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AQA AS GOVP1 Question Predictions?

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Original post by Jack_Joff
Starting to freak out a bit at this point, I understand most of the theory but I can never remember all the numerical examples! :L


Same... I think I might fail :/ have you revised everything?
Original post by govtandpolitics
Same... I think I might fail :/ have you revised everything?


Don't say your going to fail, you can totally change things around we have 2 days ts enough.
Reply 42
Original post by govtandpolitics
Same... I think I might fail :/ have you revised everything?


I can comfortably answer most govp1 past questions in relation to the theory and meanings behind the questions... I just can't back up my points with examples... My brain really doesn't work in a numerical way which is proving to be quite an issue :L
Original post by Sademajek
Don't say your going to fail, you can totally change things around we have 2 days ts enough.


There's just too much to know :frown:
Original post by govtandpolitics
There's just too much to know :frown:


what i I'm doing is writing model answers to most of the past papers, which makes me remember facts as I'm rewriting them in different ways.
Original post by TSRdebater1453
I have answered the question 'Evaluate the main factors that determined the outcome of the May 2015 General Election.'
This came up in 2011 January paper but it was obviously asking it on the 2010 election so it is very likely that it will come up.
See attachment. I have got it marked by my teacher too.


how ****ing pro tory can one person be?jesus christ sort yourself out
Original post by CallumEllison97
how ****ing pro tory can one person be?jesus christ sort yourself out


Why does it matter if he is pro tory in his essay? He is answering the question and it will still get him good marks. It's his opinion so leave him beeee
Hi I've just written an answer to the question about the outcome of the 2015 General Election everyone seems to think is going to come up. Would anyone be able to have a look for me and suggest some improvements/give me a mark?

