The word list at the back of the pre-release is the closest thing you get to a free mark. Every term on it is there because the examiner expects to see it used. Learn each one as a short, confident sentence and you can pick up the 2-mark define questions in under a minute each.
These are proper Business Management terms, so they could appear in a define question worded exactly as the syllabus words it. Learn the general meaning first, then the ABC link.
| Term | What it means | Why it matters for ABC |
|---|---|---|
| Publicly held company (line 1) | A business whose shares have been sold to the general public, normally through a stock exchange. Shareholders own part of the firm and expect a share of the profits. | ABC has to keep outside shareholders happy while it spends money on green projects that may take years to pay back. |
| E-waste processing factory (line 11) | A plant built to take apart discarded electronics and pull the valuable materials, especially precious metals, back out so they can be sold again. | ABC opened its first one in 2024. It handles around 100 tonnes of circuit boards a week and recovers hundreds of kilograms of gold a year. |
| Jewellery makers (line 13) | Firms that design and produce jewellery, buying gold and silver as raw material inputs. | They are ABC’s customer for recovered gold. This makes ABC a business-to-business seller in a market with nothing to do with construction. |
| Efficiencies (line 15) | Improvements in how a business uses labour, machinery or materials, so it produces the same output at a lower cost, or more output in the same time, without losing quality. | Raising efficiency in concrete production is one of ABC’s stated priorities, and it is the safest way to protect profit margins. |
| Environment (line 16) | The air, water, land and ecosystems that a business affects through its operations. | Cement is one of the most polluting products in the world, so environmental impact sits at the centre of nearly every decision ABC makes. |
| Market-orientated (line 17) | Starting with what customers actually want, found through market research, and then producing it — rather than producing first and looking for buyers afterwards. | ABC wants to shift this way. In a business-to-business market that means tailoring concrete mixes and service to individual construction clients. |
| Growth (line 18) | An increase in the size of a business, measured by revenue, profit, market share or number of employees. | ABC is already the biggest concrete producer in its country, so its growth has to come from new products or new markets. |
These are not on the syllabus. They are here because you would otherwise stall on them in the exam. Most are ordinary industry words, and a one-line definition is plenty.
| Term | What it means | Where it fits |
|---|---|---|
| Aggregates (line 4) | Raw materials such as sand, gravel, crushed stone, limestone and clay, mixed together to make construction materials. | ABC buys limestone and clay as key inputs, so aggregate prices feed straight into its costs. |
| Business-to-business (B2B) | Selling products or services to other businesses rather than to individual consumers. Usually longer contracts, bigger orders and relationship-based selling. | Both of ABC’s businesses are B2B: concrete to construction firms, recovered gold to jewellery makers. |
| Carbon-intensive (line 7) | A process that releases large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases, usually because it burns a lot of fuel or needs very high heat. | Making cement is carbon-intensive, and so was the old method of burning circuit boards to recover metals. |
| Circuit boards (line 8) | The internal parts inside phones, computers and consoles. They contain tiny amounts of precious metals plus some toxic ones. | These are the raw material for ABC’s e-waste factory. |
| Clay (line 2) | A natural material dug from the ground, used as one of the main ingredients in cement. | A direct cost of production for ABC. |
| Concrete (line 1) | A construction material made by mixing cement, water and aggregates such as sand or gravel. The most widely used building material on earth. | ABC’s core product and the source of most of its revenue. |
| E-waste (line 6) | Discarded electronic products that are no longer used, from old phones to laptops and games consoles. It holds both valuable and hazardous materials. | ABC’s second business. The supply of it is the thing that limits how fast that business can grow. |
| Landfill (line 10) | A site where waste is buried in the ground instead of being recycled or reprocessed. | Most of the world’s e-waste still ends up here, which is exactly the gap ABC is trying to fill. |
| Limestone (line 2) | A natural rock quarried from the ground and used as a key ingredient in cement and concrete. | ABC’s primary input. Quarrying it also damages landscapes, which is an ethical issue. |
| Plastic-shredding machinery | Industrial equipment that breaks plastic waste into small pieces so it can be recycled or reused. | A hint. It suggests ABC could move beyond circuit boards into recycling other materials. |
| Recycling (line 10) | Collecting and reprocessing waste materials so they can be used again, either in the same process or in something new. | The idea that links both halves of ABC: recycled aggregates in concrete, recovered metals from e-waste. |
| Solar panels | Devices that turn sunlight into electricity, used as a renewable energy source. | Another hint. Old solar panels are a future e-waste stream ABC could process. |
| Toxic metals | Harmful metallic substances that can damage human health and the environment if they are not handled, stored or disposed of properly. | They come with the territory in e-waste, and they create health, safety and legal duties for ABC. |
The fastest way to remember these is not a list. It is a picture of the two production chains, because almost every word on the list is a step, an input or a customer in one of them.
Two marks, two statements. That is the whole technique. One mark for the basic idea, one for a second detail that shows you really know it. No case study needed, no examples required, no long paragraph.
Define the term market orientation. [2]
Define the term recycling. [2]
Explain one reason why ABC selling to jewellery makers is described as business-to-business. [2]
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