AI-assisted English content review; independent teacher approval pending.
Practice scope and review
Original, AI-authored English practice with worked guidance. Selected topics only; independent teacher review is pending. This is not a complete syllabus, official past-paper collection or predicted exam score. Check your own exam-board specification: these concepts are not certified against a particular board or exam year.
192 original questions across 31 selected topic areas. No account or payment required to practise.
Cambridge International AS & A Level Psychology (9990), examination year 2027: AI-assisted conceptual alignment to official sources, not teacher or exam-board certification. Syllabus mapping and remaining coverage.
5 questions in this topic
Exact English revisions checked in an AI-assisted academic review; independent teacher approval is still pending.
All topics
Original source-led practice with worked reasoning and explicit evidence boundaries. This is not full specialist-option teaching or independent teacher approval.
Subtopics in this topic (5)
School allocation: matching is not individual randomisation
Published data: calculation is not silent correction
Measures: consistency is not diagnosis or validity
Longitudinal evidence: time points and missing observations
Extended evaluation: evidence for a school programme
5 of 5 questions shown
Loading saved responses
Question 1Section 2.1 describes random selection of an intervention school from willing schools and selection of a comparison school using similar features. (a) Distinguish this from randomly assigning every student to conditions. (b) Explain one advantage of school-level delivery and one remaining causal limitation. (c) Propose a design improvement on paper without recruiting children or delivering an intervention.
Primary reading: https://wholebeinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/On-line-paper-positive-psychology-at-school.pdf
Resource and boundary: Shoshani and Steinmetz: publicly hosted primary article; sections 2.1-2.5, Table 2, results and limitations inspected. One intervention school and one matched comparison school. Published participant-flow arithmetic and a later-assessment date disagree across sections; do not silently repair them or invent individual records.
Coverage boundary: Selected methods and evaluation only; independent teacher approval pending.4 indicative marks
Analyse / Evaluate4 indicative marksNo calculator
Section 2.1 describes random selection of an intervention school from willing schools and selection of a comparison school using similar features. (a) Distinguish this from randomly assigning every student to conditions. (b) Explain one advantage of school-level delivery and one remaining causal limitation. (c) Propose a design improvement on paper without recruiting children or delivering an intervention.
Primary reading: https://wholebeinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/On-line-paper-positive-psychology-at-school.pdf
Resource and boundary: Shoshani and Steinmetz: publicly hosted primary article; sections 2.1-2.5, Table 2, results and limitations inspected. One intervention school and one matched comparison school. Published participant-flow arithmetic and a later-assessment date disagree across sections; do not silently repair them or invent individual records.
Coverage boundary: Selected methods and evaluation only; independent teacher approval pending.
Cambridge 2027: Partial conceptual match
School allocation: matching is not individual randomisation: directly exercises the stated analysis/evaluation aspects using inspected source sections; not whole study, full section or practical attainment. Independent teacher approval pending.
Randomly selecting one willing school for intervention does not mean each student was randomly assigned, or that the comparison school was selected by an identical random process. Section 2.1 describes a matched comparison. Preserve that distinction when describing the design.
Whole-school delivery can avoid some transfer of activities between intervention and comparison classmates. It also suits a programme intended to involve staff and the wider school setting. This is a design advantage, not proof that all contamination or contextual differences disappeared.
With a single school representing each condition, differences in leadership, prior culture or concurrent events can coincide with the intervention. Many students increase the amount of student-level information but do not create additional independent schools. Matching observed features cannot guarantee equivalence on unmeasured factors.
A stronger paper proposal could recruit multiple schools, allocate them appropriately and plan analysis that respects clustering and repeated measurement. Consent, safeguarding and independent ethical oversight are prerequisites for real research; no such research is conducted or requested here.
Self-marking points
View marking points
Identify the school, not each student, as the condition-selection level.
School-wide delivery can reduce contamination within a school compared with allocating classmates to different conditions.
One school per condition leaves school identity inseparable from condition; matching measured characteristics cannot remove every difference.
A suitable proposal uses multiple schools and appropriate allocation/cluster-aware analysis under qualified ethical oversight.
Examiner tip
Distinguish an observed result, your interpretation and a proposed improvement. Indicative points are not an official Cambridge mark scheme.
Question 2The article's participant section reports initial groups of 578 and 589, non-completion counts of 65 and 59, and final analysis groups of 537 and 501. (a) Calculate the group sizes implied by subtracting the stated non-completion counts. (b) Compare them with the reported final groups. (c) Explain how to report this inconsistency without inventing participants, a corrected sample or an attrition-based causal conclusion.
