Essay Revision
What to know
Essay revision questions ask you to improve an existing draft: sharpen the thesis, add relevant support, delete irrelevant or repetitive material, reorder sentences for coherence, fix wordiness, and maintain a consistent tone. Know the parts of a paragraph-topic sentence, evidence, commentary, transition-and check that each sentence serves the paragraph's point. Consider audience and purpose: a persuasive essay needs reasons and evidence, an explanatory essay needs clear sequencing.
Traps
The best answer often changes the least. Watch for choices that add new, unsupported information, delete essential evidence, or alter the writer's meaning. A sentence may be grammatically fine but off-topic; revision questions test relevance, not just correctness. Also beware of "improvements" that make the tone informal or overly emotional in an academic draft.
Rule of thumb
For each proposed change, ask two questions: Does it fix the stated problem? Does it preserve the writer's meaning and tone? If either answer is no, eliminate it.
Worked example: A paragraph argues that school start times should be later, citing sleep research but then describing the cafeteria menu. The best revision deletes the cafeteria sentence because it breaks paragraph unity; keeping it because it is "interesting" ignores the paragraph's purpose.