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Writing Examination Answers
This is an independent study course, with no classes or tutor feedback. The course materials are designed to be useful for anyone taking formal written examinations. They are self-contained, with a Key providing answers, advice for the individual learner and links to useful websites.
Introduction
Students who fail in examinations often do so because they fail to understand the question and therefore write a different answer from what the question required. The purpose of this Writing Examination Answers course is to give you practice in responding to the type of questions you are likely to meet in written examinations for the university course you are attending. Two of the eight units deal with global issues related to work for examinations: Unit 1, the Introduction, on analysing questions, and Unit 8 on preparing for examinations.
Units 2-7 deal with the principal instructions found in university exam papers - Discuss..., To what extent... etc.. It is essential to understand clearly what the examiners mean when they use one of these key words, so that you can plan and write an appropriate answer. Each of units 2-7 includes the following activities:
- analysing the question-type and specific examples of questions
- planning answers to a sample question
- writing up in limited time an answer to a question from your field
Examiners are interested in a well constructed answer that covers the ground of the question, rather than in a grammatically perfect piece of written English. (If possible, of course, they would like to have both!) So your priorities in thinking about exam answer writing should be:
- What does the question mean?
- What relevant facts can I remember?
- How should I organise the information?
- How can I best express my answer in English?
Notice that language comes last. Even native speakers make slips in grammar and spelling, particularly under exam conditions, and in many cases, small errors will not even be noticed by the exam markers.
Initial reflection points
- ‘Passing an examination is not simply a matter of hard work’. Do you agree? If so, what reasons - _apart from laziness - are there for a student failing an exam?
- People sometimes quote the student who is supposed to have said, ‘I can’t possibly have failed. I_ _learnt the course textbook by heart’. Do you accept the student’s point of view?
- At the moment, do you think you are likely to pass your course exams? If not, what are the possible_ causes of failure?
Compare your answers with the suggestions in the Key.
Analysing exam questions
In units 2-7 we will be analysing what is meant by some of the commonest question instructions. In this first session, we take a general look at the way questions can be ‘dissected’ into their essential components. Compare these versions of the same question:
A. Mineral resources B. Describe mineral resources C. Describe the industrial uses of mineral resources D. Describe the industrial uses of mineral resources from the deep ocean floor
As you see, the question instructions become more specific and more restricted. Question A is hardly a question at all; it might be the title of a secondary school essay, but not an exam question. Question B is also unlikely at university level. Question C leaves the writer free to write on the exploitation of any of hundreds of minerals. It is only Question D , that limits the scope of the intended answer enough to make it answerable in the time available in an exam. The way in which examiners restrict the scope of a question could be looked at in this way:
instruction aspect topic restriction
Describe the industrial uses of mineral resources
from the deep ocean floor
Steps in analysing a question
- Look for the topic, the central part of the question. Then look for any restriction - in this case, the source of the minerals.
- Decide which aspect is to be addressed. It is often shown by a phrase ending in ‘...of’: for example, ‘the importance of ..., ‘the role of ...’, ‘the contribution of ...
- Finally, look for the instruction, which is usually in the first part of the question. Sometimes the in- struction is ‘hidden’ and you are expected to work it out for yourself. For example, in order to answer the exam question ‘The relative merits of drug and behavioural therapy in addiction treatment’, you would need to understand that the ‘hidden’ instruction is ‘Compare and contrast the merits of...’ etc.
Task 1
Below are a number of questions. Analyse them in terms of the four-part model of instruction-aspect- topic-restriction. Use a table like the one below to dissect each question; if a question does not contain one of the four components, put a zero in that column.
A. Discuss the social and economic consequences of a high birth rate. B. Why has synthetic food production increased in the last 20 years? C. Assess the contribution of the FAO to the reduction of locust attack in the Sahel. D. Write notes on the feasibility of recycling nonrenewable materials, particularly those found in industrial waste. instruction topic aspect restriction A. B. C. D.
Compare your answers with the suggestions in the Key.
Unit 1: Writing Examination Answers
Checklist: Your course exams
- When will the exams take place?
- How many exam papers are there?
- How are the subject-areas (lecture course topics) grouped in the exams?
- How long do the exams last?
- How are the papers structured? - How many parts / sections? - How many questions in each part? - How many must you answer? - Are any questions compulsory?
