Cambridge A-Level Sociology: The Family — Practice Questions (9699)

These are original questions written for Marlbridge, in the style and at the standard of the examination. They are not reproduced past-paper questions — Cambridge holds copyright in its own papers. Use these alongside the official past papers available through your school or Cambridge’s own resources.

Related: Paper 2 study guide and revision notes.

Section A – compulsory short-answer (Paper 2 style)

1. Identify two family or household forms named in the specification, other than the nuclear family. [2]

2. Explain what is meant by “emotion work” in the context of conjugal roles. [3]

3. Explain one way in which childhood can be described as “socially constructed.” [3]

4. Identify the three feminist strands examined in the specification’s treatment of gender and family life. [3]

Section B – essay (choice of two, per the specification’s format)

5. Evaluate the view that the family primarily benefits particular groups within it, rather than society as a whole.

6. “Growing family diversity is best understood as a social problem, not as evidence of greater individual choice.” Discuss.

Worked answers

1. Any two of: extended, lone-parent, reconstituted, single-person family or household forms. [2]

2. Emotion work refers to the often-unequal effort involved in managing a family’s emotional life – anticipating other members’ needs, maintaining relationships, and managing the household’s emotional atmosphere – work that is frequently carried out disproportionately by one partner (typically alongside visible domestic tasks like housework and childcare) rather than shared equally. [3]

3. Any valid explanation showing that what counts as childhood, and how children are treated, has varied over historical time and between different societies, rather than being a fixed, universal, biologically determined stage – for example, expectations about children’s participation in work or their expected level of independence have differed significantly between historical periods and cultures, showing childhood to be shaped by social attitudes rather than fixed biology alone. [3]

4. Liberal feminism, radical feminism, and Marxist feminism. [3]

5. A strong essay sets the three perspectives from 3.1 directly against the claim rather than describing each in isolation. The functionalist view broadly disagrees with the claim, arguing the family performs necessary functions (socialisation, economic support) that benefit society generally rather than any one group. The Marxist view partially supports a version of the claim, arguing the family serves a specific system (capitalism) more than society as a whole, benefiting the capitalist class through ideological control and the reproduction of labour. The feminist view most directly supports the claim, arguing the family primarily benefits men within it, at the expense of women’s unpaid domestic and emotional labour. A strong answer reaches a supported conclusion weighing these three positions against each other with named evidence (e.g. specific findings on conjugal role inequality or emotion work), rather than describing all three perspectives as equally valid without a final reasoned judgement. Marks are awarded across accurate knowledge of all three perspectives (AO1), correct application of each to the specific claim (AO2), and sustained, evidenced evaluation reaching a clear conclusion (AO3, weighted most heavily in Section B).

6. A strong answer sets the New Right and postmodernist perspectives directly against each other on this specific claim rather than describing them as unconnected alternatives. The New Right perspective would support the statement, arguing that growing family diversity (rising divorce, cohabitation, lone-parent and reconstituted families) represents a decline from a beneficial nuclear-family norm and produces negative social consequences. The postmodernist perspective would reject the statement, arguing the same trends instead reflect greater individual choice and freedom from previously rigid social expectations about family form, framing diversity positively rather than as decline. A strong response evaluates both positions using named evidence about actual trends in marriage, cohabitation and divorce, and considers whether the “social problem” framing itself reflects a particular value position rather than a neutral description of the evidence, before reaching a supported conclusion about which perspective the balance of evidence better supports. Marks are awarded across accurate knowledge of both perspectives, correct application to the specific claim, and sustained evaluation reaching a reasoned conclusion.

A note on Section A command words

Section A questions typically use “identify” (questions 1, 4) or “explain” (questions 2, 3), and the mark allocations above reflect that distinction precisely: an “identify” question wants a stated fact with no further justification needed, so writing an extended explanation for question 1 or 4 wastes exam time without earning additional marks, since the mark scheme caps credit at the number of correctly identified items. An “explain” question, by contrast, requires the stated point to be justified or elaborated – question 2’s three marks are not available for simply writing “emotion work is unequal effort,” but require the fuller two-part explanation given above, connecting the concept to who typically performs it and why it is easy to overlook next to visible domestic tasks. Recognising which command word a Section A question uses, and calibrating how much to write accordingly, is a straightforward way to avoid losing time on over-written “identify” answers or under-written “explain” answers.

Why questions 5 and 6 stay perspective-versus-perspective

Both essay questions are deliberately written to require setting named perspectives directly against each other on a specific claim, because the revision notes identify this cross-perspective evaluation – not describing each theory in a separate paragraph – as what Section B’s essay actually rewards most heavily through its AO3 weighting. Question 6 in particular tests the same skill applied to 3.2’s diversity content rather than 3.1’s role-of-the-family content, reflecting the revision notes’ warning that blending these two sub-topics, or applying 3.1’s theories where a question actually wants 3.2’s diversity-specific perspectives, is a common source of lost marks.

Official syllabus

Cambridge International AS & A Level Sociology (9699) syllabus, 2024-2026 series – the same source cited by the Paper 2 study guide and revision notes.