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 |
| 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 |
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.
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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.
The honest version: AlphaFold and the protein structure database (UK, with global use, AlphaFold 2 published 2021; over 200 million predicted structures released July 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 mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Evaluate the use of a visualization as evidence in a public debate.
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.