by Aliza Samorly
Aliza is an experienced tutor, former university lecturer and head of Psychology, as well as the Developer of the SAFE Method (Structural Analytical Framework for Excellence) for the empowerment of cognitive-analytical skills, detail of which she shares here.
Posted April 2025
This blog post will talk you through the process of analytical structuring and how it can help you in your revision and exam performance. Analytical structuring provides you a framework to acquire cognitive skills that can be applied to any assignment you face. It puts the steering wheel in your own hands.
You study for years. Then you are sitting an exam for two hours or less.
No matter how many teachers you studied with, how many hours you revised, how many practice papers you completed, how many times you read your notes: when it is exam time, you enter the exam room by yourself, equipped with your brain power and nothing but your own abilities.
What is the challenge?
You take only yourself to the exam room.
What is the good news?
You have only yourself.
You can make sure that having yourself is as good as you need it to be.
Why is it the good news?
You can develop your brain power. It is an asset under your control.
The solution:
Your powers of analysis. Become a master of the content rather than its slave.
There is no other solution. It is impossible to memorise ‘everything’. And by now you must have realised that even memorising cannot produce excellence because memorising, by definition, lacks analytical structures.
And analytical structuring is the highway for brain power. The only road available.
Analytical powers cannot be memorised, purchased, exchanged or copied. They must be learned, acquired, and practised: before the exams. Only then it becomes a skill that you internalised – it becomes yours, part of who you are, of how you think, speak, and how you write. And when it is a skill, it is difficult to ‘lose’ it.
Once a skill is well-developed, you are in possession of its merits.
That’s what you take with you into the exam room.
That’s what we just said, you, are the solution.
And we are here to help you in the process of becoming the solution for what you need at the exams.
Let us begin by demonstrating how you prepare yourself to excel and achieve the highest accomplishments.
One of the weaknesses undermining our analytical powers is when we study topics separately, in isolation. As if one essay has nothing to do with an essay on another topic, as if one chunk of knowledge exists without interactions with other elements of information. Acquiring and applying an analytical framework will eliminate this damaging vicious cycle.
Much of your exams’ performance depends on how well you structured the content during your study and revision. It is also the master key to manage anxiety before and during your exams.
We will address the basics of analytical structuring to pave the way to examine how we employ that same skill, to diffuse stress and anxiety.
This idea is based on the premise that the analytical structuring of content before your exams, during your study and revision, allows you to ‘fall back’ on it during the exam.
It is important that you read all the examples below, especially if they aren’t from your subject: because this is how you acquire a skill – an intrinsic ability that can materialise into your power to master any topic or subject. That is the true meaning of analytical skills. Not something you memorised for a specific topic in a specific subject, and for a specific essay.
Analytical structuring provides you a framework to acquire cognitive skills that can be applied to any assignment you face. It puts the steering wheel in your own hands:
1 – Provides you the ‘control’ over the content. This source of mastery doesn’t rest in the hands of teachers, inside your laptop, with your notes, nor within your well-prepared essays. Instead, you are the master of the subject and the content, and you, independently employ your powers of analysis.
2 – By providing you the mastery over content, analytical structuring helps to ‘free up’ brain power to assimilate rather than memorise, as well as memorising indeed: memory is conducted within a framework.
3 – Allows you to ‘replicate’ the process at exam conditions – by structuring and de-structuring of content based on the exam question.
4 – Provides an effective coping mechanism to manage anxiety during exams – by tracing back into the steps you employed to structure the content during study and revision. When feelings begin spiralling, these steps become your anchors ‘to hold on to’. You can re-set yourself by mobilising your cognitive skills.
Analytical structuring begins with the understanding of the difference between description and explanation. This is not just an interesting point to understand. Rather, it is at the heart of your cognitive structuring at each and every stage: when you listen to a teacher in the classroom, when you revise by yourself, when you are being asked a question and plan your answer, when you are at the exam room or at an interview.
Analytical structuring involves various elements at different levels of complexity. However, the distinction between description and explanation provides the foundation on which all analysis rests upon. Moreover, this foundation is the key anchor to help managing anxiety during exams because it provides you with ‘something to hold on to’ during stressful moments.
