Paper 4 — The Global Economy
The 4-Mark Explain Guide
Provenance (built 2026-09-29): no raw "definitive guide" to this tariff exists in
~/Downloads/FINSTO/ for WEC14 (checked directly; that folder holds WEC12/WEC11 guides only), so
this document is built fresh from primary sources. forge-exam-technique-guide.md §2 ("Section
B's 4-mark part") was read in full first and is not restated wholesale; this document adds a
verified, multi-series worked-example layer under it. Three full mark schemes/examiner reports —
October 2023, January 2021, and (examiner report only — no mark scheme exists in the archive
used) January 2025 — were read directly with pdftotext -layout from ~/Downloads/home 4/ubuntu/economics_ial_u4_complete/ for this pass.
WEC14 Section B's 4-Mark "Explain What Is Meant By…" Part — Tariff Deep-Dive
1. What the tariff actually is, verified
Knowledge 2 + Application 2, no Analysis, no Evaluation — confirmed identically in both mark
schemes read in full this pass (October 2023 Q7(b), January 2021 Q7(c)). The command word is
always "Explain what is meant by '[term]'", always with a bracketed extract-line reference
(e.g. "Extract A, line 12"). Which letter carries this tariff is not fixed: October 2023 and
January 2025 both use 7(b); January 2021 uses 7(c) — confirmed directly, not assumed, exactly as
forge-exam-technique-guide.md §2 already states for the paper generally.
2. The one real, load-bearing mechanic: two distinct application data points, not one
Confirmed in near-identical wording across all three series read for this document — this is the single most repeated, most specific finding for this tariff, and it recurs on three different terms four years apart:
- January 2021 (relative poverty): "Many just mentioned median in the definition and they were only able to access 1 mark." Only 6% of students attained full marks that series.
- October 2023 (foreign currency gap): "Many simply mentioned only one point in the definition and they were only able to access 1 mark."
- January 2025 (rate of inflation): "One relevant piece of data was required from both Figure 2 and Extract A to attain both the application marks... Some candidates only offered one, and not both."
The mechanism behind all three: the mark scheme's Application band is genuinely two separate, addable marks for two separate pieces of extract evidence, not one mark for "used the extract" plus a bonus for elaborating. A student who identifies one real data point and develops it further in the same sentence still caps at 1/2 Application — the second mark requires a second, different data point, not more depth on the first.
3. Real worked examples, verified directly against primary PDFs
| Series | Letter | Term defined | Real Knowledge content (paraphrased, ≤2 marks) | Real Application requirement |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 2023 | 7(b) | "foreign currency gap" | Currency inflows less than outflows; or lack of reserves to finance the current-account deficit | Two of: the fall in reserves from $16bn to $10bn; the 37.5%/$6bn fall; the impact on imports; the rising gap; the import ban |
| Jan 2021 | 7(c) | "relative poverty" | Earning below ~60% (or 50%) of median income; or lacking income to maintain the average standard of living in that country | Two of: 23% (1985) to 30% (2016); "one in seven people... remains in relative poverty" |
| Jan 2025 | 7(b)* | "rate of inflation" | Not independently re-extracted (no mark scheme in the archive used) | "One relevant piece of data... from both Figure 2 and Extract A" per the examiner report |
*Jan 2025 row grounded in the examiner report only — its mark scheme is absent from the archive used for this document, stated plainly rather than presented as equally verified.
4. A genuinely useful cross-check: this tariff never carries evaluation, and Pearson says so twice
forge-exam-technique-guide.md already establishes that the 4-mark and 6-mark parts require no
evaluation. Worth restating once, precisely, because it's directly relevant to this specific
tariff and confirmed in the primary source used for this document: the October 2023 examiner
report's own paper summary states "the 4- and 6-mark questions do not require evaluation."
There is no equivalent risk the other direction — no series checked shows a candidate being
penalised for omitting evaluation here, because none is credited either way.
5. Self-mark check
- Did I write two distinct, self-contained knowledge points (or one clearly split into two markable ideas), not one idea restated?
- Did I include two separate pieces of data from the source — not one point developed twice, and not one point stated with elaboration? (§2 above — this is the single most common way this tariff's marks are lost.)
- Did I avoid writing an evaluative sentence here? (Not penalised, per §4, but it earns nothing and costs time this part's 4 marks don't reward.)
- Did this answer take longer than roughly a minute or two to write? If markedly longer, the term itself is the problem, not the writing — check the definition against the source's own wording before elaborating further.
6. Sources and honest gaps
Primary sources used directly this pass: the full October 2023 and January 2021 mark
schemes and examiner reports; the full January 2025 examiner report (its mark scheme is not in
the archive used, stated explicitly rather than inferred). research/veridian/WEC14-verified- facts.md and forge-exam-technique-guide.md §2 were read first.
Genuine gaps:
- Only three series' worth of this specific tariff were checked directly for this document; the "two distinct data points" finding is confirmed in all three checked, but this document does not claim it is confirmed across all 13 series in the archive, only the three read in full.
- The Jan 2025 Knowledge-band content in §3 is not independently verified against a mark scheme because none exists in the archive used — flagged rather than filled in with a plausible guess.