Sociology - would you talk about the underachievement of working class in this q?

then the conclusion can be unique by saying "well this hidden curriculum larky is pretty good, despite its flaws... although it's only a partial explination and the home factors must be taken into account." But written properly, obviously.

Well, you could also mention in the conclusion that it's impossible to generalise the working-class because different genders and ethnicities perform differently, so the achievement of a working-class, Afro-Caribbean male will be very different to that of a working-class white female. You're right though, it would only be something you could briefly touch on.

In other words, an inconclusive conclusion

If you pop "A postmodernist would argue that..." on the front of this argument, you'll look super-clever cos most people don't do PoMo till A2.

Really? I did it at AS. Never called it PoMo though, I quite like that

You could be a smarta*se and bring in ethnicity in the second question by noting that those groups who tend to underachieve also tend to be poor.

If its a proper exam paper that you've been set, then the second question will be AO1=6 and AO2=14 so you need to spend more than a paragraph challenging the claim made in the paragraph (a good half of the essay).

But if you put in a paragraph before the conclusion, that makes it part of the main body of the essay, and since the question focuses exclusively on school factors, I don't think it's relevant to include it there. Mentioning it in conclusion would round off the essay nicely and show the examiner that you were aware of other arguments.

You wanna explain what this AO1, AO2 business is? May be useful for my AS retake in the summer......

It belongs in the main body... it's evaluation to say the "other" things. Like if we're asked on religion about religion being a force for change we still talk about the status quo... as our evaluation.

No, because that's saying you think the hidden curriculum is a pretty good idea. Or you could say the opposite but my personal leanings tend to be with the left.

Oh and post modernists absolutely suck, they don't really say anything... they're pointless.

AO1 = Knowledge, Understanding - fairly straightforward.

AO2 = Evaluation and Analysis - bit more nebulous; you've obviously got your strengths and weaknesses and comparison and contrasts, but using other theories (as long as they're related to the question) also counts. So for instance, criticising in-school factors by highlighting studies of material deprivation would count.

In general, you earn your AO1s by addressing the main claim, and AO2s by challenging it (although some of your analysis marks will be on general coherence of argument).

Different balance for different questions...

e: AO1=14, AO2=6 (therefore more time addressing main claim)

f: AO1=6, AO2=14 (therefore more time challenging it - although this is a bit naive as you also need to deal with the main claim before you can challenge it).

Which board do you study? And have you done it as a theory (causes, principles, effects, etc), or as applied to topics?

The abbreviation is excellent...and, postmodernism originating from the Czech Republic (if there was any) would be BoHo PoMo...and if we exported it to a trendy region of London it would be Soho BoHo PoMo.

*Is having fun* (I have entire lessons like this)

EDIT: Just realised that the above joke only makes sense if you know that Bohemia (BoHo) is a region near Prague.

It belongs in the main body... it's evaluation to say the "other" things. Like if we're asked on religion about religion being a force for change we still talk about the status quo... as our evaluation.

Surely social factors are other things if the question is about school factors? And therefore, in this case, I'd put it in the evaluation. But in a question asking you to assess whether religion is a force for social change, you'd need to talk about the status quo in the main body because half the essay would be on change and half would be on conservatism, then the evaluation would sum everything up. That's how I'd do it anyway, but we can agree to disagree

Evaluation belongs in the main body....

In this social change question the status quo part is evaluation, not just summing it all up, or you'd never get 20 marks for it.

Well, you kind of evaluate it as you go along anyway because you do your introduction, then you talk about social change, then you talk about status quo and then you do your conclusion. We had an essay on it a while ago and that's how I did it.

That's what I said.