Before you touch Module 1, it’s worth being precise about what’s actually being graded, because “critically evaluate” is doing a lot of work in every one of these four questions, and most of the marks lost at this level are lost to the same handful of habits.

The table to keep open while you draft:

The pattern across every row is the same: description scores lower than judgement. Naming a theory is not evaluating it. Citing a source is not the same as weighing it against a competing view. And genuinely — the marking guidance says this outright — a well-written summary of your reading, however thorough, cannot reach Merit or Distinction. It has to become your argument at some point, evidenced but not borrowed.

What that looks like in practice — a taste of Module 1. Question 2 asks you to evaluate AI and automation across four specific dimensions: job design, managerial control, skill requirements, and employee trust. Here’s the “Focus” row of that table in action: a Pass-standard answer might discuss AI and job design in general terms. A Distinction-standard answer treats all four dimensions as genuinely separate arguments — because they are. Job design and employee trust, for instance, can move in opposite directions from the same change: a new routing algorithm might make a driver’s job more efficient (job design win) while simultaneously feeling like surveillance if it’s introduced without consultation (trust cost). Spotting and evaluating that tension — not just listing four headings — is what the “Depth” row is asking for.

That’s the level of granularity every module in this course works at: not “here’s a theory,” but “here’s where the theory creates a genuine tension you have to take a position on.”

Key takeaway: Description gets you a Pass at best. The theories, applied against each other and against Portstride’s specifics, are what get you into Merit and Distinction territory — and that’s what every module from here trains.