Hints for Answering the essay questions
Write as much as you can in the time that you have. There is no reason why you should finish an Industrial Tech (or any exam really) early. The time is allocated for students based on a formula of 2 minutes per mark. Remember that it is an extended response. The Board specifies approx 600 words for this section. Make yours stand out beyond that.
Write an essay plan and write it within your answer booklet. This shouldn’t take you more than a minute, but it will mean that you won’t forget your arguments within your essay, and you can always go back to it for help. Also, your essay plan can be helpful for markers to orient themselves, and can also be marked if you don’t get around to mentioning all the points in your essay.
You must know and answer to the key words. Discuss requires positives and negatives, explain is cause and effect, analyse requires you to relate between components/considerations. Use trigger words to identify when you are answering to the key term. Eg…a positive of this is…the effect of this is…
Watch out for AND, OR and plurals of words. Eg “Discuss the considerations that are needed to be considered..” means that you need to discuss more than one consideration. You always have to answer ALL parts of the question. Unless indicated by the key word, don’t spend more time on one part of the
If you get a HOW, WHAT, WHERE, WHY, look at the amount of marks allocated for the question. This will help you determine what depth you are required to go to.
Know the dot points and where they are located within the considerations. For example, if you are asked to talk about Structural and Personnel considerations, and you spend your whole essay talking about OHS, then you won’t get any marks for it unless you can somehow link this to Personnel. PPE is required by all workers…this can then be linked to requirements of the employers which can then be linked to contract requirements and unions. (be careful of doing this though, as it’s much easier to link to obvious things within the dot points.
Link to the question. Make every point link back to the question, and make sure that it is specific “this effects the introduction of new technology by…” Regurgitating the dot points will get you very low level marks.
Write an essay plan and write it within your answer booklet. This shouldn’t take you more than a minute, but it will mean that you won’t forget your arguments within your essay, and you can always go back to it for help. Also, your essay plan can be helpful for markers to orient themselves, and can also be marked if you don’t get around to mentioning all the points in your essay.
You must know and answer to the key words. Discuss requires positives and negatives, explain is cause and effect, analyse requires you to relate between components/considerations. Use trigger words to identify when you are answering to the key term. Eg…a positive of this is…the effect of this is…
Watch out for AND, OR and plurals of words. Eg “Discuss the considerations that are needed to be considered..” means that you need to discuss more than one consideration. You always have to answer ALL parts of the question. Unless indicated by the key word, don’t spend more time on one part of the
If you get a HOW, WHAT, WHERE, WHY, look at the amount of marks allocated for the question. This will help you determine what depth you are required to go to.
Know the dot points and where they are located within the considerations. For example, if you are asked to talk about Structural and Personnel considerations, and you spend your whole essay talking about OHS, then you won’t get any marks for it unless you can somehow link this to Personnel. PPE is required by all workers…this can then be linked to requirements of the employers which can then be linked to contract requirements and unions. (be careful of doing this though, as it’s much easier to link to obvious things within the dot points.
Link to the question. Make every point link back to the question, and make sure that it is specific “this effects the introduction of new technology by…” Regurgitating the dot points will get you very low level marks.
Sample Exam Questions
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