The guide says change may indicate continuity or discontinuity with what came before. Most answers write only about what changed, and the marks are sitting in the other half.
Four needs that did not change, the methods that did, and one genuine break.
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| Ask | If the answer is yes | If the answer is no |
|---|---|---|
| Does it meet a need that already existed? | Continuity — a new method | Possible discontinuity |
| Could the old arrangements adapt to it? | Continuity | Discontinuity |
| Is the judgement still made by a person? | Continuity | A genuine break |
| Do the old rules still make sense? | Continuity | Discontinuity, and usually new law |
Why the third row matters most: Many digital changes are new methods for old needs. The real breaks are the ones where a judgement that used to be made by a person is now made by a system — and nobody agreed to that when they agreed to the convenience.
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Real-world examples you can name
Google Spain v AEPD — the right to be forgotten — Court of Justice of the EU, May 2014
A Spanish man asked for search results about a long-settled debt to stop appearing under his name. The court held that a search engine is a data controller and can be required to de-list results that are inadequate, irrelevant or excessive — without the original page being deleted.
Who it affected: Anyone in the EU asking a search engine to de-list results about them.
COMPAS recidivism scoring — ProPublica investigation May 2016
A commercial risk-scoring tool used in some US courts to estimate how likely a defendant was to reoffend. Journalists found that among people who did not go on to reoffend, Black defendants were roughly twice as likely as white defendants to have been labelled high risk. The company disputed the measure of fairness used, and the argument that followed showed that competing definitions of a fair algorithm cannot all be satisfied at once.
Who it affected: Defendants whose bail and sentencing decisions were informed by the score.
#BookTok and algorithmic taste — from 2020
A community of readers posting short book videos whose recommendations, amplified by TikTok's ranking, put backlist titles onto bestseller lists years after publication and changed how publishers market fiction.
Who it affected: Readers, authors and booksellers — an industry reshaped by a recommender.
Which is which: #BookTok and algorithmic taste (global, from 2020) is continuity — word of mouth about books, at a new speed.
COMPAS recidivism scoring (USA, ProPublica investigation May 2016) is discontinuity — a judgement about a person moved from a courtroom into a model.
Saying which, and why, is the analysis.
How this is tested — an answer that names what stayed the same as well as what changed reads as more thoughtful, and is. It comes up two ways:
Paper 1 — structured question
- Part c: to what extent was this change a break with the past
- Part b: explain what remained the same after a change
Paper 2 — source-based question
- Q3: contrast sources that emphasise change and continuity
- Q4: synthesise sources on how much really changed
The trap: only change: The word in the syllabus is continuity OR discontinuity. An answer that only describes what is new has answered half the question.
Explain one way in which a digital change can show continuity with the past.
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
To what extent do automated decision systems represent a break with how decisions were made in the past?
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.