‘Evaluate‘ means what value? These questions are therefore asking you to make a judgement before giving reasons/evidence to support your judgement. Evaluations take place at the end of a process and are therefore written in past tense. Use the following structure to help you answer these questions:
- Make your judgement. Use evaluative terms/phrases such as ‘beneficial’, ‘limited’, ‘improved’, ‘worsened’, ‘effective’ and ‘ineffective’.
- Give a point why you have made this judgement.
- Back this up with evidence.
Example:
Evaluate how effective one method was in gathering data on the Physical factor. (4).
KEY:
Judgement statement
Why you made this statement
Supporting evidence
‘A method I used to gather data on the Physical factor was the Bleep Test. This method was fairly effective.’
‘One benefit of the Bleep Test was that it was practical because it was easy to interpret my results. This was because all I had to do was compare my score to the NORMS and easily identify what NORM my score was in. This was helpful as it lead to me easily identifying if my CRE levels were a strength or a weakness and setting up a developmentally appropriate training programme using relevant approaches at the correct intensities for me.’
‘Another benefit of the Bleep Test was that it was measurable. This was because my results were stored as a permanent record and gave me a baseline measurement to compare results from my re-tests back to. This was helpful because when I noticed that I was not improving in future re-tests, I was able to increase the duration and intensities of my sessions to better challenge my CRE levels and stimulate improvements.’
‘However, a limitation of the Bleep Test was that it was very boring. This was because all I did was gradually increase the pace I ran at between 2 cones over and over again which lead to me losing motivation. This was not helpful because I just gave up during the Bleep Test and did not push myself to the fullest leading to me dropping out when I was not exhausted and my score therefore being inaccurate and unreliable.’
‘Another limitation of the Bleep Test was that it was initially carried out on a hill. This was limited because I got tired more quickly from running up an incline rather than because my heart and lungs had naturally reached their point of exhaustion. This again falsified results as I was not getting a true reading of my CRE levels.’
NOTE:
- An overall value (‘fairly effective’) is given within the introduction of the answer.
- Each paragraph then has a judgement statements using evaluative terms such as ‘benefits’ and ‘limitations’. These statements are short and sharp and do not access any marks.
- The next sentence in each paragraph then justifies why such evaluative terms were previously used.
- The final sentence then supports this evidence with the impact it had on the results. Again, evaluative statements such as ‘helpful’ and ‘falsified’ are used to further support the initial judgement being made in the paragraph. The candidate is now awarded with evaluative marks.
- The candidate has written in past tense as the evaluation has taken place at the end of the process.
- Despite providing a value of fairly effective, the candidate does not contradict themselves between the benefits and limitations provided. You cannot simply flip an answer.
- For this 4 mark question, the candidate has provided 4 evaluative paragraphs; 1 per mark.