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GCSE Geography Coursework Word Limit?

Hello All,

This is my first post here.

I think I'm doing Edexcel GCSE geography (higher) and we are in the middle of doing our coursework.

Today we have just been told about a 2000 word limit half way through doing it. So up to do I have done my "purpose of study" and "methods of data collection" and I have already done 2100 plus words.

And I've been told if we go over 2200 words we will be penalized for doing so. So now I have the task of shortening 2100 words to around 500 because its only part of my coursework.

I'm working towards and A* in geography and I feel that it's going to be near impossible to turn 2100 words into 500 words and still get an A*. It's even more annoying that we have just been told about this half way though the coursework!

Should I just do my coursework to a good quality, A* standard I have done already and breach the 2200 word limit and probably go to around 3000+ and get penalized? Or shorten 2100 words to 500 which I don't think I can do.

This is a big bombshell on my entire coursework and It's aggravated me and many other people.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 1

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Reply 2

clareramos

from Edexcel website for GCSE Geography A:

Students are required to produce around 2000 words. A student’s word
total may be 10% either side of the 2000 word limit. All words, including
tables, graphs, quotations and references must be included in the
word total. Students must sign the Controlled assessment record sheet
(Appendix 4) to confirm that they have met the word limit requirement.

It's been that for years and is publicly available to see.

I would say you are actually waffling if you've done that amount already, you can very easily if you are precise with what you say you can do 500 words.

A* is very doable, it is all about writing what is important and not waffling. By the length of your post, is most probably waffling that is stopping you.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 3

arranrice

Update: I have managed to do it all under the word limit

Reply 4

clareramos

Original post by arranrice

Update: I have managed to do it all under the word limit

good. very doable word limit for what is required. Don't get how you would of ever been massively over without waffling.

Reply 5

Chalk.dust

As someone working on the same coursework I've devised a neat little system.
Taking the word limit as 2200 (its the max for this board, and I tend to push these things), I allocated each section of the piece a portion of the word count proportional to the portion of marks. For example, section A (the 'purpose' of investigation) is worth 6 marks for this piece, out of 44 for all the written part ('planning and organisation' of course taking no marks). This makes it around 14% of the piece, and so it gets 13.6136136...% of the word count, here coming to exactly 300 words.

As for keeping word count down, I too struggle at that and I find the best method is to try and focus on the role of the section. For example, in section A I went into much too much detail on the specifics of each factor, when all that was needed was an outline of the area. While calling it waffling sounds harsh, its perfectly possible to get A*'s with considerably under word count, as long as the words you do use are very carefully focused on their purpose. In the introduction, you should not have to give examples, for instance.