Model Answers

A model answer shows what a full answer to a question looks like: how it is organised, how much detail it gives, and where it puts the point it is making. It is a demonstration, not something to be learnt by heart.

Used well, one model answer can change how a student writes every answer afterwards. Used badly - memorised and reproduced - it costs marks, because examiners recognise a memorised answer at once and because the question in front of you is never quite the question it answered.

The order matters more than anything else on this page: attempt, then compare. A model answer read before your own attempt replaces your thinking instead of improving it.

• Write your own answer first, even a poor one, even an incomplete one. The gaps in your attempt are what the model is going to explain.
• Then compare structure, not wording. Where does the model make its point? What does it do with evidence? How long is the introduction really? Those are transferable; its sentences are not.
• Mark the difference in one line. Mine retold the story; the model argued a point. That line is worth more than rewriting the model out.
• Answer the same question again a week later, without looking at either. What survives is what you learnt.
• Never learn an answer by heart for an essay question. Learn the shape, the evidence and the argument, and write it fresh.