Final Exam

A final exam is the last assessment in a course of academic study.  It is frequently a comprehensive exam, meaning it covers aspects of the entire course.

Final exams often feature a writing component.  This writing component sometimes takes the form of short answer questions, in which a student is asked to respond to an open-ended inquiry in a paragraph or group of paragraphs.  More frequently, final exams require an essay or set of essays.  An article is a brief text that presents the writer's individual, informed thoughts on a specific topic.  Such compositions are common on final exams because they require learners to integrate various types of knowledge in one, synthesized text.

An essay written for a final exam will be quite different from a formal essay a pupil writes outside of class.  This is because a final exam essay must be composed within the span of the allotted test time.  Most formal essay assignments are intended to demonstrate a student's thoughtful consideration and original thinking on a certain topic.  Final exam reports should also demonstrate thoughtful consideration and original thinking, but because they must be fully executed in a brief amount of time, they are typically shorter than normal essays and often more informative than they are insightful.

To adequately and successfully complete the types of reports found on final exams, the student should spend some of his allotted time planning his assignment.  The prompt should be read carefully multiple times.  It is imperative to know exactly what the prompt is asking in order to respond to all of its components.  Next, the student should devote a few minutes to creating a concise outline.  A final exam will not allow time for a detailed plan of the report; however, a general idea of the points the writer wishes to address and the evidence that will be presented will assist greatly in the composition of a fully-developed article.

The student should present his or her thesis, which should be in direct response to the question prompt, in the first paragraph.  The thesis should identify the writer's position on the topic and briefly describe the three or four points that he or she will make in defending that position.

The body of the document should follow the plan outlined in the thesis by devoting a paragraph to each of the three or four points mentioned in the thesis statement.  Each paragraph should begin with a topic sentence that defines the point being made, and then proceed to present examples of that point.

The essay conclusion should not be a summary of the body of the document, but should comment on how the point and evidence presented in the report further or bolster the position the writer has taken.

Finally, the student should reserve a few minutes for proofreading the report for grammar and style errors.

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