Frequency and Boundaries

#WBS13 SIGNAL — Frequency & Grade-Boundary Reference

Provenance — written 2026-09-28. Deliberately narrow companion to forge-exam-technique-guide.md (exam craft) and codex-definitions-and-application-bank.md (definitions and application material) in this same folder — read both first; this document repeats neither. It also does not duplicate content/veridian/question-bank/wbs13.ts, the live store of verbatim worked past questions, which already serves the "here is the real question" function. This document does one narrow thing: count how often each real spec sub-section has actually been tested, and state plainly what grade-boundary data does or doesn't exist. Every count below is a direct tally of the individually dated, sourced real exam questions verified in research/veridian/WBS13-verified-facts.md (2,057 lines) — no question is counted unless that file cites its series, question number and tariff. Two series counted below — October 2025 (Tesla, Superdry, Mears Group) — were reached only via a third-party mirror, not qualifications.pearson.com directly; see that research file's own provenance note (independently checked letterhead, Publications Code convention, and level-descriptor wording) for the standing caveat, carried forward here rather than repeated at every row.

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#1. Series checked

Twelve WBS13 series have been located and read for this course's research, in chronological order: Oct 2021, Jan 2022, June 2022, Oct 2022, Jan 2023, June 2023, Oct 2023, Jan 2024, June/Summer 2024, Oct 2024, Jan 2025, Oct 2025. Reading depth is not even across these twelve — most were mined to Q1(a)–(e)/Q2/Q3 depth, but Jan 2022 was mined only for its Q1(a) ARR calculation, and June 2022's mark scheme was read only via its examiner report's own quoted exemplars, not the full mark scheme text. A "0 of 12" below means no confirmed sighting was found in the material actually read, not a confirmed absence from that series' full paper. Treat every count as a floor, not a ceiling — and see the FORGE guide's and CODEX bank's own "genuine gaps" sections before assuming a 0 or 1 means a topic won't be examined.

#2. Topic frequency table

Organised by the specification's own sub-section numbering (matching the CODEX bank's Part 1 headers). "Seen in" counts distinct series with at least one verified real question testing that sub-section — a series appearing in two rows means two different questions in that series tested two different spec points, not double-counting of one question.

Notes on specific rows:

• 3.3.2.2 (organic growth methods): the Sosyo/Hajoori franchising question (June 2023 Q3, 20-mark Evaluate) is real and mark-scheme-verified, but the CODEX bank explicitly does not count it as closing this gap — the research file describes it as synoptic AS-level content bridging organic and inorganic growth, not a clean fit for either 3.3.2.2 or 3.3.2.3. Recorded here rather than forced into a row, consistent with CODEX's own treatment.
• 3.3.4.3 / 3.3.6.2 overlap: British Airways supplies confirmed questions in both rows from the same Oct 2021 series — Q1(d) (contingency planning, 3.3.6.2) and Q1(e) (environmental impact and strategic benefit, 3.3.4.3) are two different questions on the same extract, not one question counted twice.
• 3.3.6.1: the Tesla entry (Oct 2025 Q1(e), workforce reduction) is flagged in the research file itself as a "loose topical fit" — real, quantified, exam-verified, but it never names resistance, change, or any of the standard management-of-resistance responses. Weight it accordingly.

Two structural facts sit above every row and aren't repeated per-row: on this paper, every Q1(d) and Q1(e) across all twelve series is a 12-mark Assess (never the lighter 10-mark version from Units 1/2), and Section B and Section C are always one 20-mark Evaluate essay each. See the FORGE guide §1 for the full timing breakdown these facts feed into.

#3. Grade boundaries

No grade-boundary data exists anywhere in this course's WBS13 sources. research/veridian/WBS13-verified-facts.md — 2,057 lines built from twelve series' worth of mark schemes and examiner reports — contains zero mentions of a raw-mark-to-grade conversion, and Pearson's own published grade-boundary documents were never part of the material mined for this paper. A mark scheme's own total (80) and a level descriptor's mark range are not grade boundaries and must not be treated as a substitute for one. If a grade boundary is needed, it must be fetched fresh from Pearson's own published tables (qualifications.pearson.com, "Grade boundaries" section, filtered to International Advanced Level Business, WBS13) and added to this document with its own dated provenance note — nothing in this course's existing research supports stating one now.

#4. How to use this document

Read it after the FORGE guide and CODEX bank, not instead of either — it adds nothing to their technique or content coverage. Use the table above only to weight revision time, never to predict a specific paper. A 0-of-12 or 1-of-12 row does not mean a topic "won't come up" — it means no confirmed WBS13 precedent has been found yet in the material this course has read; the specification still examines every row above regardless of its count, and the FORGE guide's §6 and CODEX bank's closing section already name which of these thin rows are genuine content gaps versus genuinely rare real-world coverage. Never convert a count in this table into a percentage or a "likely to appear" claim — "seen in 3 of 12 series" is the complete, honest statement; a share-of-the-time framing implies a predictive model this data does not support and was never built to provide. For the actual worked questions behind each count, go to content/veridian/question-bank/wbs13.ts.