4 and 6 Mark Outline Questions on Education for the A Level Sociology Paper 1 Exam

Last Updated on November 3, 2026 by Karl Thompson

Practice 4 and 6 mark ‘outline’ questions for AQA A-level Sociology Paper 1 (7192/1), Education with Theory and Methods. The first two questions on the paper ask you to outline two things (Question 01, 4 marks) and three things (Question 02, 6 marks), usually ways, reasons or criticisms.

The questions below are all on the perspectives part of the education topic, but they draw on other parts of the module, as you should do. They’re my own practice questions, not AQA past papers, and the answers are my best guess at what would get full marks. Under each one I’ve named the nearest real AQA question.

At the end there’s a marking exercise: two answers to mark yourself, with my marks underneath.

For how these questions are marked, a real answer marked by AQA’s examiners and every Question 01 and 02 AQA has set since 2017, see my main post on 4 and 6 mark outline questions.

Real AQA questions on the perspectives

Three Paper 1 short questions since 2017 have been on the perspectives on education:

• June 2023, Question 01: Outline two similarities between the functionalist and Marxist views of education. [4 marks]
• June 2020 (sat November 2020), Question 02: Outline three functions that the education system performs for society. [6 marks]
• June 2019, Question 02: Outline three ways in which the characteristics of schools may be similar to the characteristics of workplaces. [6 marks] (Revise: the correspondence principle.)

The first two link to full answers with AQA’s mark scheme.

Outline two ways in which education might prepare students for work (4 marks)

Nearest real question: “Outline three ways in which the characteristics of schools may be similar to the characteristics of workplaces” (June 2019).

Two developed examples, should get 4/4

• Teaching specific skills for specific jobs: a complex economy requires lots of people doing different jobs, requiring different skills. School starts off with some people specialising in sciences and others in humanities; later, education splits into more vocational courses and degree courses to offer more specialisation.
• Motivation by external rewards: at school, pupils learn to put up with boring lessons in order to reap the rewards of exam results at the end. This prepares them to put up with dull work in return for pay at the end of the month in later life.

Possible additional identifiers (1 mark for each; you’ll need to add in the +1s)

• Teaching soft skills such as teamwork
• Role allocation (if developed appropriately)
• Teaching pupils to accept hierarchy and authority as normal
• Exams being competitive

Outline two ways in which the education system might perform ideological functions (4 marks)

Nearest real question: “Outline three ways in which the education system may be seen as patriarchal” (June 2022).

Two developed examples, should get 4/4

• Passive subservience to authority and hierarchy: in school, students learn they should accept the authority of teachers; later, at work, they have to accept the authority of managers. According to Marxists, this makes them passive and obedient, and so easily controlled.
• Reinforcing gender domains in subject choice: when girls and boys are steered towards ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ subjects, school teaches them that some kinds of knowledge and work belong to one gender. According to feminists, this reinforces patriarchal ideology, because the subjects associated with boys lead to better-paid jobs.

Possible additional identifiers (1 mark each; add in the +1s)

• Motivation by external rewards
• Fragmentation of subjects
• The myth of meritocracy

Outline two reasons why schools today might fail to create value consensus among pupils (4 marks)

Nearest real question: none yet. Value consensus comes from the functionalist perspective; the real functionalism questions are listed above.

Possible identifiers (you’ll need to add in the +1s)

• The ethnocentric curriculum
• The growth of home education
• The existence of private schools
• Marketisation

Outline two criticisms of the Marxist view of education (4 marks)

Nearest real question: none on Q01 or Q02. Marxism came up as the June 2024 30-mark essay: evaluate the usefulness of Marxist perspectives in understanding the role of education.

Possible identifiers (you’ll need to add in the +1s)

• There are many critical subjects taught at university that criticise elites
• It is deterministic: not every child passively accepts authority
• Some students from poor backgrounds do ‘beat the odds’ and go on to achieve highly

Marking practice

Outline two positive functions which the education system may perform (4 marks)

Mark the two answers below (1 mark per point, +1 for developing that point). Then scroll down for my marks.

Candidate X

The first positive function is, according to Emile Durkheim, schools might create value consensus among pupils.

The second positive function is that schools teach pupils the same subjects through the national curriculum, thus making them think the same.

Candidate Y

Role Allocation – where pupils are sorted into appropriate jobs based on their qualifications. The idea here is that different pupils have different levels of ability, and the more able/ harder working get higher qualifications, proving they are more suited to the more demanding, professional jobs.

Social solidarity – making people feel as if they are working together towards a shared goal.

My marks

Candidate X: 2/4. The first point names a function, creating value consensus, so it gets the first mark, but it doesn’t say how schools do it, so no +1. The second point is really the ‘how’ of the first: teaching everyone the same national curriculum is how schools create shared values. An examiner would probably read the two sentences as one function, identified and then explained, rather than as two separate functions. That’s 2 marks, and Candidate X needed a second, different function to get the other two.

Candidate Y: 3/4. Role allocation is identified and then explained properly: pupils are sorted by their qualifications, which reflect their ability and effort, into jobs that suit them. That’s 2 marks. Social solidarity is a correct function, so it gets 1, but the answer only defines it; it doesn’t say how education creates it. Adding something like “for example, by teaching all pupils a shared history, which gives them a sense of belonging to the same society” would get the +1.

The lesson from both: a definition isn’t an explanation. The +1 comes from saying how education performs the function.

KT’s Commentary

Two of the three real AQA questions on the perspectives didn’t mention a perspective at all. “Outline three functions that the education system performs for society” doesn’t say “according to functionalists”, and “the characteristics of schools may be similar to the characteristics of workplaces” is the correspondence principle without naming Bowles and Gintis. So learn the concepts, not just which perspective they belong to: you need to recognise a perspectives question when it doesn’t announce itself.

And the questions may be more obscure than the ones above. If you get one you haven’t seen before, go back to the 1+1 rule: two (or three) clearly separate points, each with a sentence explaining how it works.

Sociology of Education Revision Bundle

Signposting and Related Posts

This post has been written for students sitting AQA A-level sociology Paper 1, specification 7192/1.

• 4 and 6 mark outline questions: how they’re marked, and every past question
• Sociological perspectives on education: summary grid
• The functionalist perspective on education
• The Marxist perspective on education
• AQA A-level sociology Paper 1: every question type, with timings
• Exam advice, short answer questions and essays for all three papers

Sources

Real questions: AQA A-level Sociology 7192/1, Paper 1 Education with Theory and Methods, question papers, June 2019, June 2020, June 2022, June 2023 and June 2024. Past papers are available from the AQA past paper finder. AQA material is reproduced for educational purposes.

Please click here to return to the homepage – ReviseSociology.com