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Business and management help!


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Heyylooooo there, fellow IB survivors!

Well I sort of need help in understanding how to answer the business and management paper 1 and 2. The thing is, my teacher hasn't gone through and discussed the format of the answer so I'm a little confused as she mentioned some things which utterly confused me today. Before this post, I used to answer my questions like how I would in an economics exam (i.e explain the terms in the question and provide background information for it and then get to the topic) but I saw the markschemes of papers and it really doesn't look like they want people to define everything and all of that it seems. I understand that a one line definition is good to provide so that the examiner knows what I'm talking about, but I'm having more trouble understanding these two aspects of the answer.

1. Is it okay if I write my answer in bullet points? For example -- if they have asked "analyse the roles that primary and secondary research could play for the firm" -- how would I structure my answer? Should I just provide bullet points and mention all the possible advantages and disadvantages of primary and secondary research directly?

2. Lewin's force field analysis - really simple thing, I know, driving and restraining forces... But do I have to give a weightage to each argument on a level of 1-5?

All help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks a lot in advance, fellow survivors!

Edited by amarsuchak
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1. Is it okay if I write my answer in bullet points? For example -- if they have asked "analyse the roles that primary and secondary research could play for the firm" -- how would I structure my answer? Should I just provide bullet points and mention all the possible advantages and disadvantages of primary and secondary research directly?

2. The Ansoff Matrix -- really simple thing, I know, driving and restraining forces... But do I have to give a weightage to each argument on a level of 1-5?

All help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks a lot in advance, fellow survivors!

I don't think bullet points is the right way to go about it. It says analyse so I believe some explaining is required. Examples too, would show that you know what you're talking about.

Probably not completely like an economics answer, but brief definitions and some forms of primary and secondary research. and then their functions and pros & cons. I don't think an analyse question would be worth very, very many marks. It's the evaluate/discuss questions that are worth more, from what i know.

dude, ansoff matrix and driving forces? i don't think you have this right (or maybe i don't :o let me know). Driving forces are part of Lewin's force field analysis.

do they ask us to make analyses in the exam?

the weightage is there to show the impact of each force. after giving each force a weightage, your suppose to justify why you did so, because that would show it's significance and your knowledge of it.

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1. Is it okay if I write my answer in bullet points? For example -- if they have asked "analyse the roles that primary and secondary research could play for the firm" -- how would I structure my answer? Should I just provide bullet points and mention all the possible advantages and disadvantages of primary and secondary research directly?

2. The Ansoff Matrix -- really simple thing, I know, driving and restraining forces... But do I have to give a weightage to each argument on a level of 1-5?

All help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks a lot in advance, fellow survivors!

I don't think bullet points is the right way to go about it. It says analyse so I believe some explaining is required. Examples too, would show that you know what you're talking about.

Probably not completely like an economics answer, but brief definitions and some forms of primary and secondary research. and then their functions and pros & cons. I don't think an analyse question would be worth very, very many marks. It's the evaluate/discuss questions that are worth more, from what i know.

dude, ansoff matrix and driving forces? i don't think you have this right (or maybe i don't :o let me know). Driving forces are part of Lewin's force field analysis.

do they ask us to make analyses in the exam?

the weightage is there to show the impact of each force. after giving each force a weightage, your suppose to justify why you did so, because that would show it's significance and your knowledge of it.

Thanks a lot for your apt reply!

Hmm yeah... Because in class today, my teacher said that if you have been asked about advantages and disadvantages, you can just put in titles of "Advantages" and "Disadvantages" which seemed really weird to me because I would have never have done that in a BM exam. But then again, my teacher just gave us our January BM mock results in a form of a paragraph today which was absolutely useless. So I guess you're right, I'm not going to be putting the stuff in bullet points. I'll just put it in a paragraph form and then just analyse it there.

Sorryyyyy I meant Lewin's Force Field Analysis! My mind was stuck in that ansoff matrix phase because I was just studying it -_-

Yes as far as I know there's questions like "Using Lewin's field analysis model, discuss the differences between the driving forces and in the follow strategic plan x and this persons resistances to these changes. As far as I know, the book shows the Lewins force field with numbers written next to it which gives a weightage to each driving and restraining force. So how do I show if I have given a weightage of 3 to a particular force? Do I just write it in the description next to where I have mentioned the force?

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  • 4 months later...

In these analyze questions, I like to describe the problem faced by the business in the case study by quoting the case study. This is important as one of the criteria states that you must refer to the case study. This is an easy way to tick off that criteria. Also make sure your answer is well-balanced, you should investigate both sides of the problem to ensure you "analyze". After this you can come to a conclusion. For example when talking about a specific tool, maybe PEST, you should say advantages, disadvantages and come to a conclusion about it's usefulness to the business in the context of the case study. 

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