The six mark question is the one students dread, and the dread produces a predictable response: write as much as possible and hope that somewhere in there are six marks’ worth of material.
That is a reasonable strategy for a question marked by points. It is the wrong strategy for a question marked by levels, and the extended response questions in GCSE science, and most extended answers at A-level, are marked by levels.
The difference is not cosmetic. It changes what you should be doing with the ten minutes.
Points marking versus levels marking
Points marking is what happens on most of the paper. The scheme lists creditable statements. The examiner finds them and counts them. Six marks means six things to say, and it does not much matter what order you say them in or whether the answer hangs together.
Levels marking works in two stages, and this is the bit almost nobody explains.
First, the examiner reads the whole answer and decides which band it belongs in. For a six mark question there are usually three bands, worth 1 to 2, 3 to 4 and 5 to 6.
Second, and only then, they decide where within that band it sits.
So the mark is not built up from zero by accumulating points. The answer is placed, then fine tuned. Which means an answer that has been placed in the middle band cannot reach 5 by containing more correct facts. It has to be a different kind of answer.
What actually separates the bands
The wording varies by board and subject, but the underlying distinction is remarkably consistent. Strip away the language and the bands are these.
Bottom band, 1 to 2 marks: relevant things, unconnected. Correct statements about the topic, in no particular order, without a line of argument. Everything true, nothing joined up. Most of the answers that look like a brain dump land here, including some very long ones.
Middle band, 3 to 4 marks: linked, but incomplete or one sided. There is a chain of reasoning and it works, but it does not cover the whole question, or it addresses one side of a two sided question, or it stops before drawing anything together.
Top band, 5 to 6 marks: sustained, complete and coherent. The answer covers the range the question asked about, the steps follow from each other, and it ends somewhere.
Notice what is not in that list. Length is not in it. Vocabulary is not in it, though the right terminology usually comes along for the ride. The variable is structure.
The most expensive habit
Here is what a middle band answer usually looks like when the content is fine:
Enzymes are proteins. They have an active site. The active site is specific. Temperature affects enzymes. At high temperatures they denature. The optimum for human enzymes is 37°C.
Six true statements. Probably 2 or 3 marks, and the student is baffled, because everything they wrote is correct.
The problem is that nothing is connected to anything. It is a list, and the question asked for an explanation. Now the same content, joined up:
Enzymes are proteins with an active site whose shape is specific to one substrate. As temperature rises, both molecules gain kinetic energy, so collisions between them become more frequent and the rate increases. Above the optimum, which is around 37°C for human enzymes, the bonds holding the tertiary structure begin to break. The active site changes shape, the substrate no longer fits, and the enzyme is denatured, so the rate falls sharply.
Almost identical content. The second one is in the top band, because the examiner can follow a single line of reasoning from beginning to end.
The rule of thumb: if you can reorder your sentences without the answer getting worse, you are writing a list.
Planning it in ninety seconds
You do not need a formal plan. You need three things decided before you start writing, in the margin:
- The endpoint. What is the answer to the question, in one sentence? Write it down first. Everything else is the route there.
- The steps, in order. Four or five words each. This is where you catch the missing link, while it still costs you nothing.
- Whether the question has two sides. If it says compare, evaluate, or “advantages and disadvantages”, the top band requires both. One sided is a middle band answer by definition, however good it is.
Ninety seconds on that will move more answers up a band than ninety extra seconds of writing.
The specific things that pull answers into the top band
- Connectives that carry logic. Because, so, therefore, which means, as a result. If your answer contains none of these, it is a list.
- Covering the range the question named. If it asks about “the structure and the function”, an answer entirely about structure cannot reach the top band no matter how good it is. Underline both nouns in the question before starting, and check the command word is being obeyed: what “explain” requires that “describe” does not.
- A closing sentence that answers the question asked. Not a summary. A conclusion. On an evaluate question this is usually the difference between 4 and 6.
- Correct terminology used naturally. Not sprinkled in. If you write “denatured” you should also be able to say what changed.
What does not pull answers up
Being blunt about this saves time in the exam:
- More sentences. Length correlates with marks only because longer answers tend to contain more reasoning. Length on its own does nothing.
- Rewriting the question as an introduction. No marks, and it is common.
- Everything you know about the topic. Irrelevant material does not usually lose marks directly, but it dilutes the answer and eats time you needed for the next question.
- Handwriting and spelling. Some papers carry separate marks for written communication, and where they do they are stated explicitly. Otherwise the examiner is reading for meaning.
How to check your own six marker
Mark schemes for levels questions include indicative content, which is a long list of things a good answer might contain, and this is where students go wrong when self marking. Indicative content is not a checklist. You are not supposed to have said all of it. Ticking off how many of the bullets you hit tells you almost nothing about your band.
Instead, read the band descriptors, which sit above the indicative content and which most students skip entirely. Then ask yourself the two questions the examiner asks:
- Does this answer form a connected line of reasoning, or is it a set of separate statements?
- Does it cover everything the question asked about?
Those two questions decide your band. The content decides where you sit inside it.
Teaching this in one lesson
Give a class two answers with identical content, one written as a list and one joined up, hand them the band descriptors, and let them place both. That structure is worth two bands is hard to believe until it happens to something you have just read.
Marky marks extended responses against the same banded schemes, with feedback on what held the answer back, which turns “write in more detail” into something a student can act on. See how it marks a paper.