How to write an LNAT essay in 40 minutes
Choose a prompt, write a qualified line, give each paragraph one job, and leave five minutes to check that the ending still answers the question.
What the essay is asking
Section B is one essay from three prompts, in 40 minutes. It is not a test of legal knowledge. Universities read the essay themselves. Your job is a direct answer: a position someone could disagree with, reasons that belong to that position, and an objection you take seriously.
You cannot return to Section A once Section B has started. Decide the prompt quickly and stay with it.
Minutes 0–5: choose and write the line
- Read all three prompts. Underline the word that makes each one a question rather than a topic. “Should”, “more important”, and “always” are doing that work.
- Pick the prompt you can define. If you need a private definition of a word (“fair”, “freedom”, “education”), write that definition in the plan.
- Write one sentence you could defend. Qualified is better than absolute: “only if”, “unless”, “first, then”.
- List three paragraph jobs. If two jobs are the same reason in different words, cut one.
If you are still choosing at minute eight, take the prompt whose first sentence you can already say aloud. A finished argument on a plain prompt beats an unfinished argument on an interesting one.
Minutes 5–35: one job per paragraph
Open with the line, not with a history of the topic. The first paragraph should let a reader repeat your position without guessing.
- Reason. State it in the first sentence of the paragraph. The rest of the paragraph exists to make that sentence harder to dismiss.
- Example. One case you can explain. A single school, charge, or text is more useful than a list of unnamed studies.
- Objection. Write the best reply a careful person would make, then answer it. “Some people might say” followed by a view you immediately mock is not an objection.
- Limit. Say where your line stops. A conclusion that claims more than the paragraphs showed is the usual place an essay fails.
Prefer short sentences. A long sentence that contains both the claim and its opposite is hard to mark and hard to defend.
Minutes 35–40: read the ending against the prompt
- Read the prompt again. Does the last paragraph answer that wording, or a nearby question you found easier?
- Check the words you defined in the plan. If “ban” meant one thing in paragraph one and another in paragraph four, pick one.
- Cut a sentence that repeats the line without adding a reason.
- Leave a claim you cannot support. Do not add a new example in the last minute.
What to practise before test day
Alternate two drills. In the first, stop at five minutes and keep only the line and the paragraph jobs. In the second, write the full essay and do not look at a sample until you have finished. After you have a complete draft, ask for marks on that draft, then rewrite the weakest paragraph before you start a new prompt.
A second full essay on a new prompt tells you more than a third polish of the same one.