modern studies essay structure

STA Higher Modern Studies

Higher modern studies, potential essays.

See the document below for a list of potential essays. Use this to plan essays and revise knowledge, analysis and evaluation. Remember that there are many ways to word questions so practice being able to determine exactly what the question is asking you and figure out the structure.

For the crime and the law section there are no example questions – I may update this later. Just be aware that you could be asked about the causes, consequences and responses to crime.

Examples of ku Possible Questions MARCH 2018

USA Model Essays

See blow for model essays on various USA sub-topics:

USA Influence – USA Influence Model Essay

USA influence 2 – USA-Influence-Model-Essay

Rights and Responsibilities 12 mark analyse paragraph – Rights and Responsibilities USA Essay

Political progress minorities essay paragraph – Progress for Minorities Essay

Participation Essay paragraph – Participation Voting Paragraph

How democratic paragraph – How democratic paragraph Feb 2018

Government responses to social and economic inequalities, Affirmative Action paragraph – Government Responses to S and E inequalities model para AA

Checks on Government Model Essay – Checks on Government Model Essay

Analyse Paragraph – Social and Economic Inequalities – Analyse – Social and Inequalities Model Essay

Knowledge Questions

See the document below for a 20 mark essay guide:

20 Mark Knowledge Question September 2015

Remember that for 12 mark analyse questions, there are 8 marks for knowledge and 4 marks for analysis – no need for an overall conclusion and just a one sentence introduction if any.

For 12 mark evaluate questions, there are 8 marks for knowledge and 4 marks for evaluation (conclusions). You may do an overall conclusion for this type of question but you can also do mini-conclusions at the end of each paragraph.

Skills Questions

The PowerPoints below explain the techniques for answering the two different  types of skills questions:

Conclusion Questions UPDATED JAN 2018

Objectivity Questions

Remember to use the SQA website for the last three years of past papers and the specimen paper:

https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/47924.html

Online Study Materials

Visit Modernity Scotland for extra Higher materials  – https://www.modernity.scot/  (Username is stthomas, see Mr Canning for password)

See the US and Canada section of the BBC news website for up-to-date stories relevant to the world powers topic – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world/us_and_canada

See the politics section of the BBC website for up-to-date news relevant to the Democracy in Scotland and the UK unit – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics

See BBC Bitesize for Higher Modern Studies revision materials on all three units – https://www.bbc.com/education/subjects/ztsvr82

All PowerPoints below:

1. Lessons 1 and 2 USA Intro, geography etc. Blog

2. LESSONS 3-8 Political System and Process Blog

3. LESSONS 9-16 Social and Economic Inequalities Blog

4. International Influence of the USA Blog

You can also use the Modernity Scotland website for more information on the USA topic – https://www.modernity.scot/ – see Mr Canning for login details.

Democracy in the UK

Below you will find materials for the Democracy in the UK unit.

Participation –  Participation in the Political System Blog

3. Impact of EU membership Blog

Welcome to the Higher Modern Studies Blog!

Welcome to the St Thomas Aquinas Higher Modern Studies blog. Here you will find class materials for all topics. PowerPoints from class will be posted here following lessons. If you miss a period you can catch up by accessing the blog.

Materials posted here will be the same as in class but will not include images.

29/12/23 UPDATE: Terrorism added in National 5 section; Advanced Higher content updated; revision strategy suggestions published.

Advanced Higher Modern Studies

Advanced Higher Modern Studies is a Level 7 SCQF course offered by the SQA - equivalent to the first year of Undergraduate. By reading the course, candidates develop a deepened understanding of the issues in society, and the responses to them. Assessment at Advanced Higher consists of a 5,000 dissertation and 3-hour exam.

Learn more on the SQA website

⚠ IMPORTANT ⚠ 

Candidates of Advanced Higher Modern Studies can study one of three main sections. These sections are: Political issues, law and order, or social inequality. Within these sections, there are three sub-sections, of which you're expected to address two in the final exam. At Inverurie Academy, we study Section 2 (Law and order). Within this section, we learn study Section 2B (Understanding criminal behaviour) and Section 2C (Responses by society to crime). Click the drop-down menus below to find out more.

