aice global perspectives research questions examples

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9239 AICE Global Paper 1 Example Candidate Responses

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9239 03 GPR ECR Reflective Paper (2023)

Topic outline.

Now that you have read the assessment criteria, you may want to practise marking the presentations. Watch each candidate's presentation, making a note of the strengths and weaknesses and give a mark, before you read the moderator comments and marks below.

• Example Candidate Response - high
• Example Candidate Response - middle
• Example Candidate Response - low
• Common mistakes and guidance

Reflection on working with a team:

When deciding our group topic, we talked about our interests out of all the global issues and what we would like to raise more awareness about in our presentation. After our discussion and discovering our common interests in environmental issues, we made a decision to focus on food wastage, with the research question, “How does food waste contribute to the environment and how can it be solved? ” .

In our group, I contributed basic research of sources with statistics and produced presentation slides. I have provided the necessary information well, from reliable websites. Nevertheless, I have been weak at team discussions, where I wasn’t able to push my opinion to my teammates as effectively as others. Knowing my weakness when working as a team, I could work on presenting my personal opinions in front of others in a convincing manner.

I think our group had worked well together and effectively carried out the research. As our team had a similar range of interests and a strong aspiration to save the environment, it was easy to agree on one topic to research on. Our team members had active listening skills, making each other comfortable to share ideas, they had positive attitudes towards this project and were more committed to providing solutions to our problem.

However, what I think our team could have improved on would be time management. Towards the end of the group work we noticed that we were not organising our time intelligently. Although we have created a timeline to effectively proceed with our work, the goals were set too high in a short period of time and overestimating had led us to be chased by time. Focusing more on the fundamental information about the chosen global issue, the majority of time was spent on looking at the unnecessary details about food wastage. Thus we spent comparatively less time on the later part of the research where we had to provide a solution for our problem. In order to improve this, we could create a schedule that is considering all the possible delays and unexpected barriers, being realistics about the time we have compared to our actual skills.

Working in a team enhanced my teamwork skills, where cooperating with others in different situations became less challenging through our consistent meetings and discussions. Moreover, as team discussions share diverse ideas, it widened the range of perspectives of how I view various points, being able to consider different viewpoints of an issue.

Reflection on my personal learning:

As I was preparing for my personal research, I became more conscious about the massive amount of food wastage around the world and gained additional knowledge about what efforts people have been putting in to reduce this trouble. Food donation systems like food banks are something that I was not quite familiar with, however this personal learning journey became the opportunity for me to read up on these organisations.

I started on this research topic knowing that not a small number of people suffer from starvation whereas in some parts of the world, food is being wasted carelessly. In addition, the massive impact that food wastage has on the environment caught my attention. By studying this topic in detail and spending time to consider the most suitable solution, I wanted to make myself more mindful about this situation.

The solution I wanted to provide for food waste was to process fruits or vegetables that come in a bad shape and are not sold into other food products such as juice, jam or baked goods as there was a high percentage of food wastes that come from grocery stores. However, after further research on the statistics of types of food that are wasted, the amount of food wasted from grocery stores, excluding just fruits and vegetables, had to be considered as well. I came to a conclusion that having just one solution which only deals with ‘ugly food’ would not be enough to reduce food wastage drastically. As a consequence, I have decided to extend the solution in 3 stages, from the local perspective, which was to donate market food products with low demand to food banks, then have discounts on items that are badly shaped or nearly expire and finally process the remaining food that are not sold.

Preparing individual presentations was not an easy task as this was no longer a team work where I could seek assistance from my teammates. Nonetheless, throughout the process of working on this project and making developments myself, it led me to learn a new skill that would be essential in the future. I learned how to look for suitable sources of information and summarise it to make it sound appealing for the audience. I also learned a way to check for the reliability of information and to evaluate different sources. Having self reflection on my own presentation made me realise that I was speaking too softly with the same tone which made my speech boring. I tried making improvements on what could be done better and eventually got to learn more about myself, finding out my strengths and weaknesses throughout this project.

• Examiner commentary on the reflective paper Click here for examiner comments and mark awarded

In general, the cooperation between my groupmate and I went quite well. For this project we chose the topic greenhouse gas emissions caused by intensive agriculture. We knew quite quickly that we wanted to use this group project to talk about this topic, as we were both curious to learn more about it, especially since it applies to us on a very local scale. This made the decision about the topic particularly easy. I wouldn't say either of us was more in charge in this process of decision making, considering as our thoughts overlapped a lot most of the time and we were on the same page about a lot of things.

For the collective part of the research, we chose to work together on finding as much information as possible. We put all our findings in one word document, so we had all our information in one place. This was an idea from my groupmate which turned out to come in handy later, as we had a lot of general information about our topic in one word document which was very usable when making the PowerPoint.