Description = refers to what the concept is, information ascribed to the concept.
Describing the conceptual boundaries of any concept, almost by definition implies that, at the same time, you have to understand what it is not.
Examples of concepts:
Political participation, attachment, memory, leadership, mental disorders, civil wars, eating disorders, land degradation, judicial branch, democracy, climate change, Peasants’ Revolt, synaptic transmission, etc.
Description refers to AO1 assessment objective.
In science, regardless of the subject, if we wish to understand a concept, we must provide an explanation/theory/model that can outline how and why this concept is the way it is.
That is the taking off platform for analysis.
Analysis relies on explanations. How and why something, a concept, is the way it is, and not a different way.
To understand any concept, we ought to move away from describing the concept into explaining this concept.
Explanation = refers to How and Why one concept can explain and influence another concept: the linking of a minimum of two concepts, factors, variables, issues, organisations or events.
By implication, it involves: When, How and Why, it is not explaining the concept. Which is the reason why you employ AO3 to critically evaluate explanations.
Examples:
Below you can learn the basic steps of structuring the content you need to study and revise. Revision guides can support this process because they already organised the information.
Apply the steps below to every topic and every sub-topic that is required for your exam, and you are taking control of the entire process. It is a form of analytical architecture.
Step 1 and 2 = ‘what’s what’ stage, you delineate the concepts and their relationships. You structure the information, and describe the concepts. It involves AO1 assessment objective.
Step 3 = ‘how and why’ stage, you outline the explanation of the relationship between minimum two concepts. Depending on its depth, it involves AO1 and AO3 assessment objectives.
Step 4 = ‘so what’ stage, where you offer critical evaluation AO2 and/or AO3 application and assessment. This provides the analytical depth to your structuring.
Outline the topics you study in each subject, and for each and every subtopic identify:
Step 1:
What is it that we try to understand and explain?
Step 2:
What is/are the concept/s we use to explain it (the reason/s)?
Step 3:
Outline the explanation = how and why one concept (identified in step 2) can explain another concept (identified in step 1).
Step 4:
Open to evaluation AO3 and/or applications AO2. Focus on employing generic principles.
Remember:
Evaluation aims to assess and illuminate the nuances of the explanation/s you outlined, therefore attach it to your AO1: by doing so you make it easier as you rely on existing knowledge. At the same time, you elevate your analysis (higher marking band) because you demonstrate effective analytical juggling.
Advice: It is useful to briefly structure the entire topic as a whole so you have a good idea of the sub-topics and how they relate to one another. Some sub-topics can contain a few sections requiring distinct structuring.
Below we will demonstrate the important task of structuring a sub-topic:
The topic of Attachment:
Includes the sub-topics: caregiver and infant interactions, stages of attachment, the role of the father, animal studies, formation of attachment, types of attachment, cultural variations, maternal deprivation, privation, and influence on later relationships.
Example: formation of attachment.
Step 1:
What is it that we try to understand and explain?
I need to explain formation of attachment, as one sub-topic, in the topic of attachment:
What is attachment (and what it isn’t), what is the nature of attachment and its formation (in contrast to types of attachment that is another sub-topic requiring a different structuring).
Step 2:
What is/are the concept/s we use to explain it (the reason/s)?
What are the concepts, theories or models that we employ to explain attachment?
Attachment can be explained by two theories:
1 – Genetic predisposition (biological process, nature) = what is a genetic predisposition?
2 – Learning theory (behavioural, experience, nurture) = what is learning from the environment (behaviouralism, conditioning), and what isn’t conditioning from the environment?
Now we identified what is:
Step 3:
Outline the explanation = how and why one concept can explain another concept.
How and why genetic predisposition can explain attachment?
How and why learning theory can explain attachment?
Pay attention: another question may be to ‘use’ attachment to explain later development. The structure is different: how and why attachment can explain later development.
Step 4:
Open to evaluation AO3 and/or applications AO2.
‘So what’ if I outlined that babies are genetically predisposed to get attached rather than learn it? Or, ‘so what’ if I outlined that babies learn to get attached rather than are genetically predisposed to form the attachment bond? What are the various implications from these explanations?
