Projekt badawczy: the biggest single task in the qualification

The research-project answer is worth 40 marks: AO2 out of 10, AO3 out of 10, AO4 out of 20, in approximately 300 words. Work out what that arithmetic requires the 300 words to contain.

1. 01AO4 is half the marks, so it decides the shape

   Twenty marks out of forty for the critical and analytical response, the knowledge, the selection of relevant information and the evidence justifying conclusions. In 300 words that means the essay must take a position on the question, support it with at least two pieces of researched knowledge that the source did not supply, and reach a conclusion. If a reader could not tell what the essay argues, the largest grid has been left on the table however good everything else is.

2. 02AO2 is about the source, but not about summarising it

   Ten marks, and the top band's wording is precise: the relevant information from the written source material has been fully understood, and this information is consistently linked to research findings to form appropriate arguments and conclusions. Linked is the operative word. An essay that reproduces the source in paragraph one and then talks about the research in paragraph two has understood the source but not linked it. The move that earns the band is using a point from the source and immediately setting your own knowledge beside it - confirming it, qualifying it or contradicting it.

3. 03AO3 is ten marks for language, and range is half of it

   The descriptors ask for accuracy and for a wide range of vocabulary appropriate to the context and the task. Appropriate to the topic matters here more than anywhere else in the paper, because a research topic has its own lexicon - the vocabulary of a period, of a social problem, of an industry - and a student who has researched only in English will not have it. Ten marks are available for writing about the communist era in the Polish that Poles use about the communist era, and they are lost silently by anyone who researched in translation.

4. 04Convert the three into a word budget

   Roughly: forty words to state a position that answers the question; ninety to take the source's first relevant point and set researched knowledge against it; ninety for a second point handled the same way; forty for a concession answered; and forty for a conclusion. Three hundred words, four paragraphs, and every one of them touching both the source and the research - which is what linked means in the AO2 descriptor.

5. 05Note what the budget leaves no room for

   There is no room for an introduction that describes the topic in general, none for a narrative of the period, and none for a paragraph that summarises the source before the argument begins. Each of those consumes fifty to eighty words and earns almost nothing on any of the three grids. The single most valuable editing habit for this task is deleting the first two sentences of your draft, which are almost always scene-setting, and starting with the third.

6. 06Check the arithmetic against the scaled marks

   Forty raw marks doubled is 80 scaled, out of 400 - a fifth of the A-level for one essay of about 300 words. Two hours of research a week for a year is roughly eighty hours; eighty hours for eighty scaled marks is the best exchange rate in the qualification, and it is available to any student who starts early. That calculation is the argument for taking the project seriously, and it is worth doing once, on paper, in the first term.

Result: The 300 words must contain: a position that answers the question, two points where the source and the researched knowledge are set against each other rather than presented in sequence, a concession answered, and a conclusion - written in the specialised Polish of the topic. There is no room for scene-setting, narrative or a stand-alone summary of the source, and the largest grid, AO4 out of 20, rewards the argument rather than the reading.

Compare the four published topics against the criteria that actually matter, choose one, and turn its three bullets into a term-by-term research plan.

1. 01Set the criteria before looking at the topics

   Four things decide this well: how much material exists in Polish that you can actually read; how much of the material is documented rather than argued; whether the vocabulary transfers to any other part of the course; and whether you can be honest about it under exam pressure. Interest matters, but it is the fifth criterion, not the first - all four topics become interesting once researched, and none of them stays interesting if the material is unreadable.

2. 02Score Tourism in Poland

   Material in Polish: abundant, and much of it written for a general audience, so readable early. Documented rather than argued: almost entirely, apart from questions about the effects of tourism on particular places. Transfer: excellent, because regional gastronomy and popular sites overlap directly with the festivals and traditions sub-theme, and infrastructure overlaps with Poland and the European Union. One real caution: some of the most visited places in Poland are memorial sites rather than attractions, and the Polish for them is miejsce pamięci, not atrakcja turystyczna - a register error there would be serious.

3. 03Score the two historical topics

   Poland during the communist era and the wartime resistance are both extremely well documented, both have institutional sources in Polish including the Instytut Pamięci Narodowej and museum collections, and both have vocabulary that transfers to the political life theme. Both also contain live arguments - about martial law and the Round Table in the first case, about the Warsaw Rising in the second - which is a reason to choose them if you can attribute carefully and a reason to avoid them if you cannot.

