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Over the years that I have been teaching, I have come across so many students that didn't do as well in their exams as they thought they had. What they couldn't understand was that they had written so much in their scripts and yet the outcome was very poor. The reason why this happened and stills happens is that more than often students are not aware of what examiners are looking for, and this varies according to how many marks the question is worth and the command words that are used. There are four skills that students are expected to demonstrate in any Business Studies exam:
1) Knowledge and Understanding - Students are expected to provide accurate definitions or explanations of relevant terms. Command words include ‘state’, ‘define’, ‘identify’, ‘outline’.
2) Application - This skill is about referring the definitions, business understanding and analysis to the case study and it is about bringing in knowledge related to business context of the firm. Students are often under the illusion that application is simply about using lines of quotes or simply making reference to the name of the business. It is important that students understand that they will not be rewarded for simply dropping the company name or product category into their answer; the response must show recognition of some specific business aspect of the firm, its management or its situation.
3) Analysis - this refers to building up an argument using relevant business theory in a way that answers the question specifically and shows understanding of the consequences, cause and effect of the point made. Command words are usually: ‘analyse’, ‘explain why’ and ‘examine’. When carrying out analysis, good language to use is: ‘because’, ‘therefore’, ‘as a result’, ‘so’, ‘this leads to’. It is worthwhile for students to think about why the point they have made is important or significant for the business and every time they make a point always to think “so what?”
4) Evaluation - this is a judgement and can be shown in the answer by weighing up an argument or showing the importance of a point and then being able to draw a conclusion. It is also shown by the logic behind and justification of a student’s response. Command words are ‘evaluate’, ‘discuss’ and ‘to what extent’. Good approaches to use when making an evaluation are:
1. Be uncertain - use terms like: might, may, could e.g. this might mean that sales fall
2. Contradict/argue - use words like but, however, on the other hand e.g. this might mean that sales fall BUT it is less likely because of the IED of the product.
3. Use words like ‘if’ to consider other possible decisions/outcomes e.g. if competitors decide to drop prices then…
4. A good way to start evaluating is to say it depends on…because… (must justify/back-up what you have said)
5. Make your final conclusion. A conclusion does not summarise what has been said before, it uses the points to show why this conclusion has been made.
Tips for approaching business studies exam papers:
1. Read all the questions
2. Note the mark allocations
3. Underline/highlight the business studies terms in each question and then the question words
4. Brainstorm the longer mark questions (only for a few moments though) - jot down the sort of ideas you might be using in each question. This means that you might think of something else as you are writing another answer and you can add it in.
Approaching each question
1. Even for the longer answer questions, two well developed points are normally sufficient so don’t panic if you can’t remember lots of reasons
2. Define/explain any business studies term
3. Think quality, not quantity; develop points with language like because, therefore, so
4. Keep looking back to the question when answering (every paragraph at least) - this enhances chance of analysis marks
6. Use chunky paragraphs for each point - then leave a gap - gives the examiner a big clue you are onto the next point
