3 sides in 30 mins is beyond me! lol


Aye, my wrist is killing me by the end of it, and i've got to write 3 next tuesday :eek:

I would love to read one of your essays, just to see how you condense it.
Reply 4
Hev456
Aye, my wrist is killing me by the end of it, and i've got to write 3 next tuesday :eek:

I would love to read one of your essays, just to see how you condense it.




I dont think i could physically write 3 sides in 30 mins X3 especially when your needing to think about what to put as well.
I always read over mine time and time again as im writing it for some reason. On the one i got 23/24 on it was about psychological theories of aggression and i wrote about 4 lines over 2 pages. But on most i dont even do 2 pages, i always seem to be about 3/4 lines off completing the second page.

All of my essays are hand written otherwise i would have sent you one to have a look at.
You've actually made me think now if my teacher knows what shes doing when shes marking it! lol

Whats the guidline roughly for a 24 mark essay? I always seem to do about 500 words roughly.

Also how many words do you fit on a line? I usually get about 9 roughly.
Reply 5
I just checked my text book and on most questions it says a "good answer" would have around 600 words. Well im falling a little short of that.
Maybe my teacher is being a little generous with the marks.??

Ah well so long as i can achieve at least 18 in each of the 3 questions ill end up with an A on the paper.
Reply 6
ryan_forest
I just checked my text book and on most questions it says a "good answer" would have around 600 words. Well im falling a little short of that.
Maybe my teacher is being a little generous with the marks.??

Ah well so long as i can achieve at least 18 in each of the 3 questions ill end up with an A on the paper.


I know 17/18 is the borderline for an A, doesn't seem that much but when i write 3 sides and still only get about 18/19 it makes me wonder if my teacher is the one being a little harsh, rather than yours being soft.

I also tend to get about 8-9 words on a line as well, should be interesting to see how we both do won't it? :smile: Only thing i'm worried about is time, oh and remembering everything of course.
Reply 7
I did the exam in Jan and got a good mark and only did one-and-a-quarter to one-and-a-half sides per essay. Depends how concise you are I think.

I have about 10-12 words per line.
Reply 8
I write actually loads in the exam.. I think in Jan for PYA4 i finished the 12pg answer booklet.. I don't usually think in my exams about what to write..because all the questions are usually the same type so i plan them and then know what to write in the exam!

I read you're meant to be able to do 800 words in 40mins
Reply 9
finished a 12 page answer booklet in 30 mins :O
I probably write about 2 and a half pages for each Q, depends on how much I know about it!! I didn't write a lot in Jan but still got 77/90 so hopefully I'll get a similar mark for the one in 13 days.
For PYA4 in january I didn't even do a complete page for each question, completely thought I'd failed. Results in spring.. A. Ridiculous, I just hope I'm that lucky for PYA5.
WTF, that is mad, you got an A without doing a full page for each question! Are you being serious? Your writing must be really small!

For my 3 essays on tuesday, one was around 2 nd half pages and the other 2 were around 2 pages. So lets see what i get!
Reply 13
for unit 5 im writing about 700 words. About 3 pages or 4. Hopefully ill be ok i fit like 7-8 words on a line.
For PYA5 ill probably do about 3 pages each question.
I remember having a dizzy moment in my AS exam where I thought I had to answer all the questions on the entire paper (including the ones that we werent studying:rolleyes: )

Anyways I got in a panic and only spent quarter of the time answering and wrote only 3/4 for an 18 marker and I still got a B. Im not sure it really matters exept if you have no idea about a question. I think thats why they advise you to write loads.

If you know your ****** you can get away with stating your case confidently and bluntly:smile: .

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