The Question Paper: SQA Higher Art and Design critical analysis overview

The question paper is the written component of SQA Higher Art and Design: the part that tests critical analysis of expressive art and design. Where the two portfolios ask you to make work, the question paper asks you to analyse it. It is externally set and externally marked, worth 60 marks, and divided into two equal sections. This page is the index for the module; the dot points cover each part of the analysis skill in depth.

What the question paper requires

The paper is worth 60 marks across two compulsory sections:

• Section 1: Expressive Art Studies (30 marks). Analyse expressive artworks, including a mandatory question requiring detailed knowledge of one artwork you have studied.
• Section 2: Design Studies (30 marks). Analyse designs, including a mandatory question requiring detailed knowledge of one design you have studied.

Both sections must be answered, so you prepare a studied artwork and a studied design, and you must be ready to analyse work you have not seen before in both fields.

The critical analysis skill

Every answer rests on the same skill: point, evidence, effect. Name a feature (a medium or material, a technique, a visual element, a design concept), cite the visual evidence for it, and explain the effect it creates, the mood or meaning in expressive art, the fitness for function and audience in design. Where the question asks for an evaluation, give one and justify it with evidence. The paper rewards analysis with a defended opinion in specialist terminology, never description or biography.

The parts of the module

The dot points break the analysis skill into its components:

• The visual elements and design concepts. The specialist vocabulary, line, tone, colour, shape, form, texture, pattern, composition, balance, contrast, proportion, scale, rhythm, emphasis, harmony, unity and function, that all analysis uses.
• Analysing expressive art. Section 1: how to analyse an artist's use of media, technique and the visual elements, and the mandatory studied-artwork question.
• Analysing design work. Section 2: how to analyse a designer's choices against function, audience and brief, and the mandatory studied-design question.
• Influences on artists and designers. The social, cultural and other factors, movements and briefs that shape work, and how to link them to specific features.
• Answering the question paper. The structure, the mandatory and choice questions, time management, and writing to the marks.

How to study this module

1. Learn the vocabulary. You cannot analyse without the specialist terms; learn a typical effect for each.
2. Know one artwork and one design in depth. Build a bank of evidence for the mandatory questions, including context.
3. Drill point, evidence, effect. Practise on unseen artworks and designs until the pattern is automatic.
4. Connect context to the work. Practise linking influences to specific features, not reciting background.
5. Time by the marks. In practice papers, divide time in proportion to the marks and answer to the marks.

For the official course specification

The SQA publishes the full Higher Art and Design course specification, the specimen question paper, past papers, marking instructions and Understanding Standards materials at sqa.org.uk. Always revise from the current specification and SQA past papers, because the assessment is board-specific.