Profiles in exam questions (2)
Marjorie Henry, Contributor

In the last two lessons, as I focused on the structure of the questions on Paper II of your external examinations, I have shared with you on:

• The profile dimensions of the questions.
• Recognising the different profiles by the command words or key verbs.
• The allocation of marks for each profile.

At the end of the last lesson, I suggested that you look at some past examination papers and try to identify the different profiles in the questions.

You were also to look at the command words and try to understand, them even if it meant using a dictionary.

Here is question two (see diagram), taken from the June 2008 examination.

Before I discuss it, however, see how well you can recognise the profiles for this question, as well as understand the command words once you have identified them correctly.

Check your findings:

Profile 1

Sub-section (a) - The stimulus material is a table. The command word for that table is study. There are four short questions relating to the table.

The command word for (a) (iii) is calculate and for (a) (iv) it is state.

There is one mark for each question, giving a total mark of four for this section.

Profile 2

Sub-section (b) - The command word in (i) is identify and there are two marks for this. In (ii), it is describe and there are six marks allocated here. The total mark is eight here.

Profile 3

Sub-sections (c ) and (d) make up this profile. For both sub-sections, the command word is explain. When the marks for both sections are added, the total is 12.

I trust that you had no difficulty in identifying all of these. I will begin a discussion of the question in the next lesson. In the meantime, do some reading on the topics tested in the question.

A junior player of the Westmoreland Special Olympics team doing the ball throw event on April 18 during a parish meet at Manning's School.