Friday, September 28, 2007

How to answer CDP structured essay questions

The CDP this year will follow Level or Response Marking Scheme, also known as LORMS. This is to make CDP difficult and reach the status where CDP will become an important subject and is part of the GCE 'O' level examinations and to be included in the L1R5 of a student.

Basically, we have three types of CDP SEQ:-

1) Scenario Evaluation
2) Moral Discovery
3) Application
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1) Scenario Evaluation

This type of question usually carry 8 to 13 marks. It involves the use of Contextual Knowledge and also inferential skills. They would show you a picture, could be a boy caning a mother, or the mother pushing her child around, etc.

L1 - Identify expressions and the scenario

Example:- The mother is pushing her small baby boy who is 6 months old. The boy is feeling unhappy and the mother seems to be angry.

L2 - Evaluation based on source given

Example:- The mother's face seems happy, this suggests that she is not feeling guilty of beating her baby up. Her baby, on the other hand, is stained with blood and have tears all over his face. This suggests that he is feeling very happy and wants to get beaten up some more.

L3 - Evaluation based on contextual knowledge

Example:- The mother is holding a knife. Based on my contextual knowledge, a person who is holding a knife while grabbing another person by his hands will usually stab the other person. I therefore say that the mother is stabbing her child.

L4 - Morals learnt

Example:- The mother should not stab her baby with a knife. It could kill him since the lost of blood could result in the death of the baby. Instead...


















Use a Parang.

2) Moral Discovery

This type of question usually hold about 6 marks. There would be a 350-450 word passage given and the student will have to pen down the morals that can be learnt from the passage itself, from there, they would have to give reasons and elaborate on why they think the moral can be learnt.

Example passage:-

" Taufik is a very naughty boy. He usually take other people's bags and hide them behind the class. He would laugh and laugh and laugh until the victim cry. At this point, he will laugh even louder. After a few weeks of pranking, his classmates caught him red handed and he was given a 5 year jail sentence. Even though they were pranked by him for a million times, Taufik's friends visited him every day from 3 to 5 pm in jail. They would then try to release him from prison by prying the steel rods open."

L1 - Identify ONE moral value
L2 - Explain
L3 - Identify TWO MORE moral values briefly

Model answer:-

According to the abovementioned passage, there are three morals that can be learnt. The three moral values are honesty, warmth and adventurousness.

Honesty can be learnt as, stated by the passage, "after a few weeks of pranking, his classmates caught him red handed and he was given a 5 year jail sentence." This tells the reader that lying is bad and honesty is the best policy. By taking other people's bags and laughing at them, he is not being honest and thus, honesty can be learnt from this passage.

Warmth can be learnt because...blah blah blah.

3) Application

This is the most difficult type of question. ALWAYS LEAVE THIS QUESTION BLANK AS IT IS VERY DIFFICULT. This type of question usually carries 15 marks. The objective is to APPLY moral values and skills in everyday life.

Example question:-

An elderly woman is trying to cross the road, but the heavy plastic bags she is carrying is hampering her every movement. She is about 12 meters away from you. Her face looked wrinkled and she is most probably 64 years old. At the same time, a blind man, 23 years old, is CROSSING the road with no heavy load, but there is a vehicle speeding towards him at about 34 km/h.

Based on your contextual knowledge and by applying the moral values learnt from the syllabus, with the aid of a well labeled diagram, which person should be saved first and why? (15 marks)

(Model answer will be given soon.)

Good luck for your CDP exams! Study smart!

(Written by AfiQ)

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