The verb in the question decides the shape of the answer

The first word is an instruction

Every question opens with a verb, and that verb is not decoration. It says how much you are being asked for and what form it has to take, and the marks are allocated on the assumption that you did what it said.

Identify wants a name and nothing else. Outline wants the main features in a sentence or two. Describe wants those features with enough detail that somebody could picture it. Explain wants how or why - a cause and an effect joined by a because. Analyse wants the parts and how they relate to each other. Evaluate wants a judgement, with criteria, and a recommendation.

Writing an analyse answer to an outline question wastes time you needed elsewhere. Writing an outline answer to an evaluate question loses most of the marks, because the judgement was the point and you did not make one.

• Identify - name it. One line.
• Outline - the main features, briefly.
• Explain - how, or why. Cause and effect.
• Analyse - the parts, and how they relate.
• Evaluate - a judgement against criteria, plus a recommendation.

The mark count tells you the length

A two-mark question wants two things: usually a point and a reason, or two points. A six-mark question is not a longer version of the same answer - it is a different structure, with several linked points and something holding them together.

So before writing, look at the number and decide how many separate ideas you are going to make. Then make exactly that many. Padding a two-mark answer to half a page costs you the time you needed for the eight-mark one at the end, and markers do not award anything for the extra.

In the twenty-mark extended response, the mark count is telling you it expects a whole argument: an introduction that answers the question in a sentence, body paragraphs each making one point with evidence, and a conclusion that returns to the question.

Use the case study, do not retell it

A case study in the paper is there to be applied. The marks are for connecting a business concept to something specific in the material you were given - a figure, a decision, a change - and not for summarising what happened.

The test is whether your sentence could have been written without reading the case study. If it could, it is a definition and it will earn a definition mark at best. If it names something from the material and says what it shows, it is an application.

Bring your own case study to the extended response and use it the same way. A named business with real detail - what it did, when, what happened - is worth more than three businesses mentioned in passing. Two or three specific facts do more work than a paragraph of general description.

A judgement needs criteria

Evaluate and assess questions want you to decide something. A judgement without a stated basis is an opinion, and an opinion is not what is being marked.

So say what you are judging against before you judge. Effectiveness against what the business was trying to achieve. Efficiency against cost and resources used. Success against a target, a competitor, or the position before the change. Naming the criterion takes one clause and it is what turns a description into an evaluation.

Then commit. An answer that says there are advantages and disadvantages and stops has not evaluated anything. Say which side wins and why, in a sentence, at the end. Markers are not looking for the right opinion - they are looking for a defended one.

Use the subject's own words

This course has its own vocabulary and using it is part of the answer. Stakeholders, economies of scale, working capital, lead time, staff turnover, market share - each of these says in two words what takes a sentence otherwise, and using the right one shows you know which concept you are in.

But use them where they belong. A paragraph sprinkled with terms that do not fit the point reads worse than plain language, because it shows the words were reached for rather than chosen.

And define a term the first time only if the question asked you to. In a six-mark answer, a definition you were not asked for is a sentence you could have spent making a point.

Where it usually goes wrong

Five faults, and not one of them is about knowing less business than the person next to you.

• Answering a different verb from the one in the question.
• Writing six marks worth of words for a two-mark question.
• Retelling the case study instead of applying a concept to it.
• Evaluating without saying what the judgement is against.
• Listing advantages and disadvantages and never deciding.

What to practise next

Take twenty past questions and do not answer any of them. Write next to each one the verb, the mark count, and in one line what shape the answer has to be. Sorting questions is the skill being tested across the whole paper and almost nobody practises it on its own.

Then take one evaluate question and write only the first sentence and the last sentence - the judgement and the recommendation. If those two sentences disagree with each other, the middle was never going to hold together.

Check yourself

Three questions on what is above. Have a go before you open them - reading an answer you have not tried to give is the version of this that does nothing.