For each explanation, together or separately, open to evaluation AO3 and/or application AO2, and base your evaluation on generic principles such as:
In the topic of Education:
Includes sub-topics: the role of the education system, relationships and processes within schools, factors outside schools, differential achievement, educational policies, and applications of research methods and theories.
Example: differential achievement.
Step 1:
What is it that we try to understand and explain?
I need to explain differential achievement in education, as one sub-topic, in the topic of education:
What is differential achievement, what is the nature of differential achievement and the features of the distribution of achievement across the factors I will use to conduct the explanation.
Step 2:
What is/are the concept/s we use to explain it (the reason/s)?
What are the concepts, theories or models we use to explain differential achievement?
Differential achievement can be explained by three sociodemographic factors:
1 – Social class = what is social class?
2 – Ethnicity = what is ethnicity?
3 – Gender = what is gender?
Now we identified what is:
This is the empirical picture about the differential achievement based on these three factors.
Step 3:
Outline the explanation = how and why one concept can explain another concept.
How and why social class can explain differential achievement?
How and why ethnicity can explain differential achievement?
How and why gender can explain differential achievement?
Step 4:
Open to evaluation AO3 and/or applications AO2.
‘So what’ if I outlined and explained how and why pupils from low social class are less likely to achieve higher grades in A-level exams, compared with their middle-class counterparts? Or, ‘so what’ if I outlined and explained how and why boys achieve higher grades in science subjects compared with girls?
For each explanation, together or separately, open to evaluation AO3 and/or application AO2, and base your evaluation on generic principles such as:
Politics
In the topic of UK politics:
Step 1:
What is it that we try to understand and explain?
I need to explain democracy, as one sub-topic, in UK politics:
What is democracy, what are the features of democracy and what is the difference between direct and representative democracy.
Step 2:
What is/are the concept/s we use to explain it (the reason/s)?
What are the concepts, theories or models we use to explain democracy?
Democracy can be explained by different features such as the electoral process, political participation, pressure groups, and accountability of elected representatives:
1 – Political participation = what is political participation?
2 – Pressure groups = what are pressure groups?
Now we identified what is:
Step 3:
Outline the explanation = how and why one concept can explain another concept.
How and why political participation can explain representative democracy?
How and why pressure groups can explain representative democracy?
Pay attention: another question may be to explain political participation. The structure is different: how and why education can explain political participation.
Step 4:
Open to evaluation AO3 and/or applications AO2.
‘So what’ if I outlined and explained how and why political participation is a feature of representative democracy because citizens are trying to influence policy choices of elected representatives? Or, ‘so what’ if I outlined and explained how and why pressure groups try to influence policy choices of democratic institutions?
For each explanation, together or separately, open to evaluation AO3 and/or application AO2, and base your evaluation on generic principles such as:
We need to explain the growth of the economy.
We use the development of agriculture to explain the growth.
How and why development of agriculture can explain the economic growth?
Then open to evaluation, of course, by comparing it with other explaining reasons such as trade relations.
We need to explain the effects of religious ideas: on what? The effects of the religious ideas require explanations.
That is what you need to work out for yourself:
The influence on, for example:
How and why religious ideas influence social unrest and foreign policy?
And open to evaluation across generic principles.
We need to explain climate change.
How and why volcanic eruptions can explain climate change.
How and why solar output can explain climate change.
Then open to evaluation across generic principles.
We need to explain growth in the edges compared with in the centres of UK cities.
How and why decentralisation and the shift to the suburbs can explain this type of growth.
Then open to evaluation across generic principles.
Every single question in every possible topic could and should be structured based on the above principles, although some might require some thinking, depending on the type of question.
When you have questions with an ‘extract’ (History), a source (Sociology, Politics) or application/scenarios questions (Psychology): you need to identify the factors within the extract/source/scenario that compose the picture of ‘what’s what’, and the question itself reflects this interplay. Then move to stage 3 and 4.
Depending on the nature and scope of the question involved, you might need to repeat this process a few times, for example, in 30 markers essays.
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