Suggest questions: reasoned ideas for a situation you have not met

A cafe sits on a clifftop on the Barnwing Coast, in the fictional land of Owlobia. Will it still be standing in twenty years? A crack has opened in the grass between the cafe and the edge, and after a wet winter, a slab of the cliff has slumped onto the beach below. The owner wants to know whether to spend money on a new kitchen. Nobody has studied this cliff, and there is no textbook page about it. The tempting answer is that nobody can say without the facts. The owner still needs an answer to act on, though, and so does a suggest question. What you can see on that cliff is enough to start.

Suggest asks for a possible, reasoned answer about a situation you have not met. You are not expected to know the place, only to apply what you know to what you are shown. First, a prediction: what do the crack and the slumped slab suggest? The cliff is moving. After a wet winter, rain soaks into the cliff and makes it heavier and weaker, so blocks of it slump down onto the beach, which means the edge is creeping back towards the cafe. That answer used the suggest move, which has three steps. Take the evidence from the resource, bring in a process you know that would explain it, and then develop it with a so or a which means. The development is the explain chain pointed at somewhere new, and the explain video builds that chain in full. In the cafe answer, which part was the evidence, and which was the process? The crack, the slump and the wet winter were the evidence you could see. Rain soaking in and weakening the cliff was the process you already knew. You never needed to have studied this cliff. One examiner's report on a suggest question about solar power says so outright: "Remember that the phrase 'Suggest one reason...' is an acknowledgment that you are not expected to know anything specific about Canada's solar energy but you are invited to offer a possible and plausible reason for its limited contribution to the country's energy mix." Plausible means believable. A plausible reason fits the evidence and fits what you know about how places work.

Suggest is set on every course, but the courses read it in three ways, and each reading carries the names of the boards that use it. The first reading says suggest means apply what you know to give a reasoned explanation of how or why something may happen, and every suggested point needs a reason or an example. A small mountainous island off the coast of Owlobia gets its electricity from hydroelectric power, seventy per cent; wind, eighteen per cent; oil, ten per cent; and solar, two per cent. It has high rainfall and many steep, fast-flowing rivers. The question: suggest one reason why solar power gives so little of the island's electricity. Try it on paper: one reason, with evidence from the table, then a link. Heavy rain and steep, fast-flowing rivers give the island plenty of cheap hydroelectric energy, seventy per cent of its supply, so there is little need to spend money on panels. A second plausible route works too. All that rain suggests frequent cloud, so the panels would get less sunshine. The figure gives you the first step, and the development finishes the job. Writing about a cliff question, one examiner's report says many students used the evidence well, "but some then struggled to develop their answers further". The fix is to follow every piece of evidence with a so, or a which means. When one kind of reason runs dry, try another. Reasons can be physical, like rain and cloud, economic, like cost, or social, like what people choose. On a solar question much like the island one, one examiner's report notes: "Very few went down the economic route". The cheap hydroelectric answer is an economic route, and it is open to anyone who reads the table. A figure can rule ideas out. A question asks you to use a figure to suggest one way a town is protected from flooding. The figure shows the river through the town with raised banks and a straightened channel. Answer A says: a dam upstream. Answer B says: raised banks along the channel, so more water stays in the river. Which answer uses the figure, A or B, and why does the other one fail? B uses it. A dam can be a real way to manage a river, but it is not in the figure, so it does not answer a question that says use the figure. One examiner's report on that kind of answer says: "This response was awarded 0 marks. Although building a dam is a hard engineering solution, it was not a method evident in the figure." Ignoring the figure altogether is the other way to miss. One examiner's report reminds students that "when a figure is included, it typically carries marks for interpretation or reference, and making use of it can significantly strengthen their answer." The habit is to open the figure first and pick one detail before you write a word.

The second reading says suggest means present a possible case, an idea, a solution or an answer, and its size grows with the marks. In a short question, it works like outline, with brief separate ideas. In a middle-sized question, it works like explain, with developed reasons. In the longest questions, it is marked like evaluate, with reasons weighed to a judgement, which the evaluate video covers. Here is a short one. Suggest two reasons why the number of people cycling to work in a city might increase in the future. What two separate ideas would you give for more cycling to work? One: the council builds more separate cycle lanes, making cycling safer. Two: fuel and parking become more expensive, so driving to work costs more. Two clearly different ideas, one line each. Now a weaker one. A student writes: more people will want to cycle because cycling is popular. What has that student done instead of suggesting a reason? Repeated the question back, so it says the same thing twice and gives no reason. One examiner's report on a different suggest question records: "Where candidates repeated the question stem and said that the household income was different, they were not given any marks." The fix is to give a reason the question does not already contain. And on a question much like this cycling one, one examiner's report says that "approximately 80% of students were able to suggest why energy consumption for transport might decrease in the future". You can do this with what you already know.

The third reading says suggest means offer an opinion on a course of action. You recommend something, and you back it with a reason. Its close partner, propose, means put forward a course of action to take. Featherby, a small village on the Barnwing Coast, is losing its young families. Its primary school has thirty-one pupils where it once had ninety, and its bus service may be cut. The question asks you to suggest one course of action the local council could take, and to give a reason. The evidence step is done for you: a shrinking school and a bus that may go. What would you recommend the council does for the village, and why? One good answer: the council should fund a community minibus to the nearest town. It would link older residents without cars to doctors and shops, and it lets families reach jobs in town without two cars, which makes the village a realistic place for them to stay. One clear recommendation, and one reason carried through. On a course that pairs propose with justify, the reasons are then weighed against other choices, and the justify video covers that fuller answer. One last shape turns up in fieldwork: suggest why a measurement might be inaccurate, or suggest one improvement. Name a specific problem with the method, and say what it does to the data.

Quick pass back through suggest, and you give the answers.

Do you need to know the place to answer a suggest question? No. You apply what you know to what the question shows you, and give a plausible, reasoned answer.

Now the figure rule: the question says use the figure. Where must your idea come from? From the figure itself. An idea that is not shown there does not answer the question, however true it is.

Now a new case: a village gets a bypass and its shops struggle. Why might that be? Through traffic now uses the bypass, so fewer drivers stop in the village, which means the shops lose passing trade.

Now the course-of-action reading: what does that kind of suggest answer need? A clear recommendation, backed by a reason that is carried through to what it would change.

The cafe owner on the Barnwing Coast gets an answer after all. The crack and the slump after a wet winter suggest the cliff is slumping back towards the cafe, so a new kitchen may not get twenty years of use. Nobody had studied that cliff, and nobody needed to.

If you can say this one's yours, give it a thumbs-up. If the three readings are still blurry, save it and come back to it later in the week.

Next in the chapter is Compare questions: similarities and differences. Hopefully that's next in your feed, but if not, search for ScholaFly G E oh one, oh six.

Every other video is on scholafly.com too, easy to search by video code or by keyword. Whatever you're revising, go there and have a look, or, watch the next video.