10% more marks...no more study!

I remember reading a report about the English A' level system that suggested if student knew the meaning of command terms they might improve their marks by 10%.

The command term is found in each question, things like State, Describe, Explain and Discuss. The commands tell you what to do with all that knowledge you have of biology. You can find them all on Pg 11 and Pg 12 of the syllabus guide. Here's a small sample:

State means to give a specific name, value or other brief answer without explanation or calculation.

Outline means to give a brief account or summary.

If asked to compare you would give an account of similarities and differences between two (or more) items, referring to both (all) of them throughout.

You see if write a description when what is required is an explanation you are immediately dropping marks. Describe or Explain when you should be doing a 'Comparison' and well you probably will get less then half the marks available.

So are you going to look them up or not? The challenge now is to put all that hard work and revision to good use. What's the difference between an answer to a Describe and an Explain question....go look it up. Page 11 and 12.

I'm not sure you would get 10% more marks but you can certainly do better and maybe, just maybe......