Business Studies AS / A2

The Business Studies AS and A2 revision courses have been carefully designed to help you to maximise your grade in the summer exams.

Although subject knowledge is of course essential, what differentiates an E grade candidate from an A grade in Business Studies is their ability to use their information effectively. Far too often candidates demonstrate their knowledge but underachieve because they fail to apply their understanding to a given question in the right way. At AS, for example, the ability to place answers in the appropriate business context and analyse issues is essential. At A2 the most demanding skill of all, evaluation, becomes extremely significant as it is worth 40% of the marks on some papers. Our Business Studies courses focus very clearly on developing the skills the examiners want to see, helping you to produce better answers.

By the end of the courses you will:

  1. Understand the demands of exam questions and the requirements of each paper much more.

  2. Be able to demonstrate the key skills such as analysis and evaluation more effectively.

  3. Have practised questions under exam conditions.

  4. Have seen examples of excellent answers and marked answers yourself to see things from the examiner’s perspective.

  5. All of which should enable you to feel much more confident about the exam and improve your grade significantly.

AS Level

The key exam skills will be developed in the context of Marketing, Finance, Human Resource Management,Operations, Objectives and Strategy and the External Environment. We will probably spend one day focusing on Marketing and Finance and the other two days on the remainder of the AS specification. The balance of time will depend in part on what students this year want to cover. We will apply much of the work to the pre issued case study that AQA uses for Units 2 (People and Operations) and 3 (External influences, objectives and strategy). Although we have had students studying from other specifications attend the courses the stimulus material will be AQA. The focus at all times will be on the key skills such as application and analysis and you will have plenty of practice to improve your exam technique.

A2 Level

The approach will be similar to the AS course although with even more emphasis on the skill of evaluation.

Again we will respond to demand but are likely to cover key financial topics and then focus on case study skills (such as Unit 4 for AQA and Unit 6 for AQA), interpreting data, applying your understanding

and developing your critical thinking skills to show judgement. For example, on the course you will be shown how to weigh up arguments and debate issues. This is essential to a good exam performance at A2. For those studying Unit 5 AQA we can spend some time on reports and essays if there is the demand; this will also be of some use to students who are not taking this paper as the skills are highly transferable.