But this was not the case when it came to the research of the individual part of our presentation; our solutions. For this part of the presentation, we both did our research individually, as we came to the conclusion that this would be the most efficient way to find information that applied to our chosen solutions in the time that we had. Another reason why we chose to do this was because our solutions were quite different from each other and therefore, we couldn't really help each other with researching. While doing this research, I gained a lot of new knowledge about the topic. While I wasn't completely new to this topic, researching it has been eye opening and has made me realise that the problem is more complex than it seems to be, and it could pose a real challenge to solve. But doing this research by myself also made me discover a weakness I have. That is the fact that I tend to research too much, opposed to researching one thing very thoroughly. Doing this research alone, made me realise that I should focus more on researching the depts of issues rather than researching various aspects of it. So perhaps that is something I can work on in the future.

After we had collected enough information, we came back together again and put everything in the PowerPoint. This was the easiest part because at this point, we only needed to put all of the information we had collected beforehand in the PowerPoint, as we had saved it all in one word document. Like I said before, this came in handy and saved us time in the process of making the PowerPoint, which gave us more time to focus on other things as well.

So, in general, I would say that the cooperation between my groupmate and I went very well and that there were no problems or lack in communication between the two of us. Both of us worked seriously according to the goals we set, and we both made sure to finish things on time so we wouldn’t have to do anything in a rush, since we did not want that to reduce the quality of our final product.

Furthermore, even though we did some parts of the research separately, I think we did learn from each other, as we did help each other occasionally, even regarding the separate parts of this presentation. My groupmate had some interesting views and ideas in regard to the solution I chose and vice versa. Naturally, we shared those with each other, which, in my opinion, not only helped with broadening our research, and bettering the presentation, but it also helped me to gain even more knowledge about this topic and essentially broadening my frame of reference, as other peoples’ opinions can be very useful and open one's eyes to different perspectives on the issue. So, while this project definitely brought me more knowledge about the emissions of greenhouse gases caused by intensive agriculture, it also thought the worthiness of the views of other people and how those can be helpful in situations like these. In the end, I am proud of the end result, and I am content about the cooperation between my groupmate and I.

• Examiner commentary on the reflective paper  Click here for examiner comments and mark awarded

In this component, me and my group were researching homelessness and how it affects our different perspectives, I was member A who chose the environmental perspective. There were four more other members in my group and each of them chose a perspective to write about.

The way I came into this group was that it was the day for us to choose our groups and everyone was moving around. I turned around behind me to see that I knew a good two people in that group, which were members B and D. Member C, and E I did not really talk to as much before I had come into this group, but after, it was fun to get to know them and do this component together.

The first time we came together, we did not know what we were going to have our topic be about, so we started saying random things that could be a topic and after a few minutes, member E said homelessness and we stuck with it. Then we had to choose where our region was going to be focused on, and member B chose Central Florida ass our region. That was all that we had gotten done for our first day.

The next time we came together, we chose who was going to do which topic, and then we started to brainstorm our ideas while we were designing our introductory slides for our presentations. Member E also mentioned that we should think about encounters that we had with homeless people so we could better relate to our topic and to help us better come up with ideas. He had a lot of interesting stories to talk about and how he sometimes goes up to them and starts a conversation. He talked about how he has been to their camps before that are in the woods of where we live. We all were talking in a group discussion at this point and talking about how these camps for homeless people are more prevalent than we think, and they are in places that we would never think of and places that we pass by all the time.

At another get together, we did try to look up problems to talk about specifically in our slides and how they impact our topics. The time we were searching things up was a hard time because it was difficult to find things about our perspectives that were up to date and relevant to what we were writing about. It took me a good two weeks of get togethers for me to find something that was relevant to my topic. The graphs were also hard to find for me since there weren’t many things that showed what I was looking for in a graph. I know that Member B was breezing through his topic and finding the things he needed.

There were days that we came together, and we were talking about things that were completely off topic. I remember this one day where member B and D were talking about cars and the type of cars that are good in their opinion and different parts of cars to the point where I had no idea what they were talking about and the parts that they were naming. At some point I looked over to them and said are you guys even doing any work? Member D looked at me sarcastically and said we are totally doing work LOL. Even though when I looked over at his computer, he was on the same screen for the past 10 minutes. I know that day we barely had gotten anything done because those conversations were intriguing but at the same time, it distracted all of us.

There were some days that I had no ideas of what else to talk about so they would help me come up with things and how to format my information. Most of the time we would be researching because of how much limited information we could find that was current.

The thing about this group, we would always be talking, it would never be a dull moment. They were also good at keeping everyone engaged in their conversations, especially me since I would barely talk.

