Teaching Exam Technique – Command words

Reword-write-mark-correct

Relevant for GCSE and A-Level

I hope everyone has had a relaxing summer holiday (without working too much!) and that you were happy with your exam results. As the start of a new year beckons, I've been reflecting on the importance of the first few weeks of lessons. Setting expectations is of course vital, but I think one of the (many) keys to success is embedding skills from the get-go.

When I first started teaching, I fell into the trap of teaching the content very thoroughly and only briefly covering skills and exam technique every now and then. The result was students who had fantastic knowledge, could apply that knowledge to explain behaviours (verbally) and could suggest excellent evaluation points, but couldn’t write their ideas in a way that earned them the marks that they should have been able to achieve.  Over time, I’ve realised that teaching exam technique and the skills of the course is as important as teaching the content, if not more so. If students really wanted to, they could learn the content of a GCSE or A-Level by themselves, but they wouldn’t necessarily do well in the exams without honing their skills and exam technique. 

Being an options subject, Psychology is often new for students at A-Level, and is new for all students at GCSE. For me, this has made it easier to get students to 'buy in' to learning exam technique from the beginning of the course – it’s just a part of the subject and they need to learn it like everything else. So to help students to develop this skill from the beginning, one of the strategies I use is ‘reword-write-mark-correct.’ 

A few things to note before we get into the strategy:

1. This example is for an AQA A-Level lesson on Research Methods, but could easily be adapted for other topics and GCSE lessons.

2. This activity takes place over two lessons (the last part of the first lesson, and the first part of the second) and one homework in between them. It works best for shorter knowledge and application questions, but could be adapted for other types of question.

3. At the beginning of the course, I give students a handbook of important information about the course e.g. how it works, the topics in each exam, ideas for independent study etc. One of the pages of the handbook contains a list of command words and phrases specified by AQA with what they interpret them to mean. I have added some to this list, such as 'in this experiment/investigation/study', which I think are important for students to be aware of based on how marks are awarded in different questions. This list is vital for the success of this activity.

4. My school uses a 'pink pen of progress' strategy for ensuring that students improve their work after it has been marked. Students are given stars and wishes and then have dedicated time (Dedicated Improvement and Reflection Time or DIRT) to make improvements. These improvements are then highlighted in pink so that when the teacher is checking for improvements, it's obvious (and therefore quick) to see what they have done.

Step 1 - Highlight the command words (in class)

In pairs, students use their command words list to highlight all of the command words and phrases in the question.

For example: Other than ethical issues, outline one weakness of using a field experiment in this investigation (2 marks)

Step 2 - Reword the questions (in class)

In pairs, students use the meanings of the command words and phrases to reword the questions so that it is clearer how they earn marks for each one. For example, the question in step 1 could be reworded as: 'Without using ethical issues, what is a problem of using a field experiment? Give an example of how this is a problem in the study above.' (2 marks)

By separating the question into two sentences, it makes it clear to students that they must do two things to earn two marks.

This then leads to whole class feedback to check that everyone is happy with the meaning of each question before they leave the lesson.

Step 3 - Write the answers (homework)

The first part of students' homework is to write their answers to all of the questions.

Step 4 - Mark the answers part 1 (homework)

The second part of students' homework is to mark their answers, without use of a mark scheme. Their task is to simply highlight where they think they have earned the marks - mark one is highlighted in one colour, mark two is highlighted in another colour etc. This gives me an idea of where they think they are earning marks so that I can correct any misconceptions when I mark their work.

Additionally, in questions that require application (e.g. 'in this investigation'), students underline where they have given examples from the study in the question. If they can't do this, they know they haven't satisfied all of the requirements of the question, so they need to add it in.

Step 5 - Mark the answers part 2 (in class)

In the next lesson, students work in pairs to peer assess their answers using the mark schemes. They then complete a 'stars and wishes peer assessment' sheet for their peer (see right) by ticking whether each skill is a strength (star) or area for development (wish) based on their marking.

Step 6 - Correct the answers (in class)

Based on their peer's marking, students make improvements to their answers during DIRT. Their partner can support them by explaining why they didn't award them full marks on a question, and by suggesting ideas that they could add in if they get stuck. The improvements are then highlighted in pink (or written in pink).

Step 7 - Checking their work

The work is handed in, along with the peer assessment sheet, and I check the marking and improvements. I use a stamp to confirm their marking at the end of the work, and only write a comment if a correction is needed.

When repeated over time, this activity really helps students when it comes to understanding what is required in each answer and how much detail they need to give to earn full marks without over-explaining. Give it a go and let me know how it works out.