Primary reading: https://wholebeinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/On-line-paper-positive-psychology-at-school.pdf
Resource and boundary: Shoshani and Steinmetz: publicly hosted primary article; sections 2.1-2.5, Table 2, results and limitations inspected. One intervention school and one matched comparison school. Published participant-flow arithmetic and a later-assessment date disagree across sections; do not silently repair them or invent individual records.
Coverage boundary: Selected methods and evaluation only; independent teacher approval pending.4 indicative marks
The article's participant section reports initial groups of 578 and 589, non-completion counts of 65 and 59, and final analysis groups of 537 and 501. (a) Calculate the group sizes implied by subtracting the stated non-completion counts. (b) Compare them with the reported final groups. (c) Explain how to report this inconsistency without inventing participants, a corrected sample or an attrition-based causal conclusion.
Primary reading: https://wholebeinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/On-line-paper-positive-psychology-at-school.pdf
Resource and boundary: Shoshani and Steinmetz: publicly hosted primary article; sections 2.1-2.5, Table 2, results and limitations inspected. One intervention school and one matched comparison school. Published participant-flow arithmetic and a later-assessment date disagree across sections; do not silently repair them or invent individual records.
Coverage boundary: Selected methods and evaluation only; independent teacher approval pending.
Cambridge 2027: Partial conceptual match
Published data: calculation is not silent correction: directly exercises the stated analysis/evaluation aspects using inspected source sections; not whole study, full section or practical attainment. Independent teacher approval pending.
Calculate from the quantities specified, without assuming which is wrong: 578 minus 65 is 513; 589 minus 59 is 530. These are arithmetic implications of the stated flow, not replacement study samples established by new evidence.
The reported intervention analysis group is 24 larger than its subtraction would imply. The reported comparison analysis group is 29 smaller. The two discrepancies cannot be resolved by describing a single shared rounding error, and summing totals does not identify the missing explanation.
A transparent evidence note keeps the exact source location, the published figures and the calculation. It labels the issue unresolved rather than deleting inconvenient data, fabricating individual records or choosing the number that best supports a claim.
A verified correction or author clarification would be needed to reconcile the flow. Attrition can threaten inference if missingness relates to outcomes or condition, but this arithmetic alone neither demonstrates the direction of bias nor proves that the entire study result is false.
Self-marking points
View marking points
578 - 65 = 513 and 589 - 59 = 530 are the implied group sizes.
The implied figures differ from the reported 537 and 501 by 24 and 29 respectively, in opposite directions.
Keep both the published claims and the arithmetic visible; no uniquely corrected sample can be inferred.
Request a verified correction/author clarification and evaluate possible attrition bias separately rather than asserting its direction.
Examiner tip
Distinguish an observed result, your interpretation and a proposed improvement. Indicative points are not an official Cambridge mark scheme.
Question 3The study measures distress and positive aspects of well-being using self-report scales, and reports internal-consistency statistics. (a) Explain why lower distress is not logically identical to greater life satisfaction. (b) Distinguish internal consistency from test-retest reliability and construct validity. (c) Evaluate two risks in comparing groups using self-reports alone. Do not reproduce or administer any scale.
Primary reading: https://wholebeinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/On-line-paper-positive-psychology-at-school.pdf
Resource and boundary: Shoshani and Steinmetz: publicly hosted primary article; sections 2.1-2.5, Table 2, results and limitations inspected. One intervention school and one matched comparison school. Published participant-flow arithmetic and a later-assessment date disagree across sections; do not silently repair them or invent individual records.
Coverage boundary: Selected methods and evaluation only; independent teacher approval pending.4 indicative marks
Analyse / Evaluate4 indicative marksNo calculator
The study measures distress and positive aspects of well-being using self-report scales, and reports internal-consistency statistics. (a) Explain why lower distress is not logically identical to greater life satisfaction. (b) Distinguish internal consistency from test-retest reliability and construct validity. (c) Evaluate two risks in comparing groups using self-reports alone. Do not reproduce or administer any scale.
Primary reading: https://wholebeinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/On-line-paper-positive-psychology-at-school.pdf
Resource and boundary: Shoshani and Steinmetz: publicly hosted primary article; sections 2.1-2.5, Table 2, results and limitations inspected. One intervention school and one matched comparison school. Published participant-flow arithmetic and a later-assessment date disagree across sections; do not silently repair them or invent individual records.
