A2 AQA Geography 3A Summer 2012

Did anyone else do the retail 40 marker for world cities? What did you write? I wouldn't mind conferring with someone as i'm worried I may not have done enough to get an A

Did anyone else do the retail 40 marker for world cities? What did you write? I wouldn't mind conferring with someone as i'm worried I may not have done enough to get an A

Yes it was quite hard and when we got got results my class all got C's and D's so we are all re-sitting. This one seems a lot better though! Have you managed to do much revision for it?

i'm not sure
the grade boundaries don't fluctuate that much so it hopefully if anything will go up or down by 2?

is there any way we could get a poll made on this thread to see what people thought of this paper as a whole?

I did that one!! I was so happy when I saw it!!
For my intro I said how the decentralisation was down to out of town centres and then when they began and the number of visitors some receive which obviously has impacts on the surrounding areas.

Para 1 - wrote about where they are built and how that impacts urban areas by being far away from the CBD and drawing customers away

Para 2 - leads to derelict CBD's, etc etc

Para 3 - But then has a positive impact on CBD by making them compete and regenerate (eg b'ham and solihull)

Para 4 - Talked about the transport of the centres, how they lead to blocked roads, and destruction of housing in the case of Merry Hill

Para 5 - Environmental issues associated with that and how it affects the areas if you think of CRC energy efficiency scheme (which is actually for companies not cities but hey ho it still works. . . kinda ) and that then costs the area loads with all the extra pollution

Para 6 - said how they do provide jobs for the local area so they lessen their negative impact a little

Conc - i cant actually remember what I put for this so much . . .

Anyways I know that was kinda a lot of info buttt I LOVED THAT ESSAY! was the best possible one that could come apart from global warming. So what did you put in yours??

Yeah I did on decentralisation
I thought it was an okay question

I wrote about out of town retailing and how that developed from inner cities to out of town over the past 30 years
I inlcuded examples as well
and then i wrote about businesses moving out and how bad the inner cities got

what did you write about
don't think i did a lot not enough for the marks

well err, mine was 2 and a half sides

Your sounds ACE! best of luck
I wrote
paragraph 1 - discussed change in retail, how it shifted to suburban areas in 1970s due to lower land costs and more space

paragraph 2 - positive affect in that reduced congestion into the CBD due to regional centers catering for a wide area - my example was Merry Hill

paragraph 3 - positive effect in leading to regeneration of CBDs that experienced urban decline - my example was Solihull and the Touchwood Center

paragraph 4(tiny paragraph) - spoke about how these centers offer a diverse range of activities such as leisure and sport, which somehow enhance lives (what a load of crap) - my example was the Trafford Center

paragraph 5 - negative effect in causing the decline of CBD - my example was Wolverhampton

paragraph 6 - negative effect as towns lose their function when regenerated, as many high streets are converted into housing - my example was Margate

paragraph 7 - spoke about the environmental positives of out of town retail, as many of these centers have lower energy usage than urban units, but also about how this may condemn town center retail in the UK - my example was Bluewater

and then an obvious conclusion

Thanks!! And yours sounds brilliant! I really really like the sound of your last two paragraphs as well, they're things that I've never even thought of so I hope you get credit for them being all cool

I hope you get the grades you need as well! Eek, good luck to us!!

This is my first time sitting it and im so nervous
I have done a tiny amount but i have had exams all this week so going to start tomorrow and get everything done then.
how much have you done? you have any notes?
do you know why people did so bad?

Im not really sure, we got two papers back and it was because they had done to much 'lifting' from the pre-release and not answered the question with enough evaluation and understanding.

not a lot, I have also had exams, just been looking at the websites so far and making sure i know whats in the pre-release, also looked at some possible ways of presenting the data given. can you think of any possible questions? or ways to revise?

Yours sounds good! I wrote what I did in another response just below

that sounds good!

I did the same for the first question and then voting, planning permission and then added in about local, national and regional conflict

Environmental we did Arab-Israeli conflict

mine was completely different but yours was so much better!

i basically didn't know what the asian tigers were if im honest haha because i missed that lesson (god this makes me sound so stupid! but im predicted an A*, err anyway :P)

basically said that the global economy is wherever the TNCs are, said three facts about TNCs that stated why they were important plus an example, then made a sweeping paragraph about how asian tiger countries are now too rich for TNCs to operate in so they cannot exploit cheap labour - made up a GDP per capita figure for Hong Kong, next paragraph said its all about BRIC economies and oil-rich countries such as Dubai - TNCs can get a good customer base there so they operate there as providers of goods then said about FDI in China and Brazil by Coca Cola

as you can see, i waffled through the essay with just tiny specifics (Y)

Yours sounds awesome too honestly haha it just shows that maybe theres two conclusions to that answer which is a good thing! and yeah excellent dont think i mentioned the word 'bric' instead used China and India and 3rd gen nics and referred to mexico, dubai and brazil separately. but sounds good, i think the examiners will be nice with marking that question as obviously its quite hard given the time limit

Was i the only one that did the Weather and Climate 40 marker? I wrote 2 pages after literally regujitating all the facts about ITCZ pressure cells and wet dry seasons, temps, rainfall, wind etc ?? im still confused as how they will mark that as a 40 marker as there isnt much you can say besides the pressure cells move up and down following the position of the over head sun then give the conditions at each and say how those conditions (low pressure and anticyclonic conditions) give the characterisitics of the savanna region

I talked about how the ITCZ and the high air pressure creates the climate in SE Asia and gave diagrams. I also talked about tropical cyclones which occur which are caused by the ITCZ and the sub tropical anticyclones.

What about you?