Judgements Guide

Provenance (checked 2026-09-29): this document was built directly from research/veridian/WBS11-verified-facts.md §2 (the command-word/tariff table and the verbatim June 2019 level descriptors) and from primary-source PDFs fetched and re-extracted this session — not trusted from any prior summary. Two documents were newly pulled and run through pdftotext -layout this session: the June 2023 mark scheme (wbs11-01-rms-20230817.pdf, fetched from pastpaperhub.com after the genuine qualifications.pearson.com URL 404'd, exactly as WBS11-verified-facts.md §0 already records for this series — genuineness independently reconfirmed here via the Publications Code WBS11_01_2306_MS and Question Paper Log Number P72043A printed on the document itself, both matching the verified-facts file's own record) and the June 2023 question paper (wbs11-01-que-20230509.pdf, same host), used only to check Extract D's wording. The flagship material below, though, comes from a document not previously extracted at this granularity anywhere in this technique hub: IAL_Business_WBS11_exemplar_responses.pdf (local archive, ~/Documents/SOL/Old/REVI/BEESWAX/, Issue 1, January 2020) — Pearson's own booklet of real June 2019 candidate responses with real marks and real examiner commentary attached. content/veridian/technique-hub/wbs11/forge-exam-technique-guide.md and forge-level-threshold-guide.md were both read in full first, specifically to avoid re-covering ground either already treats — the Superdry profit-share Discuss question and the Unilever/Virgin Group Evaluate boundary illustrations are theirs, not repeated here; this document uses the Boston Matrix Assess question and the smartphones design-mix Evaluate question instead, both from the same June 2019 exemplar booklet but not previously drawn on for their graded-response commentary in any WBS11 technique-hub file. No full mark-scheme passage or extract is reproduced at length; quotations are kept short and attributed.

#WBS11 Judgements Guide — What Actually Separates a Level 3 Answer From a Level 4 One

forge-exam-technique-guide.md already states, correctly, that Assess's Level 4 needs "leading to a supported judgement" and Evaluate's needs "an effective conclusion that proposes a solution and/or recommendations." forge-level-threshold-guide.md already shows, in detail, where the mark boundary sits for two specific real essays (Unilever, Virgin Group). What neither document does — and what this one exists to do — is show the actual, real, marked judgement writing on the page: two matched pairs of genuine June 2019 candidate responses, each pair spanning a stronger and a weaker script on the same question, with Pearson's own examiner explaining exactly what the stronger one added at the conclusion. That is the level of evidence a "what does a real judgement look like" question needs, and it exists only in one document across this whole paper's reviewed archive: the January 2020 exemplar-responses booklet, which covers June 2019 only.

---

#1. What Level 4 literally asks for — reconfirmed, not assumed

Two sentences carry the whole requirement, and both were independently re-checked this session against the freshly fetched June 2023 mark scheme (word-for-word identical to the June 2019 wording WBS11-verified-facts.md §2 already records, confirming the language is stable across at least these two series):

• 10-mark Assess, Level 4 (8–10): "...shows an awareness of competing arguments/factors, leading to a supported judgement."
• 20-mark Evaluate, Level 4 (15–20): "...A full awareness of the validity and significance of competing arguments/factors, leading to balanced comparisons, judgements and an effective conclusion that proposes a solution and/or recommendations."

Both are whole-band descriptors, not a sub-mark checklist. There is no Pearson document reviewed for this pass — or anywhere cited in WBS11-verified-facts.md — that breaks a level into named sub-components with their own mark values. Anything below that looks like a checklist (§2) is this document's own way of unpacking what the sentence above requires in practice; it is not Pearson's own taxonomy, and is not presented as such.

---

#2. What a judgement has to do, built from the two worked examples below

Rather than invent a framework and then hunt for supporting quotes, this section is written after §§3–4, and only states what the real graded evidence there actually shows separates the stronger script from the weaker one at each tariff:

