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

Your education is great. You will learn to calculate the volume of a cone, and the reasons a magnet sticks. You will learn the causes of WW2 and the difference between a metaphor and a simile. But will your schooling teach you how to choose (freely and intelligently) who to vote for? Or who to trust with your health, or your money? Will it enable you to reject the falsehoods of people who want to manipulate you, and to support the people who come closer to the truth?

— Well, if your education contains Global Perspectives, it should!

Here in exam Question 3 we get to the heart of critical thinking. We have two people who disagree, each trying to persuade us that they are right. They speak from different perspectives, and we have to say which of them makes the stronger argument.

In your future life you may or may not need to diagram chemical reactions, you may or may not have to write a well-structured essay — but whatever you do in life, you will definitely have people who try to convince you that their views are right. They will ask you to support them with your money, your votes, your approval, or your actions. This exam question tests whether you have learned to accept well made claims while rejecting arguments based on faulty reasoning, flimsy evidence, or bias.

How to write your response

This question has been numbered 3(c) since 2021, but was 3(d) from 2018 to 2020. Either way, it is one of the big questions near the end of the paper. It’s worth 15 marks (far more than the earlier questions), so please leave enough time for it.

The question is typically phrased:

Which argument is more convincing, [Person 1’s] or [Person 2’s]? 
Your answer should consider both arguments, and you should support your point of view with their words. You should also consider:
– the strength of their reasoning and evidence
– their use of language
– different types of information.

As with any exam question, you should underline the key words to make sure you don’t miss something important. Something like this:

Which argument is more convincing, [Person 1’s] or [Person 2’s]? 
Your answer should consider both arguments, and you should support your point of view with their words. You should also consider:
– the strength of their reasoning and evidence
– their use of language
– different types of information.

Now, you’d probably expect that the mark scheme gives a correct answer about which persons’ argument is better — but it doesn’t! Each person’s statement will normally contain strengths and weaknesses, so it probably won’t matter which person you judge most convincing overall. The examiners don’t want to give you a rigged exercise where you work out the “right” answer, because you need to learn to form your own opinions!

What matters is making good evaluative points that lead you to an overall judgement (either way). This is what marks are awarded for.

The mark scheme tells us that a top-band response makes clear, credible and well supported points about which argument is most convincing. It has coherent, structured evaluation of both arguments with clear comparison. Taking that together with the question, we can make a colour coding key to identify creditworthy content in our notes and writing:

Look at your exam paper now, and reread the two disagreeing statements. While you do that, make notes in the table below. When you are developing your skills it’s good to try to make notes on every set of prompts, but in the exam that would be overkill.

How long should you spend on this question?

If you are handwriting this as exam practice, you need to work to a time limit of 15 minutes for this question, so you can only spend about 5 minutes on prep. If you really get to know the prompts from the prep table well, by the time you get to the exam you should be confident enough to prepare just by writing a few notes in the margin of the sources.

Now here’s a template to help you structure your answer:

When you finish, use the colour coding key to analyse your content, to make sure you’ve considered a good range of aspects.

How much should you write?

The exam paper normally gives you 2 blank lines per mark, which would make 30 lines (≅300 words). However, this is the only question that doesn’t follow this pattern; it only gives you 23 lines! Perhaps this is the examiner’s way of telling you that if you write concisely you can make 3 developed points and get a top band score with a response of only 230 words, but if you’re going to write more on any question, this might be the one. If you’re practising by typing, keep a close eye on your word count as it’s easy to go over. In fact, it’s better to handwrite your exam practice — then there’s no word limit, just a time limit.

If you include three or more successful developed points (perhaps with some undeveloped points as well), you should be in line for a high score on this question. 

Here is a worksheet with the tables above in a document for you to practise with:

Access the free resource

Practise well, and good luck in your exam!