המחקר האישי: section 3.5, and the 40-mark essay inside Paper 1

Convert the three mark schemes into a physical checklist you can run on a draft.

1. 01AO2 wants a visible link

   Physically: at least three sentences in which a piece of information from the source and a piece of information from your research appear together and are joined by a connective of comparison, support or contrast. המקור מציין ש ... ומן המחקר עולה ש ... ולכן ... The source states that ... and from my research it emerges that ... and therefore ... If your draft has no such sentence, AO2 has nothing to reward however well you understood the source.

2. 02AO4 wants knowledge the source does not contain

   Physically: at least three specifics that could not have come from the passage in front of you - a dated institutional fact, a named body, a named position with its holder. If everything in your answer could have been produced by a candidate who had done no research at all, AO4's knowledge descriptor cannot be met, and it is worth 20 marks.

3. 03AO4 also wants evidence justifying conclusions

   Physically: every conclusion sentence must be preceded within two sentences by the evidence for it. The top band says consistently, so this is a rhythm rather than a single instance. Underline your conclusions in a draft and check that each has evidence attached; unattached conclusions are the commonest cause of a middle-band AO4.

4. 04AO3 wants placed structures

   Physically: the six structures from the grammar topic, assigned in the plan - a construct chain, a relative clause with ש, an infinitive after a modal expression, a preposition with a pronominal suffix, a passive or reflexive binyan, and a contrastive connective. Six items, checkable in twenty seconds.

5. 05Run all four checks in ninety seconds

   Three linking sentences; three research specifics; every conclusion evidenced; six structures present. Four counts, none of which requires you to re-read the answer for quality. Under exam fatigue a count is far more reliable than a judgement, and this one maps directly onto 40 marks.

Result: A four-count checklist - three linked sentences, three off-source specifics, evidence attached to every conclusion, six placed structures - derived directly from the three mark schemes and runnable on a draft in ninety seconds.

Work through the choice properly rather than by instinct, and turn the decision into a term-by-term plan.

1. 01Test each topic against your source access

   For each of the four, spend twenty minutes trying to find three Hebrew sources on its hardest bullet. The topic where that is possible is a candidate; the topic where you find only English-language material is not, because the examination will set a Hebrew source and your research is supposed to be in Hebrew. This test takes eighty minutes and prevents a year of difficulty.

2. 02Name the hazard before committing

   Write one sentence: on this topic, the way I am most likely to lose marks is X. If you cannot write it, you do not yet know the topic well enough to choose it. The hazard determines the shape of your notes: on a contested topic your notes need an attribution column; on a music topic they need an argument column, because the facts will be easy and the argument will not.

3. 03Cover the three bullets deliberately, in order of difficulty

   Start with the bullet you know least about, because the temptation all year will be to work on the one you find interesting. Set a milestone for each bullet - your teacher is permitted to set deadlines and milestones - and treat a bullet as done only when you can write 100 words on it from memory.

4. 04Build the source record as you go

   For every source: what it is, who published it, when, and what position it takes. That record is what lets you write לפי X and לעומת זאת, טוען Y in the exam, and it cannot be reconstructed a year later from a folder of links. Ten seconds per source, and it is the difference between research and reading.

5. 05Convert the file into retrievable positions

   In the final term, reduce everything to six or seven positions you can state, evidence and qualify from memory in Hebrew. Six positions is enough to answer any question the paper can set on your topic, and a file of forty documents is not, because none of it comes into the room with you.

Result: A choice made by testing Hebrew source availability rather than by interest, a written statement of the topic's hazard shaping the note structure, the three bullets sequenced hardest-first with milestones, a source record built as you go, and a final reduction to six or seven retrievable positions.

You want to write about the scale of something on a contested topic. Write it five ways and identify which survives.

1. 01Version one: the remembered number

   A bare figure, written from memory. Unsourceable in the exam room, quite possibly out of date, and attached to whichever body's methodology produced it - which you may not know. On this material a number carries an argument, so writing one from memory means making an argument you did not choose to make. Never write this.

2. 02Version two: the number with a vague source

   A figure attributed to sources or to reports. No better: the attribution is empty, and an empty attribution is worse than none because it looks like evidence. If you cannot name the body, you do not have a source.

3. 03Version three: the direction with a named body

   לפי נתוני הגוף X, המספר עלה בשנים האחרונות. According to the figures of body X, the number has risen in recent years. Now there is a real publisher and a real claim, and nothing that can be wrong in the way a number can. This version is usable.

4. 04Version four: the direction plus the disagreement

   לפי נתוני הגוף X המספר עלה, אך גופים אחרים מפרסמים אומדנים שונים, משום שההגדרות ושיטות המדידה אינן זהות. According to body X's figures the number has risen, but other bodies publish different estimates, because the definitions and methods of measurement are not identical. This version is better, because it demonstrates that you know why the figures differ - which is an AO4 evaluation point.

