15 + 120
the whole real exam: 15 minutes planning time, then 120 minutes to write intro, three body paragraphs, conclusion, check
Home › Week 9
The timed half-essay
"Everything you built, on the clock, once."
Yes, this week runs a little long, about 25 minutes instead of 20, and that is on purpose. It is the one planned overrun of the term, because the writing itself needs the clock to run honestly. We steal the extra 5 from maths this once.
The 25 minutes
One question, one clock, half an essay
You pick an unseen question from the question bank, one you have not planned before. Then you write an intro and one body paragraph, timed. No pausing, no polishing as you go. This is the dress rehearsal for the front third of the real thing.
Warm in · about 2 min
Pick and decode
I hand you a question from the bank. You name its shape and circle the invitation word, the way reading the question taught you. Then the clock starts.
The work · about 18 min
Write, timed
- 2 to 3 minutes: scribble a plan-in-three
- About 6 minutes: the intro, thesis included
- About 9 minutes: one body paragraph with a lever moment
- Pens down when the timer says so, mid-sentence is fine
Rough day? Plan plus intro only, 10 minutes, and call it done. Timed practice on a flat day teaches the wrong lesson.
Close it · about 5 min
Mark your own
You mark it, not me. Run the self-mark checklist below against the spine, out loud, and tell me the one thing you would fix. That is the whole close.
The self-mark
Three kind questions, one per pillar
Marking your own work is a skill, and the trick is to be honest without being cruel. One question per pillar. A yes is a win. A no is just next week's job.
- Ideas 18Does the intro actually answer the question that was asked, not the question you wished for?
- Structure 16Does the paragraph prove one reason, just one, and link back to the thesis?
- Craft 11Is there one real lever moment, a quote embedded and then analysed, not just dropped?
If a no shows up: that is the checklist doing its job, not you failing. The lever move lives at essay.html, quote to analysis, and the mark breakdown is at essay.html, where the marks live if you want to see exactly what each pillar rewards.
The timing maths
Why 25 minutes is the right size
The real exam is 15 minutes of planning time then 2 hours of writing. An intro plus one body paragraph is roughly the first third of the written piece, so about 40 minutes of exam writing time. Today you get 25. That is deliberately faster than exam pace: train tight, and the real thing feels roomy.
~40 min
roughly the first third of the writing: the intro and the first body paragraph
25 min
today's version of that first third, deliberately above exam pace on purpose, tight now means roomy on the day
On your phone this week
Nothing. On purpose.
Recovery week, no phone task
You just did the hardest single thing this term asks of you: real writing on a real clock. So this week the phone stays in your pocket. Rest is part of the training. Week 10 picks it back up.
The spine
Where this week's marks live
Ideas 18 · Structure 16 · Craft 11 of 45, all three this week
plus genre conventions and role/audience
Same 3 things, a different costume each time. This week the costume is the clock.
from Nat
Whatever comes out today is allowed to be rough. Timed writing always reads worse to the person who wrote it than it does to a marker. The point is not a perfect half-essay, it is finding out what your hands do under a clock, while there is still time to adjust.