Overall, this experience was very fun, but at the same time stressful to get the information together. The thing about a group project though is that having more than just yourself doing something gives you the opportunity to be able to get different ideas and opinions instead of just your own. This experience also brings you to make new connections to people and f\have fun while doing work I am glad to have been with this group and come up with the information that we did.

Word count: 794

• Candidates tended to spend a lot of time describing their team work rather than evaluating what went well and what they could have improved on and why.
• Many candidates struggled to sustain an evaluation of their learning. Candidates should be encouraged to provide detailed and wide-ranging evaluation of what they knew about the issue at the outset of the project and what they knew at its completion after all the research that has been carried out. They should include what they learnt from their research, what they learnt from their teammates’ perspectives and could also include what they learnt about teamwork and presenting.

Programmes & Qualifications

Cambridge international as & a level global perspectives & research (9239).

• Syllabus overview

Cambridge International AS & A Level Global Perspectives and Research is a skills-based course that prepares learners for positive engagement with our rapidly changing world. Learners broaden their outlook through the critical analysis of – and reflection on – issues of global significance. They will develop unique, transferable skills including research, critical thinking and communication by following an approach to analysing and evaluating arguments and perspectives called the 'Critical Path'.

Collaborative skills are enhanced through participation in a team project. The skills gained through study of this course help students to meet the demands of Twenty-First century learning, preparing the transition to higher education and the world of work.

As part of the course learners write a research report on a research question of their choice. You can find out more information on this on the School Support Hub and viewing the supporting documents.

View our Global Perspectives and Research Statement of Support .

The syllabus year refers to the year in which the examination will be taken.

• -->2023 - 2025 Syllabus update (PDF, 145KB)
• -->2026 - 2028 Syllabus update (PDF, 150KB)

Syllabus support

• -->2023-2025 Grade Descriptions (PDF, 118KB)

Syllabus updates

We revise our qualifications regularly to make sure that they continue to meet the needs of learners, schools and higher education institutions around the world, and reflect current thinking. Please see the 2023-2025 syllabus document for full details on the changes.

What are the main changes to the syllabus?

• refreshed the list of Cambridge International AS Level topics
• updated the assessment objectives to make the links to the assessed skills clearer.

What are the main changes to the assessment?

• For Component 3, learners can now choose between recording a live presentation or submitting a presentation with a recorded voiceover. This offers greater flexibility for centres and is more accessible for some students.
• The Cambridge Research Report (Cambridge International A Level) is now marked by Cambridge International. We have discontinued the oral explanation and learners do not submit an Outline Proposal Form.

When do these changes take place?

The updated syllabus is for examination from June 2023 onwards. Examinations are available in March 2023 for India only. Please see the 2023-2025 syllabus above for full details.

We are developing a comprehensive range of materials to help you teach the updated syllabus. These resources will be available from June 2021 onwards (before first teaching) through our School Support Hub and include:

• Scheme of work
• Learner guide
• Teacher guide
• Specimen Paper Answers
• Example Candidate Responses (after first examination).

Face-to-face and online training will be available. For up-to-date information, visit our Events and training calendar .

Endorsed resources

Cambridge International AS & A Level Global Perspectives and Research (Collins)

Encourage critical thinking, self-reflection and independent thought and provide students the opportunity to engage with key global issues. This series comprises a Student’s Book, Workbook and Teacher’s Guide.

Read more on the Collins website

Guide students along the critical pathway as they advance their Twenty-First century skillsets in areas such as research, reasoning, thinking and communication. Includes essay writing support and guidance for forming research questions.

Read more on the Cambridge University Press website

Important notices

We are withdrawing Cambridge International AS & A Level Global Perspectives & Research (9239) from the March exam series. The last March series for this syllabus will be March 2025. 

From 2026, we will only offer this syllabus in the June and November exam series.

We communicated this change to schools in September 2022.

Schools offering Cambridge International AS & A Level Global Perspectives can access resources, courses and build online communities through our . Access the Online Learning area .

For some subjects, we publish grade descriptions to help understand the level of performance candidates’ grades represent.

We paused the publication of grade descriptions in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and the temporary changes to the awarding standard in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

As the awarding standard has now returned to the pre-pandemic standard, we are working to produce up-to-date grade descriptions for most of our general qualifications. These will be based on the awarding standards in place from June 2023 onwards.

The national agency in the UK for the recognition and comparison of international qualifications and skills, UK NARIC, has reviewed Cambridge International AS & A Level Global Perspectives and found that it is comparable to UK A Level and develops skills that are particularly relevant in preparing students for higher education study internationally. Read the executive summary of the UK NARIC report.

Check the Submit for Assessment page and the samples database for information and guidance on submitting moderated and examined work using Submit for Assessment.

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