gcse edexcel business studies help

@anna_bA3 , I’m not sure for your exam board but isn’t it mostly in a way waffle/common sense. Not shaming you in any way at all, but I was helping my peers and some questions talked about “advantages and disadvantages of beginning a franchise” which would probably be (I take economics), brand recognition, less risks, market ownership (monopoly and oligopoly) and economies of scale (the benefits of a larger business) and disadvantages would be more control, higher costs, more training etc etc.
There’s a structure I use that’s fool proof so far,..: pblt
Point
Because
Leading to
Therefore
Also if you write something and you’re able to substitute a different word into it with it still sounding good then you have NOT hit the context mark. Eg “houses are expensive, this is because there are lots of them.” And I can swap houses for companies with no issues arising I will not get the context mark..
Regardless, you should get a book like cgp or ask teachers and read through it!
Good luck and don’t stress yourself out, there’s still time to make yourself better!
Take my words with a grain of salt and pick what you need as I take economics but 99percent of my friends take business so I’m mixing our subjects together with the things that have been kept the same…

thank you i will try this structure in my next mocks! also since you take econ, comparing it to business which one do you think would go better with psych and socio. A lot of people have told me that econ is better for unis however i’m scared about the graphs and maths aspect of it. anyways could you pls tell me more abt what u do in econ? thank you

The other responses in this discussion have basically explained it all, but I’m gonna explain it my way.
If ur wondering how my way of understanding business can help, lemme give u some context:
For the whole of year 10, including mocks, I got consistent 3s. A 4 was like a blessing for me 😭.
Then, first assessment of yr 11: grade 8. Second assessment was a 9, and u get the jist. And now I think business is insanely easy.
Firstly, make sure u know the content. My issue was that I didn’t have a clue what ‘retained profit’ or ‘loan capital’ meant, so make sure u revise the content. I used the ‘Collins GCSE complete revision and practice’ book (it looks blue with a purple bar at the bottom) for my revision, and it was soooooo good. It explains content very easily, so I recommend using it.
When ur revising, ur gonna see pros and cons for things like loan capital, so js memorise them. And over time, u will start to see that so many things have such similar pros and cons, that u start to be able to know the pros and cons of anything without even looking.
There’s a pattern for everything, so js make sure u know ur content first.
Secondly, know how to answer the question. This was probably a bigger issue than not knowing the content. Use BLT (because, leads to, therefore) or something similar (e.g this means that, this results in…).
Make sure you know how much to write for each question (if u don’t know this then js ask me).
For example, if a 3 marker asked for the disadvantage of loan capital, u would remember from the textbook/ revision that a disadvantage is high interest.
I would answer the 3 marker like this:
High interest (yes u can js write the point without full sentencing). This leads to the business spending much more cash back for paying the loan back. This leads to a higher cash outflow and a lower profit. -
(Before, I would end the answer like this. Don’t do what I did. Instead, js use a random example to make sure u get the marks)
- Therefore, the business may not be able to pay for promotion. This means that brand awareness remains low. This leads to less sales and revenue, which could result in business failure.
As u see, in the second part of my answer, that completed the answer. 200000000% getting full marks guaranteed.
See, don’t adapt urself to the question. Adapt the question to what u wanna do.
U could literally say anything. I’ll give some examples for what u can say if the business has less cash:
- Less promotion -> low brand awareness -> less sales and revenue
- Forced to buy low quality materials -> doesn’t meet customer needs -> customers go to competitors -> less sales and revenue
Just in those 2 examples, u can see that u can relate anything with whatever u want.
For case studies in particular, the easiest booster for marks is application. Application marks are really easy, cuz all u need to do is relate back to the case study. This can literally be quoting the case study, or js swapping words.
For example, if the case study is a business selling biscuits, swap words like these:
Products -> biscuits
Customers -> hungry customers
Product packaging -> biscuit wrappers
… U get the jist
Js do lots of practice questions from previous exams, and u will see that there’s a lot of repetition in questions.
And also, u see how i said that u can write abt anything in ur answer. Js remember that the mark scheme has their own answers, but it also says ‘Accept any other appropriate responses’, so u can indeed write what u want.
Idk if this was js pure waffle or not, but hopefully it helped.
Lemme know if u need anything else, cause im also doing edexcel business gcse.

So before i did my november mocks my business teacher had told me that i was on track to getting a 7. However for the mock i needed up getting a 4. Now obviously i was a bit upset because i was expecting so much more so when i went back and asked what she thought had went wrong, she told me that i had the right ideas but don’t have exam technique. Now as someone who is thinking of doing business for a level is there any tips on how to revise for business or how to understand exam technique.