How to Evaluate/Assess the Success of something
You can think about
this in 2 stages
1) Weigh up the positives and negatives of the
issue with evidence to support each
point
e.g. The one child policy
in China could be viewed as a success: according
to the Chinese government, it prevented an extra 400 000 births, meaning that
without it China’s population would be 1.7 billion today instead of 1.3
billion.
2) Say whether it was successful or not
with justification.
e.g. Overall the one
child policy in China has been a success. This
is supported by the fact that China’s population growth rate has been
significantly reduced (e.g. the prevention of 400 000 births). Even though it
created many problems, such as female infanticide, the reduction in population
growth rates was worth it to avoid a Malthusian type disaster in the future.
NB – this is just one opinion of the overall
success, feel free to give your own view as long as you can justify it, e.g.
you could say the policy was unsuccessful because of all the problems it
caused.
This word is asking you to take the position of a
critic – be skeptical about things, don’t take them at face value. Look for
bias. There are various ways in which you can do this
1) Question the source
e.g. According to the Chinese government their one
child policy has been successful. However, this could be seen as questionable
because of government bias in defending their decision to introduce the policy
in the first place.
2) Compare contrasting viewpoints
e.g. According to the Chinese government their one
child policy has been successful. However, other people (it would be good to give the name of someone here if you can) have
disagreed with this: they say that the terrible problems (e.g. female
infanticide) caused by the policy mean that it cannot be called a success. Also
they say that restricting people to have only one child may actually have had
the opposite effect as ‘people want what they can’t have’.
3) Challenge a viewpoint with your own viewpoint using evidence
e.g.1 – The policies to reduce population growth in
Singapore have worked too well according to some; reducing the fertility rate
to far below replacement level (1.1) and causing population decline. However,
this result may not necessarily have been caused by the government policies but
may simply be a natural consequence of development (e.g. more educated women
reduces the birth rate) that would have happened anyway (according to the DTM
and many other countries, such as the UK, who have experienced a decrease in
fertility as their development has increased).
e.g.2 – The one child policy in China may be seen
by its government to have successfully reduced birth rates. However, the
existence of a secret control experiment challenges this claim. In Yicheng the
policy was not introduced and people were allowed to have more than one child.
Despite this the population growth rate of Yicheng is actually below the national average. This
suggests that if China had not
introduced the one child policy it’s population may be even lower than it is
today due to people choosing to have less children of their own accord in order
to provide for their family more effectively.