4. 04Score Racism in Poland

   The bullets are origins, victims and the fight against racism. There is documented material: the historical causes of Poland's present ethnic composition, the recognised minorities under the 2005 Act on national and ethnic minorities and on the regional language, constitutional and criminal-law provisions, the work of the Commissioner for Human Rights, and long-running non-governmental monitoring. There is also a live and heated dispute about scale and framing. This topic rewards a student who states the documented material precisely, attributes every claim about scale, and neither minimises nor sensationalises - and it punishes generalisation more than any of the others.

5. 05Choose, then split the three bullets across three terms

   Whichever is chosen, the plan is the same shape: one bullet per term, with the fourth term for consolidation and timed practice. Term one, bullet one: read, take notes in Polish, build the vocabulary list. Term two, bullet two, the same. Term three, bullet three, plus the first timed 300-word answers. Term four: no new reading, only rehearsal - answering questions you have set yourself from memory, in Polish, in fifty minutes.

6. 06Build the vocabulary list as you go, not afterwards

   Each bullet generates thirty to forty terms that a general Polish course will never teach. For the communist era: gospodarka centralnie planowana, niedobory, kartki, cenzura, drugi obieg, stan wojenny, internowanie, delegalizacja, Okrągły Stół. For tourism: infrastruktura, baza noclegowa, szlak turystyczny, miejsce pamięci, kuchnia regionalna, produkt regionalny. Written down as encountered, with gender and one example sentence, that list is worth several AO3 marks by the exam and cannot be built in the last month.

Result: Choose on readable material, documentation, transfer and honesty rather than on interest alone. Tourism is the most documented and transfers well but carries a register trap around memorial sites; the two historical topics are richly documented with live arguments that must be attributed; Racism in Poland has a documented legal and institutional core and demands the most disciplined handling of scale. Whichever is chosen, plan one bullet per term with a fourth term of timed rehearsal, and build the specialised Polish vocabulary as you read.

You have one documented fact: rationing coupons, kartki, were used for a range of goods in Poland in the 1980s. Turn it into a paragraph that argues rather than describes, suitable for the research-project answer.

1. 01Ask what the fact is evidence of, not what it illustrates

   A fact used as illustration produces a sentence; a fact used as evidence produces an argument. Rationing is evidence of at least three things: that shortage was systemic rather than occasional, since a coupon system is an administrative response to a permanent condition; that the state was allocating consumption directly; and that daily life required time and paperwork rather than only money. Choosing one of the three, rather than listing all three, is what makes the paragraph an argument.

2. 02State the documented fact precisely and without decoration

   W latach osiemdziesiątych wiele podstawowych towarów było w Polsce sprzedawanych na kartki. Note było sprzedawanych, an imperfective passive for a state that lasted, rather than a perfective, which would suggest a single event. Note also na kartki with the accusative, which is the fixed phrase. The sentence is short because a documented fact needs no hedging, and hedging it would suggest doubt about the fact rather than care about its meaning.

3. 03Make the inference explicit

   Świadczy to o tym, że niedobory nie były zjawiskiem przejściowym, lecz stałym elementem gospodarki: system kartkowy jest odpowiedzią administracyjną na brak trwały, a nie na chwilowy kryzys. Świadczyć o takes the locative. The colon does the analytical work by supplying the reason the inference holds, which is what separates an argued claim from an asserted one. Nie ... lecz sharpens the contrast that carries the point.

4. 04Add the second-order consequence, which is where the essay gets interesting

   Miało to skutek, o którym łatwo zapomnieć: zdobycie zwykłych rzeczy wymagało nie tylko pieniędzy, ale i czasu oraz informacji, kto i kiedy co dostarczy. W praktyce oznaczało to, że życie codzienne organizowało się wokół czekania. This is knowledge the source will not have supplied, which is exactly what the AO4 grid rewards - and it is derived from the documented fact rather than imported from anywhere.

5. 05Concede the qualification the material requires

   Trzeba jednak zaznaczyć, że sytuacja nie była taka sama przez cały okres: dekady różniły się między sobą, a lata sześćdziesiąte i siedemdziesiąte wyglądały pod tym względem inaczej niż osiemdziesiąte. Treating four and a half decades as uniform is the commonest weakness in essays on this topic, and conceding it explicitly both corrects the weakness and earns the concession the grid rewards.

6. 06Check what the paragraph has and has not claimed

   It has claimed that shortage was systemic, that consumption was administratively allocated, and that daily life reorganised itself around waiting - all derivable from the documented fact. It has not claimed any number, has not characterised anyone's motives, and has not asserted a contested interpretation. Roughly a hundred words, one third of the essay, with every sentence doing work. That is the standard the other two paragraphs have to meet.

