[tadzingoo]

HEY. Im in the process of choosing my A levels, and I am seriously considering Geography even though i couldnt do it for GCSE because of timetabling problems.
Is this possible/advisable (i'm aiming for A/A*s at A level) ?
Honestly, i'm interested in geography because of the physical geography stuff; not that keen on the "my local area" or populations, but a bit of that stuff won't bother me. How much of a disadvantage would i be at not having done it at GCSE?

CHEERS

[IslandMan]

I didn't do the GCSE and I did fine in fact better than a lot of the people who did do the GCSE

[HotfireLegend]

Not too much, to be honest. Most of my AS was recapping GCSE and I averaged 84.5%.

[ihateocr]

Geography's a great subject, if it wasn't for me taking it at A level I wouldn't be on my way to study geology at university. It's a very useful and broad subject.
(I didn't take it at GCSE either and I got a B for my AS level which was 1 mark off an A so it didn't inhibit me)

[emma.bcx]

I took geography AS, waiting for the results in august... I was going to drop it next year buti honestly enjoyed it so much that i'm keeping it... I also took gcse but to be honest I don't think its reallynecessary to have gcse. Definately recommended!

[With an Accent]

I took AS geography with no knowledge of GCSE - I got full marks in one exam and an A in the other, it'll be fine!

Even if you had done GCSE (some were doing it simultaneously because they were accelerated students in year 11), you wouldn't have had any advantage on our board - you just had to learn all of the case studies anyway, and the physical stuff bore no resemblance to GCSE.

This might be different, for instance, if your school is doing AQA Rivers and the Cold Environments or Coasts options, since these are covered at GCSE - some students might have a leg up on river profiles and whatnot. But I have a revision guide which covers all of these topics and it doesn't look that hard to learn. I actually did learn the rivers, cold environments and food supply issues topics from the book before I knew which school I was going to do geography at, and they were fascinating! But no prior knowledge was needed, and it's not that hard, just lots to memorise.

[clareramos]

it varies on people, and on here you will likely get the people that did very well, but that's due to the type of person likely to be on here. However I've seen people do awful at A Level as they maybe haven't done to well when they did KS3 so a lot of it they find hard to grasp, mainly due to terms used and the detail you have to go in for some of it.

Would say though give it a go, if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out, least you have given it a go.

[AdamHanrahan]

Most people dont find any problems in not having done GCSE Geography. You can even go and do it at uni without ever having done it before! As long as you have a good memory for details for your case studies and you're a good essay writer(in particular for A2) you should be fine. However, the human and physical geography sections are equally weighted and not minding doing a 'bit of that stuff might not be enough, however, in my experience, most people cam to prefer human geography over the course of the AS and those that didnt still enjoyed it! I did AQA A but most exam boards are the same for topics covered and such etc.

Plus, you should give Geography a go because its undersubscribed and more people should do it! But I just say that because I want to be a Geography teacher! It's a great subject and everyone I know who took it enjoyed it!

[JackJack]

I think for anyone to say having not done GCSE geography is not advantageous, would be lying. I don't think anyone on my A-level course doing geography, didn't opt to do it at GCSE. A lot of the GCSE content will be carried over to AS, and I actually found a lot of the river case studies useful for my A-level course which I already knew, so simply just applied it in the exam.

[clareramos]

(Original post by AdamHanrahan)
Most people dont find any problems in not having done GCSE Geography. You can even go and do it at uni without ever having done it before! As long as you have a good memory for details for your case studies and you're a good essay writer(in particular for A2) you should be fine. However, the human and physical geography sections are equally weighted and not minding doing a 'bit of that stuff might not be enough, however, in my experience, most people cam to prefer human geography over the course of the AS and those that didnt still enjoyed it! I did AQA A but most exam boards are the same for topics covered and such etc.

Plus, you should give Geography a go because its undersubscribed and more people should do it! But I just say that because I want to be a Geography teacher! It's a great subject and everyone I know who took it enjoyed it!

There are slight differences in the exam boards.

That last statement is AWFUL if you were a teacher and said that to people you wouldn't get more people, you'd get less.