The 6-Mark Analyse Guide

Provenance (written 2026-09-29). Built from research/veridian/WBS13-verified-facts.md (read in full) and a fresh, wider primary-source search this session. forge-exam-technique-guide.md §2 and forge-battle-card.md §1 were both read first — both already flag Analyse as a "genuine gap" on this paper, and both are confirmed correct below, on a considerably larger sample than either previously checked.

#WBS13 Tariff Deep-Dive — The 6-Mark Analyse Question

#What this is and isn't

Analyse is genuine, spec-confirmed content — Appendix 6 states its own requirement, and it sits on the paper's command-word list alongside Define, Calculate, Construct, Explain, Discuss, Assess and Evaluate (forge-exam-technique-guide.md §2). It is also, on the evidence available, the one command word on this paper's own vocabulary that has never been observed as a real question. This document does not build a worked example to paper over that — per this course's standing rule against fabrication, when real material runs out, the document ends there. What follows is short, because the honest content is short: the tariff's own definition, a wider-than-before confirmation of the gap, and the one genuinely useful, cross-referenced insight this paper's own material does support about why the gap might matter pedagogically even without a worked example.

#1. The tariff's own mechanics, as far as they're confirmed

Appendix 6 (spec p.56), transcribed directly: Analyse "requires a brief chain of reasoning, explanation and/or justification… does not include evaluation." Six marks. The explicit exclusion clause — evaluation is ruled OUT by name — is the one part of this definition worth stating plainly rather than leaving implicit: Analyse is structurally incapable of rewarding the very move Discuss, Assess and Evaluate all require to reach their own top bands (a weighed judgement). A 6-mark Analyse question and an 8-mark Discuss question could, in principle, sit on the same extract and look superficially similar in what they ask a candidate to write about, while one of them cannot reward the argument the other specifically demands.

No primary-source WBS13 mark scheme exists for this command word (see §2), so no AO split (Knowledge/ Application/Analysis breakdown, the pattern confirmed for Calculate, Construct and Explain in forge-tariff-4-mark-questions.md §1–3) can be verified for a real 6-mark Analyse question on this specific paper. Anything beyond the spec's own sentence would be invented, not verified.

#2. The search, widened this session

WBS13-verified-facts.md already states the gap at a roughly 8-series sample: "no series read for this course names a real WBS13 Analyse-tariff question with a level ladder or exemplar attached." This session widened that check to the full local archive at /Users/neosteinhoff/Documents/SOL/Papers/IAL_Paper3_Complete/Master_Consolidated_Docs/ — Business_Paper3_Mark_Schemes.md, Business_Paper3_Past_Papers.md and Business_Paper3_Examiner_Reports.md, covering every located series from January 2020 through October 2024, 15 series in total (grep -n -iE "\banalyse\b" across all three files). Result: still zero. Every hit the search returns is one of two harmless false positives, not a real command-word usage:

• The word "analyse" appearing inside a Quantitative Skills label — "QS9: Interpret, apply and analyse information in written, graphical and numerical forms" — which describes a general skill assessed across many question types, not a stand-alone Analyse-tariff question.
• The word "analyse" used as an ordinary verb inside another question's own indicative content (for example, Porter's five forces content noting a business "could analyse the threat of new entrants") — genuine mark-scheme prose, but describing what a candidate answering a DIFFERENT, named command-word question might discuss, not a 6-mark Analyse question in its own right.

This is a meaningfully wider and more confident null result than the facts bank's own original claim — not a new finding that the gap exists (that was already known), but independent confirmation, on nearly double the series count, that it isn't a sampling artefact of which series happened to get read.

#3. Why the gap is worth naming even without a worked example

One piece of this paper's own confirmed structure makes the Analyse/Discuss boundary specifically worth flagging, even in the absence of a real Analyse question to teach against. Section A's own confirmed shape (forge-exam-technique-guide.md §1) puts Discuss at Q1(c), immediately after two calculation- or diagram-tariff openers — an 8-mark, two-sided, no-conclusion-required question. If a future series ever does introduce a 6-mark Analyse slot into that same position, the single most important distinction to teach immediately would be Appendix 6's own exclusion clause: Analyse specifically does not want the second side of the argument Discuss specifically does. A candidate who has drilled Discuss's "two genuine sides, no conclusion" habit (see forge-tariff-8-mark-discuss.md) would, without this specific warning, likely over-deliver on a real Analyse question by adding an evaluative second side the tariff structurally cannot reward — the mirror image of the much more common, already-confirmed trap of under-delivering a one-sided Discuss answer. This is a reasoned inference from the two command words' own Appendix 6 definitions, not a finding from a real marked script, and is flagged as such.

#4. Self-mark check

Deliberately short, for the reason stated throughout:

• If a real Analyse question does appear, have I built a chain of reasoning (a cause connected to an effect, explained and justified) WITHOUT adding a second, competing side or a judgement — Appendix 6 excludes evaluation by name, so a second side is not just unnecessary here, it does not answer the question that was actually asked.
• Am I confident I know which tariff I'm actually looking at? Analyse (6, no evaluation) and Discuss (8, two-sided, no conclusion required) can look similar in the extract material they draw on; the command word itself is the only reliable signal for which structure to build.

#5. What this document cannot tell you

• No real WBS13 Analyse question has been found, in any of the 15 located series, mark scheme, question paper or examiner report. This is the most complete absence in this whole tariff set — more thoroughly searched than Define's own gap (forge-tariff-2-mark-define.md), which at least has a rich, related examiner-report trap to draw on; Analyse has no comparable adjacent material.
• No AO breakdown, no level ladder, no real candidate script exists to check any teaching claim against. Section 3 above is this document's own structural reasoning from the spec's wording, not a verified finding, and should be taught with that caveat attached if it is taught at all.
• If this ever changes — a future series introduces a real Analyse question — the first things to source directly from that series' own mark scheme, rather than assume by analogy from Calculate/ Construct/Explain's K1/App2/An1 pattern, are: whether Analyse carries the same AO split at this higher tariff, and whether its own indicative content is levels-based (like Discuss/Assess/Evaluate) or points-based (like the 4-mark tier) — the spec's own wording ("a brief chain of reasoning") reads closer to the 4-mark tier's style than to a levels ladder, but this is speculation, not a verified fact, and should be treated as such until a real mark scheme exists to check it against.

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Sources: research/veridian/WBS13-verified-facts.md (spec Appendix 6 transcription, original gap note); content/veridian/technique-hub/wbs13/forge-exam-technique-guide.md, forge-battle-card.md (existing gap flags, cross-referenced not repeated). Fresh this session: a full-archive keyword search (grep -n -iE "\banalyse\b") of Business_Paper3_Mark_Schemes.md, Business_Paper3_Past_Papers.md and Business_Paper3_Examiner_Reports.md at /Users/neosteinhoff/Documents/SOL/Papers/IAL_Paper3_Complete/Master_Consolidated_Docs/ (15 series, January 2020–October 2024). Not affiliated with or endorsed by Pearson Edexcel.