Section A of Paper 2 is the most predictable 20 marks in the whole course. The same four questions come up in the same order, all about a practical you ran yourself. Prepare one practical properly and you have prepared for all four.
📘 What you need to know
Four compulsory SAQs: Q1 and Q2 are 4 marks, Q3 and Q4 are 6 marks. Total 20.
They are about one research method from your class practicals: experiment, observation, survey or questionnaire, or interview.
Q1: describe the method you used — aim, method, sample.
Q2: explain how a concept is relevant to your practical, and justify why it matters there.
Q3: compare and contrast your method with another named method, balanced across both.
Q4: design a study on the same topic using a different method.
Q1: describe the method (4 marks)
Three ingredients, and all three are needed. Students who lose marks here usually forget the sample.
Keep it concise. Four marks is a short paragraph, not a full method write-up from your lab report.
Q2: explain a concept in relation to your practical (4 marks)
The concept will usually be one of the six key concepts, or a closely related methods idea such as validity or reliability. Two things are needed: a clear explanation of how it applies to your study, and a justification of why it matters there.
The Q2 sentence pattern
In my practical, [concept] was relevant because [what you did]. This mattered because [effect on the findings].
For example, if your practical was a lab experiment you could take measurement: your standardised procedure meant every participant met the same conditions, so differences in the results were more likely to come from the variable you changed, which strengthens validity and reliability.
Notice how the concept and the practical are welded together in that sentence. A definition of measurement with your study bolted on afterwards will not score as well as one where you cannot separate them.
Q3: compare and contrast (6 marks)
The other method is named for you in the question. Six marks means you need both halves, and roughly equal amounts of each.
Draw this in the margin before writing. It stops the classic mistake of producing six differences and no similarities.
Q4: design a new study (6 marks)
Same research topic, different method — and usually different from the method named in Q3 as well. The marks are for a design that would actually work, and for showing you can reframe a topic to fit a new tool.
🧩 What a full-mark Q4 design contains
The new method, named. “I would design a questionnaire.”
A reframed aim. The same topic asked in a way the new method can answer.
Participants and sampling. Who, how many, recruited how.
Procedure. Enough that a stranger could run it. Include example items or categories.
What data you would get and, briefly, how you would analyse it.
Worked examples
WORKED EXAMPLE
Describe the method you used in your class practical. [4 marks]
Aim
Our practical investigated the capacity of short-term memory, specifically whether the number of items recalled changed when the list was chunked.
Method
It was a laboratory experiment with a repeated-measures design, run under standardised conditions in a classroom with the same instructions read to everyone.
Sample
24 students aged 16 to 18 from our own year group, recruited through opportunity sampling, with roughly equal numbers of each gender.
Aim, method and sample all presentThree sentences is enough. Do not describe every trial.
WORKED EXAMPLE
Design a study on the same topic using a different method. [6 marks]
Method and reframed aim
I would use a questionnaire to investigate what students believe they can hold in short-term memory and which strategies they use to help recall.
Participants
60 students aged 16 to 18 across three year groups, recruited by opportunity sampling, to widen the sample beyond one class.
Procedure
A short questionnaire with closed items rated 1 to 5, for example “I repeat information in my head to remember it”, plus two open questions asking which strategy they use most and why. Completed anonymously online.
Data
The closed items give quantitative data for comparison across year groups; the open questions give qualitative data explaining the choices. Anonymity reduces social desirability bias.Workable, detailed, and clearly a different methodThe last line earns credit for methodological awareness without adding length.
💡 Exam tip
Write a one-page revision card for your practical: aim, method, design, sample, procedure, results, two limitations.
Learn which concepts fit your method. An experiment invites measurement and causality; an interview invites bias and perspective.
For Q3, plan four points before writing: two shared, two different.
For Q4, give a sample question or observation category. Concrete detail is what “workable” looks like.
Spend roughly 8 minutes each on Q1 and Q2, and 12 each on Q3 and Q4.
⚠ Common mix-up
Leaving out the sample in Q1. It is one of the three named ingredients.
Explaining a concept without the practical. Q2 marks the link, not the definition.
Only contrasting in Q3. Similarities are half the marks.
A vague Q4 design. “I would ask people some questions” is not a design.
Reusing your original method in Q4. It has to be different.
Up next: Writing a Strong ERQ in Paper 2 — the unseen study, and how to turn two key concepts into a full 15-mark discussion.
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