Six-mark questions are the most predictable marks on a science paper and the most commonly thrown away. They are marked as a level-of-response: the examiner reads the whole answer, decides which band it sits in, then places it within that band. A list of correct facts with no linkage lands in the middle band no matter how many facts it contains.
The structure
Every top-band answer we mark does the same four things, in roughly this order.
- State what is happening, in specification terminology.
- Explain the mechanism, the because, at the particle or system level.
- Link it back explicitly to the context in the question stem.
- Where the question says 'evaluate' or 'compare', finish with a judgement that references both sides.
The most common failure
Answering the topic rather than the question. A question about why a filament bulb's resistance rises is not an invitation to write everything known about resistance. Examiners cannot award marks for correct but unasked-for content, and a long unfocused answer reads as a weaker one.