Essay length for section B?

Tee AreBee

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Sep 17, 2025, 4:05:21 AMSep 17

to VAPS VCE Network (The Victorian Association for Philosophy in Schools)

Hi team.

My students are wondering what sort of word length they should be aiming for in Section B.

My suggestion is an intro conclusion, one paragraph each on the philosophers, and one on evaluation, with case study weaved throughout. A very concise 400 words should be a rough guide for 40 mins time allocation in the exam?

I'm mainly going off the assessment supplement (Symes and Etherington) and they have a 1000 word student sample for a 100 minute assessment task.

What are people's thoughts?

James Watt

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Sep 17, 2025, 4:30:41 AMSep 17

to Tee AreBee, VAPS VCE Network (The Victorian Association for Philosophy in Schools)

Suggesting to mine that they aim to do the extended responses in 15min each (about how long they got last exam structure for extended responses, if the mark:min ratio was applied proportionally there). This would leave an hour for essay writing.

It's a disproportionate amount of time considering the marks, but well-argued essays are harder to do well. The model essays in recent examination reports float between around 700–1100 words. It's a tough task, the timed essay I tried to write earlier in the year wouldn't make the cut!

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Lenny Robinson

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Sep 17, 2025, 5:35:33 AMSep 17

to James Watt, Tee AreBee, VAPS VCE Network (The Victorian Association for Philosophy in Schools)

Hi,

400 words for an exam essay is most definitely too short. Students couldn’t hope to meet the assessment criteria in that amount of words. Between 750 to 1,000 words is what students should be looking at. A student needs at least 150 words to step the reader through a philosophical argument and don’t forget the students need to be able to do two philosophers as well as provide substantial evaluation and argue to a justified position-implying the conclusion will show how the position is arrived at.

Lenny

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Subject: Re: Essay length for section B?

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Tee AreBee

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Sep 17, 2025, 7:32:33 PMSep 17

to Lenny Robinson, James Watt, VAPS VCE Network (The Victorian Association for Philosophy in Schools)

Thanks for the responses team much appreciated.

So James you’re suggesting less time per mark on the short answer?

My understanding is short answer would take up 80 min and essay 40 min with the mark ratio.

Cheers, Tristan.

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angusjamesclark

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Sep 19, 2025, 2:56:51 AMSep 19

to VAPS VCE Network (The Victorian Association for Philosophy in Schools)

I don't have many students who can do a 10-mark question in 15min flat. It feels like it's getting harder to get them down to 20min, to be honest. I've told mine to try to get their 10-markers down to somewhere in-between (around 17min) to allow (ideally) 50mins for the essay. It's not strictly 'balanced' but as Lenny said, to score even 14 or 15 (or above) takes at least 750 words. I know this is a timeless lament, but I feel they really are getting slower at writing...