1. It names which side wins, in the question's own terms. Not "the Boston Matrix has advantages and disadvantages" — the design-mix Exemplar B (§4) states plainly that cost of manufacture is "the importance... in particular," answering the actual question asked ("Evaluate which of these is the most important element").
2. It adds something the body of the answer hasn't already said. The examiner's repeated complaint about the weaker script in both pairs below is not that the judgement is missing outright, but that it is "assertive" — restating a position rather than bringing new support to it. The stronger design-mix script clears this specifically by bringing in Apple at the conclusion stage, a business the rest of that answer had not yet used to support this particular claim.
3. It stays anchored to the named business, not the general topic. The Boston-Matrix Exemplar A is marked down for reasoning that stays generic to "the categories" rather than to Superdry's own stated products; the design-mix Exemplar A is marked down in the identical way, one tariff up, for a chain of reasoning judged "incomplete and assertive" specifically because it never pulls in the case-study detail the mark scheme itself supplies (Samsung's Note 7, Oppo/Vivo's $250 price point).
4. It can be wrong — it takes a real position that a different weighing could overturn. Both weaker scripts below "attempt" a judgement in the loose sense of writing a concluding sentence; neither actually risks anything, because neither commits to a specific, checkable claim the rest of the answer could be judged against.

---

#3. Worked example 1 — Boston Matrix, Superdry, June 2019 Q1(e), 10-mark Assess

The real question, verbatim: "T-shirts and hooded tops are Superdry's cash cows. Assess the extent to which the Boston Matrix may help Superdry compete in the clothing market." (10 marks)

The real indicative content, in full (IAL_Business_WBS11_exemplar_responses.pdf, pp.12–13; independently reconfirmed against the January 2024 Meqnes mark scheme in WBS11-verified-facts.md §7.1, which carries near-identical wording):

The Boston Matrix is a method of portfolio analysis based on market share and market growth... it can be used to analyse the current portfolio... Cash from mature products... can be used to fund new... ranges... it will help in the decision-making regarding... dogs that should be discontinued. However, it is only a snapshot of the current product portfolio. It has little or no predictive value... Just because products are categorised as dogs does not mean they must be removed – perhaps they still generate acceptable levels of revenue. The Boston Matrix cannot be used in isolation and must consider other external and internal factors to help Superdry make important decisions on its product portfolio. Product life cycle may be a better method of portfolio analysis as it takes account of life span of products which is an important element in the fashion industry.

The three bolded bullets are the evaluative half of the list — the half a judgement has to draw on. Two real, graded responses to this exact question show what happens when a script does, and doesn't, reach them.

#Exemplar A — 7 marks (Level 3, top of the band)

The examiner's verbatim assessment: the response "has achieved several elements of level 3 but lacks a little depth and breadth of analysis and has not yet offered any attempt at assessment." It goes on: "Although this response then goes on to recognise there are limitations to the Boston Matrix and therefore offers an attempt at assessment, there is an opportunity to offer more wide ranging and balanced assessment by providing more detail. The fact that there is a big product portfolio is perhaps not such an important factor as the external economic environment, research into competitor activity or life cycle management."

This is a script that reached the "snapshot, not a forecast" bullet — the easiest of the three evaluative bullets to reach, because it only requires naming a limitation, not weighing anything — but never reached "cannot be used in isolation" or the PLC comparison, and the examiner names exactly that gap: real assessment needs the external factors (competitor activity, life cycle stage) named specifically, not a generic reference to portfolio size.

#Exemplar B — 3 marks (bottom of Level 2)

The examiner's verbatim assessment: the candidate "offers some elements of knowledge and understanding... with reference to levels of market share and growth. There is an attempt at application by categorising t-shirts as stars." The examiner then explains, precisely, what a higher Level 2 response (4 marks) would have needed — "explain how this affects the firm's decision making," specifically "a cash cow with low market growth potential and so little investment advisable" — and what would have then been needed to reach Level 3: "an assessment of this reasoning by stating that... there would need to be some minimal investment in marketing to protect the current market share." Level 4, and its "isolation"/PLC bullets, is not even in view for this script — it never gets past correctly applying the categories.

#What a genuine Level 4 answer adds, built only from the two real bullets neither exemplar reached

"The Boston Matrix correctly flags Superdry's t-shirts and hooded tops as cash cows worth defending rather than growing, and its funding logic — using cash-cow revenue to support newer ranges — is a real, useful decision rule. But the Matrix cannot be used in isolation: it says nothing about why a product sits where it does, only that it does. For a fashion retailer specifically, the product life cycle may in fact be the more useful tool, because it tracks the dimension the Matrix ignores entirely — how much of a garment range's remaining commercial life is left before changing tastes make today's cash cow next season's dog. The Matrix would treat that decline as a sudden, unexplained drop in relative share; the PLC would have flagged it coming. Superdry should therefore use the Matrix for the funding decision it's built for, but not as its only signal for when a 'cash cow' is actually entering decline."

