EDEXCEL Unit 3 - International Business (24th January 2011)

I'm taking this exam next week, but I'm quite worried.

According to my teacher people found this the hardest unit out of the four, and I cannot get to grips with the evaluation of the questions, which is of course a big part of the exam.

I am okay with the knowledge, and I consider myself to have a good business mind but I struggle to gain the extra evaluation marks.

Any tips of people that have sat this exam/are about to sit this exam?

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Reply 1

Blah12345678

I'm sitting this on Monday. Evaluation is essentially pros / cons, advantages / disadvantages or costs / benefits or whatever the question is.

For example, benefits / costs of moving your call centre to India. Benefits - lower labour costs, better technical expertise, able to have 24 hour service, etc. Costs - customers may not like it, may be costly to set up in short run, harder to communicate with management, etc.

Always end the big mark question (12 marks or more) summing up and giving a conclusion. For the one above, you could say: After consideration, I would outsource / offshore to India providing it was a long term decision as labour costs would be cheaper, the initial cost of setting up could be offset in the long run and management communication could improve in time.

Hope that helps :smile:

Reply 2

rugbygreg

I'm doing this exam aswell, we're told to evaluate in terms of MOPS

Market (how does the market effect the question etc like if your outsourcing and the market in which the firms in operating is very competitive then it may be a good idea to get the cost advantage over other competitors)

Objectives (how do the firms objectives align to the situation in which they find themselves)

Product (how does the product that the firm produce lend itself to the situation, for example equipment that can easily be mass produced by unskilled labour is better to outsource than one that needs high tech capital and skilled human inputs)

Situation (have a look at this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEST_analysis )

Good Luck all I'm hoping to get above 90 UMS or within 2 or 3 ums of it otherwise I'll resit (I really want an A*)

Reply 3

beeristhebest

This should be locked really, can discuss at 4.30AM I think it is
And tbf the 2 past exams have been 58 for 90 UMS, and only 63 for 100 UMS :biggrin:

Reply 4

PabloWassim

Im going to complain to Edexcel, because the specification states that we should know a lot of information about China and India. But there was only one question where you had to compare egypt with China. And not much data was given about indonesia.
To me it seemed as the questions were quite similiar, due to repeating few points from previous questions. who agrees mother****ers.

Reply 5

beeristhebest

Original post by PabloWassim

Well the China/India theory can be applied to Indonesia and Egypt
And the questions were pretty standard :smile:

Reply 6

tajmahal

anyone can be kind to share notes :colondollar:

ive lost my copy :confused:

Reply 7

PabloWassim

Original post by beeristhebest

Well the China/India theory can be applied to Indonesia and Egypt
And the questions were pretty standard :smile:

Completely true, but the fact that not just me but Many other people revised alot on china and India (all the facts, numerical data etc) was a waste. The questions were just worded disgustingly.

Does any one know the grade boundaries for the unit 3 June 2010, January 2010, June 2009 and January 2009. Would be really helpful.

Reply 8

Blah12345678

Original post by PabloWassim

Grade boundaries were 53 / 80 for an A I believe.

Reply 9

rugbygreg

Test was Alright, nothing on China / India which I was really annoyed with. Low grade boundaries I hope...........but I think I should be alright, I hated that question on ethics and profitably though and the first question seemed nearly exactly the same as the one which asked for the product life cycle (I drew one for both).

Reply 10

beeristhebest

Original post by PabloWassim

Well learning numerical data does nothing for application.
And the only 2 past exams have been 53 for an A, and 63 for full UMS :biggrin:

Reply 11

beeristhebest

Original post by rugbygreg

Well the ethics and profitability one was obviously cigarettes = death. Young people can be long time customers as BAT will have high market share in the emerging market and cigarettes are addictive. But killing children is wrong ;D

And the product life cycle; a new market can offset the effects of decline. And there are no extra development costs but there is potential for sales, and in the new market maturity can be milked as there is less competition and no alternative products. Something like that.

Reply 12

rugbygreg

Original post by beeristhebest

Yeah pretty much exactly what I wrote, I just wasn't prepared for it which knocked me off kilter a little bit.

Reply 13

Dill29

Original post by rugbygreg

I found the paper okayish,, the paper was very tricky, alot of the questions were hinting to use china and india in your answers so you can gain marks for both application and evaluation. The questions took me some time to figure out especially the 6 mark questions in section 2
i think the grade boundaries will be low tbh (well hoping ).. or ill resit in june... but the paper overall was quite hard i thought it was very tricky in order what to apply to the question you couldnt be too general :smile:

Reply 14

beeristhebest

Original post by Dill29

Yeah some questions were hard to apply to anything :/
But the longer questions weren't that bad :smile:

Reply 15

tajmahal

ANYONE CAN BE KIND ENOUGH TO SHARE NOTES...
plz....i really need them..we don't have books or other useful resources..everything is searched online and i don't feel confident with what we've done... :frown:

Reply 16

beeristhebest

Original post by tajmahal

I didnt have notes. I bought the revision book :wink:

Reply 17

Mountaindragon

Wasn't much on China or India...obvious reasons to locate call centres in Egypt is because the economy is growing with IT services and the labour is trained and well spoken English language. However locating in China the cultural language is still not entirely english spoken so outsourcing to Egypt is ideal due to lower cost and exellent IT etc.. Linked benefits to the country e.g. workers often ahieve higher wages etc And disadvantages e.g. customers may not like it and workers could lose their jobs etc On the otherhand emerging markets such as India is extremely competitive and could provide cheaper skilled labour opposed to Egypt etc. Business decisions to outsource into Egypt may benefit in the short term but for the long term situations may change.

Finished the exam in a hour couldn't really ask for more :smile:

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 18

Mountaindragon

Original post by tajmahal

Tell me what you want? I've done both papers last year so I can help you out. Unit 4 is the hardest and make sure you pay close attention to the case study given. :smile:

Reply 19

Dill29

Original post by beeristhebest

Yeah some questions were hard to apply to anything :/
But the longer questions weren't that bad :smile:

Yeah, although i paniced a bit in the exam... on some of the questions i think i went to complex saying stuff like comparative advantage to build up my answers and make them sound better instead of just going into intitial simple ideas such as high cost... do you reckon ill lose marks cause of this :/ .. i really hope the boundries go down ... overall in the exam i found it quite difficult compared to most of my mates ..there were many hints in the exam to like talk about the eu etc i hope i did the right thing