Best way to structure responses? (1 Viewer)

[astab]

Hi guys.

So I've been taking notes for my HSC subjects these holidays and aim to learn most of the content for economics and biology. During my preliminary HSC year, I struggled to structure and format my response so I clearly answered the question and addressed the directive verb (eg. Analyse, evaluate, outline, etc.). I tended to give a lot more information than necessary for an outline, while a 6 mark analysis/evaluation was too brief. I think that had more to do with not knowing the content, but it sometimes happened when I covered my notes thoroughly.

I've spent some time looking at and memorizing the directive verbs and have thought of ways to frame responses

Identify - use dot-points and 2 sentences max. depending on the question

Outline - a few sentences that give a general overview of the concept - I sometimes feel that my response is "too general" and I may actually be identifying concepts. How do you've given the right amount?

Explain - structure it like a paragraph but clearly drop in expressions like "cause" and "effect"

Assess/evaluate/discuss - requires a judgement, so I define the term, look at its advantages and disadvantages, and throw in a sentence that summarizes my judgement. "Discuss" is pretty much the same thing, except a judgement isn't necessarily needed.

Analyse - basically requires the student to draw links between syllabus points, so I don't know whether to frame the response so that individual concepts are unpacked separately (in different paragraphs) or use one big paragraph that oscillates between the various concepts

Are there any other directive verbs that come up frequently and are addressed more effectively if structured and formatted in a particular way? If anyone has any advice as to how they structured their short-answers and essays, that would be much appreciated.

As mentioned earlier, I also do biology and I assume that responses for bio. are structured differently to that of social sciences. May anyone confirm this?

Kind regards and much appreciated!

 

[elkedag]

Identify - use dot-points and 2 sentences max. depending on the question

Outline - a few sentences that give a general overview of the concept - I sometimes feel that my response is "too general" and I may actually be identifying concepts. How do you've given the right amount?

The best guide to structuring your responses is the number of marks allocated to the question.
So if you get an "identify policies..." type question for 3 marks, you need supply 3 policies, regardless of if you use dot points or not, or if you have more or less than 2 sentences.

For Outline, you want to give enough detail to get all the marks. So if you're outlining a process for 3 marks, you want to have 3 components to the process (depending on the question, of course)

For Explain, you just need to show why something happens in detail. No need to drop words such as 'cause' and 'effect', but it should be obvious that you're connecting a cause with an effect. A question might me "Explain the trends in the distribution of income and wealth in Australia", you need to identify the trends, and then give reasons for the trend. So it's obvious that your reasons are the cause.

For analyse, it might be a good idea to separate parts of your response into paragraphs so it makes it easier for the marker to award you marks. But then it is also important to have some sort of logical progression in your response. So it's up to you how you want to use paragraphing, they won't penalise you for having or not having paragraphs.

And for essays, the most important thing is to have a logical progression of ideas. You need to thoroughly explain your logic, and connect the theories and examples behind your conclusions that you assert. This will require some planning time, so it's a good idea to leave maybe 2-3 minutes per essay to scribble down some ideas and organise them into some sort of logical structure.

Good luck for economics!

 

[astab]

Wow! Thanks heaps!

Yeah I was leaning more towards the techniques you've mentioned but it's really good to have some confirmation from you. Based on your signature, I'll take it as though you accelerated?

Cheers again!