Common mistakes
Go through your answer and see if you made any of these mistakes. If you did, think carefully about why you made them and how you can avoid making them again.
Not being specific enough
By way of an example, for part B of this question, a common response is ‘no training in emergency procedures’. This would likely pick up one mark. But within the category of training, there is evidence provided in the scenario that indicates there were several things that the workers had not received sufficient training in how to do. This provides the opportunity to pick up several marks rather than just one or two, and that’s just in relation to training.
This goes back to the P.E.E. method:
- Point (make one)
- Evidence (provide some)
- Explain the connection
Not staying focussed on the recent accident
It’s as if learners read the questions as “What could lead to a failure of emergency procedures?” and fail to read the part “…when dealing with the recent incident”.
This inevitably often leads to answers about what could lead to the failure of emergency procedures generally, rather than keeping answers tightly focused on the recent accident.
Here’s a reminder of the question hint…
The first part of the question should not be difficult to address.
However, when considering the second part of the question, it’s important to read it carefully. It specifically asks about the failure of emergency procedures in the recent accident, not a general discussion about why emergency procedures could fail. Therefore, all aspects of your answer should be directly relevant to the scenario and how the emergency procedures failed in that specific incident.
Watch this video covering how to use the grid method to answer this question.