Duncan

An interesting e-mail and thanks.

My overriding concern is that this near to the
examinations I have been teaching what I believe to be
'accurate Business Studies' and now it would appear
that, by omission, I have not. In the questions I
quoted (and gave the page numbers for)
answers/guidelines are suggested whereas I would
specifically have told pupils NOT to write these
things.

Therefore by saying 'Avoid writing....or defining it
as....." I am concerned that though I have taught them
correctly...in a way I have not.

I am not reassured that 'positive marking means that
candidates will be given the benefit of...' as that
really means'we realise you're correct so we'll maybe
give you a mark but we prefer our version which is not
correct...'.

(These are not real quotations, just examples).

When a question asks:

"To what extent might the.......marketing disaster
have been a result of poor research"

and the specimen answer guidelines includes:

"Not a total disaster...."

then teachers will presumably be teaching pupils that
if such a statement like that appears then they should
question the validity of it.

I have not been teaching that. Thus if the majority of
pupils write what I would consider to be a
wrong/irrelevant answer then I fear that will hold
sway and thus 'irrelevant' becomes 'right' and 'right'
becomes 'benefit of...maybe'.

Quite aside from the ethics of all this and standards
etc etc etc my 'rightly' taught pupils may now be at a
disadvantage.

It was not that long ago, for example, when on the
Business Context paper (OCR) there was a question
'Discuss the effect of monetary policy on....'

When the majority of candidates wrote all about fiscal
policy they were allowed up to half marks for logical
development!

That's making black white, and wrong, right.

I am also concerned that some of the topics in the
specimen papers then appeared in the real paper.
Different questions but the same topic i.e.
McDonald's. Taking the assumption that schools have
worked through
the Specimen papers then pupils would know an unusual
amount about McDonalds and would thus be able to
answer different questions about the restaurant as
they would have considered it at a greater depth than
normal.

To have a business in a Specimen Paper and then in the
very first paper have the same real business strikes
me as an unholy coincidence.

It was in the 1990s that at a GCSE Business Studies
meeting an undignified row took place between the
Chief Examiner and a marker. The question was over
private companies. Several students had written that
private companies could have as a source of finance,
government grants.

This was specifically not allowed by the Chief
Examiner on the grounds that this did not happen and
instead markers should look for 'friends, family, bank
loans' etc.

The marker concerned then faxed the DTI the next day,
posing as a private company looking for a grant. The
DTI faxed back that grants were available provided
'xyz' jobs were created or other conditions were met.
This was then sent to the Chief Examiner. The Chief
Examiner rang the marker and asked the marker how many
papers had been marked 'wrongly' (i.e. they had put
'grants' but this had been disallowed). The marker
replied 'about 10%' which was an off-the-cuff comment.

This was thought too small a number to be significant
and the matter passed - though future papers marked by
that marker were allowed to accept grants for private
companies.

Thus some papers were marked downwards
inaccurately....and nothing was done about it.

Maybe I am broadening this out too much and perhaps it
is outside the remit of this group - for which I
apologise.

Please could someone post who has got access to the
AQA Specimen Papers and give their opinion?

Thanks

DH



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