Edexcel Government & Politics - Unit 2 Governing the UK (09/06/16)

What are your units?

They're interesting topics - you learn about world order (hegemony between US, Russia, China etc), global governance, european union and regionalism for unit 3. For unit 4, it's conflict, war and terrorism; human rights; environmental issues; and, poverty and development. SO MUCH THEORY, which ruins politics for me a little as I like contextual and applied learning.

mines just US politics its basically the same layout as AS just for the US so you have elections and voting, parties, pressure groups and racial and ethnic politics for unit 3 and unit 4 is the supreme court, the president, congress and the constitution.

that sounds pretty terrible to be fair

Hi everyone, i know its tedious but could someone please estimate me a general mark? not expecting high either.

For the Parliament questions;

A - describe three committees
1. Departmental select committee - described (think i put example something about health committee in the box)
2. Public Accounts committee - Described
3. Legislative Committee - weak description

B- assess the effectiveness of congressional committees (might have been "How effective" not assess)
1. Firstly the Legislative Committee is weak at performing scrutiny because dominated by party aka patronage etc
2. Public accounts Committee - better as chair is opposition leader, perform oversight (made up some irrelevant example about the financial crisis)
3. Department Select Committee - after the reform stronger etc.. (quite weakly done though)

C - Something about assess how parliament are controlled by the Government? (not allowed committees)
Small introduction (not very good 3/4 lines about fusion of powers)
Yes - Patronage and whips and Collective Responsibility - But Parliament sovereign, reject bills
Yes - if has a big majority - example Tony Blair etc - But if small e.g 2016, cant pass through
Yes - if has mandate then House of Lords Salisbury Convention etc - but if a coalition then not in place.. and vote of no confidence
Conclusion - depends on size of majority

The Constitution essay;
Small introduction (not very good either)
1. Codified to protect rights better etc - but disadvantages e.g lose flexibility
2. Electoral reform - FPTP creates tyranny of minority as people elected under 50% (bad representation) - but proportional systems creates coalition and possible weak government
3. HOL reform - make it an elected chamber better scrutiny etc - but too many checks, too many elections so turnout falls with apathy.
4. Conclusion - in need of reform to protect rights better and improve the legitimacy of the UK system.

That sounds AMAZING. Better go off and revise for history!

that sounds pretty terrible to be fair

The question was "the arguments for further constitutional reform are more convincing than those against". Discuss.

The arguments for further constitutional reform involve mentioning current ones. For example:

In 1998, devolution allowed for governments/assemblies to be set up in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland. Supporters of this reform highlight the powers that were allocated such as the ability for Scotland to vary income tax levels by 3% either side of the level in London. Powers such as these have arguably allowed for a more democratic system, bringing the decisions closer to the people. Therefore, many argue that further reform is not needed.
However, many disagree. The SNP argue for full Scottish independence and many nationalists argue that Westminster desires to hold all the power.
That said, a referendum in 2014 for Scottish independence returned a "no" result despite a high turnout (over 80%). In light of this, it can be concluded that the regional public are satisfied with the current level of reform.



See?


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I suppose the exam wasn't as bad as I had thought it might be. Wasn't excellent, but wasn't horrific.

I chose Parliament and the Constitution as my topics.

(5) The question wasn't particularly hard at all; I included at least 2 quotations from the source and I think I threw in an example somewhere. Hoping for at least 4 marks out of 5.

(10) Again, not that difficult to talk about effectiveness of committees. I talked about their effectiveness to scrutinise, to hold people accountable (I also threw in the witness session with Mike Ashley) and legislation (Backbench Business Committee giving a chance for MPs to discuss issues) However, I think this question bogged me down for some reason, can't fully remember why. Contributed to me scraping the barrel in the last couple of seconds to finish.

(25) I'm so glad I planned a question yesterday on how Parliament checks executive power, which I interpreted in this question as basically the same. I talked about the House of Lords, question time and debates. (Sucked that I couldn't talk about committees; there was a fair bit to talk about there) I'm hoping for at least 12/25.

(40) Now, I decided to make the mistake of starting by (5), (10), (25) then (40). What a catastrophic mistake that was. Also, the wording of the question was pretty damn awful. I interpreted it as talking about reforms such as devolution. So I discussed (in order):

-> Devolution
-> House of Lords reforms
-> Incorporation of the HRA 1998
-> Head of State (Succession to the Crown Act) then expanded upon the issue of some wanting an elected HoS.
-> Very quickly (last 3 minutes) - I threw in electoral reform (I was stupid and forgot to use it at the beginning) - if you thought my writing was illegible in general, just please don't look at that! Thoughts? I hope I didn't do too badly. I was freaking out afterwards because some of my classmates talked about codified vs. uncodified and I wasn't sure if I was wrong. I read your comments and from what I understand, it was right to talk about all the different reforms? Also, was it right to give both sides in regards to whether further constitutional reform should be undertaken?

The biggest problem for me with that exam was timing. A mark a minute yet we had to spend a few minutes at least reading the source. The source wasn't hard to understand, but in practice time really was against me.

Out of 10? I'd give this exam a 5 or 6. I hope to get a D, at least. I need a pass

Oh well, no more exams now. Most of my summer will be spent worrying myself to no end about whether I'm even getting into my school for Year 13.

Can't believe I fell into that trap
Looking back it was obviously about reforms
I think I was so nervous I just jumped the gun
Ah well lol

Looks to me that you as though you 'fell in the trap' of answering a question on whether reforms have gone far enough already, as it looks like you're just describing and assessing the reforms that already have happened, not whether the proposed reform such as EU membership, Making HoL elected, or adopting a codified consistition are convincing or not?