Exam answers - the danger of the “generic chunky”

We’ve been busy working with thousands of students over recent weeks encouraging them to use connectives to help build a logical chain of argument in exam paper answers.

Writing “chunky paragraphs” using connectives is a difficult skill and practice certainly pays off. It has been encouraging to see so many students embrace the technique and we’ve heard some stunning examples read out when students have bravely volunteered to share their answers with hundreds of their contemporaries in each cinema screen.

However, I noticed one feature of some of the examples which I think we need to address in future events. I’m tempted to call it the “generic chunky”, though there must be a more memorable term for it.

What I mean by this is a tendency for some students to develop a chain of argument that has some credible connected ideas, but which does not relate back to the context of the case study.

For example, a generic chunky might read something like this…[i’ve highlighted the use of connectives in bold]

“A benefit of effective workforce planning will be that the business will find it easier to calculate what kind of staff it needs, which in turn will lead to more focused recruitment and, as a result, lower recruitment and training costs, a consequence of which will be lower overheads and higher profit”.

We’ve heard several along those lines.

As it stands, the chain of argument above is certainly logical. However, it lacks a context. And as we’ve been emphasising in the workshops, good application (context) opens the door to good analysis and evaluation.

So I think we need to re-emphasise the need for chunky paragraphs to be built on the business of the exam case study or stimulus material.