- Can you take materials, notes or a calculator into the exam room?
- Do you have to pass all the papers in order to pass the exam?
- Do you have to pass the exam to pass the course?
- What proportion of the final marks is made up by the exam?
- Can you re-sit your exams if you fail?
You probably don’t yet know the answers to all the questions. Be sure you find out any ‘missing’ answers before the end of the course.
Unit 1: ANSWER KEY
Initial discussion points: Suggested Answers
- ‘Passing an examination is not simply a matter of hard work’. Do you agree? If so, what reasons - apart from laziness - are there for a student failing an exam?
You can probably think of several reasons but, as we said in the introduction, the reason we are most con- cerned with in this course is failure to analyse and interpret the questions correctly. Other reasons include poor health and even poor handwriting.
- People sometimes quote the student who is supposed to have said, ‘I can’t possibly have failed. I learnt the course textbook by heart’. Do you accept the student’s point of view?
Of course not! At post-graduate level, it is important to read widely and to demonstrate critical ability.
- At the moment, do you think you are likely to pass your course exams? If not, what are the possible causes of failure?
One possible cause for not passing is failure to know simple practical details like the date and place of the exam.
Task 1: Suggested answers
Instruction Topic Aspect Restriction A. Discuss high birth rate social and economic consequences B. (Explain) synthetic food production
reason for increase in last 20 years
C. Assess FAO contribution* reduction of locust attack
in the Sahel
D. Write notes on recycling nonrenewable materials
feasibility particularly those in industrial waste
*In Question C, the topic and aspect might be the other way round, depending on course content. For example, in a course exam for agronomists, the topic could be locust attack reduction; in an exam for a course in aid and development project management, the topic might be the FAO. (FAO = Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN).
Task 2: Suggested answers
The questions could be rewritten as follows:
Q1 Describe the role of the cytoskeleton in morphogenesis. Q2 Explain why states engage in protectionism. Q3 Define the PERFECT. Compare the English ‘Perfect’ with the perfect in another language. Q4 Discuss ornament viewed from a Freudian perspective.
You may then approach your plan as follows:
Paragraph 1 Introduction Paragraph 2 Types of Museum Paragraph 3 The Public Paragraph 4 Improving Attendance ... ... Paragraph X Conclusion
N.B. This structure (and the question) limits itself to major aspects of the topic. There is not time to go into less important areas.
Type 2: Historical Sequence
In the case of a type (2) question, you need to organise your information (events, decisions, dates) chronologically: At the beginning of the 1850s...
+
PAST
TENSE
FORMS
During the subsequent 25 years... As a result of this... In the last quarter of the century... By 1900 the state of the science was...
Type 3: Process descriptions
Since process descriptions are timeless, the appropriate tense in English is the Present Simple. Your answer should set out not only the order of events but also how they relate. If appropriate to the topic, divide the chain (or cycle) of events into stages. You may find it useful to illustrate your answer with a simple diagram or flowchart.
Task 1
Plan an answer to this question by discussing the content and format of the plan (e.g. tree-diagram or flow- chart) with a partner:
Describe the various ways in which University of Edinburgh students find accommodation
Task 2
When you have completed Task 1, compare your plan with the version given in the Answer Key. In what ways does that version differ from yours? What are the strengths and weaknesses of your plan and of the example given?
Writing Practice
Select a DESCRIBE question form a past exam paper for your Master’s course. Past University of Edinburgh paper can be found at: http://www.exampapers.lib.ed.ac.uk/exam_papers/exams.html
If no papers on your subject are available, or if you cannot find a suitable DESCRIBE question, you can invent an appropriate question. Plan an answer and make brief notes. Then write up your answer in essay form. Allow yourself as much time as you will have in your actual exam - not more! Typically, Master’s students have 30-45 minutes per question.
Show your written answer to someone who is familiar with your field - a classmate or, if possible, a lecturer from your course. Ask them to give you their comments on what you have written: its content, argument and clarity.
ANSWER KEY
Unit 2: Task 1
Describe the various ways in which University of Edinburgh students find accommodation.
