What's A Level Geography like?

I'm absolutely fascinated about geography, both physical and human. I love learning about the subject and currently do it for GCSE. I want to get an insight into A Level Geography and so would appreciate any comments that you have about the subject... what is the most interesting topic? On a scale of 1 to 10 how hard would you rate it? Do you go away from your geography lessons feeling intrigued by the topics? On a scale of 1 to 10 how much work is required outside of lessons?

Thanks for any input :biggrin:

Reply 1

username941859

18

I don't do ALevel Geography but IB HL. My friends do it though.

They love it, they say it's a lot more interesting than GCSE but nevertheless not very difficult. In any A Level quite a lot of outside reading is necessary so keep that in mind.

Reply 2

victoryshinesonus

13

Let's just say, there's lots of colouring involved. #hardwork :wink:

Reply 3

tehforum

20

Original post by recurring500

I'm absolutely fascinated about geography, both physical and human. I love learning about the subject and currently do it for GCSE. I want to get an insight into A Level Geography and so would appreciate any comments that you have about the subject... what is the most interesting topic? On a scale of 1 to 10 how hard would you rate it? Do you go away from your geography lessons feeling intrigued by the topics? On a scale of 1 to 10 how much work is required outside of lessons?

Thanks for any input :biggrin:

Then you should be taking it regardless of our comments.

Original post by victoryshinesonus

Let's just say, there's lots of colouring involved. #hardwork :wink:

troll

Reply 4

Validation1

It depends on the exam board really, course content can differ as I am currently doing my second year of A-Level geography on the WJEC exam board and I know that some topics can differ from people who do it with AQA.

You should be looking to do 4 modules over the two years, a human and physical module each year. An example of some AS work is regeneration in your local area and the impacts of flooding and natural disasters both locally and worldwide, DTM model, world population etc (Human). There's also the formation of landforms, how landforms are used and how landforms are changing etc on the physical side of things.

In terms of A2, you do more essay based questions for the exams and in the first unit of the year (Physical) we had 12 possible essays that could come up in the exam, these were on the coast and development, so rock types and formations to longshore drift and then for development, the emergence of Asia as an industrialised continent and the affects of big global companies in this region.
The unit we are doing now is about sustainability, not done that much yet, but it seems to consist of food, water and energy a lot and looks at ways we can make these more sustainable and how we are currently using too much. You might look at things such as the green revolutions in India or ways we store water safely and efficiently here in the UK.

Geography is definitely interesting, but you have to be committed to the work and outside research, as with any subject. As a rating, maybe 7 for difficulty and for work, it should be mainly essay stuff, probably a 6/7 for this.

I'd recommend it for sure, apologies if some of this makes no sense haha, feel free to message me with any further questions you may have :smile:

Reply 5

Ra Ra Ra

10

Original post by victoryshinesonus

Let's just say, there's lots of colouring involved. #hardwork :wink:

One of my lecturers calls Geography 'A Level Colouring In' :biggrin:

Reply 6

swbp

10

I've loved geography so much that i'm taking it at degree level!

In terms of workload, a normal amount. I would say that understanding the topics isn't hard, but there's so much content to learn so start revising early if you do take it :smile:

Reply 7

08batee

Absolute rubbish in my opinion. I loved it at GCSE, but now I think it's really really boring. I also find the workload to be pretty massive, although I have really cruel teachers who give me a contsant MASSIVE stream of homework. It's moderately hard I would say, definetely harder than most people give it credit for anyway. The level of detail is also much more than GCSE. Oh, and be prepared to learn a lot of case studies... and I mean, a lot.

Reply 8

tehforum

20

Also, if you do AQA GEOG4B at A2 level - you will want to kill yourself.

It's the worst exam I've ever done. It's eye-searingly boring and you are blindly trying to prepare for an exam for which you have no idea about.

You get a case study booklet, and they expect you to do further research to be able to answer questions in the exam.

Ludicrous, but somehow I did good this January.

Reply 9

Katiie467

Geography at A Level is amazing, i absolutely loved it and ended up taking it at university.
I think i was doing it on AQA, i found it so much more exciting at A Level, you get to do different new topics, which open up a lot more stuff in geography. However, you will find that human gegoraphy and sociology have so many similarities, so if you take both these subjects at A-Level you may get a little bit bored.
It really is good though, I studied Cold environments, Contempory conflict and challenge, plate tectonics and World cities in my 2nd year. Absolutely loved all of it as you get introduced to new things.

Plus.. you go on field trips. One of the most amazing thing about geography.. is the field trips!

Reply 10

Imposition

You should ask GMD. I hear his opinion is highly valued in such cases as this.

GMD

IAMAWASTEMAN

Reply 11

Mehmoodd

It's hard.

It was easily the hardest A level I did compared to chemistry and economics!

Soo much work -_-

Get ready to bull plop :smile:

Reply 12

Howbeit

19

I hear lots of people who say it's easy but I often find they're the ones who have never taken it and just go with the crowd. The work isn't that difficult but I found the way the exams were laid out that getting the top marks was difficult. My first exam was based on a field trip I went on which was fairly straightforward, I got 100% in it. The second exam was worth 70% of the final grade. In this exam you did not know what sections would come up and you had to do a 40 mark essay. To get an A* I had to get 86% or something which is difficult to get in that exam. And that was with already getting 100% in my January one.

From what you described it seems you'll enjoy Geography A level very much!

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 13

victoryshinesonus

13

Original post by Katiie467

Geography at A Level is amazing, i absolutely loved it and ended up taking it at university.
I think i was doing it on AQA, i found it so much more exciting at A Level, you get to do different new topics, which open up a lot more stuff in geography. However, you will find that human gegoraphy and sociology have so many similarities, so if you take both these subjects at A-Level you may get a little bit bored.
It really is good though, I studied Cold environments, Contempory conflict and challenge, plate tectonics and World cities in my 2nd year. Absolutely loved all of it as you get introduced to new things.

Plus.. you go on field trips. One of the most amazing thing about geography.. is the field trips!

I like stuff like that, at GCSE, there wasn't much of that, it was more water systems etc. and ecosystems, I like the location stuff and that side of Geog :biggrin:

population etc.

Reply 14

Tac Crab

I like all the human topics a fair bit, weather, tectonics, ecosystems etc. but on the flip side I find human geog absolutely dire. Also if your on AQA they expect you to bang out a 40 mark essay in the A2 exam on top of all the other questions which is annoying.

Reply 15

GMD

nuked

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 16

Timeafastic

Am doing my AS exams in May but so far it's been quite entertaining. Really if you enjoyed GCSE Geography you'll probably most likely like this too.

As for the difficulty, i'm doing it with Edexcel and from the past papers and mocks i've done it doesn't seem too bad and the work load isn't that bad either, far easier than Biology and Chemistry for me though.

Reply 17

Sadsnail

15

I love love love geography :biggrin:

Reply 18

James0507

It's brilliant!
It is very specific-knowledge-heavy (lots of case studies, key terms and processes- just like GCSE) so heavy revision is required come exam time, but personally it's the easiest A Level I'm doing, and by far the most enjoyable.
If you're with AQA, the 4B unit can be pretty tedious, but so long as you know your stuff it's a really good unit to pick up the marks on.

Reply 19

Fuzzy12345

10

I do IB HL Geography as well and tbh Geography isn't the most intellectually demanding subject, it's just ridiculously time consuming because there's so much to just learn and memorise and requires quite a bit of outside reading.

Plus it is kind of 'stating-the-obvious' I mean come on, we need to learn a definition for 'rain-splash erosion' :colonhash:

What's A Level Geography like?

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