Have you ever come to mark the extended questions on the exam papers your students have just done and notice that many have left it blank or have only written a few lines? When you challenge them, they complain that they don’t know how to structure their answer?
This was something that was all too common in our classrooms too, so we decided to build Answer Perfect.
It was clear from marking exam papers that this was also a National problem and both students and teachers needed support. We wanted to build students’ confidence and change their mindset when they see the extended question staring back at them and they go blank. With increased confidence and the knowledge they have learnt from their expert teachers, they are armed with everything they need to tackle the beast.
The expert team at Answer Perfect have written unique extended questions and perfect answers for areas of the specification. Video guides show students how to break down the question and to identify the command word, topic, and focus, using our easy to follow colour coding system. The experts will then demonstrate how to write the perfect answer for each question using our IDEAS principle.
Practice Makes Perfect…
We know that just watching a video is not enough and in order for students to increase their marks they need to practice over and over again, which got us thinking…how can we support this further?
Extended Question Training
We decided to add a new feature, called ‘EQ Trainer’, allowing students to practise structuring the perfect answer from a bank of statements.
Step 1: Students are presented with a course specific extended question.
Step 2: Students must read through all of the statements and tick all statements which are correct and applicable to the topic and focus of the question.
Step 3: Students submit their answer for review.
Step 4: Students are presented with a perfect answer which is colour coded to highlight AO1/2/3 content.
It is important that students are given multiple opportunities to read lots of perfect answers to understand how they can be structured. By providing them with colour coded answers after every attempt highlights to students the different parts of the answer and will encourage them to cover knowledge, application, and explanation within their own answers. We believe this is an important step for students as it leads to a higher success rate and increases their confidence.
If they continue to repeat this as part of their ongoing practice by the time they come to their exam they will not be leaving any extended question empty as they will know exactly how to break down any extended question and structure their perfect answer.
Taking Training to the Next Level
Once students have mastered the ability to nail the extended questions through statement selection, they can be challenged to structure the perfect answer to our huge bank of unique extended questions on the platform. Teachers can set their students the task to answer specific extended questions online which are submitted directly back to them when complete. Teachers can give personalised feedback which is returned to the student and saved in their user area. This allows students to improve their answer at a later date as the feedback is stored on all question attempts and is easy to access.
Don’t waste any more time and get in touch about how your students can take on the EQ Trainer and become the Answer Perfect leaders at extended question writing and achieve higher grades in their exams. We have a range of packages available to suit the needs of everyone and you can even sign up for a free trial to see a sample of what is on offer to help you decide which package works for you. Sign up for a FREE 21 day trial by completing this form.
