The Essay-type examination is one of the most practical of all composition assignments. By requiring a student to compose in one or more paragraphs an answer to a specific problem, it calls forth most of the skills which the composition course tries to develop. It tests the student's ability to read accurately and to write purposefully within a rigid time limit. It is thus as much a test of thinking and writing ability as of knowledge. Failure to recognize this fact usually leads to unsatisfactory answers and poor grades.
Instructors frequently complain that the worst student writing is done on essay-type examinations.
Of course the pressure under which examinations are written is not conductive to stylistic finish. But the chief weaknesses of examination answers is not that they are ungrammatical or awkward but that they are not composed at all. Recommended Procedure Listed below are ten recommendations for taking an essay-type examination. College instructors do no grade on neatness. An occasional erasure or revision between the lines is not objectionable.