A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

Table of Contents
How A-level Business is Assessed ......................................................................................3
AS Level ................................................................................................................................3
A2 Level ................................................................................................................................4
A Level Past Paper Practice and Solutions .......................................................................5
Paper 1.................................................................................................................................. 6
Business Activity ............................................................................................................ 6
Operations ....................................................................................................................... 7
Finance ..............................................................................................................................8
Paper 2 ................................................................................................................................. 9
Business Activity ............................................................................................................ 9
People in Organisations .............................................................................................. 10
Marketing ........................................................................................................................ 11
Paper 3 ................................................................................................................................ 12
Operations ..................................................................................................................... 12
A-level Guides....................................................................................................................... 13
How to Write A- level Business Essays ................................................................... 14
Business Essay Infographic .........................................................................................17
Evaluation Infographic ................................................................................................ 18
How to Widen A-level Business Knowledge and Problem Solving ...................22
Ratio Hack Sheets ............................................................................................................... 25
Profitability Ratios .......................................................................................................... 25
Liquidity Ratios ................................................................................................................ 26
Return on Capital Employed.......................................................................................... 27
How to Improve Further ................................................................................................... 28

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

How A-level Business is Assessed

AS Level
There are two papers at AS level. AS is 50% of the final A-level grade.
Paper 1 is worth 40% of the total AS grade. Section A includes short answer
questions, in Section B students must answer two essay questions. There is no
case study or additional material.

Paper 2 is 60% of the AS grade. P2 has two case studies of around 250-300
words on a fictional business. There may also be appendices with financial infor-
mation. Following each case study there are usually four short questions and
two essay questions.

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

A2 Level
There are two papers at AS level Paper 3 and Paper 4.

Paper 3 is entitled “Business Decision Making”, lasts one hour 45 minutes and
makes up 60% of your A2 Business grade. All the questions are based on one
case study on a fictional business, around 700 words long, with a number of ap-
pendices with further financial information.

In Paper 4 is an hour and 15 minutes and focused on business strategy and

makes up 40% of your A2 grade. Students must answer two essay questions
based on a 500-word case study.

Students often need the most support when beginning their studies - if they get
into effective and organised routines at the start of AS Business it is much easier
to continue productively throughout A-level.

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

A Level Past Paper Practice and Solutions

Practice examples of the most popular essay questions from topics across the
A-level syllabus.
Compare your answers to each of the exemplar solution.
Find question guides with detailed explanations on the correct technique,
structure, timing, and content for an A* answer in our A-level membership.

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

Paper 1
Business Activity

Analyse the impact of small businesses on the development of a country. (8

marks)

The EU defines small business as either having fewer than 50 employees or

turnover of up to €10 million Nearly, all businesses start small. Amazon started
in 1995 in a garage selling books online with a start-up capital of $250,000. To-
day it is a multibillion, multinational company. In this way small business may
be the building blocks for future large businesses and become significant play-
ers in national and international markets. This means they can have a huge im-
pact in the economic development of a country by providing tax revenue.

Small business can be more innovative. Facebook started in 2003 as a small

business set up by a college student. By creating new ideas about how people
interact socially in an innovative digital platform it grew to be a huge tech
company. This not only inspired tech entrepreneurs to innovate in the USA but
Facebook as continued to be involved in the research and development of new
software and apps, like it’s move into Cryptocurrency in 2019. This has a huge
impact on the technological and innovative development of a country.

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

Operations

Just in Time 12 Marks

Evaluate the factors which could influence the successful operation of Just-in-Time
(JIT) inventory management. [12 marks]

Excellent employee–employer relationships are essential. If there is a bad relationship

between management and factory workers in a car factory, a strike will lead to a halt
in production. As Just in Time relies on finished stocks being taken away directly from
the factory to the car dealerships this could lead to customers orders for cars not be-
ing complete. This will lead to damage to the car company’s reputation and lost sales
as customers may cancel their orders or move to a competitor for their next car pur-
chase as they are unsatisfied. Positive relationships between employers and employ-
ees is so important that many Japanese car firms insist on a no strike deal with unions
if they are going to operate Just in Time.

