Essay exams: how to answer ‘To what extent…’

Essay-based examinations can be some of the most daunting that students have to face. Not only do you have to learn all the facts and information. You also have to work out, under time pressure, how to present them in a clear and well-structured essay that addresses the requirements of the question.

Many students struggle to produce a sophisticated essay format under exam conditions. Instead of writing to their usual standard, they panic and just scribble down all the information they know on the subject. Sound like you?

You can earn a lot of extra marks in these exams, if you know how to answer the question specifically and producing a well-structured essay. So it’s Oxbridge Essays to the rescue, with a series of custom essay formats that you can use to answer any one of these common exam question types: ‘Compare and Contrast’, ‘To What Extent’, ‘How does the Writer’, ‘For and Against’ and ‘Close Reference’.

It's really common to see ‘To what extent…’ essay questions in an exam. They come up time and time again, across a range of different subjects.

Why are they so popular? Well, this type of question allows the student to show a variety of skills. Firstly, the depth of their knowledge on the given subject. Secondly, students can display independent judgement by analysing the importance of different pieces of information.

There are two principle elements that a 'To what extent...' essay question should include.

The first is detailed source evidence and extra material, to support your argument. Let's use an example essay question here to demonstrate. In a history exam, the essay might ask: “To what extent was the character of Charles II responsible for his problems with parliament?".

The student is being asked to do two things here: to show an in-depth knowledge of Charles II's character, and to analyse which specific aspects of his character may have affected his political relationships.

Incorporating detailed evidence will always demonstrate how much you know of the subject matter, and will help to support the angle and strength of your argument.

The second element is linking to wider issues, topics or arguments that support your point of view. For example, in this particular history essay, a student could refer to other historical events that were responsible for problems between Charles II and parliament, but which were not related to his character.

Drawing on other factors in this way helps to increase the significance of your argument, and will round out your essay fully.

These two elements of analysis – including detailed evidence and linking to wider ideas – can be used to answer any 'To what extent...' question. In other words, when answering this type of essay question, keep the general structure the same and change the the appropriate information in the right places.

Remember also to analyse your evidence as you weave your argument. Do this by answering questions like, 'how significant is your evidence in supporting your argument?' and, 'what are the potential weaknesses that this evidence carries?'.

A custom essay designed to answer a ‘To what extent...’ question should look something like this:

As with all essays, the introduction needs to briefly answer the question. However with a 'To what extent...' question, the introduction will usually, to some degree, agree with the assertion of the essay question.

For example, going back to our history essay question above, the introduction would need to acknowledge that to some extent, the character of Charles II was responsible for his problems with parliament.

An introduction should then go on to highlight the importance of taking into account other aspects which also impact the topic of the essay.

These are dedicated to proving, with detailed evidence, that the assumption stated in the question is true, explaining how and why. So in the history essay, these paragraphs would detail key aspects of Charles’s character that negatively affected his relationship with parliament and show proof of their impact.

This recaps the important points you have made in the first two paragraphs and goes on to say that, on the other hand, it cannot be said that the question is completely true, as there is an extent to which other aspects also come into play.

These paragraphs show the extent to which the assumption of the question is not true.

This can be achieved in two ways. Firstly, by showing flaws in its logic (in this case, by suggesting that there were actually some aspects of Charles’s character that in fact improved his political relationships). Secondly, by offering alternatives (in this case, other elements unconnected to his personality that may have soured the parliamentary relationship independently).

Any ‘To what extent...’ custom essay must end with a concluding summary which answers the overall question.

To do this, simply recap:

• The points that suggest the question's claims are true
• The points against
• Then conclude whether you agree the statement is true ‘to a certain extent’, ‘to a great extent’ or ‘to a very small extent’. This must be backed up by a summary of the argument on both sides to prove why you feel it to be weighted one way or the other.