Section 2B: Understanding criminal behaviour 

Below are the Course Assessment Specification (CAS) headings for Section 2B. These headings are established by the SQA, and are the basis of the questions you're faced within the final exam.

definitions, measurements and perceptions of crime

contemporary relevance of theories of criminal behaviour including physiological, psychological and sociological theories

social and economic impact of criminal behaviour on victims, perpetrators, families and wider society

Section 2 C : Responses by society to crime

contemporary relevance of theories of punishment, including deterrence, rehabilitation, incapacitation, retributivism and denunciation

preventative responses to crime, including policing strategies, multi-agency approaches and early interventions

criminal justice responses to crime, including custodial and non-custodial sentences

PowerPoint presentations

LAST UPDATED: 29th December 2023

To view a file, click the box and arrow symbol in the top-right corner of each tile. This should open the PowerPoint presentation in a new tab.

Definitions, measurements and perceptions of crime

Relevance of theories of criminal behaviour, social and economic impacts of crime, relevance of theories of punishment, criminal justice responses to crime, preventative responses to crime, dissertation.

The Advanced Higher Modern Studies Dissertation is worth 50 marks, which is 36% of the overall marks available for the course. The rest comes from the final exam. For the Dissertation, candidates select a pre-approved title from the SQA website and write up a 5,000 word dissertation looking at the issue in detail. The Dissertation is then collected and marked by the SQA, usually in late March. The documents below will help you start the process.

Helpful links

Crimestoppers website: https://goo.gl/kTgTV2  

Education Scotland – Crime and the Law resources: https://goo.gl/HbQ3ZG  

Police Scotland website: https://goo.gl/ztigwm  

Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research website:  https://goo.gl/2HuuaK  

Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research Advanced Higher resources: https://bit.ly/41y92Ya  

Scottish Courts website: https://goo.gl/s3eeUp  

Scottish Government – Crime and the Law website: https://goo.gl/7nW3Wk  

Scottish Prison Service website: https://goo.gl/C293vW  

SQA Advanced Higher Modern Studies: https://bit.ly/41vV4q0  

SQA Understanding Standards materials for Advanced Higher Modern Studies: https://bit.ly/43GbEFk  

Victim Support Scotland: https://goo.gl/C4mbdy  

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Assignment Writing your assignment

How to write an assignment for National 5 Modern Studies

Part of Modern Studies Exam and assignment

Writing your assignment

To prepare for your hour long write-up the best thing to do is write an actual assignment. What you write on the day of the write-up will be based on this.

Before starting it is best to know how the marking works. Also in Modern Studies you will have to write on particular exam paper with specific headings. The following shows both the marking and the headings (SQA headings) you will be expected to write under.

Research Topic/Issue

Put your title here: i.e. your question or hypothesis .

Describe the purpose/aims of your research

This is where you should put in your three aims . There are no marks for this section but you must complete it.

Research Methods

10 marks – which is 50% of the overall marks – is available for your description and analysis of the research methods you have used.

In this section you must refer to the two sources that you have on your resource sheet. You must write about the following:

• Why did you choose these two methods?
• What were the advantages and disadvantages of both methods?
• If you were to do the research again what would you do differently?

Too often students don't write enough in this section because they think that what they have found out is more important than how they found it out.

Remember: You should remember that more marks are available for discussing how you did your research than what your research produced.

Do not make generic comments about your method of research - such as a search engine is useful because it produces lots of different results . Instead, you should make specific comments about your source such as:

The Electoral Reform Society website was helpful as they are a pressure group that has produced a lot of research on electoral systems which is available on their website in an easy to read format.

Research Findings

This section is worth six marks . In this section you are essentially answering your three aims. You need to make use of your sources to answer these aims.

Too often people write too much for this section. It is worth six marks which is only two marks per aim. A good detailed paragraph for each aim should be enough.

Research Conclusions

This section is worth four marks . First of all you should come to a conclusion about each of your aims. Don't use any information or statistics that you have already used as repeating yourself will not get any marks. You should state what your conclusion is and why you came to it.

You should then have an overall conclusion where you are dealing directly with your title. If it is a question you need to directly answer it. If it is an hypothesis you must judge whether it was proved correct or incorrect . An example of the type of conclusion you could use is:

I conclude that short prison sentences of less than a year are not effective. The figures I found on the Prison Reform Trust website show that 2/3rds of prisoners with a sentence of less than a year will reoffend within a year.

More guides on this topic

• The exam paper

Related links

• BBC News: Politics
• BBC News: Business
• BBC Democracy Live
• SQA National 5 Modern Studies
• Scottish Government
• Scottish Parliament