Furthermore, relationships with suppliers need to be excellent. Suppliers must be

flexible enough to cope with changes in demand for components with little warning
from the factory. This is because Just In Time requires parts from suppliers to arrive
very soon after they are ordered, and go straight onto the production line in order to
be used in the manufacturing of the finished product. If suppliers can’t respond
quickly to orders this will mean the parts do not arrive and the production line will be
halted. A stop in the production line will lead to a huge increase in costs - as workers
will have no work to do and machinery in the factory will have to stop.

However, if suppliers can respond quickly to the factories costs can be reduced in the
long term, by eliminating the need to store suppliers of parts at the factory. Ulti-
mately, JIT is best suited to industries with a high level of technology integrated into
machinery, through computer controlled manufacture and sophisticated IT systems
to control orders from suppliers and customers.

Even with excellent relationships with suppliers and employees, a highly sophisticated
and reliable IT infrastructure will be needed to control all the information about cus-
tomer orders and suppliers. Without the technology to facilitate the intricate timing
of orders, JIT is unlikely to be successful. For this reason car manufacturers like
Toyota or Nissan or Dell Computers have successfully been able to implement JIT in-
ventory management.

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

Finance

(b) Explain one reasons why a business may use equity finance. [3]
Interest rates may be very high.
This will mean it will be very costly to raise capital through debt finance due to
high interest repayments.
For example, 10% interest rates will mean the debt to be repaid rises one-
tenth every year and it may be very difficult for the business to get out of high
debt.

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

Paper 2

Business Activity

Business Structure 12 marks

d) Evaluate the likely impacts on the local community if FM changes from a co-opera-
tive to a public limited company. [1]

A PLC can sell shares to the general public so EFF can raise capital for growth. EFF can
then use the additional capital to invest in training more local fishermen and finance the
purchasing of the local fish packing factory. This means that more people from the local
community will be employed in the factory and fishermen will have higher skills. As a re-
sult there will be more money in the local economy and living standards for the local com-
munity would rise.

To increase profits, prices of fish may be increased or costs, like training the fishermen,
may be reduced. The rise in the price of products will impact the local community, espe-
cially the poorest, as they will be unable to buy as much fish, and food is a necessity.This
may lead to local people buying less healthy food and the local community may have more
health problems as a result.

The impact on the local community will be positive, as the capital invested will allow ex-
pansion and an increase in local employment for the local community, which is the main
objective of the mission statement. Although prices may rise many more local people will
have an income which will have a more positive impact on the local economy than lower
prices with less employment.

However, EFF must ensure that their corporate objectives for the PLC reflect the ethics of
the business. By moving to a PLC, EFF will have no control over their future shareholders
as they are sold to the general public. It may be more suitable to create a private limited
company so EFF can sell the shares to friends/family who may agree with their well-mean-
ing corporate objectives.

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

People in Organisations

Motivation 11 marks

d) Recommend how RS could improve the motivation of its employees in team A. Justify
your recommendation. [11]

RS could pay its workers better to motivate them. This may be effective because 40%
of people who leave think that RS has poor pay. This is likely to lead to less people
leaving team A, which will decrease the recruitment costs of RS.

However, money does not motivate everyone, and there are many other reasons why
employees leave RS, such as the 24% of people who leave because of poor leadership.
So, the extra pay may not motivate the employees but will increase costs. This means
that RS has less money available to meet its mission statement.

Overall pay could help to improve the motivation of the employees in Team A because
it has the highest labour turnover rate and the biggest reason is poor pay. However, it
depends on whether RS can afford to increase pay enough to make a real difference
to the motivation of the employees.

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

Marketing

Promotion 8 marks

c) Analyse two promotional methods which EE could use to gain new customers. [8]

TV advertising. 30-second commercials can highlight the benefits of 5G coverage

which can stimulate interest in upgrading to EE across the whole country. Although,
TV advertising is expensive the reach is large and price per customer is low, so their
message can reach many new customers.