Intro: General Elections are normally held every 5years in the UK, the last one being in 2015. Each member of the electorate(those who are eligible and registered to vote) gets the opportunity to electan MP to represent their constituency and by doing so elects the government torepresent them for the next 5 years. The electoral system used for UK GeneralElections is first-past-the-post a simple plurality system with single memberconstituencies where the winning candidate is required to get 1 more vote thanthe next placed candidate. First-past-the-post is usually known for providing aclear outcome to elections but 2015 was somewhat unique in the fact that it wasn’texpected for the Conservative party headed by David Cameron to achieve amajority of 342 seats in the House of Commons. Many factors lead to thisoutcome and I will be examining them in this essay.Point 1: The first factor which I believe played animportant role is the rational choice voting adopted by many voters around thecountry. It is estimated that 10 million voters make up their minds in the lastmonth of the election campaign, suggesting that they take their time toevaluate each parties/candidates policies as well as a range of other regencyfactors. Regency factors (short term influences on voting) such as partyleadership, previous term in office and party policies would have played a hugepart in the rational thinking of these types of voters. As far as previousterms in office go, David Cameron had held office as the major partner in theCon-Dem coalition from 2010 to 2015 and, although the success of theirgovernment is questionable, a lot of people would agree with me in saying thatthe Conservative leader helped to set the UK back on track after the recessionsof previous years. Therefore voters may have been more inclined to stick withthe ‘safe’ option the Conservatives to allow them to carry on what they setout to do back in 2010 as often 5 years in office is not enough time for aparty to implement their manifesto parties under their granted mandate. This isfurther supported by the fact that the turnout in 2015 was only 62% -decreasing from 65% in 2010, suggesting a hapathetic attitude to the governmentand hinting at the fact that a Conservative government was widely intended toremain for the next term. Again, anotherregency factor that rational choice voters would have evaluated in the run upto the 2015 General Election would have been policies. The Conservativesperhaps most popular policy included in their 2015 manifesto was the proposedreferendum on membership of the EU which may have perhaps swayed a lot offloating voters towards the Conservative party as it is evident in the run upto this referendum in June that it is a controversial topic that the majorityof the country have an opinion on shown by only 12% of the electorate beingcurrently undecided on their vote on BBC online polls. Therefore I believe thatrational choice voters - and therefore regency factors were an importantfactor in determining the outcome of the 2015 General Election.Point 2: Another factor that may have had aninfluence on the outcome of the General Election back in 2015 may have beenmass media. Past statistics about the influence of media namely the fact thatThe Sun newspaper switched from Conservatives to Labour in the run up to the1997 General Election cost the Conservatives 500,000 votes prove that mediacan have a very big role in helping voters decide which party to vote for in aGeneral Election. Mass media has such a wide audience, and with the rise ofpartisan dealignment meaning that less and less voters are loyal to aparticular party, I would be inclined to bring the hypodermic model of mediainfluence into this. The hypodermic model suggests that media ‘injects’ voterswith certain ideological views because of the way the media portrays certainparties and their representatives. For example the Liberal Democrats loss of 43seats in 2015 could be said to have been down to the way that Nick Clegg was poorlyportrayed in TV debates which have a large audience, especially with the riseof non-electoral participation. Similarly, the SNPs winning of 56 seats inScotland could have been down to the intense media coverage of Scottishconstituencies, especially those where there is genuine multi-party politics.Therefore it is evident that the mass media can have a significant influence onthe outcomes of General Elections as, although the BBC and ITV are legallyrequired to remain politically neutral, this is not always the case and as anation of technology addicts, the media is something that people generallywould trust more than the words of politicians who often seem very distant and disconnectedfrom the public.Point 3: Although all of these factors have had animpact on the outcome of the 2015 General Election, it cannot be forgotten thatthe UK’s electoral system first-past-the-post would have had a significantimpact on the outcome of the election. First-past-the-post is known for notbeing a proportional system, leading to two-party, adversarial politics andfavouring larger parties, particularly Labour. Therefore only Labour andConservative stand a realistic chance of forming a government anyway, soperhaps it was no surprise to some people that our current government isConservative in nature. However, first-past-the-post did have some interestinginfluences on the success of smaller parties. UKIP a single-issue party wasseen to receive 3.9 million votes in 2015 yet they only gained 1 seat in theCommons Clacton, held by Douglas Carswell. This is due to the fact thatfirst-past-the-post disadvantages smaller parties with more evenly spread supportas it is hard for them to win a seat due to the fact that their support isn’tconcentrated in certain areas, making them more likely to achieve the majorityof votes in a constituency. Also, as UKIP are seen as a rather controversial partythat many people have strong view points towards, it could be argued that a lotof tactical voting occurred in constituencies where UKIP had a realistic chanceof being elected. Tactical voting is only effective if tactical voters vote fortheir least preferred candidate’s biggest rival and due to Labours somewhatflagging campaign leading up to the General Election, perhaps many people votedfor the Conservatives as they are the only party that posed a realistic threatto UKIP. Therefore it is evident that the electoral system in the casefirst-past-the-post can have a significant impact on the outcome of GeneralElections.Conclusion: Furthermore, it is evident that not onefactor alone could be responsible for the outcome of the 2015 General Electionand that it was more of a combination of factors that lead to the Conservativesreceiving a majority of 342 seats when the polls predicted Labour to form agovernment. This shows that perhaps the polls are becoming a rather unreliableinsight into the outcome of elections and many factors could have caused this decreasingaccuracy compared to 2010 where BBC, ITV and Sky predicted each of the main 3parties seats to within 4 seats of the actual outcome. However, now that theelection has occurred, it makes sense to evaluate the factors that lead to theactual outcome, not the predicted one. Although it is difficult to say which ofthe factors mentioned above had the greatest impact, I would say that the UKselectoral system definitely had the most interesting impact. Along with isdisproportionality, I believe that the view that this system leads to a lot ofwasted votes could have furthered it’s influence as there was only a 62%turnout a drop of 3% since the last election. Therefore whilst the impact ofthe first-past-the-post electoral system used is vast and uncertain, I believeit had the greatest impact on the outcome of the 2015 General Election.
Woah sorry it's a bit hard to read like that - here's the document which actually has paragraphs and stuff. Also do you think I wrote a bit much? I did it in 30 mins so...
Original post by yellowgiraffe28
Hi I've just written an answer to the question about the outcome of the 2015 General Election everyone seems to think is going to come up. Would anyone be able to have a look for me and suggest some improvements/give me a mark?


