Jonty Duggan, Head of Psychology

One of the most common queries from GCSE Psychology teachers is how to introduce the 13-mark exam questions and support their students to tackle them confidently. We know that these questions are particularly challenging to students. Answering them well requires skills of analysis and evaluation, structuring an extended response and making synoptic links from across the course. 

In this blog I’ll highlight some tips that I’ve found successful when teaching about this style of question. I’ll cover ideas to improve student confidence, how to focus on the structure of the response and the importance of interpreting the question.

The dreaded 13-mark questions

Cambridge OCR GCSE Psychology consists of two exam papers and each will contain one 13-mark question on an issue, debate or research method. This is the highest tariff question in the subject, so it’s worth spending time to prepare students. 

Each 13-mark question is made up of 6 marks of AO1 and 7 marks of AO3. The high proportion of AO3 analysis and evaluation can make this a challenge for students, as well as the requirement that it assesses the ability to structure an extended response and make synoptic links. 

Success in these questions is centred around student confidence. Students need to learn how to analyse the question and structure their responses.

Developing confidence for essay writing

As all psychology teachers are aware, the mention of extended writing or ‘essays’ leads to cold shivers from the students. Many instantaneously opt out, believing this to be fundamentally too challenging for them to be successful. A key focus at both my previous and current school was how to develop that confidence early to enable them to attempt these questions and demonstrate their knowledge and skills. 

Teaching the 13-marker often falls halfway through the first year of teaching, as the focus on synoptic links requires students to use alternative topics to make comparisons. However, this leads to less time to introduce and embed the skills required. 

Instead, we focused on getting students to answer a smaller essay style question from the start of the course. We start with the 8-mark extended writing question, one that develops skills of description and evaluation of both studies and theories. These skills build on experience of answering 4-mark questions and use PEEL paragraphs (Point, Evidence, Explanation, Link) which we introduce at the start. 

This has led students to feel more confident about writing extended questions and practicing the structure of these types of questions. Basically, students answering an 8-mark question are answering half a 13-marker. Therefore, our students tend to feel greater levels of confidence in the writing once we start the 13-mark question.

Teaching the structure without them knowing

A key strategy I have used is getting students to answer a ‘do now’ style task. This task is broken into five questions, where students answer four 3-mark questions on two different studies. Two questions focus on AO1 knowledge and two focus on AO3 evaluation. This is then followed by a single question where students have to state which study is better for 1 mark. 

The key requirement is getting students to focus on linking their research methods evaluation (AO3) point to the two studies. This is a time-consuming task, but one that really supports the development of both structure and confidence. 

Once they have finished this task, I show them the 13-mark question they have essentially just answered without realising. Students tend to be surprised and more engaged as they have not had any anxiety in the build up to writing their first ‘essay’ response. 

By breaking down the 13-mark question and introducing it in this bite-size way it becomes more accessible to students, and they feel less intimidated by these question types. Once I‘ve shown students the question in this way, we begin our two-week focus on 13-markers and understanding the structure.

Focusing on the structure and wording

Our next stage is developing students’ understanding of the question. This tends to work better for once they know they are able to answer these types of questions, as it gives them a reference point. 

We focus on decoding the question; teaching students to examine the statement itself and the last part of the question. Students are shown how the statement forms the basis of the argument they are going to make and need to link their evaluation to. 

We also highlight the last part of the question, where it asks them to refer to studies or theories from a different topic. We then explain how mistakes regarding this lead to a response that cannot move past level 1. We find that students have a better understanding of these mistakes after they have written their own structured response from the ‘do now’ task, which has adhered to these key rules. 

Lastly, we get students to begin reading through and analysing exemplar responses, looking at the structure and the AO1 and AO3 content. This supports their understanding of how much information is required for their AO1 and AO3 to complete a level 3 response. 

You can access a range of exemplars on Teach Cambridge under the Assessment and Past Training Events tabs.

Consistency and feedback is key

Once students are aware of the key features of a 13-marker, our key focus is consistently getting them to try these types of question and for us to provide them with feedback. 

Occasionally this feedback will be yellow-box style feedback: focussing on a single paragraph in depth; offering constructive feedback they can use and apply. However, in general the feedback given is much more holistic, with Directed Improvement and Reflection Time (DIRT) sheets that focus on students analysing their own responses to increase their metacognition. You can make this a structured activity with a series of prompts for students to reflect and act on. There are many examples online for generic and subject specific DIRT sheets and activities that you can adapt for your own needs. 

Timed responses are something that we tend to look at in more detail later in the course, once they have started to understand how to tackle the question. Often this will involve timing each paragraph and telling students to move on. This is useful, as many students will spend too long on AO1 and give less time to AO3. This exercise helps them to realise the balance they should be aiming for. 

Lastly, you could use structure strips to support student development and act as prompts. For example you could use them to explain the differences between completing a study or theory, or to provide prompts for the AO1 and AO3 sections. You could use them for specific questions and use the grids to demonstrate how the different issues and debates or research methods are applied to different theories and studies. Structure strips can take many forms, and you may want to trial a few different ways to use them with your students to see what works best.

Final thoughts

I hope you find my suggestions useful for your own teaching of 13-mark questions. As ever with teaching, everyone will develop their own style, but this may provide some useful points of reference. 

I’ve certainly found that building skills from the start of the course and dedicating time to practice will help build student confidence to attempt these questions. And this in turn provides them with more opportunities to gain marks in the exams.

Stay connected

For other sources of support, you can refer to our examiners’ reports, and the guide to 13 mark questions, on Teach Cambridge, and this PsychSpace video is also useful. 

Would you like to write a guest blog for Cambridge OCR? We are always happy to showcase best practice and teaching ideas from our teachers, so do get in touch. 

If you have any questions, you can email us at psychology@ocr.org.uk , call us on 01223 553998 or follow us @OCR_Psychology. You can also sign up to subject updates for the latest news, information and resources.

If you are considering teaching any of our qualifications, use our online form to let us know, so that we can help you with more information.

About the author

Jonty is a current Head of Psychology with a BSc in Psychology and a MSc in Forensic Psychology as well as his PGCE. He has been teaching psychology for the past few years to GCSE, A Level and International Baccalaureate students and has been teaching Cambridge OCR GCSE Psychology for 5 years..