Possible answer plan
Types of accommodation:
- University accommodation - student house - hall of residence - university flat - approved list of accomm. 2. Private accommodation - independent flat - room in shared flat - bedsitter - room with family
Sources of information:
university accommodation office letting agencies newspaper advertisements university noticeboards word of mouth (other students) Internet
Procedures:
University accommodation: select - apply - wait for acceptance / refusal - sign contract Private accommodation: search - select - view - decide whether acceptable - sign lease
Read the article selectively, looking for relevant information to answer the following question, ‘Compare the different techniques for clearing landmines’. You will need to look for the positive and negative effects of each technique, but not all effects are actually mentioned. You may find it useful to create a table, like the one below:
Technique Cost Speed Sensitivity/ Terrain
Effect on soil Other
Sniffer Dog
Then write up an answer plan for the question. It may be better in this case to use the ‘horizontal’ approach: consider the cost of each technique, then the speed, sensitivity, and the effect on the soil, etc. Remember to include a conclusion.
Task 2
When you have finished, compare your version with the example given in the Answer Key.
Writing Practice
Select a COMPARE/CONTRAST question from a past exam paper for your Master’s course. Past University of Edinburgh papers can be found at http://www.exampapers.lib.ed.ac.uk/exam_papers/exams.html
If no papers on your subject are available, or if you cannot find a suitable COMPARE/CONTRAST question, you can invent an appropriate question. Plan an answer and make brief notes. Then write up your answer in essay form. Allow yourself as much time as you would have in the actual exam - no more! Typically, Master’s students have 30-45 minutes per question.
Show your written answer to someone who is familiar with your field - a classmate or, if possible, a lecturer from your course. Ask them to give you their comments on what you have written: its content, argument and clarity.
The Landmines Legacy
Jenny Booth examines the issues and a possible weapon in the war against landmines.
The carpet of flowers laid out in front of Kensington Palace in September made Pat Banks very sad, but not just because of the death of a beautiful Princess. Mrs Banks, a landmines clearance expert from Edinburgh, said the money could have been spent on the charity which was closest to the heart of Diana, Princess of Wales, in the days before she died.
Diana’s last public duty was her visit to Bosnia to comfort landmine victims, and to campaign for an end to the senseless slaughter and maiming of civilians. The trip had already produced some success, persuading America to endorse the Princess’s campaign for a ban. Within a week of her return, President Clinton announced that the US was interested in supporting a Canadian initiative to ban anti- personnel mines by December.
“I think it was the images of Diana meeting child victims that pushed them over the edge,” said Jerry White, co-founder of Landmine Survivors Network, the charity that flew the Princess to former Yugo- slavia. “Her symbolic visit to Bosnia showed that Clinton was just sitting on the fence on this issue. The timing was perfect, August is a dead month in Washington and she forced their hand.”
Sadly, nothing is quite that simple in the complex world of international politics. America was keen to join - but only if it could continue to lay landmines to protect the border with Communist North Korea. Clinton also wanted exemptions allowing American troops to use both ‘smart’ mines, which disarm themselves automatically, and the ordinary $3 variety, in combat zones if they were attacked. What is the point of banning landmines until the military wants to use them? argued the other countries at the talks. After 24 hours of tense diplomacy, America did not sign. Nor were Russia or China, two of the world’s biggest landmine producers and exporters, among the 100 nations who signed up.
So the treaty that will duly be signed in December will indeed enforce a total ban. Unfortunately, rather less than half the world will be signed up to it, and herein lies the danger for all the landmine victims past and future whom Diana was trying to help. Many in the mine-clearing industry fear that the public interest in landmines which Diana woke up will turn over and go back to sleep again, now that she is dead and something appears to have been done.
The sombre truth is that a limited landmine ban will have even less effect on protecting innocent civilians from mines, than the British government’s ban on handguns will have on protecting innocent passers-by from drugs enforcers. There are too many mines already out there, in the soil of former war zones, killing 25 people a day and wounding 40 more on US estimates. Victims are almost exclusively civilians, peasant farmers creeping back to their land to scrape a living for their families, women fetching water from distant springs, and children foraging for firewood.
If Diana’s wishes are to be carried out a massive clearance effort is needed, but that takes money - the kind of money that can buy a million bouquets. “It has grieved me seeing all that money in flowers,” said Mrs Banks, days before she returned to Bosnia. “The death has highlighted the mines issue, and it is very much in Diana’s spirit to use the opportunity to press for change, but I fear that the attention will wane if people aren’t reminded.”
