A2 AQA BUSS4: Strategies Businesses could have adopted to prepare for the recession.

Im self teaching 1-4, already had the exams for 1-3, and GRRR, dissapointed.

Got papers for 1-2 back and didnt lose a SINGLE mark for content, its all about 1) a really gay ass old examiner, 2) exam technique. You need to be explicitly clear about application, analysis and evaluation.

My advice:
Unit1: If you have any sort of clue wth is going on, you'll do fine as long as you keep the exam techique solid. No real definitions needed [theyre].
Unit 2: This is your most important unit out of the 4, quite a bit of new ground to cover if you've not come accross it before [ive been running a business since 13 with a turn over of >300k]. Exam technique, i'll say it again, exam technique.
Unit 3: Now this is where the subject starts getting good. ALOT of background knowledge to understand, although there are a few knowledge areas they can pick up on, and if you dont know them your a bit screwed for a 13 marker.
Unit 4: Well, Ill tell you in 4 months xD

My scores:

67/80 [same marker as unit 2, ie a bitch, not remarking it cause its not a lot of UMS and its already an A so couldnt be free]
84/120 [epic **** marker, remark]
87/100 [different marker.... how is it possible i can get decent marks in a 20 mark question where EVERY TIME in unit 2 i got 1/2 for application, 1/4 for analysis and 1/4-5 for evaluation.....]

When you mean exam technique, what do you mean specifically?

PS. Good marks on your exams though, did you do more reading over notes, or is practising questions the best way to achieve top marks in your opinion?

thanks

Exam technique in terms of business studies is how you basically tick their boxes. For each exam go through in DETAIL a mark scheme. If your answer makes sense, you get the content marks. Remember to start EVERY question defining what your talking about, eg:

Q: "Discuss the benifits of external recruitment for company X." (13 Marks) [unit 3 content I think]

Mark Distribution will be:
Content 3
Application 2
Analysis 4
Evaluation 4

Start with:

External recruitment is the bringing in of employees from outside the company. [make it a bit better than that though, its 2.30 xD]. Maybe 2 lines worth. If you make sense, you get the marks. I didnt drop ONE content mark throughout the 3 papers.

Then comes the application. This isnt something you can directly attack, but start your next sentence talking about the company X and how the theory is directly applicible to the company in question. Throughout your answer repeatidly relate the theory to the company in the question, or your wasting 2 marks.

Analysis. This is one of the ones I didnt get right. Any possible reason, ANALYSE, make it clear and dont take anything for granted. If you dont write it down, you dont get the marks. There are FOUR marks for this part, so its massively important.

Evaluation. Also got this one mega wrong, didnt know it was 4 marks, I only write 1-3 lines for a conclusion and got penalised heavily. Make a conclusion, discuss the situation and outcome, and DEVELOP IT.

=13 marks.

Personally I literally read unit 1-2 text books over the summer holidays [exams were in jan], and then a quick scan read before Jan. Unit 3 was new content to me so had to read it thoroughly so I didnt miss things. Again I did a skim read the night before, and was lucky that I covered exactly the right things. Could have easily missed some content, so unit 3 does need a bit more work on.

In terms of papers, literally the only papers I'd ever done was a set of unit 1-2 spec papers and 2 questions from a unit 3 10 months before the exams in order to get the centre to let me sit the exams. If you have the time, DO DO the past papers (at the time there wasnt really any), because as Ive said that exam technique is the main thing in business studies, NOT the content. As long as your content makes sense, and answers the question, easy marks.

Whoops, essay alert xD

Is anyone else finding this really hard to research. I read the times everyday and I'm slowly building up information on all other aspects of the recession except this one - I have even looked online too.

Do you think we just need to draw upon the business theory side of the couse for this part of the research? Because I have no idea how businesses could have prepared for the recession, as for the most part it was unexpected.

N.B this part of the research is different from the strategies businesses have adopted in response to the recession.

Wat would that pre release material on emerging markets then?

I'm not quite sure what your trying to say but that was for January 2010 examinations.

I'm not quite sure what your trying to say but that was for January 2010 examinations.

How come i cannot access the post 23 for unit 4?

Nope, but I was considering it...
Also, the grade boundaries were SO low for BUSS4 in January... I hope they're the same this time