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:

1. For short-answer questions, write a 3 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?)
2. Once you have completed your question, read the indicative content and the mark scheme.
3. Complete the “Make It Better” (MIB) Task:
   1. Highlight the parts of the indicative content your were able to fully explain and exemplify in green.
   2. Highlight the parts of the indicative content you partially explained and/or exemplified in yellow.
   3. Highlight the parts of the indicative content which you did not include in red.
4. Using the mark scheme, award yourself a level and a mark – compare this to your target grade – are you on track to achieve this in the examination?
5. 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 do the major party conventions continue to have a meaningful role? (15)

Indicative Content

• Party conventions have effectively lost their formal role of selecting the presidential and vice-presidential candidates, which has now become purely ceremonial.
• However they still have a significant role in:
• approving the party platform
• healing the divisions of the primary
• rousing the party faithful
• presenting a positive image of the candidate and the party to a national audience
• generating a post-convention ‘bounce’

EXAMPLE: The conventions of 2012 arguably had quite a significant role; the success of the Democratic convention, particularly the speech of former President Clinton, gave President Obama momentum which lasted until the first debate, whereas the problems of the Republican convention, beginning with the delayed start and continuing with the speech of Clint Eastwood, marked the beginning of a difficult few weeks for Mitt Romney.