Result: W latach osiemdziesiątych wiele podstawowych towarów było w Polsce sprzedawanych na kartki. Świadczy to o tym, że niedobory nie były zjawiskiem przejściowym, lecz stałym elementem gospodarki: system kartkowy jest odpowiedzią administracyjną na brak trwały, a nie na chwilowy kryzys. Miało to skutek, o którym łatwo zapomnieć: zdobycie zwykłych rzeczy wymagało nie tylko pieniędzy, ale i czasu oraz informacji. W praktyce życie codzienne organizowało się wokół czekania. Trzeba jednak zaznaczyć, że sytuacja nie była taka sama przez cały okres - dekady różniły się między sobą.

The question asks whether the changes of 1989 were the achievement of the Solidarity movement. Write the paragraph that handles the contested part of that question.

1. 01Separate the three layers before writing

   Layer one, documented: the Round Table ran from February to April 1989, the elections were held on 4 June, Mazowiecki became prime minister in September. Layer two, interpretation: whether those events were caused by the movement, by economic exhaustion, by the wider change in the region, or by all three. Layer three, your own position. Most weak answers merge the three; the strong answer keeps them visibly apart, and the Polish for doing so is what this paragraph is built from.

2. 02Open with the documented layer

   Rozmowy Okrągłego Stołu trwały od lutego do kwietnia 1989 roku, a częściowo wolne wybory odbyły się 4 czerwca. Two dates, one sentence, no interpretation. Note trwały, imperfective for a process with duration, and odbyły się, perfective for a completed event - the aspect distinction carrying the difference between the talks and the election, which is a small piece of range arriving because the meaning required it.

3. 03Name the disagreement without entering it yet

   Co do przyczyn tych zmian historycy nie są zgodni. Jedni podkreślają rolę ruchu społecznego, inni - wyczerpanie gospodarki, jeszcze inni wskazują na sytuację w całym regionie. Co do takes the genitive. The three-way structure with jedni, inni, jeszcze inni is a compact way of presenting a debate as a debate, and the dash carrying the ellipsis of the repeated verb saves several words in an essay that has none to spare.

4. 04Use the source, if the source touches this

   The exam gives you an unseen source, and if it takes a position on causation, this is where it belongs: Autor tekstu przypisuje decydującą rolę czynnikom gospodarczym, co warto zestawić z tym, że sam Okrągły Stół był wynikiem strajków, a nie tylko kryzysu. Przypisywać coś czemuś takes the accusative and the dative. Note the shape: the source's claim, then your own knowledge set against it. That is what the AO2 descriptor means by linking source information to research findings.

5. 05Take your own position and mark it as yours

   Moim zdaniem trudno rozdzielić te przyczyny: kryzys gospodarczy stworzył warunki, ale to zorganizowany ruch sprawił, że rozmowy w ogóle się odbyły. Sprawić, że is the natural Polish for bringing something about. The position is genuinely a position - it does not simply say both mattered, it says which did what - and it is derived from the evidence already laid out rather than announced at the start.

6. 06Check the balance of the three layers

   One sentence of documented fact, two of attributed debate, one linking the source, one of argued position. Roughly a hundred words, and a reader can tell at every point whose claim they are reading. That transparency is what an examiner means by a critical and analytical response; it is also, incidentally, the honest way to write about a period that people who lived through it still argue about.

Result: Rozmowy Okrągłego Stołu trwały od lutego do kwietnia 1989 roku, a częściowo wolne wybory odbyły się 4 czerwca. Co do przyczyn tych zmian historycy nie są zgodni: jedni podkreślają rolę ruchu społecznego, inni - wyczerpanie gospodarki, jeszcze inni wskazują na sytuację w całym regionie. Autor tekstu przypisuje decydującą rolę czynnikom gospodarczym, co warto zestawić z tym, że sam Okrągły Stół był wynikiem strajków, a nie tylko kryzysu. Moim zdaniem trudno rozdzielić te przyczyny: kryzys stworzył warunki, ale to zorganizowany ruch sprawił, że rozmowy w ogóle się odbyły.

Practice material written for these notes, not a past paper. Source (extract, translated here for the note but read in Polish in the exam): a Polish local-history article arguing that memory of the 1980s in one town is preserved mainly by former workers and their families, that municipal commemoration began only in the 2000s, and that younger residents encounter the period mostly at school and online. Question: Czy pamięć o latach osiemdziesiątych w Polsce jest dziś przede wszystkim sprawą instytucji, czy społeczności lokalnych? Uzasadnij swoje stanowisko.

