Written work for Oxford uni

I have been looking through my work in year 12 recently, and I'm looking to apply for History at Oxford Uni in October. This requires a piece of written work as part of my application under 2000 words. I've realised that I'm in no way concise, and none of my standalone responses (contained essays, and not shorter ones between two factors, for example) are under the 2000 word limit. Would anyone recommend writing a new response as part of my revision next year in part of the course I'm interested in, or sticking to an exam answer from a different type of question from year 12? I do OCR, and this would be the type of question to choose between 2 factors, a 10 mark question, instead of a longer more traditional essay. The new essay I would write would be in this style and marked, and not entirely for my application.

Thank you in advance for any advice.

They will not be at all liberal with the wordcount.

Yeah, they aren't. Tutorial essays will have word counts, and you're expected to be able to write a good essay without going over them. It's an important skill, and even if you got special permission to go over slightly, it doesn't look good on you as an applicant.

As for the type of work they're looking for, they're quite flexible. They can't be super specific while also asking for normal school work. My advice is to try and write a more traditional, longer essay, with a strong focus on analysis. This is what you'll be doing at Oxford, and it's good to show that you're prepared for it.

I've always been quite concise so it sometimes went the other way for me, but for both the application and tutorials I recall there being a slight over-and under-allowance for the wordcount? I don't remember the percentage but for longer essays it was a few hundred words either side. Either way I didn't do history specifically, so it could be different for different departments