It's a good essay and you include strong facts so I would probably think it would be a 20/25.
However some of your statistics are wrong, so here are the right statistics :smile:

The Conservatives don't have 342 seats, they have 331.
The turnout in the 2015 General election was 66.1% not 62%.
The Liberal Democrats lost 49 seats in the 2015 General Election, not 43.
Hope that helps :smile:
Reply 50
Original post by govtandpolitics
It's a good essay and you include strong facts so I would probably think it would be a 20/25.
However some of your statistics are wrong, so here are the right statistics :smile:

The Conservatives don't have 342 seats, they have 331.
The turnout in the 2015 General election was 66.1% not 62%.
The Liberal Democrats lost 49 seats in the 2015 General Election, not 43.
Hope that helps :smile:

According to wikipedia the Tories got 330 seats D:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_2015
Original post by Jack_Joff
According to wikipedia the Tories got 330 seats D:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_2015


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results
I think the BBC is a bit more reliable and accurate than wikipedia :biggrin:
Original post by TSRdebater1453
I have answered the question 'Evaluate the main factors that determined the outcome of the May 2015 General Election.'
This came up in 2011 January paper but it was obviously asking it on the 2010 election so it is very likely that it will come up.
See attachment. I have got it marked by my teacher too.


thanks for this what mark did you get?
Original post by govtandpolitics
It's a good essay and you include strong facts so I would probably think it would be a 20/25.
However some of your statistics are wrong, so here are the right statistics :smile:

The Conservatives don't have 342 seats, they have 331.
The turnout in the 2015 General election was 66.1% not 62%.
The Liberal Democrats lost 49 seats in the 2015 General Election, not 43.
Hope that helps :smile:


Thanks! To be honest I'm struggling to learn statistics - do you think it matters if I write rough statistics like for. ex. the Lib Dems lost around 40 seats?
Reply 54
I feel like I'll be heavily relying on rough statistics too somehow :colondollar:
I have a question about influences on voting behaviour but first let me right down what i understand:
There are 2 main categories for influences on voting behaviour. 1. Primacy factors(long term) which are explained by party identification model and sociological model. 2. Recency factors explained by rational choice model which is further split into the spatial model and the valency model. The other model is the dominant ideology model which links heavily to the media and its influence. The influence of the media is also explained by direct effect, agenda setting, framing and reinforcement theories.
So the question is: Is my writing above accurate? Is there any difference between part identification and sociological models because they seem to be interchangeable? Also does sociological model relate to class only?
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by yellowgiraffe28
Thanks! To be honest I'm struggling to learn statistics - do you think it matters if I write rough statistics like for. ex. the Lib Dems lost around 40 seats?


I think you might be able to get away with it but I'd thinks its more acceptable to use rough statistics for percentages than actual figures like number of seats :/
young tory voters are what is wrong with this country
Original post by govtandpolitics
Why does it matter if he is pro tory in his essay? He is answering the question and it will still get him good marks. It's his opinion so leave him beeee
Original post by yellowgiraffe28
Hi I've just written an answer to the question about the outcome of the 2015 General Election everyone seems to think is going to come up. Would anyone be able to have a look for me and suggest some improvements/give me a mark?

