Types of questions

Whatever your argument is, you have to back up your ideas with examples from your research.

'Quotation + Discuss' questions

One of the most common types of essay question is a direct quotation followed by a general task word or phrase like ‘Discuss' or ‘To what extent do you agree?'.

When answering these questions, the most important thing is to work out your argument – what you think about the ideas in the quotation. Are they right, or wrong? Is there more than one side to the issue? This type of question lets you argue both sides of an argument, as long as you still come to a clear conclusion.

'Double-barrelled' questions

‘Double-barrelled' essay questions contain several issues that you need to answer separately. It's easy to miss parts of these questions – especially in an exam – but you have to answer each part in order to pass.

One way to deal with these questions is to break them into smaller, simpler questions. This makes it easy to see if you need to discuss more than one idea, and gives your research some clear goals.

Double-barrelled questions also challenge you to find relationships between different issues, and show your understanding of how they affect each other.

General questions

General questions often use task words like ‘discuss', and ask broad questions that could apply to almost any topic. This means you have to decide on the scope of your essay, and build your argument from scratch.

The good thing about general questions is that they allow you to pick a topic you know about and really show what you can do.

Specific questions

Specific questions are usually quite long and clearly outline what you need to cover in your essay. They're often easier to answer because they tell you exactly what to do, but they aren't very flexible – you have to be able to do everything in the question, so there can't be any gaps in your knowledge.

For example

‘Australia's relationship with the United States continues to be in Australia's national interest.' Discuss.

Possible arguments:

I agree completely - yes, it's a good idea for Australia to have close ties to the USA
I disagree completely - no, it's a bad idea to have close ties to the USA
I'm sitting on the fence - this is a complex issue and there are good and bad things about having close ties to the USA.

Whichever position you choose, you'll need to provide three or four examples supporting your argument, and evidence to back them up.

See an example

‘During World War I, deep divisions in Australian society were clearly revealed and these could not be resolved.' To what extent do you agree?

This is really asking you to answer two questions:

Did World War I expose divisions in Australian society? If so, what were these divisions?

and

Could these divisions be resolved by people in Australia? If so, how were they resolved?

For example

‘World War II saw many people question old beliefs and argue for change.' To what extent do you agree?

A good essay would talk about both issues raised in this question and talk about how they impact on each other.

Firstly, you'd write about whether WWII made people question their beliefs and if so, how their beliefs changed. Then you could talk about whether questioning old beliefs led people to argue for change.

For example

Were there any winners in the conflict that you studied?

This is a History question, so topics you could write about include:

The American Civil War
Colonisation in Australia
World War I or II.

The key to answering this question well is exploring the idea of what it means to ‘win', and whether there are ever any real winners when societies come into conflict. The question is broad so you could answer it no matter what period of history you studied.

For example

'Analyse one document, image or quotation. Your response should include’:

• identification of the attitudes reflected in the representation. Use evidence from the representation to support your comments

• evaluation of the degree to which the representation reflects attitudes about the issue that you have studied, at that particular point in time

• analysis of changing attitudes in relation to this issue. To support your comments, use evidence from the other point in time that you have studied.'

This question tells you exactly what you have to do. A basic 5-paragraph essay plan for this question would be:

Introduction - What's the document/image/quotation you've chosen? What's it about (in about a sentence)? And what period/topic does it relate to?

Paragraph 1 - What are the ideas and attitudes in the document/image/quotation ie. what is it about in more detail (first bullet point)?

Paragraph 2 - Does the document/image/quotation you chose reflect common attitudes at the time? Why? Why not? (second bullet point)

Paragraph 3 - What did people think about the issue in the document/image/quotation you chose and what was happening at the time to shape and/or change those issues (third bullet point)?

Conclusion - What does the document/image/quotation tell us about the society of the time and why is it important?

See an example

What is the mind?

Where on earth do you start with this? Since this is a Philosophy question, you would pick a few philosophers and talk about what they think the mind is. You could look at:

philosophers who disagree
philosophers who agree
modern theories of the mind...and so on

The only limits are time and word count, as well as making sure you answer the question. As long as you explain the choices you made in your introduction, you're okay.

See an example

‘Australia's relationship with the United States continues to be in Australia's national interest.' Discuss.'

Possible arguments:

I agree completely - Yes, it's a good for Australia to have close ties to the USA because they're a global power and they can protect us from terrorists, it's good for our economy...etc.

I disagree completely - No, it's a bad idea to have close ties to the USA because they keep starting wars with people and we should just stay out of it, they have a terrible human rights record, they ignore the UN...etc

I'm sitting on the fence - This is a complex issue and there are good things and bad things about having close ties to the USA

Depending on which position you choose you then have to come up with three or four points to support your argument. Your introduction describes what your argument is and then you write about each point in a new paragraph in the body of the essay. Your conclusion recaps your main points and drives home your argument.

Remember, whatever your argument is, you must be able to back up your ideas with examples from your research or study.

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Germaine Greer & The Female Eunuch

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