5. 05Version five: the disagreement as the subject

   המחלוקת על המספרים היא בעצמה חלק מן הנושא, שכן כל אומדן נשען על הגדרה, וההגדרה עצמה שנויה במחלוקת. The disagreement about the numbers is itself part of the subject, since every estimate rests on a definition, and the definition itself is disputed. On a contested topic this is the strongest available version: it makes the contested evidence into the analysis rather than a problem to be got round.

Result: Five versions of one claim, with the first two unusable, the third safe, the fourth evaluative, and the fifth turning the dispute about the evidence into the analysis - and no number written anywhere.

Your Paper 2 works include a poetry selection, and you are considering the research topic War and conflict in Israel. Work through it.

1. 01State the overlap honestly

   A body of poetry that includes war poems, and a research topic whose second bullet is the impact of the wars on Israeli society. The overlap is genuine and it is the strongest kind: the same subject matter, approached from two directions. Nothing forbids it, and pretending it is not there is the worst response.

2. 02Decide whether to accept it

   Two considerations. Against: the convergence risk, and the fact that a single body of reading will feel like enough when it is not. In favour: you will read the poems anyway, and material that genuinely illuminates both is a real efficiency. If your Hebrew source access on the other three research topics is poor, accepting the overlap deliberately is a reasonable decision - taken consciously, not by drift.

3. 03Draw the line by grid, not by subject

   Paper 2 material: the poems themselves, their speakers, their images, their forms, their arrangement. Research material: dated conflicts, the service framework, named bodies, published research, attributed historiographical positions. The line runs between kinds of evidence, and it is a clean line even though the subject matter is shared.

4. 04Write the two prohibitions explicitly

   One: no poem appears in my research file as evidence about society, because a poem is evidence about a poem. Two: no institutional fact appears in my Paper 2 essay in place of evidence from the text, though one clause of context is permitted. Write both sentences at the front of both files.

5. 05Check the coverage that the overlap threatens

   The convergence risk is that the shared area gets three times the attention and the other two research bullets get none. So set milestones on the two non-overlapping bullets first - the history of the conflicts and the role of the army - and treat the shared bullet as the one you are allowed to enjoy once the others are done.

Result: An overlap accepted deliberately rather than by drift, with the line drawn between kinds of evidence rather than between subjects, two explicit prohibitions written at the front of both files, and milestones set on the non-overlapping bullets first to protect against the convergence the overlap invites.

The unseen Hebrew source is a short piece describing an initiative on your research topic. The unseen question asks how far the initiative addresses the problem it names. Build the answer.

1. 01Read twice, with two different questions

   First reading: what does it say? Note the two or three factual claims and the position it takes. Second reading: what does it assume? A source describing an initiative usually assumes the problem is of a certain shape - that is the assumption your research can test, and testing it is the fastest route to the AO2 link and the AO4 evaluation at once.

2. 02Answer the question in your first sentence

   המקור מתאר יוזמה אחת, ולדעתי היא נוגעת בחלק מן הבעיה בלבד, מן הטעם שיוסבר להלן. The source describes one initiative, and in my view it addresses only part of the problem, for the reason set out below. The question is answered, the position is marked as yours, and the essay now has a direction. If the topic has contested terminology, add the one-clause statement of which terms you are using.

3. 03Paragraph two: the source, compressed

   Two sentences, not four. What the initiative is, and what the source claims for it. Resist retelling; the examiner has the source. The purpose of this paragraph is to demonstrate that you understood it - which is what AO2's lower bands measure - and two accurate sentences do that as well as six.

4. 04Paragraph three: the link, three times

   Use the frame. המקור מציין ש ... ומן המחקר עולה ש ... ולכן ... , three times with different content: once on the scale of the problem, once on who is affected, once on what other bodies have tried. Each instance names something the source does not contain, which is the AO4 knowledge requirement, and joins it explicitly, which is the AO2 link requirement.

5. 05Paragraphs four and five: qualify, then conclude

   Qualification: לעומת זאת, יש הגורסים ש ... , ובעניין זה המחלוקת נוגעת לפירוש ולא לעובדות. Conclusion: return to the question's own words and give the answer you gave in sentence one, now earned - ולכן, כפי שנטען לעיל, היוזמה נוגעת בחלק מן הבעיה, אך אינה מתמודדת עם ... Then run the four counts: three linking sentences, three off-source facts, evidence attached to each conclusion, six structures present.

Result: A five-paragraph answer of about 300 words in which the question is answered in the first sentence and again in the last, the source is compressed to two sentences, the three-slot link frame appears three times with different content, and a qualification paragraph does the AO4 evaluation - checked with four counts rather than by re-reading.