Section 2 of the TSA prep explained by Oxbridgemind tutor
Thinking Skills Assessment is an inevitable and decisive test for almost any Oxbridge enrolee. Naturally, TSA preparation takes a good chunk of the overall admission preparation time, and TSA preparation courses are sold like hot cakes.
TSA consists of 2 sections – Multiple-choice test section and the writing section. The second one is often overlooked – and we’ve decided to address this in this article. Learn here on how to write a good essay at TSA.
How is Section 2 of the TSA designed?
Section 2 of the Thinking Skills Assessment Test, which is the half an hour section that isn’t written by the history and economics enrollees. But is written by almost everyone else who takes the TSA, has 4 essay titles. You choose one of them and write an essay around it – yes, just one, and it doesn’t have to be one that has any special relationship to a degree that you’ve chosen to apply to.
You have a completely free choice of any of the four titles; if you think that you can write a good essay on it. Then, if you’re a psychology applicant, and the one title that you chose to answer doesn’t have a strong science component – that’s absolutely fine. There’s no requirement on anyone to answer any particular one of the essay titles.
The titles are set by the Assessment committee based on the potential interest of applicants across the broad range of degrees for those who take the test. There is no expectation that particular detailed knowledge from A-level qualification or from reading newspapers or from any other source will make a big difference to how anybody can do on the questions. What is expected, however, is the demonstration of ability to argue and reason by the enrollee.
The tips for writing an essay
Answer the question in title – and only it
It is an important detail that the examination committee wants the enrollee to answer the question in the title. And not to think of the question as being a nice headline to another question that wasn’t actually asked (but enrollee thinks it was really meant). Indeed, if you had more than half an hour of time you might be able to write down an extremely detailed and all-encompassing essay; however, since you are extremely limited on time, you have to recognize what is the most important thing to say.
Note the word limit
Since 2020, the use of computers for the Section 2 of the TSA has been incorporated, and this makes a major difference. There will be a word limit, and the word “limit” means exactly limit, and not “target”. Therefore, both statements are correct. You must not write more words than the limit, neither should you aim for this number.
Think, plan and then write
Thinking, planning and writing are the two things you will need to do regardless of whether you will be handwriting or typing on the computer. Thus, if you do those tasks well, it is likely to mean that you are a long way short of any word limit that the commission might set. Why – obviously – since thinking and planning takes precious time, you won’t realistically be able to surpass the word limit. From this comes the logical conclusion – if you will just think about answering the question. You won’t need to think in terms of the word count at all.
How to generate the structure of the essay argument
If you have a decent thought, the generation chain of the structure of the essay is as following:
- a line of argument, mention that you’re by default well committed to it;
- The counter-argument thoughts that somebody else might answer your argument with;
- Produce a counter-argument to the counter-argument and write what you would have said back.
By following this algorithm, you are starting to generate a structure of argument in your essay that will help you and help the person who will be reading it (i.e. examiner) to get a sense that you have thought about some of the issues around your topic and argument.
How to prepare yourself for the essays?
If you are not used to composing essays on a computer, it may very well be that it’s worth giving that a try – but it is also worth trying in essay writing with a pen and paper, and seeing how different that experience is so that you can get some of the qualities that may be easier to do through the end of a pen and get those as a part of your process of writing at the computer.
Experience suggests that people who write type essays directly into a computer often concentrate on what it looks like or how long it is rather than on the actual content. Honestly, it is very well worth it for you to be reflecting for yourself and being a bit self-conscious about what the demands of working on a computer actually are.
It’s much easier, after all for an examiner to read an essay that’s typed on the computer – but it is not always more enjoyable if the essay turns out to be bland or to be asking the wrong things or to be far too long too actually have a focused attention on the subject of the essay question itself.
Conclusion
If you get the sense that writing that much as you can is not what the task is, if you understand that the focus should be primary on Thinking and Planning, and if you enjoy these things, then that really does bode very well for your success in your University application – at any University you might go to!
By thinking and planning carefully. You will be somebody who stands out because you are thinking for yourself and wanting to ask questions and wanting to generate good arguments and that’s something that any university would be really pleased and really proud of its students for doing.
