This multiple choice question comes from the sample multiple choice exam in the current Heinemann pack:
Most of the best band names - The Beatles, The Clash, Oasis, U2, Coldplay, The Arctic Monkeys - have been taken. Lawyers advise new bands to use the MySpace website to check if someone else has already taken their name. There are many names that can easily be confused - Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong, for example, is not only quite a strange name, but easily confused with the Jing Jings and the Ting Tings.
The passage above can best be described as:
a) a dispute
b) a report
c) an argument
d) an explanation
The mark scheme insists that the answer is B - a report. The commentary on the mark scheme says that the passage is not an argument "because it does not give reasons to support a conclusion." and that it is not an explanation "because it is not telling us how or why somethins is the case. It is just telling us some facts about band names."
My main problem with this question is that the word "report" does not appear anywhere in the unit content section of the specification.
Page 13 of the specification says: "Candidates should recognise and be able to explain the difference between an explanation and an argument." No mention of "a report."
If candidates are expected to be able to identify a passage as "a report", would anyone like to offer a definition of a what a report might be and a reliable way of distinguishing a report from an argument and an explanation?