Component 1 Written Exam (9239): Practice Questions

These are original questions written for Marlbridge, for revision and practice on this content. They are not reproduced past-paper questions, and they do not replicate the exam’s exact structure, question count or mark tariffs — examination boards hold copyright in their own papers and their source materials. Use these alongside the official past papers available free from your board.

The real paper, for reference, is 1 hour 30 minutes, 45 marks, and sets THREE questions (5, 15 and 25 marks) based on TWO source documents — a different shape from the eight shorter questions below, which are organised by skill for focused practice rather than as a full-paper simulation.

Coverage note: this resource covers Components 1-3 (the AS Level). Component 4, the Cambridge Research Report (85 marks, A Level only), has its own pages: study guide, revision notes and practice questions.

Related: Component 1 Written Exam revision notes

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Source

“A city that introduced a four-day working week saw productivity rise by 15% in the first year. Clearly, every country should adopt a four-day week to boost economic output. Business leaders who oppose this change simply don’t understand modern management.”

Section A

1. Deconstruct the argument in the source into its conclusion, reasons, evidence, and one unstated assumption. [4]

2. Identify two reasoning flaws in the source and explain how each undermines the argument. [6]

Section B

3. Evaluate the strength of the evidence used in the source, referring to at least three evaluation criteria. [6]

4. Explain how a business owner in a small manufacturing firm and a government economist might hold different perspectives on this issue, with reference to their likely contexts. [6]

5. Using the source as a starting point, construct a brief, reasoned personal view on whether a four-day working week should be widely adopted. [8]

6. A second source claims: “Countries that invest more in education have higher GDP per capita. Therefore increasing education spending will raise national income.” Identify two reasoning flaws in this argument, distinct from the two you identified in Question 2, and explain each. [6]

7. Explain what is meant by describing global issues as “contested and interconnected,” using an energy policy as your example. [4]

8. Explain how you would evaluate a data-heavy report differently from an opinion piece on the same issue. [4]

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Answers

1. Conclusion: a four-day week should be adopted everywhere [1]. Reasons: adopting a four-day week is expected to raise productivity, mirroring the one city’s experience [1]. Evidence: a city that introduced a four-day week saw productivity rise by 15% in its first year [1]. Assumption: what happened in one city, in one context, will generalise to every country and every kind of work [1].

2. Hasty generalisation — one city’s result is extrapolated to “every country,” ignoring differences in industry, economy and culture, so the evidence cannot support a claim that broad [3]. Ad hominem — dismissing opposing business leaders as not understanding modern management attacks the arguer rather than engaging with their actual objections, which weakens rather than strengthens the case [3]. (Other valid flaws, e.g. false cause between the policy and the productivity rise, credited equally.)

3. The evidence is a single city’s result, raising questions of sufficiency (one case cannot support a universal claim) [2]; methodology is unstated — no detail on how productivity was measured, over what period, or what else changed at the same time, undermining confidence in provenance and reliability [2]; and there is no corroboration from other cities or countries that have trialled similar policies, so the claim cannot yet be triangulated against other evidence [2].

4. A small manufacturing firm owner may prioritise fixed costs, machinery downtime, and tight profit margins, making a shorter week feel riskier — their perspective is shaped by the economic context of running a cost-sensitive business [3]. A government economist may weigh broader outcomes such as national productivity trends, employee wellbeing and labour-market effects, shaped by a policy-level, population-wide context rather than one firm’s balance sheet [3].

5. A strong response takes a clear position [1], directly engages with the source’s evidence while acknowledging its limitations (small sample, missing methodology) [3], weighs at least one perspective against another (e.g. small-firm cost concerns vs. wider productivity potential) [2], and reaches a conclusion that follows from the reasoning given, while acknowledging remaining uncertainty [2].

6. False cause — the argument assumes spending causes higher GDP, but this is not established: the causal arrow could run in reverse (richer countries can afford to spend more on education), or a confounding variable such as governance, political stability or infrastructure could be driving both independently. Reverse causation and a confounding variable are both specific patterns of false cause, so identifying either one (or both, as alternative explanations of the same underlying flaw) earns credit as a single false-cause weakness, not as two separate flaws [3]. Sufficiency — no data is given on the timescale or the size of any effect, so even if a causal link exists, the argument has not established it is strong enough to justify the conclusion [3].

7. Global issues are contested — reasonable people can disagree about the right response — and interconnected, meaning a decision in one area affects others [2]. An energy policy, for example, is simultaneously economic (cost and jobs), environmental (emissions), political (energy security) and ethical (fairness between generations) all at once, so addressing one dimension (e.g. cutting emissions) can create a new problem in another (e.g. raising costs for consumers) [2].

8. A data-heavy report is best interrogated for sample size, the baseline used, and whether a quoted percentage is hiding a small absolute number [2]. An opinion piece is best interrogated for the writer’s underlying assumptions and the strength of the reasons given, rather than simply agreeing or disagreeing with the conclusion stated [2].

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Where marks are usually lost

• Naming a fallacy without explaining specifically how it undermines the source’s inference.
• Evaluating evidence only on “it’s just one example” without naming the actual criteria (sufficiency, methodology, corroboration).
• Describing perspectives without grounding them in a specific context.
• A personal view that ignores the source entirely instead of using it as the starting point for reasoning.
• Treating reverse causation and a confounding variable as two separately creditable flaws, rather than as two specific patterns of the same underlying false-cause weakness.
• Analysing a contested global issue along only one dimension (e.g. only economic) rather than naming the interconnected trade-offs across others.
• Applying the same evaluation criteria to every source type, rather than adapting them to whether the source is data-heavy, opinion-based, or factual reporting.