top tips to kick start your revision
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AS Geography revision 09 AS Geography revision 09
Top tips to kick-start your AS Unit 1 Revision
AS Geography revision 09 AS Geography revision 09
What should you be doing?• With the exams approaching it’s
important to get into a high gear and prepare fully.
• Get organised• Sort out files, identify gaps and fill
them. • Make a plan • Identify times when you will revise
different key topics. • Make sure you have a copy of the
Specification• ….and use this as a checklist to
ensure you have covered everything .
AS Geography revision 09 AS Geography revision 09
Practice makes perfect• Mock on ….• You should practice past
questions from Jan 09, June 09 and Jan 10
• Other exam style questions can be found in the textbooks and unit guides that support the course.
• The more you do, the more feedback you will get and the greater your improvement will be.
AS Geography revision 09 AS Geography revision 09
Key terminology • Remember that this is a
new Specification. • It contains new terminology
which you need to be able to define. You will need to understand both single words and phrases.
• The terminology is used in exam questions so you need to know what it all means.
• Make glossaries of key terms and consult the textbooks if you are unsure.
AS Geography revision 09 AS Geography revision 09
Active revision• For the vast majority of students
revision works best when it is active.
• Passive reading of notes is a poor way to revise.
Try to:• Condense notes by re-writing
them • Use diagrams and mind maps • Put key case studies and
examples onto revision cards
AS Geography revision 09 AS Geography revision 09
Understanding the Papers: Unit 1
AS Geography revision 09 AS Geography revision 09
Command Words
AS Geography revision 09 AS Geography revision 09
Unit 1, Section B extended writing skills
AS Geography revision 09 AS Geography revision 09
What do I have to do? • One question from a choice of 4
– you should spend 30-35 minutes on this
• Each question is worth 25 marks • The 25 marks is split into a 10
mark part ‘a’ and 15 mark part ‘b’• There is a stimulus resource for
the 10 mark question
AS Geography revision 09 AS Geography revision 09
Choice of Question
• Questions will be based around 4 key themes
• you can expect to have a genuine choice:
AS Geography revision 09 AS Geography revision 09
• Very importantly you should read all 4 questions
• look at all four accompanying Figures before you make a decision.
• In January 2009 the choice of question was heavily biased towards questions 7 and 8.
Question Popularity Unit 1 Section B January 2009
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
Question 7 -Hazards
Question 8 -Climate
Question 9 -Globalisation
Question 10 -Megacities
Ep
en
re
sp
on
se
s
AS Geography revision 09 AS Geography revision 09
The Resource question, part ‘a’
• Notice that the question states ‘such as the one shown’.
• This is indicating a need to move beyond the stimulus material provided and into a discussion of other drought examples and their impacts:
• Ongoing Australian drought the ‘big dry’
• Drought in Niger • Drought in Sudan and Ethiopia
AS Geography revision 09 AS Geography revision 09
• There is also a structure provided in the question i.e. ‘people and the environment’
• answer needs to cover both in order to be balanced. • Importantly the question is not ‘what are the impacts of
drought?’ but actually ‘why do drought have such severe impacts?’
• Just describing the impacts of drought lacks the explanation the question is looking for.
AS Geography revision 09 AS Geography revision 09
Description of impact
Explanation of severity
Forest fires Uncontrolled burn devastates wildlife and ecosystems; difficult to manage
Farm production down
Direct reliance on irrigation; scarce water resources diverted to people
Low river flows Made worse by human abstraction for water supply
Fall in tourist numbers
Fear, danger, intense uncomfortable heat
Deaths Vulnerable groups (elderly) ‘silent’ killer
Use the resource, but don’t copy it out.
AS Geography revision 09 AS Geography revision 09
The Open questions, part ‘b’ • a 15 mark question which will be quite open. • There is no Figure to look at -you are ‘on your own’. • good idea to do a very quick plan just to organise your
thoughts and help structure your answer. • The plan should take less than 1 minute
AS Geography revision 09 AS Geography revision 09
Mark schemes • for the 15 mark
question they use 4 levels.
• Like a flight of sets which you are trying to climb.
• To go up a step, you need to add something new into your answer.
AS Geography revision 09 AS Geography revision 09
Ticking the mark scheme boxes • can be a real challenge, but there are various tricks you
can use to help write an impressive answer. • This question is from January 2009 (Question 10b):
• typical. It uses the command word ‘explain’ and is ‘open’.• The question does not directly ask for examples to be
used, but you should just assume you should use them!
AS Geography revision 09 AS Geography revision 09
AS Geography revision 09 AS Geography revision 09
Top Tips for extended writingStructure Organisation; logical order and sequencing
Consider a summative statement / very brief conclusion. Depth Issues, problems, factors, explanations etc. need to be examined
and discussed in some depth Examples Need to be used as a matter of course, don’t wait to be asked!Case Studies If the question refers to a compulsory case study then
considerable detail is expected Up-to-date Contemporary knowledge always shines more brightly than the
tired and datedRange Narrow answers, around one factor or explanation will rarely
attain the top level of the mark scheme Facts Factual data support – numbers, facts and figures, always
impress.Terminology Use of the correct geographical terminology increases your
answers currency Evaluative style Some recognition that geographical issues are now always black
and white, combined with some evaluative language. Balance Especially in human geography, a recognition of costs and
benefits, positives and negatives etc.
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