Battle Card

Compiled 2026-09-28, from research/veridian/WBS14-verified-facts.md (the verified-facts bank) and cross-checked against this folder's own CODEX definitions bank, FORGE technique guide and SIGNAL frequency/boundaries note so nothing here just restates them. This card exists to be different in kind, not just shorter: where CODEX gives a full definition and FORGE explains a mechanism, this card gives only the one-line trigger you'd want in the last five minutes before the paper — a term, a number, or a warning, nothing explained twice. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Pearson Edexcel.

#WBS14 Battle Card — Unit 4: Global Business

Use this in the last 15 minutes, not as a first read. Every line below traces to a real spec clause or a real, cited mark scheme/examiner report — see codex-definitions-and-application-bank.md for the full explanation behind any cue that's unclear, and forge-exam-technique-guide.md for the full trap-taxonomy this card's danger list is drawn from.

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#1. Paper, one glance

• 2 hours, 80 raw marks, calculators allowed. Section A (Q1a–e, source-extract based) = 40 marks, confirmed 4+4+8+12+12 in every series sampled. Section B (Q2) = one 20-mark Evaluate. Section C (Q3) = one 20-mark Evaluate. All three questions key to the Source Booklet.
• Quantitative skills are ≥10% of marks (spec Appendix 7). Codes seen live on this paper: QS2 (%), QS3 (construct/interpret a supply-demand diagram), QS7 (PED/YED calc), QS9 (interpret written/ numerical evidence in the discursive parts).
• AO weights (unit-level): AO1 20% / AO2 22.5% / AO3 30% / AO4 27.5% — the heaviest AO4 share of any unit, because this is an IA2 paper.

#2. Command word → mark tariff (spec Appendix 6)

Assess is 12 marks here, not the 10 you'd get on Units 1/2 — the single most copy-pasted error risk on this paper. Real confirmed 4-band structure for a 12-mark Assess (three independent mark schemes agree): L1 1–2 / L2 3–4 / L3 5–8 / L4 9–12 — one L3 band, not split into entry/top.

#3. Formulas and worked-number cues (real, not illustrative)

• GDP per capita = GDP ÷ population. Recurring Q1(a) opener, to 2 d.p. Confirmed real slip (June 2022 ER): correct method, mark lost anyway for a dropped currency symbol or wrong decimal count — state the answer in the exact form asked, not just the right economics.
• Tariff pass-through, real worked case (Turkey/wheat, Oct 2024 Q1a/b): a 130% tariff — $250/tonne pre-tariff × 2.30 = $575/tonne, a $325 rise, confirmed exactly 130%. Mechanism: price up, quantity supplied down (ordinary domestic supply-curve-left diagram — not the two-flat-lines world-supply-vs-world-supply-plus-tariff shape); cost passes down the chain past the first business it hits to every downstream user of that input, then to consumers.
• A live QS7-tier calculation exists and is confirmed (Oct 2025 Q1a): 16.03%, an export-revenue percentage calc — exact inputs aren't in the facts bank, so don't memorise the number, just the precedent that this paper sets real %-based Q1(a) calculations beyond GDP per capita.
• Diagram rule, confirmed (Oct 2024 mark scheme): accept either an ad valorem (%) or a unit (fixed-amount) tariff shift — both credit, as long as supply shifts left and the new equilibrium shows price up / quantity down, with axes labelled exactly "price"/"quantity."

#4. Definition-cue sprint (spec order — one line each, full definitions live in CODEX)

4.3.1 Globalisation

• Developed/developing/emerging — points on one income + structure + institutions spectrum, not fixed labels.
• HDI — 0–1, geometric mean of education + health + income indices; says nothing about distribution.
• Employment patterns — the sectoral mix (primary→secondary→tertiary), not the total employed. Most-missed phrase on this paper.
• Specialisation — comparative-advantage focus; raises output, concentrates risk in one market/commodity.
• FDI → growth — same transaction, two sides: growth mechanism for the investor, growth driver for the host.
• Trade liberalisation — barriers removed/reduced; narrows the price wedge a foreign producer must clear.
• WTO — liberalisation + dispute resolution; real limits: Doha collapsed after 14 yrs, can't force a member to cut a barrier, 164 members.
• Transport/communication cost fall — two separate channels: containerisation/air travel, and comms tech — don't collapse into one.
• MNC — controls operations in >1 country from one decision structure; different from a firm that merely exports.
• Agglomeration economies — cost edge from clustering near the same industry's supplier/labour/infra base.
• Tariff — tax on imports, raises domestic price, passes down the supply chain.
• Import quota — physical quantity cap; price rises to clear the fixed quantity.
• Subsidy — lowers domestic producer cost; risk = inefficiency + retaliation + (resource industries) depletion.
• Trading bloc integration ladder — free-trade area → customs union → single market → economic/monetary union.
• Rules of origin — matters most for a free-trade area (no common external tariff to close the loophole).
• Spec-named blocs only: EU/single market, ASEAN, NAFTA. AfCFTA/RCEP are real applied examples, not spec vocabulary.

4.3.2 Global markets and business expansion

• Push factor — saturated home market/competition; defined by conditions at home.
• Pull factor — sales/profit, risk-spreading, economies of scale abroad.
• Off-shoring vs outsourcing — own production abroad (control) vs paying an external firm (no control).
• PLC extension — reuse an existing product in a new market to restart its sales curve, not "more sales" generically.
• Ease of doing business — a favourable ranking ≠ confirmed skills/supply-chain quality.
• Porter's five forces (market-assessment use) — current-state snapshot only; no growth forecast, income, stability, infra or EoDB built in.
• Likely ROI (as a location factor) — qualitative judgement, not investment-appraisal calculation technique (QS6).
• Synergy / economies of scale — the M&A benefit pairing; culture clash is the recurring balancing risk.
• Currency appreciation — hurts a net exporter/market-entrant, helps a net importer/producer-abroad. Direction reversal is a confirmed real error.
• Skill shortage — demand for skilled labour outstrips supply → wage bid-up; can be temporary (training, immigration) not structural.

