Revision for SBQs

Hey,

how's your holidays everyone? It's ending soon, bleah. I feel as if I didn't do anything constructive during the hols at all. What about you? I hope you at least did something you wanted to do. =)

Since school is starting soon, and I bet most of you didn't touch your SS textbook/file one bit, let's try to go through some of the basic skills you have learnt before the hols so that you can proceed on from here quickly to new skills you're going to learnt, shall we? These revision notes that I'm gonna write here are taken from a book "Definitive Guide to Social Studies". It's an excellent book for revision of SS, with appropriate examples and worked out solutions. Plus, it has sections on exam skills too.

I will be touching on different skills in my different entries from today. Let's start with SBQs yeah? The killer of your paper, isn't it? (And by the way, your mid-year exam was easier than I thought it would be! So it puzzles me why most of you didn't do well, based on your high standards. Oh well. Let's start anew. =) )



HOW TO ANALYSE SOURCE-BASED QUESTIONS

How to understand questions?
1. Whether you are answerin source-based case studies or structured-essay questions, you need to be able to understand the questions before you can answer them.
2. Understanding questions can be difficult, especially when the questions are long and complex.
3. Always remember that the questions are made up of two aspects:
- They give you information; and
- They ask a specific question. What question are they asking?

Inference questions
1. Inference questions require you to read between the lines and support your answers with concrete evidence from the source.

2. Inference questions usually have the following instruction words:
- What does Source A tell you about the situation?
- Do you think the author of the source is for or against ...? EYA.
- Do the sources support the view that...? EYA.

3. Use the tools and devices you know to help you give details to your answer. (This means all the stuff I have taught you: purpose, tone, content, etc. Remember that big big table you filled in?)

4. They do not require you to use other sources or have background information.

5. Here are some ways to begin your answers:
Opening sentences
- Source A tells me that...
- From Source A, I can tell that...
- Source A supports/does not support the view that...

Inferring sentence
- I can tell because... (use evidence from the text)

6. Remember that your answers require evidence from the text or speech. (Yes, it's time for Ms Teo to nag again. I really cannot stress this point enough! Many of you give valid points WITHOUT evidence from the source, be it textual or pictorial. The teacher cannot give you the marks you deserve if you don't give evidence! Must remember ok? Just like how you remember Ms Teo's egoistic manner in class, pls remember what she says about this too. =) )


Comparing Sources
1. Are such questions just asking for a comparison of differences or similarities? Or, are the questions asking you to compare BOTH differences and similarities? (Ahh... doesn't this point look SUPER familiar to all of you? I repeated this in class at least 3 times, and answered some of you individually at least twice when you came to ask me. This is the LAST time ok, GO AND READ THE NOTES ON COMPARING SOURCES THAT I HAVE GIVEN YOU. ON THE FIRST PAGE, IT SAYS EXACTLY WHAT KIND OF QUESTIONS REQUIRE WHAT KIND OF ANSWERS. Phew. Must have seemed I'm shouting my head off right. Nah. Ms Teo is cool. She doesn't shout. )

2. When comparing your sources, always begin with a general statement which tells the marker what you are comparing. Then give your evidence from the source. (If you remember, I wrote in an earlier post that you can actually do it the other way round. State your evidence first, then say what it means. Basically, the order can be reversed as long as you state your points clearly without overlap.)

3. Use paragraphs to organise your points. Here are some opening sentences which you can use for your comparison. Remember to use evidence from the source to explain your answers.

Paragraph 1
- Source A is very different from Source B in terms of the attitude of the author. (general statement)
- The author of Source A has an attitude of... (evidence)
- In contrast, the author of Source B has an attitude of... (general statement)... We know because... (evidence)

Paragraph 2
- Source A is similar to Source B because they both say... (general statement)
- For example, Source A says... (evidence)
- Similarly, Source B says... (evidence)




Ok. I almost died.

If no one reads this, I am so going to come after you. But then, I won't know if you read it anyway, you don't comment! I wish some of you can comment/email me questions or try to answer some questions I always pose up here. At least make me think I did the right thing in setting up this blog for you.

Right. Adios then, everyone. =)


Comment away............