This is the same move both real exemplars stopped short of: not a third fact about the Matrix, but a stated, checkable position — the Matrix's isolation limitation specifically matters for a fashion business, and PLC's specific advantage over it is named, not just asserted to exist.

---

#4. Worked example 2 — design mix, smartphones, June 2019 Q3, 20-mark Evaluate

The real question, verbatim: "Function, aesthetics and cost of manufacture are elements of the design mix. Evaluate which of these is the most important element for manufacturers of smartphones." (20 marks)

The mark scheme's closing indicative-content bullets, re-quoted here specifically because they are the ones a judgement has to use (fuller bullet-by-bullet accounting already exists in WBS11-verified-facts.md §7.2 and is not repeated): Oppo and Vivo "increased market share by selling phones at $250 due to lower manufacturing costs," so "market leaders Samsung and Apple are able to maintain their market share which may mean reducing cost of manufacture" — the specific, named comparative claim a top-band conclusion can be built on.

#Exemplar A — 8 marks (Level 2)

The examiner's verbatim assessment states the general standard first: "the most popular way for students to access the highest mark was by ensuring that the response developed chains of reasoning for all three options and balanced assessment for at least two... this question needs the response to clearly refer to whether the particular element of the design mix in discussion is more or less important than any other element." Of this specific script: "a conclusion is attempted but again is assertive. New information needs to be introduced to argue why one particular element is more important than the others. The mark scheme suggests this is manufacturing costs due to the need to react to competitors who are introducing a cheaper range of phones." The script's own chains are separately marked down for staying generic — e.g. treating cost of manufacture's link to price as "tenuous" and "incomplete," rather than naming Oppo, Vivo or the $250 figure the mark scheme itself supplies.

#Exemplar B — 15 marks (Level 4)

The examiner's verbatim assessment: the candidate "has developed a logical and coherent chain of reasoning for the importance of each and offered a balanced argument for each function... the response concludes with a highlight of the importance of the cost of manufacture in particular and supports this with reference to Apple. Overall this response meets most of the requirements of Level 4 with opportunity for higher marks from greater context and a more detailed judgement."

The gap between the two scripts is not "one wrote a conclusion and one didn't" — Exemplar A's final paragraph is explicitly called "a conclusion... attempted." The gap is that Exemplar B's conclusion brings a new, specific, business-named fact (Apple) to the judgement itself, where Exemplar A's conclusion restates a preference without adding anything the earlier paragraphs hadn't already said. Even the top-scoring script is noted as having room left — "opportunity for higher marks from greater context and a more detailed judgement" — confirming that even a 15/20 response had not yet reached the ceiling of what the descriptor rewards.

---

#5. The pattern that holds across both tariffs

Two different questions, two different topics, one tariff apart (10 marks and 20 marks) — and the examiner's language about what separates the stronger from the weaker script is, in substance, identical both times: the weaker script's ending is called "assertive" (design mix) or an unfinished "attempt at assessment" (Boston Matrix) because it restates a position the body has already taken; the stronger response in each pair is credited specifically for bringing something new into the conclusion — a named external factor and PLC comparison for the Matrix, a named competitor for the design mix — not for the mere presence of a closing paragraph. Neither weaker script was short a concluding sentence. Both were short a reason.

---

#6. Honest limits of this evidence

• This exemplar-with-marks format exists for one series only. WBS11-verified-facts.md §0 already establishes June 2019 as "the only series with a full published mark scheme in the reviewed set," and the graded-candidate-response commentary used above goes further still — it is specific to the January 2020 exemplar booklet, which covers June 2019's Questions 1–3 and nothing else. The level-descriptor wording itself is independently confirmed stable into June 2023 (§1 above, freshly re-checked this session) and, per WBS11-verified-facts.md §2, recurs in every other series' examiner-report language reviewed — but the specific real-mark, real-commentary depth in §§3–4 is a June-2019-only data point, not a claim about every series.
• No equivalent real, marked exemplar exists in the sources checked for a later series' Section C question. A future pass with access to a second full mark-scheme-plus-graded-response set (none was found for WBS11 beyond June 2019 in the archives searched this session) could test whether the same "new information at the conclusion, not just a closing sentence" pattern holds elsewhere on this paper — it is presented here as a genuine, two-instance finding, not a cross-series law.
• No likelihood, grade-boundary or "every series" claim is made anywhere above. Every claim is tied to a named series, question and, where a real mark exists, that mark.

---

#7. Verification ledger