Coverage boundary: Selected methods and evaluation only; independent teacher approval pending.
Cambridge 2027: Partial conceptual match
Measures: consistency is not diagnosis or validity: directly exercises the stated analysis/evaluation aspects using inspected source sections; not whole study, full section or practical attainment. Independent teacher approval pending.
Treat each outcome as a separate question. A person may report fewer difficulties without a corresponding increase in satisfaction, or report positive functioning alongside distress. A broad claim about improved mental health should specify which measures changed and which did not.
Internal consistency summarises relationships among items; it does not establish long-term stability or a correct diagnostic interpretation. Test-retest evidence asks a different question about occasions. In an intervention study, true change may be expected, so a low correlation cannot automatically be labelled measurement failure.
Construct validity requires evidence about what a score can support in the relevant population and context. Repeated or closely overlapping items can yield consistency without adequate breadth. Public access to a paper describing an instrument does not grant permission to copy its items or apply it clinically.
Expectations about the programme and willingness to disclose could affect responses. Meaning or interpretation can also differ across groups or occasions. These are reasons to consider suitable independent evidence and transparent measurement procedures, not reasons to discard all subjective reports or pretend an observer has direct access to well-being.
Self-marking points
View marking points
Distress and life satisfaction represent different constructs; improvement on one does not logically establish improvement on every other outcome.
Internal consistency concerns item relationships at an occasion; test-retest concerns consistency over time under appropriate conditions.
Construct validity concerns whether interpretation of the scores measures the intended construct, not simply a high consistency value.
Explain shared response/expectation and interpretation/comparability risks without assuming every self-report is invalid.
Examiner tip
Distinguish an observed result, your interpretation and a proposed improvement. Indicative points are not an official Cambridge mark scheme.
Question 4The paper describes four assessment occasions over two school years. Its procedure names December 2011 for an intermediate follow-up, while the analysis section names September 2011. (a) Explain why repeated observations of students are not four independent samples. (b) Explain why a multilevel model does not automatically remove all missing-data bias or school-level confounding. (c) State how the date discrepancy limits a reconstruction of exact monthly change.
Primary reading: https://wholebeinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/On-line-paper-positive-psychology-at-school.pdf
Resource and boundary: Shoshani and Steinmetz: publicly hosted primary article; sections 2.1-2.5, Table 2, results and limitations inspected. One intervention school and one matched comparison school. Published participant-flow arithmetic and a later-assessment date disagree across sections; do not silently repair them or invent individual records.
Coverage boundary: Selected methods and evaluation only; independent teacher approval pending.4 indicative marks
Analyse / Evaluate4 indicative marksNo calculator
The paper describes four assessment occasions over two school years. Its procedure names December 2011 for an intermediate follow-up, while the analysis section names September 2011. (a) Explain why repeated observations of students are not four independent samples. (b) Explain why a multilevel model does not automatically remove all missing-data bias or school-level confounding. (c) State how the date discrepancy limits a reconstruction of exact monthly change.
Primary reading: https://wholebeinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/On-line-paper-positive-psychology-at-school.pdf
Resource and boundary: Shoshani and Steinmetz: publicly hosted primary article; sections 2.1-2.5, Table 2, results and limitations inspected. One intervention school and one matched comparison school. Published participant-flow arithmetic and a later-assessment date disagree across sections; do not silently repair them or invent individual records.
Coverage boundary: Selected methods and evaluation only; independent teacher approval pending.
Cambridge 2027: Partial conceptual match
Longitudinal evidence: time points and missing observations: directly exercises the stated analysis/evaluation aspects using inspected source sections; not whole study, full section or practical attainment. Independent teacher approval pending.
The same student's responses at several occasions can be correlated. Counting each occasion as a new independent participant would overstate replication. Longitudinal analysis is valuable because it describes trajectories, not because it multiplies the number of independent people or schools.
The authors use a multilevel approach to handle repeated student observations. Model choice still carries assumptions about missing observations and the relationships being estimated. Naming a statistical method is not evidence that every potentially informative dropout or measurement error has been neutralised.
Condition remains tied to school identity in a two-school comparison. Modelling individual background factors does not produce independent intervention schools that were never observed. This limits the strength of causal transfer even if student-level trajectories are estimated precisely.
The procedure and analysis sections disagree about an intermediate month. Preserve both locations in the evidence record. Until a reliable clarification is available, do not invent the intended date or claim to have exactly reproduced the authors' elapsed-time predictor or analysis.
