Exam skills and the Assignment: overview of the source skills and coursework in SQA National 5 Modern Studies
An overview of the skills tested in SQA National 5 Modern Studies: the three source-handling question types (drawing conclusions, detecting exaggeration and selectivity, and selecting evidence to support a view or decision), each worth 8 marks, plus the 20-mark Assignment coursework.
Reviewed by: AI editorial process; not yet individually human-reviewed
Jump to a section
The SQA National 5 Modern Studies course tests skills as well as knowledge. Across all three sections of the question paper you face source-handling questions, and you complete a 20-mark Assignment. This page maps those skills and shows how they connect.
The source skills
- Drawing conclusions
- Make a judgement (not a restated fact) for each heading, support it with evidence linked from the sources, and give an overall conclusion.
- Detecting exaggeration and selectivity
- Show a view is exaggerated by giving evidence that supports it and evidence that contradicts it, then judging how far it is accurate.
- Selecting evidence to support a view (give reasons)
- Choose an option or support a view and justify it by linking specific source evidence to the choice, using evidence against the rejected option for extra credit.
The Assignment
The Assignment is the 20-mark coursework, marked by the SQA. A candidate chooses a Modern Studies issue, researches it from a range of sources, records evidence and references on a research sheet, and writes a structured report under supervised conditions that presents balanced referenced evidence, analyses it, and reaches a justified conclusion.
How to study the skills
- Learn each source question type's pattern. Conclusions, selectivity and give-reasons each have a fixed shape.
- Always use all the sources. The mark is capped if you use too few.
- Link evidence to a judgement. The marks are for evidence plus judgement, never the judgement alone.
- Practise from past papers and marking instructions. They show the wording markers credit.
For the official course specification
The SQA publishes the full National 5 Modern Studies course specification, coursework assessment task, specimen paper and past papers with marking instructions at sqa.org.uk. Always revise from the current specification and SQA past papers.