BUSS3 Exam Skills - The Big Mark Question

Many centres will be utilising whats left of the summer term by starting BUSS3. BUSS3 is quite a leap for students in terms of the exam paper. 4 questions, 3 of which are evaluative questions and of course, the last question which is usually around 34/36 marks.The last question can make or break a students BUSS3 exam and with the removal of January modules it is essential that students get it right first time.I will be writing a series of blogs designed to help students to get their exams right first time as well as blogging some teaching and learning strategies that can be used in the classroom to develop students exam skills.This teaching and learning strategy I simply call, A Grade AppendixFor me, the students who score the highest in BUSS3 and in particular, the last question, are the ones who make use of the appendices. The appendices contain gold that students can use to support arguments and then develop strong arguments. Indeed, good application can be awarded when a candidate combines information and data within the case study. A combination of information shows that candidates have a good insight into the issues facing the business.A useful teaching and learning strategy to allow students to make better use of the appendices to ensure that students use the data and information within the appendices is the following:Give students a copy of the exam paper to read explaining that they will be completing the last question in class (obviously this strategy is best utilised after the BUSS3 teaching has been completed)Ask students to hand in the case study but let them keep the appendices.They then need to complete the question using only the data and information in the appendices.This then forces students to use the information within the appendices to support and construct arguments. Once I did this, I found that students became far, far better at using the data within their answers.