1. Conclusions

2. What Are Conclusions Questions?
The final source-based skill in the course
8 marks
14 minutes in the exam
3 sources – a mix of text and data
3 bullet points - draw a conclusion from each one
Can appear in any topic area – there will be one conclusions question in your exam

3. What is a conclusion? Drawing a conclusion: Summarises the main points
Gives an overall view
Identifies trends in the evidence

4. Structuring your answer
Your answer should be set up like this:
Write the bullet point as a mini heading
Give your first piece of source information
Evaluate your evidence
Give your second piece of evidence and evaluate it
Draw an overall conclusion, containing evaluative language/terminology

5. Evaluative terminology
This is language which makes a judgement, the more specifically the better
Good evaluative language:
To a large extent / small extent
Less / more important
Increasing / Decreasing
As X happens, Y happens
Majority / minority
Evaluative Terminology
Smaller than / bigger than
Most / Few / Around Half / two-thirds etc
Steadily / slowly / rapidly
Significant

6. 2015 paper question 12 – Model Paragraph
The level of public awareness concerning laws on social media
Source one tells us that “only 1 in 10 know about social media laws, or have heard of the Communications Act 2003.” This is a tiny minority of people. Source 3 supports this when it shows the results of a survey, in which just 25% of people were aware of the consequences of sending an offensive Tweet – again, a very small percentage. In conclusion, the level of public awareness of social media laws is very low as most people are not aware of them.

7. Why is this a good answer?
The bullet point heading makes it clear to the marker which conclusion you are dealing with
The sources are both clearly relevant to the topic
Each source’s data has been evaluated (evaluative language in red)
The final conclusion makes a specific judgement and contains evaluative terminology
Do this twice more for a perfect 8/8