15 Key Topics For Extra Revision (Once You've Revised The Entire Spec...) for AQA A Level Business in 2018

The three AQA A Level Business exam papers are distinctive in that they can each cover a wide range of the specification. Anything from the specification can be examined in one or more papers - and topics might be examined year after year!

In a nutshell, there is NO POINT QUESTION-SPOTTING for AQA A Level Business and deciding to leave topics out of your revision. 

In 2017 the students who performed best did so consistently across each paper. They had a broad understanding and appreciation of the specification, including specialist terminology.

So what should students focus on once they've covered the specification?

Familiarity with:

• Specialist terminology
• The theories and models, and
• The calculations and numerical concepts

should be the priority.

If that leaves any time, then it may be worth some extra minutes on key topics that did not appear in the first sitting in June 2017. 

Here are 15 topic areas which have yet to be examined which are well worth a top-up during final revision:

In order of where they appear in the specification:

1. Value of Scientific decision making (including decision trees) v intuition
2. Market research (including sampling & market mapping)
3. Marketing mix: promotion and distribution (including value of branding (promotion) +  e-commerce and multichannel distribution)
4. Lean production + inventory control (including inventory control charts)
5. Quality (in particular quality assurance + quality as an operational objective)
6. Cash flow (cash flow forecasting + the difference between cash flow and profit)
7. Variance analysis (calculation of variances + the value of budgeting)
8. Job design (Hackman Oldham) + role of job design v financial methods of motivation
9. Corporate social responsibility (Carroll + shareholder / stakeholder concepts)
10. Competitive advantage + core competencies
11. Offshoring & re-shoring
12. Methods of entering international markets + managing international business (Bartlett & Ghoshal)
13. Value of a flexible organisation (including delayering, flexible working)
14. Value of leadership in strategy implementation (particularly leading change)
15. Strategic drift