THINKING SKILLS Paper 2

Question 2 – scientific information (Evaluating broadly scientific sources) Considerations for all parts:  Is the information in each source relevant?  Is it reliable?  Is it useful? (Is it sufficiently complete, accurate and precise?)  Does it have support from other sources?  What may be the implications of this information? 2

2 (d)  Direct answer to the question  ‘How far would you agree …?’, etc.  ‘Strongly agree, generally agree, mostly disagree, strongly disagree’, etc.  Most important information  Discuss this first: ‘Most important is Source X, because …’  Other information  Give an evaluation of each source, such as: ‘also relevant’, ‘probably quite reliable’, ‘only partly supports’, ‘inconclusive’, …  Further information  To understand this topic better, what else would you want to know? 3

Question 2 terminology  Conditions  Factors  Claims  Relevance  Reliability  Usefulness  Support  Implications  Vested interest  Speculation  Jumping to conclusions  Contradictions  Correlation & cause  Conclusive / inconclusive 4

Question 3 – longer passage ( Analysis, evaluation & further argument) ANALYSIS = ‘identify the structure’ MAIN CONCLUSION INTERMEDIATE CONCLUSIONS SUPPORTING REASONS EXAMPLES COUNTER ARGUMENT 5

ANALYSIS  Part (a): identify the main conclusion  Use the ‘because/therefore’ test  Decide if you need the whole sentence or only part of it  COPY it straight from the passage  Part (b): identify 3 reasons that support the MC  Three key reasons (intermediate conclusions)  If you find more than three, just use the best ones  Again, COPY them from the passage 6

EVALUATION  Part (c): evaluate the reasoning  EVALUATION = ‘Evaluate the strength of the reasoning in the argument. In your answer you should consider any flaws, unstated assumptions and other weaknesses.’  Comment much more on weaknesses than strengths  ‘Assumptions’ are always implicit: so you cannot quote one from the passage!  Consider each paragraph in turn: how well do the reasons and examples support each intermediate conclusion? 7

Q.3 evaluation terminology  Assumptions  Unsupported assertions  Straw person argument  Conflation  Restricting the options  Emotive language  Ad hominem argument  Circular argument  Contradictions  Generalisations  Exaggeration  Slippery slope reasoning  Analogies  Examples  Anecdote  Open to challenge 8

FURTHER ARGUMENT  Part (d): write your own short argument  It might be to support or to challenge, or it might give you a choice  Include at least a main conclusion, two or three reasons, and an example (and preferably a CA and IC, too)  Your main conclusion can be copied from the question  Do not use material already in the passage 9

Paper 2 – the most difficult parts  Q.1 (d) – usually 6 marks  Q.2 (d) – usually 6 marks  Q.3 (c) – usually 5 marks  These require your most complete evaluation skills  And they are worth almost 40% of all the marks  So really concentrate and think hard!  AND ENJOY THE CHALLENGE ! ! 10

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