The Landmines Legacy
- continued In field trials at Otterburn, tests with an anti-tank mine charge showed that most of the structure could survive quite severe explosions, because its streamlined shape presents little profile to the blast. Funding has come from a wide range of public and private sources, notably the City of Edinburgh Council, and in a swords-to-ploughshares touch the explosives firm Dell has lent its expertise. The Dervish is likely to be most effective on flat farmland free of rocks, where it can spin unimpeded. This sort of terrain is receiving little attention from mine clearers at the moment, as governments prefer to concentrate on towns and business zones to get the economy going again.
But bigger hurdles than rocks lie in the Dervish’s way. The main fear at the moment is that the UN will rule the Dervish out unless it can be proved to clear 99.6 per cent of mines, the current humanitarian standard for a UN mines clearance certificate. The trouble is, the figure is both unproveable and unachievable. “Mines move, earth moves, mines swim in wet and sandy soil. The fact is, the figures are meaningless,” said Mrs Banks. “You should see the devastation in the clearance contingents when an accident happens because something has been missed - but something will always be missed. All the clearance methods have failings. You just need a combination of enough techniques sufficiently different so they fail in different ways.”
The greatest danger is public apathy. Diana is gone, and the world still faces a crisis of so many landmines it seems impossible ever to clear them all. In the circumstances, Mrs Banks fears people will become discouraged and shut their eyes. Yet ironically, the job is not quite so big as they fear. The figures, 8 million mines in Bosnia, 18 million in Angola, and so on, were only ever guesstimates and are now being proved wrong. In fact there are only likely to be about 2 million mines in Angola, and half a million in Bosnia - still bad, but achievable.
“At the moment we have surveyed and quantified 60 per cent of the minefields in Bosnia, and by 30 June there were 227,000 mines,” said Mrs Banks. “Yet everyone continues to use the inflated figures, all for their own reasons. Those of us in the clearance community think it’s going to have a backlash. At the same time, so much more could be done with the money we are spending on clearing mines in old-fashioned, ineffective ways. We could save many lives and speed our work by training local women to map minefields, and giving children mine safety training.”
Neither she nor Professor Salter were bold enough to voice the hope, but if the $3,000 Dervish is successful in its field trials, it could be built, worked and repaired by local people so that they could take control of their own lands once more and overcome the crippling terror of mines. That would be a truly fitting memorial to Diana, Princess of Wales.
Jenny Booth is Home Affairs correspondent of The Scotsman
Published by Communications & Public Affairs The University of Edinburgh Centre, 7 - 11 Nicolson Street, Edinburgh, Scotland EH8 9BE.
ANSWER KEY
You will not be able to fill every cell in the table from explicit information in the article, but some of the missing information can be inferred.
Technique Cost Speed Sensitivity/ Terrain
Effect on soil Other
sniffer dogs + detonation in situ
_ _ _
sows metal fragments in earth
_
digging up by hand _ 4 sq m/day sensitive/any _ dangerous
giant flails on tanks
__ not woods destroys topsoil __
the Dervish <$3, 4 sq m/min. not rocks _ operation & repair easy
Possible answer plan
- Introduction : a number of factors have to be taken into account, including cost, speed of operation, sensitivity and effect on the soil.
- Cost : cheapest methods are sniffer dogs and manual removal; tanks fitted with flails are the most expensive (£200,000). The Dervish is expected to cost less than this (about $3,000) to buy, and will be capable of operation and repair by local people, further reducing costs.
- Speed and Sensitivity : digging up by hand is very sensitive - suitable for use in cemeteries and towns, but slow (4 square metres/ 24 h). Tanks faster but they unsuitable for use in towns. The Dervish is fast (4 square metres/min).
- Soil : detonation in situ by any method, including the Dervish, tends to sow metal fragments in the earth - tanks destructive of the topsoil and are therefore unsuitable for farmland; also of little use in wooded areas. The Dervish needs to spin unimpeded and is therefore most effective on flat land free of rocks. Only sniffer dogs and detonation in situ or digging up by hand can be used where the area is covered with trees, rocks or other obstacles. The latter carries risk to personnel involved.
- Conclusion : no single technique perfect - only solution is to use a combination of methods.
