Aqa unit 3 essays and the speaking exam debate

Hi!
I was wondering whether someone could give me some tips on writing the essay in the exam. I seem to get As for the essays when I do it for homework but I always get Cs for it when I did it for my mocks. I don't know what I'm doing wrong! Can someone please tell me how I can achieve a higher grade?😊
Also, I have a speaking exam soon and I find the debate really hard to do and I lose marks. Please can someone tell me how to defend my point please😄

Thanks! 😊

Essay writing

The discrepancy in grades could be due to a number of things. You need to look at the C grade essays and work out where the weaknesses are compared with the A grade essays. You should be looking at: relevant content; organisation of ideas; range of vocabulary and idiomatic expression; range of grammatical structures. You should also be thinking about the time issue - do you spend a lot of time on your non-exam essays? If so, you would be well advised to practise writing essays in exam conditions. Have a critical look at your work and at how you work, do a bit of analysis about that and PM me if you need further help. You don't say what language you are studying but these techniques are the same across all languages.

Debate

This issue is normally due to the fact that students don't have the facts and their opinions at their fingertips. I.e. - preparation! For each topic, you need to know some hard facts and you need to know what position you are going to take in the exam (which doesn't actually have to reflect your own opinion). You can make things a lot easier for yourself if you choose a strong position because that's easier to prepare - eg totally against euthanasia, or totally for the death sentence, whatever.

Make sure you have some useful phrases handy for countering arguments - "I don't agree, because ..." "That may be the case, but ..." and for supporting your own: "It is obvious that..."; "Everyone agrees that ..." etc.