HSC Business Studies Question Thread

[isaacdelatorre]

Thank you thank you thank you for answering my question! However I have another one :[

Outline the notion of perishability with respect to services.

Argh I started writing then realised I was talking about goods, not services. How do I answer this?

Hey Caitlin,
Sorry I missed this; I was halfway through my answer and then forgot about it. Hopefully I'm not too late!!
Notice the directive term is outline which means to sketch in general terms so this wouldn't require an in depth explanation. This is quite an abstract question, however a few things come to mind.
Firstly how some services last only for a short time and need to repeated several times such as a haircut.
Also, services cannot be stored or saved and are consumed immediately by the customer thus the actual service itself perishes once it has been completed due to the short lead time.
You could also argue that the relevant resources, processes, and systems of a service are assigned for delivery during a definite period in time. E.g. an airline can only sell it's plane tickets prior to departure and thus is only available for a definite period of time as it becomes useless when the plane has left.

Hope this gives you some ideas, let me know if you need further elaboration but I will defs have a think about it

Good luck!

[isaacdelatorre]

Hey Guys! I have an assessment nearing where I have to write a report in class that can assess anything within operations. I know my syllabus and content. In my reports, the only bad thing is that sometimes I don't address the verb to the extent to get full marks. What should I do so I can recover this issue? Thanks guys 

Hey SSS,
That's awesome that you know your syllabus and content, you're miles ahead of other students (including myself in your position last year!) Some pointers that could help you would definitely be to memorise and understand the BOSTES glossary of terms which can be found here. Make sure you know the difference between what an explain question and a recommend question as it is a very common mistake to not do what the question tells you and can mean a whole lot of marks lost.
Also ensure that you can answer all of the outcomes and learn to dot points for the operations part of the syllabus that apply to a business report  such as "recommend possible operations strategies for one hypothetical business"
If you are struggling to understand the requirements of each directive term such as explain, outline, assess, recommend - just take a look at previous hsc exam papers for sections 2, 3 and 4; and look at the answers of students who earned a band 6 for those questions here (this only has 2012 but most libraries have a copy of exam workbooks which contain band 6 answers to past hsc papers)

And lastly, practice as much as you can!! Feel free to post you responses here and I or someone else can mark it and give you feedback

Hope you smash it, good luck!

[SSSS]

Hey SSS,
That's awesome that you know your syllabus and content, you're miles ahead of other students (including myself in your position last year!) Some pointers that could help you would definitely be to memorise and understand the BOSTES glossary of terms which can be found here. Make sure you know the difference between what an explain question and a recommend question as it is a very common mistake to not do what the question tells you and can mean a whole lot of marks lost.
Also ensure that you can answer all of the outcomes and learn to dot points for the operations part of the syllabus that apply to a business report  such as "recommend possible operations strategies for one hypothetical business"
If you are struggling to understand the requirements of each directive term such as explain, outline, assess, recommend - just take a look at previous hsc exam papers for sections 2, 3 and 4; and look at the answers of students who earned a band 6 for those questions here (this only has 2012 but most libraries have a copy of exam workbooks which contain band 6 answers to past hsc papers)

And lastly, practice as much as you can!! Feel free to post you responses here and I or someone else can mark it and give you feedback

Hope you smash it, good luck!

Thanks so much!! Your advice is amazing and I will do it over the next two weeks. Just one question that with the outcomes, I don't understand how they are incorporated into our questions [or are they not?]. Thanks so much for the advice and support!

[isaacdelatorre]

Thanks so much!! Your advice is amazing and I will do it over the next two weeks. Just one question that with the outcomes, I don't understand how they are incorporated into our questions [or are they not?]. Thanks so much for the advice and support!

Hey SSS,
Sorry for the confusion, basically an outcome is what the board of studies hopes you to demonstrate or to be able to achieve in your work. So something like H3 - discusses the social and ethical responsibilities of management could definitely be one of the dot points that they ask you to do in a business report (it would be phrased more like 'discuss the social and ethical responsibilities that influence business XYZ). Or H5   explains management strategies[insert strategy e.g. leading edge technology] and their impact on [business XYZ] is a likely business report question; some of these can show up in section 4 as well!

Outcomes like H9 - communicates business information, issues and concepts in appropriate formats will definitely not be the question but should still apply in the marking criteria so make sure you have really good definition, explanations, structure and use plenty of business terminology!!!

