This resource is for the 2018-24 specification. Please visit the 2025 section of the website for up-to-date materials.

I wonder if you, as a teacher, get the same feeling I do when reading the GP Exam Insert? I’m talking about the booklet which contains the “sources”, which are (in theory) sufficient for a student to write a perfect exam without any other specific knowledge of the topic. The feeling I get is that they’re very tidy. Unrealistically tidy. I won’t say “dumbed down” because they are very well written to provide the necessary material to test precise thinking – but the unavoidable process of representing real world issues in a form suitable for the exam removes all the authenticity that makes the Global Perspectives course so refreshing. 

So what I really wanted to do for the first of our Out of the Box exam preparation units was to take a topic which has already been covered in an exam paper, and put the authenticity back into it by investigating actual issues in genuine places, and perspectives voiced by actual personalities. The challenge was to do this while maintaining a sharp focus on the exam questions and the specific skills they test. The result – the Globalisation: Tourism unit proves the concept, teaching students to write exam-style responses of the right length which satisfy the exam marking criteria, but which are actually rooted in grittier real-world sources. In the unit we go to Venice to hear from Italians with very different perspectives on relinquishing their city to tourists, to Bali to hear how the COVID pandemic has made the people and their governor rethink their reliance on tourism, and to Boracay, where some of the locals are hopping mad that the drastic rehabilitation project lauded by the world seems about to be sold out to billionaire casino developers. 

I’m sure the examiners would approve. They know the exam is a pale imitation of real life. I think they’re just hoping it will model the questions we should be applying to real world issues and sources throughout our courses. Indeed, they say as much in the Examiner Report:

“In preparation for this type of question [Q4], centres are encouraged to give candidates regular opportunity to write extended essays in which they contrast and compare different perspectives or potential actions in response to an issue.” – Examiner Report, Summer 2021

This free sample lesson is exactly that. Lesson 4 – What Should Venice Do? teaches students to write an exam-style Q4 on the overtourism situation of Venice.

Students following the Out of the Box course will be well primed for this by the three preceding lessons of the unit, but don’t worry if you don’t have a membership yet – this DW documentary film will give you all the background you need.

“But that is not all I can do,” said the Cat…

I try to make Out of the Box live up to its name by supporting the teachers and students to the hilt, and that means I don’t just set questions and leave it to the teacher to handle the process and the feedback. First, I provide the framework for a discussion task to help students generate and share relevant ideas before they write. The framework is based on generic indicative content from the exam mark schemes but interprets it into the more specific terms of this scenario to guide conversations towards relevant points.

Also, I do the task myself, to check it is really practical, and to understand what demands it makes of the student. It helps me create a writing template to prompt students, and even a fully scaffolded outline plan for students who need more support. 

Whether you use it before or after attempting the first question, the model answer analysis task help students to learn exactly which bits of writing satisfy which task requirements. Students find this colour-coding task very illuminating, and it’s super powerful if they start doing it for their own writing as well.

Finally, there’s a second Q4-style question on the same material, so that students can practice more freely after following the highly-structured process for the first one:

Did I say “finally”? Actually, there’s also a tailored mark scheme to make scoring the student work really transparent and straightforward, or to enable self- or peer-assessment:

If all that doesn’t make your students feel better equipped to answer Question 4 of the exam, I’ll eat my hat!

Here is the lesson slideshow, containing links to all the supporting documents in the speaker notes.

Of course, there’s one way you can make it even better – by teaching lessons 1 to 3 of the unit first! They teach students how to answer exam Q2-style questions based on the same content. All units of Out of the Box are available in full to all members of igcseglobalperspectives.net. If you’d like to support us in making more quality materials for IGCSE Global Perspectives, please consider taking out a membership for your school.