Benjamin McEvoy

Essays on writing, reading, and life

How to Get 9s and 8s (or As and A*s) in Your GCSEs & A-Levels

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Exam time can be super stressful. Especially if you want to achieve As and A*s (or 9s and 8s according to the new marking system). But it doesn’t have to be stressful and it doesn’t have to be difficult. You can actually earn top marks while having FUN and without spending all your free time in the […]

Annie Leibovitz Teaches Photography MasterClass Review

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The Annie Leibovitz Teaches Photography MasterClass was a bit of a mixed bag. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed this masterclass and I love Annie Leibovitz’s body of work but I cannot say with any certainty whether I think you will enjoy it or not. Each video module on the MasterClass platform has a comment section for students […]

5 Top Habits for Writers in 2020

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People love talking about habits. They love reading about habits. And writers can be some of the worst offenders (hey, we’re dreamers, give us a break). We get so bogged down in the details – this habit, that habit, how to stack habits, how link habits, blah, blah, blah – that we often don’t even […]

How To Study For 10+ Hours A Day Without Getting Depressed

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This article was originally published on Quora (my first post ever) and ended up being the most widely read thing I’ve ever written with over 1 million views and a ton of comments across multiple platforms. I dashed the article off in about 5 minutes in 2015. Then I promptly forgot about it for an […]

Gordon Ramsay Teaches Cooking MasterClass Review (Part 1)

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The Gordon Ramsay Teaches Cooking MasterClass might just be my favourite MasterClass so far (and I’ve taken a lot of them). The Gordon Ramsay MasterClass is certainly one of the most enjoyable (going head-to-head with Werner Herzog and James Patterson for enjoyability). It’s also definitely a masterclass stuffed with practical advice beautifully suited to both complete beginner […]

Dr. Jane Goodall Teaches Conservation MasterClass Review

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Following the Dr. Jane Goodall Teaches Conservation MasterClass was a thoroughly inspirational way to end this year and begin the new year. I took this masterclass as part of the All Access Pass, which lets you have access to every single one of MasterClass’ illustrious instructors from Shonda Rhimes to Helen Mirren, but I would have easily paid […]

8 Books That Will Deepen Your Love and Understanding of Shakespeare

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It’s #ShakespeareSunday, which means quotes from the Bard abound on Twitter. But what if you want to take your appreciation further than a quick soundbite from Hamlet and a pedestrian meme trotted out to take advantage of a trending hashtag?  Shakespeare is notoriously difficult to get into but once you’ve got a foothold on Shakespeare the […]

How I Used The Memory Palace To Write My Exam Essays At Oxford

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Many years after my final exams at Oxford, I can still remember the essays I wrote. And my memory is not naturally good. In fact, naturally, it sucks. But I still remember the essays I wrote on everything from mythology in Shakespeare’s romances to satiric court poetry of the restoration era… How? Because I structured my […]

How To Use Your Enemies (Book Review)

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One of my greatest educational investments this year was purchasing the Penguin Little Black Classics Box Set. And from that set of 80 slim wisdom-filled volumes, my favourite so far is one by the Machiavellian title of How to Use Your Enemies.  How to Use Your Enemies is a book of maxims by a seventeenth-century Spanish […]