Tackling Essay Questions at AS

Essay questions more than any other are designed to test your ability to USE and APPLY what you have learnt to the question, not simply regurgitate it and give a long description with no discussion or assessment.

Remember that these questions are level marked, each level shows a higher level of understanding, knowledge and ability than the previous one. Let’s look at this more closely with an example from the AQA AS topic 'Health Issues'…

“An infectious disease has a greater impact on economic development than a non-communicable disease.” To what extent do you agree with this view? (15 marks)

...read the rest

How to Critically Evaluate

This is a help sheet I wrote a while back to assist my students in developing the skill of USING information, not just regurgitating it. I cannot stress enough HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS both at AS and A2. So, hope this helps somebody!

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.

How to be Critical

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.

Level 3/4 Separatism Essay with Examiner Comments

Analyse the reasons for separatism within and/or across national boundaries and discuss its consequences (40 marks)

Separatism is an attempt by a regional group within a country or across the borders of one or more countries, to gain more political control from central governments over the areas in which they live. There are many different reasons for why separatism occurs around the world, these can include: the feeling of being economically depressed compared to other areas within the same country; the fact that some people feel that they are in a peripheral location to economic and political care; the desire to protect and build upon a minority language or religion and the feeling or being mistreated due to being an ethnic minority (e.g. the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka). Separatism can lead to a wide range of consequences that range from the collapse of governments and civil wars to, more political disputes and peaceful protests. Separatism does not have to be aggressive.

Good introduction to the topic, defines separatism and outlines the causes and consequences. It would be good to mention some real examples too, for example the case studies used in the essay could have been mentioned in appropriate places - see example in italics.

The Sri Lankan civil war is a prime example of where Separatism has led to aggressive consequences, in this case the acts of the Tamil Tigers (a separatist group) led to a civil war that spanned over three decades. The Sri Lankan civil war was fundamentally caused by ethnic discrimination between the ethnic majority Sinhalese and the Tamil minority that populated the north and northeast of the island.  When the British owned Sri Lanka they turned the country into the tea making capital of the world and brought with them a vast amount of wealth and benefits to certain groups. These certain groups where the Hindu Tamils of Sri Lanka and India; furthermore when the British gave Sri Lanka its independence it did not take long for tensions to arise. With the minority Tamils not gaining any political power when Sri Lanka gained its Independence, they were repeatedly repressed and eventually leading a group known as the Tamil Tigers to start an insurgency that would turn into a civil war (1983-2009). This conflict had many consequences. One of which was the massive amount of civilian casualties that occur during many attacks on both sides. During the entire war it is estimated that up to 70% of the 80,000-100,000 people that died in the war were actually civilian casualties. This huge social impact was just accompanied by war crimes such as rape and torture throughout the war and none more so at the end when the government shelled a hospital island and forced the fleeing Tamil civilians into imprisonment camps. 

Detailed knowledge builds a sense of place for the first case study, evidence of critical understanding and use of specialise vocabulary shown.


On the other hand it was not just the Sri Lankan government that were behind social impacts; the Tamils found themselves being listed as a terrorist organisation by 34 countries due to the suicide bombings they carried out. One of which was outside the world trade centre in the capital city of Colombo which killed 39 people and meant that many were scared to go about their day to day lives. These bombings also led to increased security in main towns and cities and made in increasingly harder for civilians to live a normal life.  However over the course of the war it there were not just social consequences; one environmental impact was the destruction of over 5 million tress. These trees used to supply wildlife with homes and shelters and thus a negative feedback system is being observed in some unique species within different regions in the north of the country. The destruction of these 5 million trees has not only had severe environmental impacts; it has also led to more farmers suffering from poverty as they are missing out of the economic benefits of the forest areas that so many relied on. Unfortunately for the Sri Lankan people and government, the poverty and negative feedback for the destructions of so many trees is not the only or worse economic impact due to the civil war. One of the worst impacts is the fact that the government is still spending up to 30% of its yearly budget paying for damages and the cost of the war (the war is thought to have cost the government $200 billion).

Continued use of detailed knowledge and critical understanding of this knowledge. Synopticity shown in the range of impacts that are mentioned (social/environmental/economic). Environmental impacts could be stronger - negative feedback system is not explained? 'Unique species' should be more specific - does the candidate mean endangered or endemic? Also some spag inaccuracies.

Another example of where Separatism has led to clashes is between the Kurds and the Turkish government (Turkish in particular). In this case the Kurdish people (an ethnic group by their own right, with their own language and traditions) do not have a nation and partition as well as fight for their own country of Kurdistan. The main issue here being that this Kurdistan would take a large chunk out of Turkey and some land out of countries such as Iran and Iraq. This and the fact that the Kurds have their own language and beliefs has led to them being continually persecuted and oppressed. A fine example of where war crimes have been committed against the Kurds is through a genocide by Saddam Hussein in the 90’s.

Second case study briefly outlined with some specific knowledge. Could be improved with more detail. The reason for using this case study is slightly unclear - what does it add to the essay? What point is it used to illustrate?

On the other hand, not all acts of separatism end up leading to aggressive conflicts. The partition by some people and governmental officials in Scotland, which includes the use of protests and voting, is a prime example of where separatism is being resolved peacefully. There are some within Scotland that believe that the only way to preserve and save their native language of Gaelic, is to leave the UK and become their own separate nations. To try and stop this from happening (many think due to the fact that there is oil off of the north coast of Scotland that the UK need) the English government offers financial and social support. This leads to clashes as the British people believe that it is unfair that for instance they have to pay for university tuition fees and the Scottish students too.

Use of 3rd case study this time backs up a point made - that the consequences of separatism are not always violent. This shows critical understanding of the issue. Somewhat unclear at the end. 

To conclude, it is easy to show how badly separatism can impact of both society, the environment and the economy in a country and across borders (Scotland). However in more cases than not it seems that it leads to violence as people struggle to have their voices listened to and thus lash out aggressively. This can be shown by the fact that Scotland and the UK have not had violent clashes, as their voices are being listened to and acknowledged.  I would also say that when looking at the Kurds and Sri Lankan civil war, it seems to be that the main consequences of separatism tend to be social. This in some ways could be said to be ironic and in many cases the causes of the Separatism in the first place is social issues. Finally is would seem that when looking at Scotland compared to example such as Sri Lanka; when there is a well-established government overviewing the whole scenario, it tends not to lead to aggression and thus the consequences are far less.

Strong conclusion discussing the consequences of separatism, however does not mention causes.
Overall the candidate has shown evidence of detailed knowledge, frequent critical understanding and some ability to synthesise a range of information. The case studies are rather imbalanced and the quality of the argument, whilst strong in places, could be structured a bit better, e.g. redundant use of Kurdish case study. However, overall a sound essay, high level 3 to low level 4.

1109 words - about the right length to write in an hour, maybe slightly too long.

By Sam Evatt