Self-marking points
View marking points
Repeated observations within students are related and require analysis appropriate to that dependence.
A model can account for stated data structure but cannot, by itself, guarantee unbiased results under every missingness process.
Student-level repetition cannot remove the confounding of one school with each condition.
Record the conflicting dates and seek clarification before reconstructing exact elapsed-month predictors.
Examiner tip
Distinguish an observed result, your interpretation and a proposed improvement. Indicative points are not an official Cambridge mark scheme.
Question 5Evaluate the claim that a school-based programme's reported benefits justify universal adoption. Build a coherent argument using (a) implementation and outcome evidence, (b) the comparison and measurement limitations and (c) what further evidence would change your recommendation. Keep assessment of published research separate from instructions to run activities with pupils.
Primary reading: https://wholebeinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/On-line-paper-positive-psychology-at-school.pdf
Resource and boundary: Shoshani and Steinmetz: publicly hosted primary article; sections 2.1-2.5, Table 2, results and limitations inspected. One intervention school and one matched comparison school. Published participant-flow arithmetic and a later-assessment date disagree across sections; do not silently repair them or invent individual records.
Coverage boundary: Selected methods and evaluation only; independent teacher approval pending.6 indicative marks
Analyse / Evaluate6 indicative marksNo calculator
Evaluate the claim that a school-based programme's reported benefits justify universal adoption. Build a coherent argument using (a) implementation and outcome evidence, (b) the comparison and measurement limitations and (c) what further evidence would change your recommendation. Keep assessment of published research separate from instructions to run activities with pupils.
Primary reading: https://wholebeinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/On-line-paper-positive-psychology-at-school.pdf
Resource and boundary: Shoshani and Steinmetz: publicly hosted primary article; sections 2.1-2.5, Table 2, results and limitations inspected. One intervention school and one matched comparison school. Published participant-flow arithmetic and a later-assessment date disagree across sections; do not silently repair them or invent individual records.
Coverage boundary: Selected methods and evaluation only; independent teacher approval pending.
Cambridge 2027: Partial conceptual match
Extended evaluation: evidence for a school programme: directly exercises the stated analysis/evaluation aspects using inspected source sections; not whole study, full section or practical attainment. Independent teacher approval pending.
Thesis: the study supports further investigation of a school-wide approach, not an unconditional guarantee for every school or pupil. A useful evaluation must connect implementation, evidence quality and the scope of a proposed decision rather than simply count positive and negative comments.
Evidence and strength: results section 3.2 reports decreases in distress-related outcomes in the intervention group, but no significant between-group difference in life-satisfaction change. This is outcome-specific evidence, not a benefit on every measure or proof that life satisfaction can never improve. School-wide delivery and longer follow-up add contextual information, while several components together prevent attributing change to one ingredient.
Comparison limit: one intervention school and a matched comparison school leave contextual differences tied to condition. Matching selected characteristics and modelling student background do not establish equivalence on all relevant features. A large student sample is not a large sample of independent schools.
Measurement limit: self-reports are relevant to subjective well-being but may share expectations and interpretation effects. Distress and positive functioning should be discussed separately. The participant-flow and intermediate-date inconsistencies should remain visible; an evaluator cannot resolve them by inventing a preferred account.
Decision-changing evidence: independent multi-school replication, appropriate comparisons, transparent flow/timing, meaningful outcomes and implementation information would strengthen a wider recommendation. Costs, acceptability and safeguarding also require context-specific evidence. These are proposals for qualified review, not findings supplied by this question.
Conclusion: promising selected results justify cautious, ethically reviewed consideration and further research rather than universal adoption. A well-argued answer can give a different conditional judgement if it accurately distinguishes what was observed, what remains uncertain and what evidence would change its view.
Self-marking points
View marking points
State a qualified thesis that distinguishes promising evidence from universal effectiveness.
Use an observed distress-related improvement, contrast the non-significant between-group life-satisfaction change, and relate school-wide delivery/follow-up to the scope of the evidence.
Explain the one-school-per-condition limitation and the role of unmeasured school differences.
Evaluate self-report and unresolved reporting discrepancies rather than silently repairing them.
Identify relevant independent replication, outcome and implementation evidence needed before wider adoption.
Conclude conditionally, distinguishing proposed evidence from findings already obtained.
Examiner tip
Distinguish an observed result, your interpretation and a proposed improvement. Indicative points are not an official Cambridge mark scheme.
