The structuring of 8-10 mark questions

[scandin9]

How does one structure those 8-10 mark questions in order to achieve maximum marks?

[drmockingbird]

A really good way of structuring your 10 markers is known as 'the highlighter strategy'. Let's say you're analyzing the strength/weaknesses of Parliament, for 10 marks( you'll get a harder one on the exam, double topic-ed). That means 4 strengths, 4 weaknesses, and a bunch of examples to help you pick up the last 2 marks. You introduce each strength/weakness with a topic sentence (kinda like TEEL in English). E.g 'A strength of Parliament is their ability to make law representative of the views and values of society', then you use an explanatory statement explaining what this strength entails. Then example (e.g Oscar's Law), then (this is where it differs from TEEL), you do this thing called a 'Super Explanation', in which you explain WHY this is a strength. E.g 'democratic legislation is a strength of Parliament as it allows for the laws of a country to be decided by the people for the people' or something like that. Finish with a link either to your contention (that Parliament is effective/ineffective), or to the corresponding weakness (however, this is offset by....). Rinse and repeat for all your strengths/weaknesses. Now, after you're done, go through and highlight all these different parts (Topic Sentence, Elaboration, Example, Super Explanation, Link), different colours. If your answer is now looking like it repeats colours throughout, you've done a good job

pm if you need any help

[90ATAR]

What DrMockingBird said is awesome, obviously with his 50.

I'm still doing legal studies this year but the higher mark answers are my speciality. I don't really have a way of going about it. When I go into questions, I just read the question, look at the mark allocation and visualise how many marks they want for each subsection of the question. Like they may have three different identifiers in the question, such as parliament, courts and VCAT, evaluating which method is the most effective means for making law (don't think this question is possible, made it up). You could probably judge that you would get three marks for each of the three identifiers, probably for each evaluation and 'overall, the blabla is the better' kind of answer. Then for the last mark is pin pointing which is the most effective and noting why.