Structured Response practice questions.

Part (c) of a Paper 1 question begins 'To what extent...'. A candidate treats this as an instruction to describe how the system works. The command term in fact requires

• a judgement about degree, supported and then justified
• a complete account of how the system works and of who built it
• a definition of every key term that appears in the question
• a list of the stakeholder groups affected by the system

Answer: a judgement about degree, supported and then justified

'To what extent' is an AO3 term: the answer argues how far a claim holds, not whether it is simply true or false. Describing the technology answers an AO1 question that was not asked, which is why such responses stall in the lowest band.

SL Paper 1 lasts 90 minutes and sets four structured questions of 20 marks each, of which two must be answered. A candidate answers three of them. The most likely result is that

• all three answers are credited, giving a possible paper total of 60 marks
• the two required answers suffer, because the time was split three ways
• the examiner applies a rubric penalty to the whole paper
• a bonus is available for attempting more than the paper requires

Answer: the two required answers suffer, because the time was split three ways

Only two answers can count towards the total, so a third answer cannot raise the maximum available while it takes roughly a third of the time from the two that do count. Rubric discipline is therefore a mark-scoring decision, not an administrative detail.

Part (b) asks for one impact and one implication of automated attendance monitoring for students, for 6 marks. A candidate writes that absences are logged without a teacher taking a register, and that teachers therefore know immediately who is missing. Only the impact is credited because

• students rather than teachers should have been named as the stakeholder
• attendance monitoring is not a digital system in the sense used by the course
• an implication is creditable only when a country and a year are supplied
• the second statement restates the direct effect instead of naming a wider consequence

Answer: the second statement restates the direct effect instead of naming a wider consequence

An impact is the direct, largely intended effect; an implication is the wider or longer-term consequence, such as attendance records becoming a permanent behavioural profile attached to a child. Restating the impact in different words is the single most common way that 6-mark part (b) answers lose half their marks.

A part (b) answer traces a clear chain of effects but supports it with 'a well-known social media platform in a European country'. Under Digital Society mark schemes this wording costs marks because

• examples drawn from Europe are not accepted in a globally set paper
• social media may only be used as evidence in the source-based Paper 2
• no real system, place or period is named that could be checked
• examples become creditable only from part (c) of the question onwards

Answer: no real system, place or period is named that could be checked

Digital Society credits the named deployment, not the category: 'YouTube's recommendation system, rebuilt around watch time from 2012' is creditable where 'a video platform' is not. A placeholder shows that the candidate knows the shape of the argument but not a case that tests it.

HL Paper 1 lasts 135 minutes and awards 52 marks: two Section A questions of 20 marks and one Section B extended response of 12 marks. A candidate who plans exactly 45 minutes for each of the three answers is

• over-spending on the 12-mark task relative to its share of the marks
• following the time allocation that the paper itself recommends
• under-spending on Section A, which carries the fewer marks of the two sections
• attempting more Section A questions than the paper's rubric permits

Answer: over-spending on the 12-mark task relative to its share of the marks

At 52 marks in 135 minutes a mark is worth about 2.6 minutes, so Section B deserves roughly 30 minutes and each Section A question roughly 50. Equal time per answer quietly transfers writing time from 40 marks to 12.

A part (a) task worth 6 marks reads: 'Identify and describe two ways in which contact-tracing applications collected data during the COVID-19 pandemic.' The response expected is

• six brief ways, one for each mark that is available
• two ways, each developed to carry up to three marks
• four ways, so that each of the two named uses is covered twice
• one way, described in as much technical detail as the time allows

Answer: two ways, each developed to carry up to three marks

The tariff divides by the number of things asked for: 6 marks over two ways is three marks per way, typically statement, development and named example. Reading the tariff before writing prevents both the six-item list and the single over-long answer.