On quantity

florian_b @ Flickr

You'll often hear people asking each other how many pages they wrote in the exam as they exit, as if pages were somehow related to marks (even if that were true it would be confounded by writing size.)

I think you could probably write a pretty sweet answer on two sides (if your handwriting were on the smallish size). I know you could write a terrible answer six sides long.

The point is length doesn't matter; it's how you use it - how you write it - that counts.

I say this because there is often the temptation to try and fill the pages out of some anxiety that the marker will be unimpressed by a pithy offering.

The marker will be unimpressed by a bloated, descriptive, unfocused answer. So, write a concise, persuasive, focused answer and completely forget about how many pages you fill in an exam.