4.3.3 Global marketing

• Ethnocentric / geocentric (glocalisation) / polycentric — zero / element-by-element / full local adaptation.
• 4Ps applied globally — judged P by P, never as one standardise-or-adapt verdict for the whole mix.
• Ansoff — new/existing product × new/existing market; new+new = diversification, highest risk.
• Porter's matrix ≠ Porter's five forces. Cost/differentiation × scope, a different tool for a different spec point (4.3.3.1 vs 4.3.2.2). Pearson's own words: candidates "confused it with Porter's five forces."
• Niche market — premium price (low PED), less competition, but limited scale, fad risk, takeover risk, risk of growing into a mass market.
• Cultural/social factors — benefit side (sales, loyalty) usually well argued; cost side (research, adaptation spend) usually under-argued.

4.3.4 MNCs

• Local vs national economy impact — a "local" question must stay local; national material needs explicit tying-back.
• Footloose MNC — can relocate once the cost/return calculus shifts; caps how permanent any local benefit really is.
• Stakeholder conflict — not automatic; shared vision can mean genuinely low conflict.
• Control mechanisms — government (only as willing as its dependence on the MNC allows), consumer pressure (strongest in affluent/informed markets, near-powerless on a B2B/non-consumer-facing MNC), self-regulation, pressure groups, greenwashing (a PR response, not a practice change).

#5. Real numbers worth having loaded

• WTO: 164 members; Doha round ran 14 years, no full agreement.
• EU fishing subsidies: $2bn (EU, 2018) of ~$35bn global; ending all subsidies could grow stocks 12.5% by 2050.
• Halal-products market: mark scheme's own wording — expected to more than triple by 2032.
• Pet-food market: $145.3bn by 2028 (named rivals: Nestlé, Mars, Hill's, Blue Buffalo, Colgate-Palmolive).
• Ireland tech skill shortage: 15% forecast wage rise; 76% of tech businesses reported it a problem (2023); still home to 9/10 top MedTech and 10/10 top biopharma/tech firms.
• Ease of Doing Business ranks (real comparison, Oct 2021 Q1d): Vietnam 70th vs Cambodia 144th vs Laos 154th.
• Turkey wheat tariff: 130%.
• BMW/Jaguar — Pearson's own twice-credited line (Jan 2022 Q3 and June 2023 Q3, word for word): inelastic PED means "tariffs may have little impact."

#6. Top 5 danger warnings

Ranked by how much independent evidence backs each one — not a guess, a count of how many separate real mark schemes/reports hit the same failure. Full mechanism and lesson-file source for each is in forge-exam-technique-guide.md §4 and the named lesson's own trap-taxonomy.

1. Command-word/format loss, not an economics error. Q1(a) alternates Calculate (Oct21, Jan23) and Construct (Jan24, Oct24) — answering in the wrong mode forfeits the mark regardless of correct content. On Calculate: missing currency symbol or wrong d.p. On Construct: missing/imprecise axis label. Same underlying skill, two different-looking mistakes.
2. Porter's matrix vs Porter's five forces. Pearson's own examiner report: a "significant number of candidates" confused them (Oct 2023, Q3). Two different spec points (4.3.3.1 vs 4.3.2.2) — drill side by side, never in isolation.
3. One-sided answers — benefits stated, balance skipped. Confirmed across at least four separate real questions: trading-bloc membership (competitive threat omitted), the WTO (limits omitted until a targeted Jan 2026 pull added them), EU fishing subsidies (three different kinds of downside collapsed into one), and BMW/Jaguar PED-immunity (covers export demand only, not the input-cost retaliation channel).
4. Answering the wrong party/direction named in the question. Confirmed repeated pattern: "trade opportunities for European businesses" answered as opportunities for developing economies (June 2022 Q1d); currency-appreciation exposure given backwards for the specific business in the scenario; a "local economy" question answered at national level without tying back down.
5. Generic, unnamed evidence instead of a real example. The examiner checklist repeats near- verbatim across three independently-read series (June 2022, Oct 2023, Jan 2024): read the question, watch the command word, use real examples, avoid generic/copied-out evidence, write concisely, add a real conclusion. That level of repetition is Pearson-confirmed as a structural pattern, not one cohort's issue.

#7. Where to go deeper

Frequency-by-spec-point and real grade boundaries → signal-frequency-and-boundaries.md. Full definitions and application/KAA paragraphs → codex-definitions-and-application-bank.md. Timing budget, self-mark checklist and the full trap-taxonomy → forge-exam-technique-guide.md. Real past questions with full level exemplars → content/veridian/question-bank/wbs14.ts.

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#Sources

research/veridian/WBS14-verified-facts.md in full (its own citation trail: Pearson mark schemes and examiner/principal-examiner reports for October 2021, June 2022, January 2023, October 2023, January 2024, plus targeted single-question pulls for October 2024, June 2026, January 2026, October 2025, October 2022, January 2022 and June 2023 — see that file's own provenance notes per claim); the International A Level Business Specification, Pearson Edexcel, Issue 1, September 2017, section 4.3 and Appendices 6/7/10; this folder's own codex-definitions-and-application-bank.md and forge-exam-technique-guide.md (checked against, not re-derived from, to keep this card additive). No new primary-source fact was fetched for this document — it is a condensation pass over material already verified in the files above.