Business Paper 4 — Global Business
The 20-Mark Evaluate Guide
Provenance (checked 2026-09-29): no FINSTO baseline exists for WBS14 (see forge-tariff-4-mark-calculate-construct.md for the confirmed-empty search). Built from research/veridian/WBS14-verified-facts.md (read in full, including its REVISED 2026-09-25 protectionism update) and forge-exam-technique-guide.md §2 (read in full — the Porter's-matrix trap is cross-referenced, not re-derived), then independently re-verified this session against the real June 2023 mark scheme, fetched live from qualifications.pearson.com and converted with pdftotext -layout (WBS14_01_2306_MS, Question Paper Log Number P72046A — confirmed by the document's own header text before anything below was transcribed). Reference for shape only, not content: content/veridian/technique-hub/wbs12/forge-tariff-20-mark-evaluate.md (a different paper's Evaluate tariff).
WBS14 — The 20-Mark Evaluate
1. The real level band, verified directly
Four bands, confirmed word for word from the June 2023 mark scheme:
| Level | Marks | Descriptor (paraphrased; short quotes attributed) |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | No rewardable material |
| 1 | 1–4 | Isolated knowledge; weak or no application; an argument may be attempted but stays generic, failing to connect cause and consequence |
| 2 | 5–8 | Knowledge applied to the example; chains of reasoning presented but the causal connections are incomplete; a comparison/judgement may be attempted but doesn't successfully show awareness of the business's real features or situation |
| 3 | 9–14 | Accurate, thorough knowledge throughout; developed chains where cause and consequence are complete; arguments well developed; quantitative/qualitative evidence used to support judgements, with "a partial awareness of the validity and/or significance of competing arguments", possibly reaching a conclusion |
| 4 | 15–20 | Accurate, thorough knowledge throughout; well-developed, logical, coherent chains across a range of causes/effects; arguments fully developed; evidence used well to support judgements, with "a full awareness of the validity and significance of competing arguments/factors", leading to balanced comparisons and "an effective conclusion that proposes a solution and/or" recommendation. |
The Level 3/4 boundary in one line: partial awareness of competing arguments (L3) versus full awareness (L4) — and, distinctly, whether the conclusion actually proposes something versus simply arriving at a judgement. A strong L3 answer can reach a supported verdict and still miss L4 if that verdict never proposes a course of action or recommendation; the descriptor's own closing clause is doing real work, not decorative.
2. One real worked example, fully verified directly against the primary mark scheme
June 2023, Q3 — the impact of protectionism on global businesses
Real question: "Evaluate the impact of protectionism on global businesses." Tagged QS9 in the mark scheme's own margin.
The mark scheme's real indicative content, in the order it states it, facts and short attributed quotes only — no long verbatim reproduction:
Protectionism covers any trade barrier that slows or halts free trade — tariffs, quotas, subsidies, regulation. A tariff raises an imported good's price, reducing its sales and competitiveness against domestic products; quotas and other barriers work similarly by restricting supply, which pushes price up and sales down. The real extract evidence: the European Commission reported a significant rise in trade barriers in 2020, even between countries with existing EU trade deals, and the US passed 790 trade restrictions between 2008 and 2019 — a longer-term trend the mark scheme treats as evidence that barriers are "becoming more widespread and damaging." The mark scheme names a real distributional point directly: trade barriers have "a disproportionate effect on smaller businesses that lack the economies of scale or lobbying power" of larger ones. Retaliation is credited as a distinct, second channel of harm — not just lost export sales, but higher costs and reduced availability of imported raw materials and resources a global business still needs for production.
The balancing case, credited in the same mark scheme: domestic businesses can flourish behind trade barriers — infant industries can grow, established ones can expand. Where price elasticity of demand for exports is inelastic, the impact of barriers may be limited — the mark scheme's own named illustration: "BMW and Jaguar cars sell well in the USA despite trade barriers" (increasing). Lost foreign sales may be offset by increased domestic sales if a business is itself protected by retaliatory barriers. How much any of this matters depends on the size and duration of the barriers, and may be reduced if WTO or EU negotiation succeeds in easing them. A domestic subsidy can make a business more competitive globally — the mark scheme names China directly as "often accused of using excessive subsidies to promote its industries and agricultural output," with Chinese businesses gaining "at the expense of others." The mark scheme's own closing framing: protectionism is usually considered detrimental — most economists favour free trade — but achieving that, as the extracts themselves show, "is not easy."
