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Reply 1
yeah a bit weird, for the asses the advantages of first past the post should you have put in disadvantages as well?
Reply 2
i did as it did say asses. what was the other question you did>=
I did PGs and Elections.

Thought most of the questions were good but time was a big issue at the end. Our examiner didn't give us a loud enough '5 minute warning' ..

For the PG question (b) .. Why is it sometimes difficult to distinguish political parties from pressure groups?

I only had like 2 points for why there are similarities, then I mentioned there is also some clear distinctions.

Will I only get marks for the similarities? Because at most there are three, and for a 10 mark question I don't understand how that would work..
Reply 4
i put down three as well, with a lot of examples though... i think the similaries are the blurrings such as pressure groups are so involved. etc. i didn't like part c of that question. to what extent have pressure groups become more important ! how you could put examples. i din't have many points either
Reply 5
hey, i did democracy question and electroal systems

the five marker "define doctrine of mandate" put me off but the ten n twenty-five markers were good

what did people define doctrine of mandat as?

i wrote the advantages ie strong govt, clear mandat but then gave disadvantages like it can also result in elective dictatorship ie 80's thatcher who piledrived legislation etc

overall it went really good
PGs was pretty nice and easy

And I did political parties, think I ended up BSing a bit on the last question, but overall still went ok.

Made me regret not revising elections, because the questions for it were so easy :sad:
Reply 7
for mandate i put stuff like right to govern and put in place its manifesto etc. 10 and 25 were really generous. explain 3 electoral systems... lol.
Reply 8
ahhh thts good i put the same, n inoooooo that made me lol, i did stv, ams n fptp...

i wud have dne pgs but the b question was abit strange but the democracy questions were so straight foward

for the electoral system working did u give examples? cos i did but didnt know if i was simply wasting time
utare
i put down three as well, with a lot of examples though... i think the similaries are the blurrings such as pressure groups are so involved. etc. i didn't like part c of that question. to what extent have pressure groups become more important ! how you could put examples. i din't have many points either


For (c) I put:

1. increasing levels of participation
2. more access points where they can influence and therefore importance has grown- i.e. changing jurisdiction of EU, devolved reigions, extra-party institutions and their greater use by government, HRA - how it's alllowed minority parties to gain importance and influence, e.g. Liberty.
3. direct action

Wrote about 3 sides but still ran out of time to put a decent conclusion to it all. Hm.
-JJS-
ahhh thts good i put the same, n inoooooo that made me lol, i did stv, ams n fptp...

i wud have dne pgs but the b question was abit strange but the democracy questions were so straight foward

for the electoral system working did u give examples? cos i did but didnt know if i was simply wasting time


Yeah I used examples because it said "3 electoral systems in the UK" so made it relevant to where they were used.

FPTP - Westminster
AMS - Scotland Parliament
Closed Party List - European Parliament

Quoted some statistics (like 57% FPTP and 43% for party list in Scotland) along with the simple stuff like single member constituencies for FPTP etc etc.

It was throwaway marks for that question.
What do we all think the grade boundaries will be?

As January was apparently 50ish? I believe.
Reply 12
ahh thts good
yes that question was easy as i learnt them in depth even with all the formulas
ie droop formula for stv n D'hondt for ams

i only included the one in five voted labour at last general election so cuda have been more specific there

just hope unit 2 is as easy or straight foward
I'll Fly Away
What do we all think the grade boundaries will be?

As January was apparently 50ish? I believe.


It was lower I think. But Politics exams at Edexcel at least always seem to have low barriers, probably because a lot of people just run out of time

One of my mates only managed to get 1 paragraph for his second C question done before having to stop.
Reply 14
yeh in jan it was 51% i think, they always expect so much with their questions.
Reply 15
anyone do the old spec?
utare
yeh in jan it was 51% i think, they always expect so much with their questions.


If they gave us another 10 minutes then it would be fine. I would have thought they would appreciate better, more structured answers rather than the quick, ramblings of a seventeen year old politics student.
I'll Fly Away
If they gave us another 10 minutes then it would be fine. I would have thought they would appreciate better, more structured answers rather than the quick, ramblings of a seventeen year old politics student.


Always do a plan for the last question of each part, as I think you should get marks for your plan if you didn't manage to complete the essay as a whole.

And you just need to work on timing. Stick to a minute a mark, and for questions a and b, you can get it down to less than that really so you end up with something like 30 mins for the last question.

If you can manage to get your timing sorted, you'll get a pretty big advantage over a lot of the students taking Politics.
Reply 18
People, in the Democracy 25 mark, I STUPIDLY didn't mention low electoral turnouts or the HoL reforms and stuff, I just discussed the features of democracy in the UK :s-smilie: will I get really crap?
Reply 19
no, they mark positively they mark you on what you have there not what isn't so if the stuff on the paper is really really good then it doesn't matter

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