AQA A-Level Sociology: Guidance on 10 Mark with Item Questions – Education with Theory and Methods

Examples of actual student responses marked by the AQA, showing you the standards expected to get certain marks!

Last Updated on May 31, 2018 by Karl Thompson

Below is an example of an actual marked response to a 10 mark ‘analyse with the item question’.

The example is taken from the 2017 Education with Theory and Methods Paper (paper and mark schemes available from the AQA website) and the specific question is as follows:

Read Item A below and answer the question that follows.

Item A

Since the 1980s, a major aim of government policy has been to increase parental choice in education. There is now a wider range of school types, and league tables on school performance are also publicly available.

Increased parental choice has had many effects on pupils’ experience of education.

Applying material from Item A, analyse two effects of increased parental choice on pupils’ experience of education (10)

While this example is taken from a 10 mark ‘applying material from the item’ question taken from the education paper, the general advice below on how to answer such questions applies equally to the same format of 10 mark questions that you will get in both sections A and B of paper 2, and on paper 3.

For general advice on how to answer 10 mark questions (covering both the two types of question) please see this post here.

Marked exemplar of a 10 mark ‘applying from the item’ question

NB the second picture is a continuation of the first, same response on both pictures!

10 mark question sociology AQA

aqa sociology 10 mark question marked exemplar

KT’s commentary

A great example in the first paragraph of ‘how not to do it’….

Despite the rather scathing final commentary from the examiners, the second paragraph still gest five marks, and it does make three development points – so it’s got breadth rather than depth.

Hint: go deeper, develop further!

If you can’t be bothered to think of how you might improve it for yourself, click here for an example of a 9/10 answer, but if the first bit of this sentence applies to you, I don’t rate yer chances of ever getting more than middle mark band!

Question: What would you do to get another 5 marks….Comments below please!

Essay Plans/ Revision Resources

Education Revision Bundle CoverIf you like this sort of thing, then you might like my sociology of education revision notes bundle – which contains the following:

  1. 34 pages of revision notes
  2. mind maps in pdf and png format – 9 in total, covering various topics within the sociology of education
  3. short answer exam practice questions and exemplar answers
  4. how to write sociology essays, including 7 specific templates and model answers on the sociology of education

 

Source:

A-level
SOCIOLOGY
Feedback on the Examinations
Student responses and commentaries: Paper 1 7192/1 Education with Theory and Methods
Published: Autumn 2017

NB – this document is NOT available on the AQA website, but any teacher should have access to it via eaqa. I’m sharing it here in order to make the exam standards more accessible, and to support the AQA in their equality and meritocratic agendas, because there will be some poor students somewhere whose teachers aren’t organised enough to access this material for them. 

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