Writing Practice
Select a TO WHAT EXTENT question from a past exam paper for your Master’s course. Past University of Edinburgh papers can be found at
http://www.exampapers.lib.ed.ac.uk/exam_papers/exams.html
If no papers on your subject are available, or if you cannot find a suitable TO WHAT EXTENT question, you can invent an appropriate question. Plan an answer and make brief notes. Then write up your answer in essay form.
Allow yourself as much time as you would have in the actual exam - no more! Typically, Master’s students have 30-45 minutes per question.
Show your written answer to someone who is familiar with your field - a classmate or, if possible, a lecturer from your course. Ask them to give you their comments on what you have written: its content, argument and clarity.
Writing Examination Answers
Unit 5: Discuss (part 1) and Explain
Introduction
If you look back through past papers you may well find that DISCUSS questions are the most common single type of instruction in exams in your field. Here is a random sampling of University of Edinburgh postgraduate exam papers:
Subject Total no. of questions DISCUSS questions Trop. Vet. Medicine 5 3 Resource Management 9 6 Psychiatry 14 5 Trop. Vet. Science 5 2 Community Medicine 8 5
The fact that DISCUSS questions are so common is one reason for devoting two units of the course to this instruction type. However, there is a more important reason why more time needs to be spent on DISCUSS, which should become clear in the course of Task 1.
Task 1
Below is a list of eleven questions (A-K). Read through all the questions - not just those from your own specialist field. Think about what the candidate is being asked to do in each case; can you identify why, in general terms, the DISCUSS instruction can be problematic?
A. ‘Attempts to eradicate diseases of animals from specific countries often prove more difficult than anticipated’. Discuss this statement with reference to the tropics and subtropics. (Tropical Veterinary Medicine) B. Discuss the survey techniques which can be used to investigate complex causal associations in veterinary medicine. (Tropical Veterinary Medicine) C. List the common causes of “sudden death” of cattle in the tropics. Discuss the problems of establishing its causes. (Tropical Veterinary Science) D. Discuss critically the use of neuroleptic maintenance treatment of schizophrenia. (Psychiatry) E. ‘Planning, as a form of state intervention, is in the public interest, because it removes some control from the capitalist’. Discuss. (Urban Design and Regional Planning) F. Discuss some of the physical problems affecting human settlements which may be caused by changing world conservation and energy restriction policies. (Urban Design and Regional Planning) G. Discuss the responses of farm animals in general to hot dry conditions. How would (a) Aberdeen Angus, (b) Jersey and (c) Zebu cattle differ in their responses to such conditions? (Animal Breeding) H. Discuss the place of radiotherapy in the management of cancer of the prostate gland. (Medical Radiotherapy) I. Inbreeding has been of considerable use in maize improvement. Discuss why it has been of much less impor- tance in the improvement of domesticated poultry and animals. (Animal Breeding) J. Health Authorities are being encouraged, as a matter of national policy, to give priority to the development of their community services for the mentally ill. Discuss whether this is likely to lead to a more effective and ef- ficient service. (Community Medicine) K. Discuss the case for and against the financing of a national health service by compulsory insurance. (Commu- nity Medicine)
Filthy lucre
American police raided the home of one drugs dealer in New York to find a room literally crammed from floor to ceiling with banknotes, all dirty money from the sale of drugs. This find was just a drop in the ocean. According to some UN estimates, the annual turnover from the production and sale of illegal drugs tops $400 billion or nine per cent of the global economy, making it bigger business than the trade in petroleum oil, more valuable than the world market in food. There is only one market bigger than the global drugs market, and that is the arms trade. Put another way, if you took eleven identical banknotes from your pocket and laid them on the table in front of you, one of them would be tainted by drugs.
The implications are wide. Illegal drugs are a worldwide industry employing millions of people in growing, refining, transporting and selling. The coca plant is grown in South America for drugs cartels based in the Colombian drugs capital Medellin, processed into cocaine and shipped through the Carib- bean and Central America into North America, where it is distributed and sold. The opium poppy is grown in the golden triangle of South-east Asia and the golden crescent of South-west Asia, processed into heroin and transported overland into Europe, where more people are involved in distribution and sale.
As with more legitimate industries, control of the trade has become increasingly organised. Until a decade ago the heroin trade routes were through the Balkans, but since the break-up of the old USSR drugs now pass through former Soviet countries where law and order has broken down. New Russian mafia groups - also involved in extortion, prostitution, and trade in arms and nuclear materials - are taking charge of Europe’s drugs trade, according to Marc Pasotti of the UN’s Centre for International Crime Prevention at a conference in Budapest in March.
