While reading the two assigned sections in Chapter 24, “How Exams Written Under Pressure Differ from Other Essays” and “Analyzing Exam Questions,” I found myself feeling quite familiar with the subject matter.  After reading “How Exams Written Under Pressure Differ from Other Essays,”  it became clear that although essay exams can share similar characteristics to other writing assignments, they do have their own different set of characteristics.  While most writing assignments may have a broad range of audiences, the audience for essay exams is the instructor.  For that reason, it is important to know the instructor and what he/she focuses on in an essay so that the response is exactly was the instructor is looking for.  Also, in this section, I learned that there really is a reason English teachers and courses require a certain number of books and other literature pieces to be read.  Although I figured this out back in my high school AP English classes, it helped me to stop and realize that when the instructor suggests particular pieces for students to read, it is only to benefit the student, not just give them more work to do.  Being familiar with authors, writers, books, poems, and other pieces provides great support for the exam response and enables the student to relate and apply ideas and topics, such as taking a poem and relating its ideas to nature and society.  This section also provided a few strategies which will aid in essay exam writing.   In, “Analyzing Exam Questions,” the idea that essay exams focus on interpretation was stressed.  This section provides the student with some reassurance in the way that it explained how, although many essay exam prompts start out with a quote and/or writer that the student may not be familiar with, that does not mean the student will not be able to form a response to the prompt.  The strategy that was given in this section is that even if the prompt contains unfamilar works, by deconstructing the prompt and looking for cue words and phrases, the student will see that the prompt will give a hint as to what a certain writer or piece was about as well as provide questions that are answerable and points out that the key is to relate or use the works as a means for support of the student’s response.  Also, the importance of knowing what certain essay-question verbs mean so that the prompt will be easier to understand.