Leaflets. Can target areas with 5G coverage, so ineligible consumers aren’t targeted.
This means the marketing budget will be more cost-effective. Therefore, EE can focus
their marketing directly on the consumers who can access the services and are most
likely to switch to EE, leading to more new customers.

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

Paper 3
Operations

Outsourcing 8 marks
Analyse two possible limitations to Fusion Sushi of outsourcing delivery from their
restaurants. [8]

Outsourcing is when a business hires a third party to perform tasks or handle

operations or provide services. One possible limitation is a drop in quality in the
service of delivery as FS will not manage this directly.

FS currently has a high reputation for quality with top ratings.

By outsourcing delivery FS will lose control of this aspect of the customer experience
and interaction with the FS brand.

If the outsourced delivery is late or delivery drivers have poor customer service skills
this will negatively impact FS’s brand image and could result in lower sales as a result.
This could impact FS ambitious profit target of an increase of 15% and mean they lose
a competitive advantage against other restaurants with higher ratings.

Outsourcing may be a high-cost option for FS.

As food delivery is subsidised by FS they will have to contribute to every delivery. As

they are already considering dropping prices for sushi this may lead to even lower
profit margins as FS must absorb the cost of delivery in their own prices. This could
lead to FS finding cost savings in other areas in order to improve margins, for example
reducing the quality of their ingredients. In the long term, this could lead to lower
customer satisfaction and lower sales.

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

A-level Guides

Guides to the fundamentals of success in A-level Business.

Find out how to write a business essay, how to improve your English in business
essays.
If you really want to reach for the A*’s, we’ve got a guide on how to widen and
deepen your business knowledge and understanding through the news that’s all
around us.

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

How to Write A- level Business Essays

Scoring high marks in Business A-level is a skill everyone can learn by using the
correct technique and a bit of practice. There are five essential skills to
successful essay writing in A-level Business. The sooner you master your essay
writing skills the sooner you will start achieving high results.
1. Plan

When making our plan, we need to respond to the command words.

Make a simple plan – this can be a simple list of points (for and against).

Planning allows you to make sure you have a greater structure in your essay,
include a greater range of points and avoid repetition. It will also allow you help
you make a decision in evaluation questions as you have thought through the
arguments for and against.

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

2. Add Paragraphs
Why paragraphs are so helpful is that they signal to the examiner that you are
moving onto a new point and encourage you to avoid repetition.

They also form the building blocks of essays. Each paragraph builds another part
of the argument to answer the question.

With Business A-level, you want to build a chain of analysis in each paragraph
with Knowledge, Application Analysis and Further Analysis - we explore this in
detail with our Chain of Analysis video tutorial and guide to analysis questions.

3. Focus on the question

Focus on the subject in the question - is the question asking about employees or
managers? Human resources or operations?

To score the highest marks, you need to find out exactly:

- what the question is asking you
- stay focused on the question throughout your answer

What separates high performing students and those who score average grades is
the ability to stay focused throughout the essay.

This allows you to select the most relevant application or evidence from the case
study to support your answer.

4. Use Connective Phrases

Within each paragraph, connective phrases are a great way to keep you focused
on the question and build the chain of analysis

Use phrases like: “this means that”, “this will impact the business” to introduce
ANALYSIS.

Say “this is of crucial importance because” or “other factors to consider are” to

introduce EVALUATION.

Cambridge examination reports state how students focus too much on

knowledge at the expense of analysis and evaluation every year. Connective

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

phrases are the magic expressions force you to explain the impact of the
business decisions and unlock higher marks.
5. Get the Insider Information

Each essay question will have it’s own unique recipe for Knowledge,
Application, Analysis and Evaluation

For example an A2 20 mark question has just 3 Knowledge marks but 8 for
analysis.

