You’re often told by your teacher to churn out as many practice essays as possible in order to get better at essay writing. While practice does make perfect, churning out a million essays isn’t really going to get you anywhere. You need to actually use practice essays in order to make the ‘practice makes perfect’ stand true to its words. If you feel super frustrated with practice essays right now, the following tips listed below will probably help you out a lot!
Table of Content:
Break Down your Essay
In the same way that you would break down a paragraph from a text in class, you need to pretend that your entire essay is a piece of text that you need to analyze and evaluate.
Breaking down your essay will allow you to understand what elements you have included and what is missing. Here is how you can do it:
- If you have access to sample essays, or even essays written by high scoring past students, use them! (And by use I don’t mean copy)
- Lay out your practice essay next to a copy of the sample essay, and compare them. First start by having a pre-annotated copy of your sample essay.
- This pre-annotated sample must identify each sentence and its role:
- For example, the linking sentence must be identified.
- It’s best to annotate the sample essay by yourself so you understand it better.
- Ask your teacher if you are not sure. They will love you for it!
- Highlight each sentence or section of your practice essay that directly contributes to the essay structure.
- Don’t just highlight the intro, body, and conclusion. You need to make sure you identify the topic sentence, the aesthetic feature/stylistic device, the linking sentence etc. You can even use a colour code system.
- Learning to identify these sentences will make you better at using and identifying them subconsciously in your next essay.
This is probably the best technique to truly learn from your essay as you will know what you directly need to improve on for next time. This method is a great way to gain confidence in your writing as well. Although it seems time consuming and does require a bit of patience, I assure you that it is worth your time.
Read and incorporate your feedback
I know this sounds super cliché and repetitive, but it’s crazy how much improvement you can see in your next essay when you seek feedback, and properly apply it.
Quite frequently, students tend to believe that looking at feedback is a waste of time, but the best way to actually improve is to ask someone like your english tutor to read over your essay and provide actionable feedback.
Here is a cool, free marking tool from KIS Academics that you can use for a quick feedback:
Rewrite the Same Essay
Another reason why you might not see improvements in your essays could be because you are unable to identify your weak points. For instance, you may not be that great at integrating audience positioning in your writing.
Acknowledging this is the first step to improvement. I highly recommend developing one skill at a time for immediate improvement. In this circumstance, the best approach would be to rewrite the essay again, with a focus on directly improving your ability to seamlessly integrate audience positioning.
If you’re like me (basically lazy), then you don’t even have to write a whole essay. Just focus directly on your body paragraph since it requires more attention.
Targeted Practice
Usually, students like to stay in their comfort zone by only practising the things they’re good at. However, that is not an effective method to improve. The more exposure you get to different concepts, ideas, and themes, the better your understanding of the overall subject will be.
Plus, a wider understanding of different topics is a great confidence booster. In unseen essay exams, any kind of topic can be asked. Therefore, it's best to push yourself out of your comfort zone, and practise difficult concepts and topics.
Need some help getting out of your comfort zone? A private tutor from KIS Academics can provide personalised tutoring to help you out:
Conclusion
English does not have to be difficult. With the right tools at your fingertips, and the right study method, you can breeze through this subject! For more study tips, check out these KIS Academics articles:
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FAQs
Any general tips to study for English Essays?
- Know your prescribed texts thoroughly: read them multiple times, engage with study guides, and understand key quotes and themes.
- Practice outlining essay structures in 10–15 minutes (as per exam conditions) before writing full essays. This sharpens planning, coherence, and argument focus.
- Regularly attempt past essay questions, use your outlines/plans, and get detailed feedback from teachers or peers to improve your responses.
How do I use practice essays for maximum benefit?
- Write practice essays under timed conditions (40 minutes per essay is standard for most ATAR English exams).
- After writing, self-mark your work or swap with a classmate/teacher for marking. Look for strengths and specific areas to improve (e.g., textual analysis, structure, vocabulary).
- Don’t just memorise essays! Use them as learning tools: adapt their ideas, structure, and evidence to new questions or prompts in the exam.
- Re-draft weaker essays or paragraphs, focusing on question relevance and deeper analysis every time.
What common mistakes should I avoid?
- Not answering the question directly, using off-topic information, or repeating memorised essays not tailored to the prompt.
- Quoting texts without analysis: go beyond “what” happens and explain “how”/“why” it supports your thesis.
- Poor time management: running out of time on essays due to not planning or allocating time for each paragraph.
Written by KIS Academics Tutor for QCE English, Niranjana Manu Soori Pillai. Niranjana is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Clinical Science at Macquarie University in Sydney and is very experienced with simplifying English and making it a likeable subject for students. You can view Niranjana’s profile here and request her as a tutor.
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