Rodin's Thinker
or
This is a copy of the famous bronze. If you would like to see a crap 3-D
rotating version, click here. And those anoraks amongst you who prefer
Lego to bronze could try here. But whichever way you take it, he is locked
into thinking.
And that is how to fail philosophy exams. Time spent thinking about how
to express your thoughts on paper is time wasted. And, with one caveat
(noted below), time spent thinking how to structure your material is time
wasted. All of that should have been dealt with at the revision stage. We
present our simple 9-step programme for getting it right:
Word Limit
Before you begin practising exam essays, you need to know your own
personal word-limit, namely how much you can write in the time allowed.
So: copy out something (anything) atthinking speed, as if the words flowed
from your mind through your pen, for ten minutes. Then multiply by 4
(for prelims essays you should allow 5 minutes of thinking time) or by 5
(for finals essays you should budget for ten minutes of thinking time).
This will give you your personal limit, and in exam practice you will write
essays up to that limit. Remember, philosophy exams are not a speed test,
or a volume test.. They are a clarity test.
Given a store of points superbly made, you have the makings of superb
essays under a variety of titles. All you need on top is:
Structure
There is a very simple way to think about structure in philosophy
essays. Any piece of philosophy argues a case - that's what philosophers do.
And so the structure of the essay will be the structure of the argument.
Full stop.
Think of your task as that of persuading an intelligent, philosophically
trained (but not necessarily philosophically well-informed-on-the-topic-inquestion) audience of your view on the question in hand. And work out the
flow of argument you would use to persuade them. Of course, this requires
that you know your view on the matter. Which requires in turn that you
actually have a view on the matter. Which leads to
SOME VERY IMPORTANT ADVICE: Don't answer questions upon
which you do not have a settled view. Authorial Voice is important here.
Authors have things to say. And if you haven't got anything to say, it will
come across in your prose. Loud and clear.
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Opening Paragraph
Whisper it only in safe and secluded places, but examiners are human
beings like the rest of us. Well, like some of the rest of us, at least. I was
forgetting John Redwood. For them, as for us, first impressions make
a big difference. Inscribe this in letters two feet high on your wall:
You don't get a second chance to make a first impression
Which means that the most important part of any essay is the opening
paragraph. And the most important element of your script as a whole is
the opening paragraph of your first essay. So practice your opening
paragraphs. It matters.
Make your opening paragraphs crisp, clear and punchy. No flannel. No
waffle. No clumsy constructions. No mis-spellings.
The authorial voice should be of one in command of the material. It should
directly engage with the reader: no passive or impersonal constructions,
for they distance the author from the reader; no questions left hanging, for
they depower the author.
If possible, your opening paragraph will exhibit a propensity for
formalism where appropriate. (See also Oofle Dust).
For examples of good and bad, click here.
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Closing Paragraph
And the same applies to your closing paragraph. For that is the second most
salient matter in an examiner's mind. We look at your opening paragraph, to see
where you think you are going. We look at your closing paragraph, to see
where you think you have ended up. And then we look at the rest of the essay,
to see if the considerations therein deployed do indeed link starting-point to
ending-point.
So don't
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Authorial Voice
Vital. If you have the right voice, you can get away with murder. Your essay
will sound like the right stuff, even if it is intellectually deficient on closer
scrutiny. And if you have the wrong voice, you will have to display a most
impressive understanding of your material to correct the powerful initial
impression
Oofle Dust
T
Hitler
And finally, a most useful piece of advice: avoid Hitler.
I quote from a recent examiner's report on the Ethics paper:
"The name most often mentioned in candidates' scripts was that of Kant, who
featured in 97% of scripts. The second most often mentioned name was that
of Hitler, who appeared in 91% of scripts. Almost all of this latter group
would have been crude moral relativists if they had not suddenly thought of
Hitler halfway through their answers"