Long answer questions

Point, because, so: a structure for discuss and evaluate questions, and a conclusion that decides.

F13.6Exam preparationGCSE15 min

Do this lesson in the simulator

The last question on a paper is usually worth 6, 8 or 9 marks and starts with discuss, evaluate or explain. Students who know the topic still lose half of these marks, because they write everything they know instead of what the question asked. This lesson is a structure that fits every one of them.

What the examiner is looking for

Long answers are marked in bands, not by counting facts. To reach the top band you usually need:

  • points that are relevant to the situation in the question, not general facts;
  • each point developed: what it is, why it matters, what follows;
  • both sides where the question has two;
  • a conclusion that decides, and says on what grounds.

A page of correct facts with no development and no conclusion sits in the bottom band. Three developed points with a judgement reaches the top.

The structure: point, because, so

Write each point as three linked pieces:

Point. The school should use cloud storage. Because. Staff and students can reach their files from any device, and the provider handles the backups. So. The school needs less of its own hardware and less technician time, though it now depends on its internet connection.

Then, at the end:

Conclusion. On balance, cloud storage suits the school because most of its work is online already, as long as it keeps a local backup of the exam data.

Three of those plus a conclusion is a top-band answer, and it takes about ten minutes.

Plan before you write

Thirty seconds of planning is worth more than thirty seconds of extra writing. Jot the points, mark which are for and which against, then write. A quick plan also earns you the marks when you run out of time, because you write the best points first.

# the two lines every program starts with: the commands, then the robot
from bugbot import *
connect()

# a plan for "Discuss whether a school should buy a class set of robots" (8 marks)
plan = [("cost of buying and repairing", "against"),
        ("students learn practical programming", "for"),
        ("e-waste and materials", "against"),
        ("reaches students who dislike written work", "for"),
        ("needs teacher training time", "against")]
for side in ("for", "against"):
    print(side + ":", ", ".join(p for p, s in plan if s == side))
print("conclusion: decide, and say why, in the school's situation")

Run this in the simulator

Words that earn marks

Use the vocabulary of the course. "It is faster" is one mark; "the cache holds the data the processor uses most, so fewer slow fetches from RAM are needed" is two. Name the thing: latency, volatile, unauthorised access, data minimisation, bias in the training data.

And answer about the people in the question. If it names a small business, a village school or a hospital, every point should mention them.

Task: mark a long answer

Write mark(answer) that scores a draft: one point for each phrase from FOR_WORDS it contains, one for each from AGAINST_WORDS, and two if it contains a phrase from CONCLUSION_WORDS, all ignoring capitals. For each answer in answers, print <name>: <score> and then, on the same line, needs both sides if it has nothing from one of the two sides, or needs a conclusion if it has no conclusion phrase, or top band if it has all three. At the end print best: <name>. Watch out: disadvantage contains advantage, so it counts on both sides.

# the two lines every program starts with: the commands, then the robot
from bugbot import *
connect()

FOR_WORDS = ["benefit", "advantage", "because it helps"]
AGAINST_WORDS = ["drawback", "disadvantage", "risk"]
CONCLUSION_WORDS = ["on balance", "overall", "in conclusion"]
answers = [
    ("Ada", "A benefit is that students learn to program, and another advantage is engagement. A drawback is the cost. On balance the school should buy them."),
    ("Bolt", "There is a clear advantage for practical work and another benefit for engagement."),
    ("Cog", "The risk is e-waste and the disadvantage is the cost, but the benefit is real."),
]

Challenges

  1. Write a real 8-mark answer to the robots question, using point, because, so, and mark it with your program.
  2. Which of the three drafts would gain most from one more sentence, and what would it say?
  3. Why does naming the school in every point earn more than writing about schools in general?