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The command verb sets the standard

Every CIPD assessment criterion opens with a verb. It is not decoration — it is the thing being marked, and answering a level below it is the most common reason good work comes back referred.

CIPD assessment is criterion-referenced: the marker works down a list and decides, for each criterion, whether the evidence is there. Not whether the essay was good. Whether that specific criterion was met.

So a criterion that says evaluate, answered with a clear and well-written explanation, does not pass. The explanation might be the best paragraph in the submission. It still leaves the marker with a box they cannot tick, because evaluating means reaching a judgement and no judgement was reached.

That is usually what the feedback means when it says “more depth needed” or “insufficient evidence for AC2.3”. Not that you wrote too little. That you answered a different question.

evaluate

17 criteria

Weigh it up and reach a judgement. Both sides, then a position — an answer with no verdict does not meet this.

analyse

6 criteria

Break it into parts and show how they connect. Listing the parts is not analysing them.

summarise

5 criteria

The main points, briefly, in your own words. Leaving things out is the skill being tested.

recommend

4 criteria

Say what should be done, and why that rather than the alternatives.

identify

4 criteria

Name the specific ones that apply here. The lowest bar of any CIPD verb — but it still wants the actual items, not a description of the category.

consider

3 criteria

Weigh it up and say what you make of it. Lighter than evaluate, but still a view rather than a description.

compare

3 criteria

Set two or more things side by side. Similarities and differences, not one then the other.

examine

3 criteria

Look at it closely and in detail, drawing out what is not obvious at a glance.

conduct

3 criteria

Carry out the calculation or activity and show the working. The result on its own is not the evidence.

present

2 criteria

Produce it in a form a stakeholder could use. Format is part of the criterion.

appraise

2 criteria

Judge the value or quality of something, with reasons. Your view has to be visible.

recognise

2 criteria

Show you can identify it in a real situation, not just define it.

reflect

2 criteria

Write about your own practice and what changed because of it. First person is correct here, and the outcome matters more than the account.

explore

2 criteria

Look at it from more than one angle and follow where it leads. Breadth counts for more than a verdict here.

distinguish

2 criteria

Draw the line between them clearly enough that a reader could sort a new example into the right one.

demonstrate

2 criteria

Show it happening through evidence of your own practice. This one cannot be answered in the abstract.

develop

2 criteria

Produce the thing. A criterion that says develop wants the artefact submitted, not a description of how one is made.

interpret

1 criterion

Say what the data means, not what it says. Trends, causes, what follows.

make

1 criterion

Produce the thing itself. “Make justified recommendations” wants the recommendations on the page, each with its reason — not an account of what a good recommendation would contain.

argue

1 criterion

Take a position and defend it with evidence. Neutrality fails this one.

formulate

1 criterion

Produce the actual thing — a plan, a set of activities — not a description of what one would contain.

differentiate

1 criterion

Show what makes two things different, and why the difference matters. Defining both and stopping is the usual miss.

advise

1 criterion

Write as if to someone who has to act. A recommendation and its reasons, not a description of the topic.

design

1 criterion

Produce the design itself, with the reasoning visible. A criterion that says design is not satisfied by explaining what a good one would look like.

review

1 criterion

Survey what is out there and say what you make of it. A list with no assessment is the usual miss.

define

1 criterion

Say what it is, precisely enough to tell it apart from things it is often confused with.

specify

1 criterion

Name the particular things, not the general category. “I follow GDPR” is the category; which parts, and how, is the criterion.

participate

1 criterion

You have to have taken part, and there has to be evidence of it. Reading about the activity does not meet this.

write

1 criterion

Produce the actual document, in the register it would really be sent in.

describe

1 criterion

Set out what something is like, in enough detail that a reader could recognise it. No judgement needed.

Check the verb before you check the word count

When a criterion comes back referred, the first thing to do is not to write more. It is to read the verb again, then read what you wrote, and ask whether the two match. Most of the time the fix is a paragraph that takes a position, not another five hundred words of context.

If you are staring at a referral and cannot see the gap, that is exactly the kind of thing a second pair of eyes settles in twenty minutes.

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