Hope this helps, good luck!

[SSSS]

Hey SSS,
Sorry for the confusion, basically an outcome is what the board of studies hopes you to demonstrate or to be able to achieve in your work. So something like H3 - discusses the social and ethical responsibilities of management could definitely be one of the dot points that they ask you to do in a business report (it would be phrased more like 'discuss the social and ethical responsibilities that influence business XYZ). Or H5   explains management strategies[insert strategy e.g. leading edge technology] and their impact on [business XYZ] is a likely business report question; some of these can show up in section 4 as well!

Outcomes like H9 - communicates business information, issues and concepts in appropriate formats will definitely not be the question but should still apply in the marking criteria so make sure you have really good definition, explanations, structure and use plenty of business terminology!!!

Hope this helps, good luck!

Oh!! This whole time I have been dismissing outcomes but its really important!! Thanks so mcuh for your help!!

[TheCommando]

How do i stop recieving notifications? I pressed the notifty than un notifiy button but its not working

[Thebarman]

Hey guys, for an upcoming assignment, I need to pair 3 influences with 3 processes and link them to a few case studies. I've already decided on the case studies (Crumpler bags and Apple), and 2/3 links. Does anyone have some tips for linking globalisation and transforming resources (HR and facilities) in terms of Apple? I was thinking of discussing the use of outsourcing to Foxconn in order to manufacture the phones, and how this leads to cost leadership and a competitive advantage. Would that be a strong enough connection, or is there another way to link the two points via Apple?
Thanks.

[jamonwindeyer]

How do i stop recieving notifications? I pressed the notifty than un notifiy button but its not working

Try going to your Profile, then clicking Modify Profile -> Notifications, you should be able to adjust it there. See if that works!

[TheCommando]

Try going to your Profile, then clicking Modify Profile -> Notifications, you should be able to adjust it there. See if that works!

Thanks

[diesxel]

Hello! I was wondering if anyone knew any past HSC questions about logistics through supply chain management? I wanted to do some essays/long responses/short answer on it


Thanks!! 

[jamonwindeyer]

Hello! I was wondering if anyone knew any past HSC questions about logistics through supply chain management? I wanted to do some essays/long responses/short answer on it


Thanks!! 

Hey! I don't know if it helps at all, but I'll link you to a nice collection of HSC Papers, Trial Papers, and internal assessments for Business Studies; you might be able to find something there? Hopefully someone else can point you to something a bit more specific

[diesxel]

Hey! I don't know if it helps at all, but I'll link you to a nice collection of HSC Papers, Trial Papers, and internal assessments for Business Studies; you might be able to find something there? Hopefully someone else can point you to something a bit more specific

Thank you!! That was soo helpful.  Also, I posted something on another business thread but it hasn't been posted on in 30 days, should I post my question somewhere else with more traffic or wait? Sorry haha I'm new 

[isaacdelatorre]

Hi! Could someone please help me? I don't know how the critical path works! I keep getting different answers along the lines of "it's the shortest path" or "the longest path"... Someone even started a poll on Facebook, and it seems almost 50/50!

I would upload the photo of an example, but it won't let me unless it's in another format...

Hey there Deni,

Critical Path Analysis is one of those annoying things that will almost always show up in the exam but confuses the heck out of everyone.

The easiest way I found to understand it is that it shows the shortest amount of time to complete ALL tasks. Therefore, to complete all tasks necessary, you must look for the longest path from the start to finish (not count each task individually since some tasks can be completed simultaneously).

Here is an example from the 2015 HSC exam:


For this question, it asks us to find the length of the critical path i.e. the time to complete all tasks. We can see that this is going to be path A-B-F-C-D which is 18 days. This is the shortest time to complete all tasks since tasks B-E,  E-C and B-C will be completed whilst B-F-C is completed. If you took the "shortest path" as the facebook poll suggests, you would A-B-C-D which will not result in all tasks being completed.

tl;dr - it is the longest path

Hope this helps

[joyg]

I thought i'd just attach a text snippet which goes into some detail about a critical path and why it is the longest time

[Louanna]

Hi 

Could somebody please help with understanding FIFO, LIFO and JIT in operations inventory management???

I just need some simple definitions and an example...
My teacher makes it sound soooo confusing..

Thanks heaps