ESSAY-A-DAY #10

by alainechristian

Revision & Exam Practice for the “legacy” A Level qualifications including:

Edexcel (Unit 3C – Representative Processes in the USA, Unit 4C – Governing the USA)
AQA (Unit 3A – The Politics of the USA, Unit 4A – The Government of the USA)
OCR (F855 – US Government & Politics)

How to use these questions for revision and exam practice:

For long-answer or essay questions, plan a 4 paragraph response using the PEEACH paragraph structure (P=point, E=evidence, E=explain, A=argument, C=counter argument, H=how does this answer the question?)
Once you have completed your question, read the indicative content.
Using the essay criteria, colour code each criteria to show how successful you were at including this in your essay (red, amber or green)
There is also a space for you to add additional notes and/or examples that don’t appear in the indicative content, or add better explanations, or include additional, points from the indicative content.

To what extent are mid-term elections merely a referendum on the performance of the President? (45)

Introduction

Conclusion

Indicative Content

Mid-term elections are the elections for the House of Representatives and the Senate which occur half-way through the president’s four year term.

Evidence that midterm elections are a referendum on the president includes:

the president’s party has lost congressional seats in all but three mid-terms in the last 100 years
since 1994, mid-terms have arguably become ‘nationalised’ and elections such as 1994, 2006 and 2010 were all elections in which the president’s record was a factor in his party’s loss of seats
in 2002, when the Republicans won seats, the response of President Bush to the attacks on New York and Washington, and his domestic agenda of tax cuts, was also arguably a factor

Evidence that midterm elections are not merely a referendum on the president includes:

losses by the president’s party may be attributable to the absence of the presidential ‘coattails’ which had won the party seats two years before
the record of the congressional leadership may be a significant factor, e.g. the Republicans’ campaigns against the ‘Pelosi-Reid’ agenda in 2010; in 1998 the strategy of the congressional Republican leadership in pursuing impeachment proceedings against the president may have been a factor in Democratic gains
individual candidates’ campaigns may have a significant impact on the result, e.g. George Allen in Virginia in 2006 and Christine O’Donnell in Delaware in 2010
the power of incumbency, which fell below 90% in the House elections in 2010 for only the first time in 30 years

Essay Part	Criteria			RAG
Introduction	Clear and detailed knowledge of the premise of the question
	Clear outline of overall argument of the extent of agreement with the statement in the question
Agreement with the statement	PEAACH paragraph 1
	PEAACH paragraph 2
	(PEAACH paragraph 3)
Disagreement with the statement	PEAACH paragraph 1
	PEAACH paragraph 2
	(PEAACH paragraph 3)
Conclusion	Clear and detailed re-statement of extent of support (sustained argument)
	Relative analysis of extent of support for each argument (evaluation of argument)
RED		AMBER	GREEN
Argument stated, little to no explanation, lacking example and analysis of this		Argument is explained clearly and supported with a relevant example, may lack analysis of this and development of explanation	Argument is fully explained and developed and supported with a precise and detailed example, clear analysis of this in relation to the question