Two Further Written Examinations
Domain 4: Two further written examinations
Your two elective written papers differ in content, but they share the Baccalaureate's command-word logic: the question tells you what kind of thinking is required, and the mark scheme rewards evidence used for that purpose. Treat each paper as a distinct discipline, not as a generic essay.
Command words
- Describe: say what is there, accurately and selectively.
- Explain: give reasons, mechanisms or causes.
- Compare: use explicit criteria; do not list separately.
- Evaluate: make a judgement against criteria, with counterpoints.
- Deduce: draw a conclusion from the data, showing the link.
- Discuss: present a balanced case and reach a position.
Source and data questions
For a historical source, separate provenance, content, purpose and limitation. For data, describe the trend, quote values with units, explain anomalies, and avoid claiming causation from correlation. For science options, show units, significant figures and the direction of any relationship; for economics, explain diagrams in words and evaluate the policy.
Worked example
History: 'Evaluate the usefulness of a 1919 German newspaper editorial for a historian studying reactions to the Treaty of Versailles.' Usefulness is not 'it is biased, so useless.' The editorial is useful for the rhetoric of nationalist opposition and the terms in which contemporaries framed grievance. It is limited for measuring public opinion, economic effects or Allied intentions. Judgement: useful alongside other sources, but not as evidence of what Germany thought. Structure: claim, source evidence, provenance, limitation, judgement.
Traps
- Writing everything you know rather than answering the exact question.
- Treating a source as a transparent window.
- Ignoring the second part of a two-part question.
- In science, missing units or over-rounding; in humanities, asserting without evidence.
- Failing to evaluate when the command word requires judgement.