To be ready to score full marks in each type of essay see the Ed’s Business
Essential Question Guides, so you know exactly what you need to include
for top marks in each question.

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

Business Essay Infographic

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

Evaluation Infographic

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

How to improve written English at Business A-

level

One of the questions I get asked most often is

“how important is my English in Business” or

“how can I improve my writing?” in English.

Many students think their level of English is holding them back in Cambridge
International Exams.
More importantly, many students feel they can’t do much to improve their
English.
We will discover these practical strategies to improve your English in Business
A- level exams:
1. Improve Business Vocabulary

2. Use Sentence Starters

3. Learn Key Concept Definitions

4. Use the correct structure

5. Use connective phrases

How important is my written English in Business A level and IGCSE exams?

Well, on the face of it, it’s not important at all. Cambridge International
examiners will not take away marks for grammatical errors or spelling mistakes
AS LONG AS they can make sense of your answers.
Examiners have to mark hundreds of scripts where they must try their hardest
to figure out what the student is trying to say and find the marks. It’s highly
frustrating to the examiner, but the students don’t lose any marks for writing
with barely understandable English.
However, if the examiner has to hunt for the marks, most of what the student is
writing isn’t being rewarded. This means most of their effort is being wasted.
And that’s why having functional Business English written ability is crucial.
The good news is you don’t need to write a great work of literature to get top
marks, or even worry about small mistakes. You just need to make sure your

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

writing is clear, concise and focused on the question. Even small tweaks in your
writing can mean the difference between a pass and moving towards the highest
A* scores.
So let’s find out the 5 key tips to improving English in Business exams and one
trap to avoid.

Improve Your Business Vocabulary

Most of you reading this article speak English as a 2nd language, so you already
know the importance of learning vocabulary in another language. However, if
you go one step further and learn the subject specific vocabulary in business it
will dramatically improve your answers. For example you could say:

1. “He wants to get more money so he can grow and make more money”

Or
2. “his objective is to raise capital for expansion to increase economies of
scale.”

Option 1 does not use the correct business keywords and is vague. The examiner
can’t award high marks as knowledge and understanding is not clear.
Option 2 uses the correct vocabulary and shows clear understanding of the
concepts so will score high marks.
To help you with the essentials and avoid the most common mistakes we have
the business phrasebook, a free pdf to download.

Use Sentence Starters

Students often get stuck thinking about beginning longer questions or adding
long introductions that aren’t rewarded with any marks. Use a sentence starter
that gets straight to answering the question and skip the introductions. In many
A-level questions you can start immediately with the knowledge point and then
run through your chain of analysis.

Learn Key Concept Definitions

This is certainly the boring but important tip. On the Cambridge International A-
level syllabus any concept mentioned could be asked as a definition question on
the exam. If you have learned a brief, definition you won’t even have to think
about how to explain your answer and can quickly secure full marks. You can
find all of the keywords at AS level with simple definitions here.
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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

Use the Correct Structure

Each essay question will have its own unique recipe for Knowledge, Application,
Analysis and Evaluation. For example, an A2 20 mark question has just 3
Knowledge marks but 10 for evaluation, but the opening 10 mark essay question
has no evaluation at all.
If you know how to structure each type of question this will guide you through
every type of question.

Use Connective Phrases

Within each paragraph connective phrases are a great way to keep you focused
on the question and build a chain of analysis. This means you can quickly move
from knowledge and application to analysis, evaluation, and secure marks.

To score analysis marks use phrases like: “this means that”, and “this will lead to”
To give balance and take your analysis one step further use connectives like
“however” and “on the other hand” to give another point of view so your answer is
more balanced.

To secure evaluation marks say “this is of crucial importance because” or “other

factors to consider are”. Evaluation is the most challenging skill
Another common student question is: “Are bullet points ok?”

They can be useful for finishing questions under time pressure. If you are nearly
out of time and want to get a few final knowledge points you can quickly write
down a few bullet points. However, they don’t allow the depth of answers
needed to get higher level marks.