Intro: General Elections are normally held every 5years in the UK, the last one being in 2015. Each member of the electorate(those who are eligible and registered to vote) gets the opportunity to electan MP to represent their constituency and by doing so elects the government torepresent them for the next 5 years. The electoral system used for UK GeneralElections is first-past-the-post a simple plurality system with single memberconstituencies where the winning candidate is required to get 1 more vote thanthe next placed candidate. First-past-the-post is usually known for providing aclear outcome to elections but 2015 was somewhat unique in the fact that it wasn’texpected for the Conservative party headed by David Cameron to achieve amajority of 342 seats in the House of Commons. Many factors lead to thisoutcome and I will be examining them in this essay.Point 1: The first factor which I believe played animportant role is the rational choice voting adopted by many voters around thecountry. It is estimated that 10 million voters make up their minds in the lastmonth of the election campaign, suggesting that they take their time toevaluate each parties/candidates policies as well as a range of other regencyfactors. Regency factors (short term influences on voting) such as partyleadership, previous term in office and party policies would have played a hugepart in the rational thinking of these types of voters. As far as previousterms in office go, David Cameron had held office as the major partner in theCon-Dem coalition from 2010 to 2015 and, although the success of theirgovernment is questionable, a lot of people would agree with me in saying thatthe Conservative leader helped to set the UK back on track after the recessionsof previous years. Therefore voters may have been more inclined to stick withthe ‘safe’ option the Conservatives to allow them to carry on what they setout to do back in 2010 as often 5 years in office is not enough time for aparty to implement their manifesto parties under their granted mandate. This isfurther supported by the fact that the turnout in 2015 was only 62% -decreasing from 65% in 2010, suggesting a hapathetic attitude to the governmentand hinting at the fact that a Conservative government was widely intended toremain for the next term. Again, anotherregency factor that rational choice voters would have evaluated in the run upto the 2015 General Election would have been policies. The Conservativesperhaps most popular policy included in their 2015 manifesto was the proposedreferendum on membership of the EU which may have perhaps swayed a lot offloating voters towards the Conservative party as it is evident in the run upto this referendum in June that it is a controversial topic that the majorityof the country have an opinion on shown by only 12% of the electorate beingcurrently undecided on their vote on BBC online polls. Therefore I believe thatrational choice voters - and therefore regency factors were an importantfactor in determining the outcome of the 2015 General Election.Point 2: Another factor that may have had aninfluence on the outcome of the General Election back in 2015 may have beenmass media. Past statistics about the influence of media namely the fact thatThe Sun newspaper switched from Conservatives to Labour in the run up to the1997 General Election cost the Conservatives 500,000 votes prove that mediacan have a very big role in helping voters decide which party to vote for in aGeneral Election. Mass media has such a wide audience, and with the rise ofpartisan dealignment meaning that less and less voters are loyal to aparticular party, I would be inclined to bring the hypodermic model of mediainfluence into this. The hypodermic model suggests that media ‘injects’ voterswith certain ideological views because of the way the media portrays certainparties and their representatives. For example the Liberal Democrats loss of 43seats in 2015 could be said to have been down to the way that Nick Clegg was poorlyportrayed in TV debates which have a large audience, especially with the riseof non-electoral participation. Similarly, the SNPs winning of 56 seats inScotland could have been down to the intense media coverage of Scottishconstituencies, especially those where there is genuine multi-party politics.Therefore it is evident that the mass media can have a significant influence onthe outcomes of General Elections as, although the BBC and ITV are legallyrequired to remain politically neutral, this is not always the case and as anation of technology addicts, the media is something that people generallywould trust more than the words of politicians who often seem very distant and disconnectedfrom the public.Point 3: Although all of these factors have had animpact on the outcome of the 2015 General Election, it cannot be forgotten thatthe UK’s electoral system first-past-the-post would have had a significantimpact on the outcome of the election. First-past-the-post is known for notbeing a proportional system, leading to two-party, adversarial politics andfavouring larger parties, particularly Labour. Therefore only Labour andConservative stand a realistic chance of forming a government anyway, soperhaps it was no surprise to some people that our current government isConservative in nature. However, first-past-the-post did have some interestinginfluences on the success of smaller parties. UKIP a single-issue party wasseen to receive 3.9 million votes in 2015 yet they only gained 1 seat in theCommons Clacton, held by Douglas Carswell. This is due to the fact thatfirst-past-the-post disadvantages smaller parties with more evenly spread supportas it is hard for them to win a seat due to the fact that their support isn’tconcentrated in certain areas, making them more likely to achieve the majorityof votes in a constituency. Also, as UKIP are seen as a rather controversial partythat many people have strong view points towards, it could be argued that a lotof tactical voting occurred in constituencies where UKIP had a realistic chanceof being elected. Tactical voting is only effective if tactical voters vote fortheir least preferred candidate’s biggest rival and due to Labours somewhatflagging campaign leading up to the General Election, perhaps many people votedfor the Conservatives as they are the only party that posed a realistic threatto UKIP. Therefore it is evident that the electoral system in the casefirst-past-the-post can have a significant impact on the outcome of GeneralElections.Conclusion: Furthermore, it is evident that not onefactor alone could be responsible for the outcome of the 2015 General Electionand that it was more of a combination of factors that lead to the Conservativesreceiving a majority of 342 seats when the polls predicted Labour to form agovernment. This shows that perhaps the polls are becoming a rather unreliableinsight into the outcome of elections and many factors could have caused this decreasingaccuracy compared to 2010 where BBC, ITV and Sky predicted each of the main 3parties seats to within 4 seats of the actual outcome. However, now that theelection has occurred, it makes sense to evaluate the factors that lead to theactual outcome, not the predicted one. Although it is difficult to say which ofthe factors mentioned above had the greatest impact, I would say that the UKselectoral system definitely had the most interesting impact. Along with isdisproportionality, I believe that the view that this system leads to a lot ofwasted votes could have furthered it’s influence as there was only a 62%turnout a drop of 3% since the last election. Therefore whilst the impact ofthe first-past-the-post electoral system used is vast and uncertain, I believeit had the greatest impact on the outcome of the 2015 General Election.


this is not coming up. The essays will be on participation and a specific election system which is highly likely to be a proportional representation one such as ams as the examiner loves that system
Original post by CallumEllison97
young tory voters are what is wrong with this country


care to elaborate?

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