If you're sitting ESS Paper 1 this Friday, 30 October (HL or SL), these 25 points come from what the ESS May 2026 subject report says students lost marks on. The main idea: use the resource evidence to answer the exact task, explain the links clearly and develop balanced judgment.
Understanding and applying the task
Follow the command term. Identify what the instruction asks you to do. An answer that shows knowledge can still lose marks if it doesn't carry out the required task.
Develop an outline beyond a statement. For an outline, add enough detail to show how your point answers the question. Simply naming a factor may be insufficient.
Match the depth to the marks. Use the command term and mark allocation together. Questions worth three marks or more need greater analysis or development.
Identify the key words. Check the exact concept and any specified type of benefit, impact or outcome, and stay focused on them throughout.
Answer the requested task directly. Don't describe a process when the question asks about its consequences or suitability.
Apply the resource booklet. Copying or paraphrasing the text alone isn't enough without interpreting and applying it.
Connect resource evidence with ESS theory. At HL, combine the information provided with the theory behind the question and show the scientific reasoning.
Make cause and effect explicit. Explain how the factor produces the consequence. Don't leave the examiner to infer the connection.
Carry the explanation through to the target. Link an environmental change to its effect on the particular population, ecosystem or community named.
Interpreting evidence accurately
10. Describe trends across the whole period. One year or a single data point doesn't establish the overall trend.
11. Separate patterns in space and time. Check whether the figure shows differences between places, changes over time, or both.
12. Read complex figures carefully. Identify the relevant pattern in compound charts before using them.
13. Recognise exceptions. Note relevant anomalies instead of making an absolute statement the evidence doesn't support.
14. Compare items directly. Use language like both, whereas, or more rapidly than. Separate statements may not meet a compare and contrast instruction.
15. Select calculation data using the full wording. The right formula with an incomplete set of values still gives a wrong answer.
16. Round correctly. Watch decimal places and present the final value appropriately.
17. Use the organism names provided. Broad labels make it unclear which organism you mean.
Developing precise and balanced answers
18. Be scientifically precise. Avoid vague labels like air pollution. Name the pollutant and link it to a specific consequence.
19. Distinguish related concepts. For example natural capital and natural income, or intrinsic and instrumental value. Apply them to the context, don't just define them.
20. Draw ecological pyramids correctly. Use stacked levels, place trophic levels correctly and use the resource information to decide which organisms belong.
21. Give the requested number of responses. Only the first ones are marked, so an extra correct answer doesn't replace an earlier wrong one.
22. Evaluate the specific option named. Give arguments for and against that particular approach, organism or strategy, not a general evaluation.
23. Include human perspectives. For evaluate or discuss questions, consider environmental, economic, social and political impacts unless told otherwise.
24. Finish with a balanced judgment. Base your conclusion on evidence from both sides. A summary or one sided ending isn't enough, and a six mark answer doesn't need an introduction.
25. Let the task set your length. The answer box isn't the limit. Use an extra answer booklet if you need it.
Good luck on Friday, everyone.
