Justify Your Decision

There is no right answer, and that is the point

Every year candidates walk out of Paper 3 asking each other which option was correct. None of them was. An issue evaluation has no answer key. The examiner cannot mark your preference, because a preference is not a geographical argument. What they can mark is the reasoning you built underneath it, and that is where every mark lives. Three things follow from that, and between them they are this whole module. First, any option can reach full marks. Two candidates choosing opposite options can both score everything available, and a popular choice defended badly scores less than an unpopular one defended well. Second, rejecting the alternatives is half the job. Choosing without rejecting is an opinion; explaining why the option you turned down loses on the criteria that matter is what turns it into a decision. Third, a reason that would fit any scheme anywhere is not evidence. "It would help the local people" could be written about any proposal in any booklet in any year, which is exactly why it earns nothing. Anchor every reason to a specific figure, quote or resource. This is the last stage of the process. The earlier modules read the booklet and appraise the options against criteria; this one decides and defends. It is the extended answer at the end of Section A, and Section A is worth 37 of the 76 marks on a paper that is 30 per cent of the qualification.

Six terms, three of them about the mark scheme

The last three are assessment facts rather than geography, and they change how you spend the time.

Assemble one justification paragraph

These six moves make a paragraph that justifies rather than asserts. Put them in the order that reads best.

• Name the option you are choosing, in one sentence, with no hedging
• State the criterion you are judging on, such as how many people benefit within five years
• Give the specific evidence from the booklet that shows your option wins on that criterion
• Show the option you rejected losing on that same criterion, using its own figures
• Name the cost you are accepting by choosing, and who carries it
• Say why that cost is worth paying, which is the judgement itself

Two candidates, opposite options, both full marks

One candidate recommends option A and another recommends option B on the same issue. Both are awarded full marks. Which explains how?

• Because the credit is for the reasoning rather than the choice. There is no correct option, so what is assessed is whether the decision rests on stated criteria, whether the evidence cited is specific to the booklet, whether the rejected option is shown losing rather than ignored, and whether the cost being accepted is named. Two opposite choices can each satisfy all of that.
• Examiners accept any answer on this paper because it is a matter of opinion.
• Both were given partial credit for effort even though one must be wrong.
• Both refused to come down firmly on one side, which is the safest approach.

The three jobs, and what each looks like

A justification does three things, and most lost marks come from doing only the first. The examples are drawn from the practice issue used later in this module, an NEE city of about 3.4 million where a self-built settlement of roughly 60,000 people has no mains electricity, choosing between extending the grid, a solar micro-grid and a shared diesel generator scheme. The figures are invented practice material, as a booklet of your own would be.

Match each sentence to the job it is doing

Never end on balance

The examiner reports say it every year. A candidate weighs the options carefully, runs out of nerve at the last paragraph, and writes that all of the options have their merits and the best approach would be a combination. That ending throws away the marks the rest of the answer had earned, because the question asked for a decision and it did not get one. Write a decision sentence instead, and write it first rather than last so everything after it has a job. It has four parts: the option, the criterion it wins on, the evidence that shows it winning, and the cost you are accepting. Something like: I recommend the second option, because it supplies the most households in the shortest time, as Resource 4 shows, and I accept that the supply will be less reliable than a grid connection would be. Two more habits worth building. Use the booklet by name. Saying which resource a figure came from costs four words and proves you are arguing from evidence rather than from memory, which matters on the one paper that awards nothing for recall. And consider people and the physical environment both, because the issue is synoptic by design and an answer that weighs only one of them has answered half the question however well it is written. Then proofread. Spelling, punctuation and grammar carry double weight on this paper, so two minutes reading your extended answer back is the best-paid two minutes in the qualification.

Complete the Paper 3 assessment facts

Paper 3 lasts an hour and a half, carries _____ marks in total and is worth _____ per cent of the qualification. Section A, the issue evaluation, accounts for _____ of those marks and Section B the rest. The resources booklet reaches you _____ weeks ahead of the exam, although the copy on your desk on the day is a clean one. Most importantly for how you revise, the number of marks this paper awards for pure recall is _____, so knowledge counts only where it is used on the material in front of you.

