Command Terms (2)

The command terms for objective two get a little trickier.

They are summarised as:

Annotate, apply, calculate, describe, distinguish, estimate, identify and outline.

There are some that speak for themselves (eg, calculate) where as other need more of an explanation.

For example, ‘describe’ and ‘outline’. If a student is asked to describe something, the examiner is looking for a detailed account, where as if a student is asked to outline someting, the examiner is just looking for a brief summary.

This distinction is often made as follows:

‘Describe the process of ionisation in the mass spectrometer’ as opposed to ‘Outline the main processes in the m ass spectrometer’.