Scoring Marks by Description

But there are plenty of marks available for “saying what you see”.  For example, if we look at AAT Sample Assessment 1 you are asked to discuss the performance of the business over the last 6 months and the expected performance in the coming 3 months.  You are given various graphs and information about the sales per unit per month for several products for a business which sells lawn mowers and garden equipment.

Going Beyond: Adding Analysis

Splitting the requirement into its two parts, you need to discuss the performance of the business in the past.  You can see that sales revenue has increased month by month from the sales revenue graph.  There you go; that’s a mark for saying what you can see.  However, for all the marks we need a little bit more than that.  We need a bit of analysis, so we can link the rise in revenue to data on the unit sales, and you can see that the rise in revenue is driven by selling more units.

We can then dig a little deeper into the sales data and say that the basic mower sales have declined and the sales of standard mowers have doubled in that period.  Again, all you are doing here is saying what you can see from the data you have been given.

Likewise, when given the monthly sales figures per employee, you can get marks for saying one employee is making increasing sales whilst other employees sales are in decline.  Once again, for all the marks we need a little bit more insight, so suggesting that the under performing employees may need investigating will get you an additional mark.

Predicting Future Performance

The next part of the question is a bit trickier.  You then need to predict what might happen in the future based on what you have seen happen in the past.  This is the part of the exam about identifying trends.  An example of which would be if you have seen sales increasing over the last 6 months, all things being equal and if you haven’t been told anything contrary in the scenario, you would expect sales to carry on increasing.  Whereas if a certain product has seen a decline in sales over the last 6 months you would expect this to continue.  Looking at the Chief Examiner Report, as all students should be doing in preparation of their exams, the examiner says that students are generally good at talking about similar trends, such as several products having increasing demand, but less so when discussing when trends don’t follow similar patterns.  For example, one product with increasing demand, and one in decline.

Evaluating the Quality of Information

The other aspect of this task that could be examined is not just analysing the data and information that you have been given, but also how this data and information could be improved for a user.  This is not just looking at what extra information could be provided; instead, it’s looking at whether the information that is provided could be better presented.  Could the information that is provided be more helpful if it was presented more frequently or in a timelier fashion?  In this type of question, I advise students to put themselves in the position of the end user of this information.  If you were the user of this information, what extra information would you find useful?  How would you want to the information to be presented to you to allow you to make better and more informed decisions?

Final Advice

This is typically the first large written question that students meet in their studies, and the Chief Examiner makes a very good point in their feedback about this task, that is applicable to all written questions that you might do.  When writing your answer, do make sure that the answer you are giving is answering the question that has been asked.  As with any exam, if you write an excellent answer that doesn’t answer what you have been asked you won’t get any marks!

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