HSC Business Studies Exam - Potential Answers and Discussion!

[brenden]

Asking one of the moderators here for confirmation. Say I didn't explicitly say strategies but did most of the operations influence, will I lose a lot of marks for the essay?

*waits for isaac*

[alanabb]

Hey everyone,

Sorry I'm a bit late to the party, was drowning my sorrows in cookies I just bought from coles

How did everyone find the exam? I thought that some sections were quite challenging; I was really surprised when the business stimulus was an extract from a balance sheet. I also wasn't sure how to integrate the ratios they gave us as well. Did anyone have any ideas on how to do that?

Short answer was very different to most years, mainly focused on the learn to dot points and required much more interpretation and recommendation than previous exams.

I struggled a bit through multiple choice, whilst everyone else I talked to said it was easy; how did you guys go??

Hmmm yea the expense ratio and gross profit ratio did seem a bit random given the things we were told to talk about, I used them as evidence for the pricing strategy paragraph by saying that the business had high expenses + cost of goods sold so should use premium pricing for their high quality product to increase profit.

[isaacdelatorre]

I got all the same but for 7 I put d, because I thought something like a recession changing spending would be economic, but income bracket is more related to socio-economic group? Idk

Same, I was staring at it for a while, because i forgot it was socio cultural and not socio economic. I wasn't totally sure if the terms were interchangeable.... But i still put it any way, because I thought economic would be more like if the economy was in recession; or he was recently cyclically unemployed; or if inflation went up or something. I'm glad I did though, socio cultural seemed like the better answer.

[itswags98]

Asking one of the moderators here for confirmation. Say I didn't explicitly say strategies but did most of the operations influence, will I lose a lot of marks for the essay?

We dont even know if we needed to refer to strategies yet.

What I did was say operation strategies and how they respond to external influences. So i guess that answers the question kinda?

[AFix]

Hmmm yea the expense ratio and gross profit ratio did seem a bit random given the things we were told to talk about, I used them as evidence for the pricing strategy paragraph by saying that the business had high expenses + cost of goods sold so should use premium pricing for their high quality product to increase profit.

Exactly what I did!

[AFix]

Asking one of the moderators here for confirmation. Say I didn't explicitly say strategies but did most of the operations influence, will I lose a lot of marks for the essay?

I know I'm not a mod but - I felt like the Q was kind of guiding you to talk about how operational strategies in a way respond/counter the external influences on operational management.  Not talking about strategies will take you away from the 17-20 range (IMO), but you should be able to get atleast 15 if you justified the influences and the response adequately  This is all my opinion anyways.  If I may ask, what did you talk about for the business responding to these influences?

[doyouevencheeto]

I know I'm not a mod but - I felt like the Q was kind of guiding you to talk about how operational strategies in a way respond/counter the external influences on operational management.  Not talking about strategies will take you away from the 17-20 range (IMO), but you should be able to get atleast 15 if you justified the influences and the response adequately  This is all my opinion anyways.  If I may ask, what did you talk about for the business responding to these influences?

Like for a technological influence I said if other businesses have better technology, they'll have a competitive advantage so it would be advised that they follow through and do same thing. i don't know if that is a correct way but that's just an example of what I said. I basically said leading edge technology without saying "leading edge".

[Veryben]

Hey all, just wondering if the short answers and extended response predicted answers will be posted up?

[ethrax]

I think people are getting socioeconomic and sociocultural confused...

[ethang]

I talked about how HR strategies can be used to respond to legal & ethical influences, but no one else i talked to did. Would I lose marks for it or is it still answering the question?

[isaacdelatorre]

Asking one of the moderators here for confirmation. Say I didn't explicitly say strategies but did most of the operations influence, will I lose a lot of marks for the essay?

Hi, I'm not a moderator but this is my two cents on the issue.

There has been so many people telling me both and tbh I'm not even sure. My teacher isn't sure either. But the question "evaluate the response of operations management to external influences" and "evaluate the response of human resource management to legal and ethical influences" is a variation of the syllabus outcome H2 "Evaluate management strategies in response to changes in internal and external influences" the fact that the exam committee purposely left out the word strategies and internal, leads me to think that you did not need to specifically talk about specific strategies.

In saying this, you had to talk about some kind of response to the influence, something the business did in response to the specific influence. Also note that the directive term is "evaluate", which means that you had to have an explicit judgement based on some sort of explicit criteria of their response, which can be good or bad.

What did you guys think? Did you guys include specific strategies?

[Klexos]

Hi, I'm not a moderator but this is my two cents on the issue.

There has been so many people telling me both and tbh I'm not even sure. My teacher isn't sure either. But the question "evaluate the response of operations management to external influences" and "evaluate the response of human resource management to legal and ethical influences" is a variation of the syllabus outcome H2 "Evaluate management strategies in response to changes in internal and external influences" the fact that the exam committee purposely left out the word strategies and internal, leads me to think that you did not need to specifically talk about specific strategies.

In saying this, you had to talk about some kind of response to the influence, something the business did in response to the specific influence. Also note that the directive term is "evaluate", which means that you had to have an explicit judgement based on some sort of explicit criteria of their response, which can be good or bad.

What did you guys think? Did you guys include specific strategies?

Honestly would've wrote about strategies to some extent because of the "RESPONSE of operations management"

[Klexos]

I talked about how HR strategies can be used to respond to legal & ethical influences, but no one else i talked to did. Would I lose marks for it or is it still answering the question?

From what I know, writing more will never deduct marks from you as long as you actually covered what was necessary. It would just been seen as "waffling" if it wasn't necessary.

[brendan.teh]

can someone explain multiple choice 16. I know casual means they are more expendable but how does it help with a business with poor finance. I said D

[isaacdelatorre]

can someone explain multiple choice 16. I know casual means they are more expendable but how does it help with a business with poor finance. I said D

Hey Brendan,

In the short term the business is better off as casual employees are paid a casual loading, meaning they cost more to the business (excluding on costs like sick leave etc.) Another reason A was the best choice was because it would be seen as unethical and in some cases illegal to fire the other options.
Firing a pregnant employee is a violation of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) which was in question 5
Firing an elderly man violates the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (Cth) as well as Age Discrimination Act 2004 (Cth)

Also it should be noted that casual employees have no job security, whereas part-time employees have more than casual employees; thus Answer A casual employee, is the best option

Hope this helps