1. 01First pass on the source, three minutes

   What it is: a local-history article, so its scope is one town and its claims should not be generalised without saying so. What it claims: three things - that memory is carried by former workers and their families, that official commemoration came late, and that younger people meet the period through school and the internet. Which bullet it touches: the Solidarity movement, and specifically how it is remembered. Noting the source's scope in the first three minutes is what prevents the essay from treating one town as the country.

2. 02Second pass, five minutes, marking only linkable points

   Point one, official commemoration beginning only in the 2000s, links directly to researched knowledge: the Instytut Pamięci Narodowej was established in 1998 and the Europejskie Centrum Solidarności in Gdańsk opened in 2014, so the article's local timing sits inside a national pattern. Point two, younger people meeting the period at school and online, can be qualified from research: the strike committee's list of demands is inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World register and the documentary record is far larger than a school syllabus. Two marked points is enough.

3. 03Write the six-line plan, five minutes, in Polish

   (1) Teza: pamięć jest dziś dzielona - instytucje zapewniają dokumentację, ale to społeczności lokalne nadają jej sens. (2) Źródło: komemoracja miejska dopiero w latach dwutysięcznych; badania: IPN 1998, ECS 2014 - wzorzec ogólnopolski. (3) Źródło: młodzi poznają okres w szkole i w internecie; badania: dokumentacja jest znacznie szersza. (4) Własna wiedza spoza tekstu: daty 1980, 1981, 1989 są przedmiotem sporu interpretacyjnego, nie tylko pamięci. (5) Ustępstwo: artykuł dotyczy jednego miasta. (6) Wniosek.

4. 04Write paragraph one from line one

   Moim zdaniem pamięć o latach osiemdziesiątych nie należy dziś ani wyłącznie do instytucji, ani wyłącznie do społeczności lokalnych: instytucje zapewniają dokumentację i ciągłość, natomiast to wspólnoty lokalne decydują o tym, co z tej dokumentacji pozostaje żywe. Ani ... ani ... refuses the question's binary; natomiast marks the contrast without the heaviness of ale; and the position is stated in the first sentence, so the essay cannot drift. About fifty words.

5. 05Write paragraph two, linking source and research

   Autor podkreśla, że miejskie obchody rozpoczęły się dopiero w latach dwutysięcznych. Warto zestawić to z tym, że Instytut Pamięci Narodowej powstał w 1998 roku, a Europejskie Centrum Solidarności w Gdańsku otwarto w 2014 - opóźnienie opisane w artykule nie jest więc lokalną osobliwością, lecz częścią szerszego procesu. Note the shape: source claim, then researched fact, then the conclusion the pair supports. That is linkage rather than sequence, and it is what the AO2 top band describes.

6. 06Note the concession the source's scope forces

   Line five is not optional here. Trzeba jednak zaznaczyć, że artykuł opisuje jedno miasto, a wnioski z jednego przypadku należy formułować ostrożnie. That single sentence does three things at once: it satisfies the concession the AO4 grid rewards, it demonstrates that the source's scope was read rather than skimmed, and it protects every generalisation the essay has made. Twenty-five words for three returns is the best exchange rate in the answer.

Result: Plan: (1) teza - pamięć dzielona: instytucje dokumentują, wspólnoty ożywiają; (2) źródło: późne obchody miejskie + badania: IPN 1998, ECS 2014; (3) źródło: młodzi w szkole i online + badania: dokumentacja szersza; (4) wiedza spoza tekstu: spór interpretacyjny o 1981 i 1989; (5) ustępstwo: artykuł opisuje jedno miasto; (6) wniosek. Opening written: Moim zdaniem pamięć o latach osiemdziesiątych nie należy dziś ani wyłącznie do instytucji, ani wyłącznie do społeczności lokalnych: instytucje zapewniają dokumentację i ciągłość, natomiast to wspólnoty lokalne decydują o tym, co z tej dokumentacji pozostaje żywe. Autor podkreśla, że miejskie obchody rozpoczęły się dopiero w latach dwutysięcznych. Warto zestawić to z tym, że Instytut Pamięci Narodowej powstał w 1998 roku, a Europejskie Centrum Solidarności w Gdańsku otwarto w 2014 - opóźnienie opisane w artykule nie jest więc lokalną osobliwością, lecz częścią szerszego procesu.