“Every month record seizures of drugs en route to the Russian Federation and further to Western Eu- rope are carried out, but the results of the actions by law enforcement bodies are far from affecting 10 per cent of the whole traffic,” warned Mr Pasotti.
“Increasingly powerful crime groups in Russia are taking advantage of the largely cash economy of Eastern Europe and the absence of money-laundering laws in many of these countries.
“Russian mafia groups are growing in power, controlling some 40 per cent of private businesses, 50 per cent of Russian banks and 6O per cent of state-owned companies. Some experts say that two-thirds of the Russian economy is under the sway of crime syndicates.”
The Chinese Triads, Japanese Yakuza, Sicilian Mafia and a new generation of Caribbean crime groups are also deeply involved in drugs, and using the profits to feed their other business interests, some criminal and others legitimate. Their organisations are as large and diverse as multinational companies, and there is ominous evidence that they are forming international alliances to expand into and monopolise foreign markets.
It is not a situation of which many people in Britain are clearly aware. So long as we are not addicted to illegal drugs, and do not have to suffer powerful, turbulent cartels or mafia killing our police, corrupting our courts and perverting our government, as they do abroad, it is tempting to ask - so what? Does the global drugs trade matter to us?
Filthy Lucre
- continued
Of course it does. Half of all UK property crime is committed to obtain money for drugs. Drugs crime fills our prisons and employs our police, paid for by our taxes. Drugs money in Britain finances and feeds other forms of domestic and overseas crime. It filters into the legitimate economy and distorts it, particularly in the South-east of England, and cheats the Treasury of tax revenue. The huge profits from drugs represent a dirty tide that washes through our financial institutions - the City of London is the money laundering capital of Europe. And our government forks out taxpayers’ money on overseas aid to combat the effects of the drugs trade on other countries.
SO FAR ACTION against the drugs trade has mainly been targeted at the drugs themselves. In 1961 and again in 1988 certain narcotics were declared illegal by UN conventions signed by hundreds of countries, and a policy of policing and enforcement put in place, trying to prevent drugs from being produced, intercept them in transit and arrest dealers and buyers. Domestically this has gone hand in hand with a social education policy to “Just Say No”, and heavy legal punishments.
But the direct war on drugs has been an expensive failure. The volume of drugs trafficked has continued to bloat every year, the profits made by the criminal have swelled - and the number of UK teenagers who try illegal drugs has risen above 50 per cent. So in the last decade a new international approach has been tried. This is to target the dirty money which drugs generate, intercepting profits as they are laundered clean of the drugs taint. The principle is simple. Criminals deal in drugs because it is very profitable, but may be deterred if they fear the proceeds of their crime will be tracked and confiscated.
Under pressure from America, the EU and the OECD, more and more countries are passing laws that enable the police and the courts to confiscate money or property they believe to be the proceeds of crime. The Canadian government now owns and runs a ski resort. In America, the Drug Enforcement Agency is partly financed by the drugs profits it seizes, adding an extra incentive to agents on the trail of a trafficker in an expensive speedboat.
Targeting the cash rather than the drugs is practical, because the money will always end up with the person in charge of the drugs trade. Petty street dealers can be quickly replaced if they are arrested, but with persistence, the money trail can he tracked back to the drug barons so they can be brought to justice.
“After all, when they imprisoned Al Capone it was for tax evasion,” says Bill Gilmore, Professor of International Criminal Law at the University of Edinburgh, whose book Dirty Money is one of the seminal texts on money laundering.
TRACING THE DIRTY money is easiest at the start, says Professor Gilmore, when the street sellers have collected in the payments from customers. The sheer physical bulk of cash is, in some cases, greater than the drugs it paid for. Somehow the banknotes have to be converted into property or finan- cial credit, so the next phase of the laundering process can begin: of muddying the financial trail, so the money cannot be traced back to drugs, but can eventually be claimed and spent by its criminal owner.
The obvious answer is to begin by banking it, but in the last decade this loophole has been closed in many first world countries through stricter banking laws. In America all cash deposits over $10, have to be reported, a law which has spawned a new criminal industry known as ‘smurfing’ - employing innocent-seeming individuals to deposit amounts just under $10,000.