What a Level 4 answer on this real question needs, read directly off the descriptor and the content above: the demand-side point (PED-inelastic exporters like BMW/Jaguar) and the input-cost-side point (retaliation raising the price of imported raw materials) are two separate channels in the same real mark scheme — a strong essay tests both rather than using the first to stand in for the whole question. This paper's own protectionism lesson already flags exactly this risk in its ped-inelastic-exporter-assumed-immune-on-every-channel trap-taxonomy entry; this worked example is the primary evidence that trap is built on, now independently re-confirmed word for word.
3. This tariff's single highest-value trap — cross-referenced, not re-derived
forge-exam-technique-guide.md already documents, with its own citation to the Principal Examiner's Report for October 2023, that "a significant number of candidates" confused Porter's matrix (cost leadership/differentiation/focus, spec 4.3.3.1.d) with Porter's five forces (spec 4.3.2.2.b) on this tariff. That finding sits inside the marketing/Ansoff-and-Porter's-matrix content this Evaluate tariff draws on for a different real question than the one worked through above, and is not re-derived here — see that guide's §2 for the full citation.
4. What this file is not claiming — an honest gap
The facts bank separately notes that January 2022 Q3 ("Evaluate the impact of protectionism on global businesses," the near-identical companion question to June 2023's) independently credits the same BMW/Jaguar line word for word. This specific claim was not independently re-fetched by this pass — a direct attempt to locate that series' mark scheme this session returned Pearson 404s at every URL pattern tried, and no working mirror was found in the time available. It is reported here as a facts-bank citation only, one level less certain than the June 2023 content above, which this pass re-verified in full against the live primary PDF. If a future pass locates the January 2022 document, this should be upgraded rather than assumed confirmed on the strength of this note.
5. Self-mark checklist
- Fully developed chains on both sides — the case for the effect, and a genuinely separate counter-channel, not a list of factors each mentioned once
- A real, named, integrated example (not asserted in the abstract) — and check whether the question's real channel is demand-side, input-cost-side, or both, before picking just one
- Quantitative or qualitative evidence actually used to support a judgement, not just stated and left to speak for itself
- The conclusion proposes something — a solution, a recommendation, a condition under which the verdict holds — not just a restated "it depends"
- Directly answers the extent/aspect/stakeholder the question specifies
- Checked for a Porter's-matrix-vs-five-forces substitution if the essay touches marketing strategy content (§3)
6. Verification log
Personally re-fetched and re-extracted this pass, pdftotext -layout, checked against the document's own Publications Code and Question Paper Log Number before transcription: June 2023 mark scheme (WBS14_01_2306_MS / P72046A) — full level band (all four levels) and the complete indicative-content list for Q3, confirmed word for word against the facts bank's own citation, including the BMW/Jaguar line, the smaller-business point, and the China-subsidies point.
Not independently re-verified this pass, relied on the facts bank's own citation for: January 2022 Q3 (Publications Code WBS14_01_2201) as a second series crediting the identical BMW/Jaguar line — flagged explicitly in §4 above as one level less certain.
Sources
Primary (re-fetched and re-extracted directly this pass): Mark Scheme, WBS14/01, June 2023 (WBS14_01_2306_MS, P72046A).
Secondary, facts-bank citation only, not independently re-fetched this pass: Mark Scheme, WBS14/01, January 2022 (WBS14_01_2201). Also: research/veridian/WBS14-verified-facts.md; forge-exam-technique-guide.md §2 (the Porter's-matrix trap, cross-referenced not re-derived); content/veridian/curriculum/wbs14/protectionism-and-trading-blocs.ts (the ped-inelastic-exporter-assumed-immune-on-every-channel trap-taxonomy entry this worked example evidences).