A model is a simplified version of something, built to answer one question. The simplification is what makes it useful and what makes it wrong, and those are the same feature.
A map-like model: what it keeps, what it drops, and the question it cannot answer.
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| Kind | What it does | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Model | Simplifies, to answer one question | What it left out |
| Map | Shows where things are and how they connect | What it chose to show and to leave off |
| Simulation | Runs a model forward in time | Whether the starting numbers are real |
| Visualization | Shows data so a person can read it | What the axes and colours were chosen to do |
Why data is shown as a picture
Faster to read
The eye compares lengths, positions and colours far faster than it reads a table of numbers.
Reaches non-experts
People without the training to read the raw data can still see the pattern and act on it.
Pulls data together
Several data sets on one chart or map can be compared in one look, which supports a decision.
Shows a trend
A line over time makes a rise, a fall or a likely next step visible before anyone calculates it.
Visualizations persuade before they inform: A chart is read in about a second, and the choice of axis, scale and colour has already happened by then. That choice is an argument, whether or not anybody meant it as one.
What a map reveals: connections: A map shows how the parts of a system link up. The public map of submarine internet cables shows that a few landing points connect whole continents, so one cut cable can slow a country. Global Fishing Watch (2016) maps vessels, ports and protected areas together, linking a fishing system to an ocean system.
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Real-world examples you can name
AlphaFold and the protein structure database — AlphaFold 2 published 2021; over 200 million predicted structures released July 2022
A machine-learning system that predicts a protein's three-dimensional shape from its amino-acid sequence, a problem that had resisted fifty years of work. The predictions were released openly rather than licensed.
Who it affected: Biologists worldwide, including laboratories that could never afford the equipment to determine structures experimentally.
Global Fishing Watch — launched 2016
Satellite tracking signals from vessels are processed to map fishing activity worldwide and published openly, so protected areas can be policed by anyone with a browser rather than only by patrol boats.
Who it affected: Coastal states without navies, and fleets that relied on not being watched.
School closures and remote learning — 2020–2022
At the peak, UNESCO counted over 1.5 billion learners out of school. Where teaching moved online it kept going for households with a device and a connection and stopped for those without, turning the digital divide into a measurable gap in learning.
Who it affected: School-age children, most sharply those in low-income and rural households.
What makes one model more accurate than another
More data
More sources and more places measured, so less of the situation has to be guessed.
Fresher data
Updated in real time, so the starting point it projects forward is not already out of date.
A better method
Machine learning trained on past outcomes can find patterns a fixed formula misses.
Checked against reality
A model regularly compared with what actually happened gets corrected; one that is never checked keeps its errors.
The honest version: AlphaFold (DeepMind; over 200 million predicted protein structures released in 2022) predicts a structure and says how confident it is for each part.
A model that publishes its own uncertainty is much harder to misuse than one that reports a single confident answer.
How this is tested — sources in Papers 2 and 3 are full of charts and model outputs, and evaluating them is a direct mark. It comes up two ways:
Paper 1 — structured question
- Part c: evaluate a decision based on a model
- Part b: explain a limitation of a model described in the stimulus
Paper 2 — source-based question
- Q1 and Q2: read and evaluate a source's chart
- HL Paper 3: judge the evidence behind the statement
The trap: “the model is inaccurate”: All models are inaccurate; that is what a model is. Say what it left out and whether that thing matters for this question.
Explain one limitation of using a model to make a decision.
Model answer plan
See the answer broken into clear points, with guidance on how each point earns marks.
Evaluate the use of a visualization as evidence in a public debate.
Model answer plan
See the answer broken into clear points, with guidance on how each point earns marks.