Example Answer for Question 2 Paper 1: AS Sociology, June 2017 (AQA)

Question 2. [2 marks]

A type of selective policy in education is selection by ability, whereby the intake of a school will be selected based on pupils’ attainment in an entrance exam. The 11+ exam, which was used in the UK under the tripartite system, widened social class differences in educational achievement. Middle class pupils were arguably better able to prepare for it than those from the working class, since the ethnocentric nature of the test favoured the form of culture and type of language they were used to at home and at private prep schools.

Please Note: These answers have been produced without the knowledge of the mark scheme and merely reflect our attempt at producing an example answer on the day of the exam. Naturally, there are many different possible answers to this questions and students should not worry if their answer(s) is different to ours.