• This paper was relevant and stimulating as it prompts students to be versatile with familiar material.听
• The paper was balanced in that it offered something for everyone with challenges on par with previous years.听

Written:听

The German paper always asks students to be versatile with their material. The themes and topics are always relevant and familiar but approached in novel ways that require students to react during the exam. Students hoping to recite rote learned pieces will struggle, but this was never how the German paper approached its material. Those who thoroughly prepared for the oral will be richly rewarded as they will see core elements reflected back to them on the page.听

The first comprehension text, 鈥淭he Happy Secret鈥� was a fascinating story of an author鈥檚 rise from the breadline due to his curiosity and ingenuity. The piece covered a broad period of time, 30 years, but accessible questions and a generous glossary for the more obscure terms would have helped students navigate it. Students will have been pleased with the grammar question. The second piece was a novel twist on a topical issue, which is typical of the German exam. This journalistic piece on young people shunning a dependency on online existence was an idiosyncratic angle on a well-prepared topic. With mention of flip phones and 鈥淟uddite Clubs鈥� students saw a fresh approach to a subject that permeates their lives.听

Continuing this trend the opinion-based compositions required some mental agility and versatility. The prompts were very stimulating as students were asked to examine their own phone usage, the power of phone bans in schools and even the nature of student demonstration. The latter was wonderfully open-ended and would allow the top students to draw in various materials. Elsewhere students could reflect on their experiences of reading (a common theme on this paper) for both study and pleasure. Everything in this section was relevant, engaging and asked in an unambiguous way.听

The letter in the Schriftliche Produktion was rooted in the topic of travel, something potentially very relevant to their plans after the exams. They were asked about cultural passes as a way to engage with a city, on desirable travelling companions, and the thrill of making crazy or 鈥渆xtreme鈥� trips. Students couldn鈥檛 have rote learned any of these specific talking points, but each one drew from a pool of resources that would be very familiar to them. While the questions were new, they were not surprising and thoroughly in keeping with the examination trends from previous years.听

The final collection of composition prompts was more challenging than the letter, even though the themes were even more culturally potent. The value of media literacy in a time of fake news, engagement with newspapers, and free expression are all familiar discussion topics but would challenge many, particularly those pressed for time in an exam. These talking points sat beside prompts on drivers鈥� licenses, the school run, and the deposit refund scheme, thus showing how dynamic the range of ideas on the German paper can be.听

Aural:

The themes and approach of the written paper extended into the aural. Ideas of engaging with the written word reappeared in Section 1鈥檚 interview with a Russian author working in German. All the sections were topical and informed by familiar material, but students might have found the vocabulary relating to anger in Section 2鈥檚 noise complaint particularly challenging. Again, this portion of the exam was not without its challenges but fundamentally fair in its consistency with previous years.听

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• Students will recognise the majority of the questions from previous papers and be pleased with those questions that took a more desirable approach to topics.听
• However, the occasional new question would have challenged students to think on their feet and maybe alter their plan for how to approach the later sections.听

Section 1鈥檚 short questions mostly drew from the last 4 units of the course and offered a nice selection of approachable material. The insurance calculation was familiar and straightforward while the four rapid response questions would allow uncertain students to gather a few marks early on. The rest of this section was demanding as it touched on lots of specifics ranging from the European Parliament to Community Development to Teamwork. But if you had really drilled those areas and looked at past papers, you would be happy with the selection.听

Many students worry about the Applied Business Question (ABQ) but will have been relieved by the approach the question setter took. Question A is one of the most common questions, appearing a dozen times previously. Question B on 鈥淓lements of the Contract鈥� took a clear and desirable approach to what could have been a very complicated topic. As always, the prep work was essential but those who did it will feel rewarded.听

As they were departing Section 2 many students will have been pleased but would find themselves pausing as they weighed up parts 1 and 2 of Section 3. Part 1 has a reputation as being harder and thus less popular, but I suspect many students will favour it on this paper. It was essentially a compendium of past papers and those who included the deferred paper in their revision will find little new here. For example Question 1 saw a reappearance of the contract and Question 4 asked on the CCPC, an old favourite having appeared eight times recently. Students who study Economics as well as Business will have been thrilled by Question 3 on Unit 7 as the topical discussion of the impact of interest rates overlaps the two courses.听

In contrast, Part 2 had a few moments that students won鈥檛 have seen before as the middle questions had twists that some might find nasty. Question 5 on technology took something very topical but narrowed the scope by dictating the areas for discussion in a very specific way. The material wasn鈥檛 any harder but students needed to be agile to restructure the information in their own minds. Question 6 on Cash Flow had been absent for 6 years until it recently reappeared on last year鈥檚 deferred paper. Again proving that students need to focus on every paper, not just the June sittings for their insights. Question 7 would be many students anticipated choice, but most will have reassessed this in the hall. Part B was strange in this context and the Theory of Ratios was reminiscent of concepts from Accounting. The same was true for Question 8, a staple 鈥済o to鈥� for many that will have been ditched in favour of the unexpectedly accessible Part 1.听

This was a good paper for those who really focused on preparing the past papers and drilled themselves on grasping the key concepts of the course.听

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• A lovely paper with viable choices in every section.
• This was a topical paper which is set in the real world of the students.
• Clear, straightforward, and rooted in the syllabus. While there were a few surprises, they were very pleasant and manageable questions.

Every section of this paper had something that was absolutely lovely. Those familiar with past papers will have seen familiar questions reappear and nothing that would disconcert them. While in the past some papers had been spoiled by awkward, abstract, or curveball questions, this paper was pure syllabus and thus very fair to those who put in the work to revise.

The short questions at the beginning were clear and topical. Issues relevant to the modern teenager like minimum wage, GDPR, calculations of pay, and the EU meant that many students will have found themselves growing in confidence as they progressed. For those who were potentially a little uncertain there were some lovely rapid response questions. The true or false answers would reward those who were willing to take a chance. This is a section that would have pleased a lot of students.

Section 2: Applied Business may have caused a few moments of pause, but again was very fair in how it presented its surprises. This was the first ever appearance of Economic Variables in the June exams (having only been seen on the 2022 deferred paper previously) and so many students might not have prepared for it. However, the answers were very conveniently embedded and clearly communicated so that it should have been attemptable by most students. What was anticipated was Unit 7鈥檚 Challenges and Opportunities in International Trade. A prepared student will have been delighted. The question on Unit 5 might have caught a few students who had been too narrow in their preparation, as the final ABQ on Finance verged more on Unit 4 material. This was a paper that really rewarded range.

The final long questions were fantastic. Again, the topics were relevant and allowed students to apply their own general understanding of the world to smooth over any surprises. For example, Question 1 was a straightforward piece on sale of goods and elements of a contract, but the final part asked about 鈥渃ooling off periods鈥�, something not emphasised in the units. But from context, most will have been able to tackle this effectively if they gave themselves a moment to think. Students will have found contemporary talking points throughout his section: for example, environmentalism in Question 2 and flexible work in Question 6. For a year group whose secondary school experience was defined by the Covid era the latter was very relevant to their experiences. Students who anticipated an emphasis on the EU, due to the 50^th anniversary of its formation, will have been richly rewarded with some fantastically approachable questions. A welcome surprise will have been the appearance of both Maslow鈥檚 and McGregor鈥檚 theories of motivation. Most students are happy to see just one of those but will be over the moon with both.

In the end, this was a very fair paper that would have given prepared students a chance to play to their strengths and make smart choices to maximise marks. The questions were accessible and rooted in the real world of the modern student.

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