Spot the three sound decision statements

Select the THREE statements that could stand as they are in an answer or as revision advice.

• Whichever option is recommended, full marks remain available, because the credit attaches to the criteria, the evidence and the treatment of the alternatives rather than to the choice itself.
• Attributing a figure to the resource it came from shows the argument grew out of the booklet rather than out of memory, and memory by itself scores nothing here.
• Naming the drawback of the chosen option and who bears it is what separates an evaluation from a recommendation.
• The safest conclusion is that each option has its merits and a combination of them would work best.
• Including detailed case-study knowledge from Papers 1 and 2 will gain extra credit here.
• The option with the most supporting resources in the booklet is the one the examiner intends you to choose.

A 9-mark justification, marked

Which of the three options would you recommend to supply electricity to the settlement? Use evidence from the resources booklet to justify your decision. [9 marks plus SPaG] I recommend the solar micro-grid, because it supplies the most households in the shortest time, and I accept that it will give a less reliable supply than a grid connection would. My main criterion is how many of the roughly 60,000 residents gain a supply within two years, since Resource 2 shows the settlement has been waiting since it was first built and the health risks of kerosene lighting described in Resource 5 continue for as long as the wait does. On that criterion the micro-grid wins clearly: Resource 4 puts it at around 8,000 households within eighteen months, against about 2,000 for the grid extension over the same period. The grid extension is not a bad option and I am not rejecting it for being one. It offers the most reliable supply of the three and the engineer quoted in Resource 6 is right that a single integrated network is easier to maintain. I am rejecting it because the booklet puts the full connection at about seven years, which means a decade of kerosene for most of the settlement before the benefit arrives. The diesel scheme I reject on a different criterion. It is the cheapest to start, which is why the residents association in Resource 7 supports it, but its running cost rises with the fuel price and the households buying that fuel are the ones with the least room to absorb a rise. Choosing it would fix the immediate problem by deepening the vulnerability underneath it. It also raises local air pollution in a settlement already dealing with indoor smoke, so it loses on the physical environment as well as on cost. The cost of my choice is real and it falls on residents rather than on the city. Solar supplies little after dark unless battery storage is funded, and Resource 4 costs that separately, so some households would have light in the evening only if the storage is included. The city engineer also loses the integrated network they argued for. I judge that worth paying: 8,000 households supplied within eighteen months, with no fuel cost and no additional local air pollution, outweighs a tidier network that most of the settlement would not see for seven years. What earned the marks: a decision in the first sentence; a criterion stated before any evidence was used; figures attributed to numbered resources throughout; both rejected options shown losing, one of them on a different criterion from the other; people and the physical environment both weighed; and a named cost with a named loser, followed by the reason it is acceptable. The figures are invented practice material, exactly as your own booklet will supply real ones.

Find the two that would cost marks

Five sentences from the final paragraph of an issue evaluation. Two would lose credit for how they are written rather than for being factually wrong. Tap those TWO.

• All three options have their advantages, so on balance the best approach would probably be a combination of them.
• The option I am recommending is the micro-grid, since it reaches more households within two years than either alternative, as Resource 4 shows.
• This option should be chosen because it would be much better for the local community and the environment.
• I reject the grid extension not because it is weak but because its seven-year timetable leaves the need unmet in the meantime.
• The cost I accept is a supply that fails after dark unless storage is funded, and that falls on residents.

Build the decision sentence

Assemble the opening sentence of a justified decision.

Four moments in the last twenty minutes

Each situation happens during the extended answer at the end of Section A. Choose the response that earns most.

• You have weighed all three options and genuinely cannot tell which is best.
• Reading back, your chosen option sounds perfect and the other two sound hopeless.
• The issue reminds you of a case study you revised in detail for Paper 2.
• You finish the extended answer with three minutes left.

Justify a decision

Choose one of the three options for supplying the settlement with electricity and justify your decision, considering the impact on both people and the physical environment. [9 marks]

• What you give up by choosing your option, said plainly
• Each reason needs a criterion to be a reason about
• This paper gives no marks for recall alone
• Rejected options are beaten, not simply left unmentioned
• Impacts on both people and the physical environment