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

How to Widen A-level Business Knowledge and

Problem Solving

Just a few minutes a day watching, reading or listening to the business news can
significantly improve your grades. Here we explain how, why, and where to find
the most exciting business stories that will propel you to success in Cambridge
Business Exams
What Cambridge says:
Cambridge International Examination Business qualifications have the following
aims:

“the capacity to analyse characteristics and activities of business organisations

and how they respond to the changing demands of their environments
• an understanding of how effective managers and leaders develop successful
organisations in terms of customer focus and the products/services they offer

• the opportunity to reflect on how successful business organisations engage in

financial and accounting practices to maximise value for stakeholders value

• development of knowledge that relates to strategic planning and decision-making

to ensure business survival, change, and sustainable success”

It sounds complicated, but to put it more concisely it is about looking at how

businesses work successfully and explaining why. Furthermore, particularly in
A-level Business it’s about problem-solving in different fictional case studies. In
other words - putting yourself “in the shoes of” the business owner or manager
in the case study and choosing the best way forward for the business.
Learning the key content on the syllabus is essential for understanding the
mechanics of business. But to understand how these concepts and processes
work in reality we need to look at real-world scenarios. Luckily for us as
Business students - they are all around us, and we just need to focus our
attention in the right place.
Where to find the Business News
It could be as easy as clicking on the business section of a news website you
regularly use, turning to the business section of the newspaper or flicking to a
business channel if you are watching TV.
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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

NEWSPAPERS

National newspapers can give an excellent insight that you may not find
elsewhere and let you know what is going on with business in your country.
Remember, Cambridge prides itself on providing an truly international
qualification - so business news from your country should be just as relevant as
any other.

However, to make sure you are aware of global trends, it can be useful to focus
on international business stories.

The Financial Times and Wall Street Journal are the “go to” newspapers for CEOs
and high powered business people and have an increasingly international focus.
The Economist (don’t be fooled by the name it covers business, finance, and
global politics too) has an excellent business section and is well worth following
on Instagram.
Bloomberg and Businessweek are two excellent sources of business news with a
a US perspective on business.

Podcasts

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

The most convenient way for me is to stay up to date with business news is to
listen to podcasts. The great thing about podcasts is you can be learning while
doing other stuff while learning: driving to school, doing exercise, orcleaning
your room. As long as you can multitask a little, you can maximise your
productivity and make tedious tasks more enjoyable.

I regularly listen to the BBC Business Daily podcast from the BBC World Service.
“How I Built This” from NPR has unparalleled access to billionaire unicorn
entrepreneurs, so you can hear the story of Dyson, Airbnb, and Instagram, from
the people who made their wildest business dreams come true.
Movies
Ok, so it’s not the most up to date business news, but watching movies based on
successful businesses or the struggle of entrepreneurs to become successful can
be hugely beneficial. I would recommend writing down some notes, so you can
remember what you learned, and it always helps to discuss with a friend to put
the concepts in context.
The founder, tells the story of McDonalds entrepreneur Ray Croc. You can find a
summary of the key lessons for business students here:
“A Social Network” follows Mark Zuckerberg from getting dumped from his
girlfriend at Harvard to becoming the global leader in social media.
“Steve Jobs” tells the story of the rise of Steve Jobs and his tumultuous
relationship with Apple. He was essentially booted out of the company before
returning to rescue Apple by introducing the iPod and iPhone.
“The Big Short”, “Enron” and the “Corporation” tells the story of what can go
wrong when companies lose their moral compass and behave unethically.

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

Ratio Hack Sheets

Profitability Ratios

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

Liquidity Ratios

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

Return on Capital Employed

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A-level Business Exam Guide Ed’s Business Essentials

How to Improve Further

Well done for making it through the A-level exam guide!

You’ve already taken significant positive steps to improve your exam.
Keep checking your emails, I’ll regularly send messages to give further tips and
advice as the exams approach.

We all know how crucially important A-level exams are for your future career.
Have you considered a small investment to secure future success?
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