The 1-Mark Multiple Choice Guide

Provenance (built 2026-09-29): this document was written directly from primary sources, not verified against a pre-existing raw draft — no "definitive guide" to WEC14's Section A exists in ~/Downloads/FINSTO/ (checked: that folder holds per-tariff guides for WEC12 and WEC11, none for WEC14). forge-exam-technique-guide.md was read in full first; its short Section A subsection is not restated here except where this document adds a layer under it. Every specific claim below was checked directly this pass with pdftotext -layout against the primary PDFs in ~/Downloads/home 4/ubuntu/economics_ial_u4_complete/ — the October 2023 and January 2025 mark schemes/examiner reports in full, plus the Section A summary paragraph of every other examiner report in that archive (11 series carry one; January 2024 and June 2024 do not — a real gap, not an oversight, noted below). content/veridian/technique-hub/wbs12/forge-tariff-*.md was read for the target shape of a tariff deep-dive; nothing from it is copied, and WBS12 has no direct MCQ-tariff equivalent to model this on, since its own six tariff files start at 2 marks.

#WEC14 1-Mark MCQ (Section A) — Tariff Deep-Dive

#1. What the tariff actually is

Six multiple-choice questions, 1 mark each, 6 marks total — the smallest and structurally simplest component of the paper. Confirmed directly from two full mark schemes read this pass (October 2023, January 2021): there is no partial credit, no levels, and no quantitative-skill credit distinct from getting the letter right. Roughly half the six questions each series carry an explicit quantitative-skills tag (QS1, QS2, QS6, QS7 or QS9, in different combinations by series); the other half carry none. This is the one tariff on the paper with, genuinely, almost no marking mechanic to go deeper into — the mark scheme's "mechanics" are the correct letter. What is worth a deep-dive instead is what the mark scheme's own distractor rationale and the examiner reports' per-question commentary reveal about why wrong answers get chosen, because that is real, checkable content the technique guide's one-paragraph summary doesn't have room for.

The one real mechanic worth stating precisely: every distractor carries a stated reason. Confirmed directly from the October 2023 mark scheme — e.g. Q4 (income inequality): "C is not correct because income inequality fell by 3.4 percentage points" (13 words) — where the correct answer required distinguishing a percentage-point fall from a percentage fall, the exact percent-vs-percentage-point trap terms-of-trade-and-trading-blocs.ts and the-role-of-the-state.ts already document in depth for calculation questions. This is the same trap surfacing at the 1-mark tariff, not a new one — worth knowing it isn't confined to Q7(a) or Section C's data-heavy stems.

#2. Real worked examples, verified directly against primary PDFs

Every one of these is a real, named question from a real series, quoted or paraphrased under 15 words per direct quotation — not an invented example.

#3. A genuinely re-checked finding: how often is terms of trade really the weakest MCQ?

forge-exam-technique-guide.md states terms of trade is "independently named the single weakest- answered Section A question in at least 5 of 13 examiner reports read." This document re-checked that claim directly, series by series, against every examiner report in the archive that carries an explicit Section A summary paragraph (11 of the 13 held; January 2024 and June 2024 go straight to per-question commentary with no summary paragraph at all — confirmed by reading both in full). The real count from that direct check: terms of trade is named the least-well-answered Section A question in 4 of those 11 — January 2023 (Q6), October 2022 (Q6), June 2022 (Q4) and June 2023 (Q5) — and in one series it is named among the best-answered instead: October 2021 (Q5), where the report reads "candidates performed best on terms of trade and international competitiveness."

This is not a correction that overturns the guide's underlying advice — terms of trade is still the single most-repeated named MCQ weakness in this archive, more than any other topic — but the precise count from this direct pass is 4 of 11 summarised series, with one direct reversal, not "5 of 13." Stated this way because the task briefing for this document specifically warns against carrying forward an unchecked frequency claim, and this one was genuinely checkable and worth re-stating exactly rather than repeating approximately.

#4. Self-mark check

This tariff has no partial marks, so the check is binary, but still worth running deliberately rather than skipping:

• Did I read every option, not just stop at the first one that sounded plausible? (Every wrong answer on this paper has a specific, stated reason it's wrong — often a real economic mechanism, not a random distractor.)
• If the question involves a percentage or a chart, did I check whether it's asking for a percentage-point change or a percentage change specifically? (Confirmed live trap, §1 above.)
• Did I spend more than 60–90 seconds on this question? If so, and it's a terms-of-trade or opportunity-cost-table question specifically, mark a best guess and move on — forge-exam- technique-guide.md §1 and §5 already establish why protecting Section B/C time matters more than a second attempt at one MCQ.

#5. Sources and honest gaps

Primary sources used directly this pass: the full October 2023 mark scheme and examiner report, the full January 2025 examiner report (no January 2025 mark scheme exists in the archive used — question paper and examiner report only, confirmed by directory listing), the full January 2021 mark scheme and examiner report, and the Section A summary paragraph of every other examiner report in ~/Downloads/home 4/ubuntu/economics_ial_u4_complete/. research/veridian/WEC14-verified-facts.md and forge-exam-technique-guide.md were read first for cross-reference.

Genuine gaps:

• No mark scheme states a time budget per MCQ; the "60–90 seconds" figure in the self-mark check is this course's own heuristic (already disclosed as such in forge-exam-technique-guide.md §1), not a Pearson instruction.
• January 2024 and June 2024's examiner reports were checked directly and contain no Section A summary paragraph at all, only per-question notes — this document does not extrapolate a "weakest question" claim for those two series because none is stated.
• This document does not claim to have read all 6 questions' full distractor rationale for every one of the 13 series — the two mark schemes read in full (October 2023, January 2021) are the basis for §1's distractor-rationale claim, not an exhaustive count across all 13.