geography GCSE 2015

Hey guys, my Geography(OCR) exams are pretty much around the corner and I'm feeling the pressure. I really want to do geography at A level but I'm seriously having second thoughts because I'm struggling with the SDME papers (OCR) and coming out with lower grades than I would have liked in order to carry it on at college. This year it's on economic development and we just had our last geography lesson on Friday before the exam and have only gotten through half of the economic development topic.

I was wondering if anyone has any tips or predictions on the SDME this year. I know this isn't a good way to go about it but I'm starting to panic and focusing my revision on particular topics would help thanks in advance

Hi!

I'm doing Geography GCSE (OCR) aswell, and I struggled a lot with the SDMEs, so much so my overall grade was being lowered from an A* to a C/D. It is on economic development but I think they will focus more on Aid, as there hasn't been a single SDME about it yet. The only other paper to look at to do with economic development is June 2010 (I recommend looking at that, for the types of questions and how to layout the final answer), but the structure of ours is only the same as the Jun 2014 paper (I highly recommend taking a look at that)

As well, learn to develop answers. This means using Level 1,2 and 3 answers. A lot of the time they don't give marks for lots of level 1 answers.

eg)

Level 1: They use 5 litres of water. They take up land etc

It's better to develop the answer then write the consequences for people affected down.

Level 1 (Point): They use 5 litres of water
Level 2 (Point + Develop): They use 5 litres of water, which is contaminated from production use and put back into the local's water system
Level 3 (Point + Develop, then consequence): They use 5 litres of water, which is contaminated from production use and put back into the local's water system, showing how the MNC don't care about the local people.

Finally, learn key words! You don't have to do a case study as such so you don't need loads of numbers and facts, but learn some good words (Exponential growth, factors involving money and people etc).
Hope this helps

Mo

Well done

The structure is ever so slightly different - for the exams before 2014 you would receive the resource booklet three weeks or so before the exam, so there were more resources and you could get to know them before the exam. Therefore there were also more questions.

Now, you get the booklet on the day, but there is allocated time to read it. It's shorter in size, so instead of having more questions you'd have less that were worth slightly more.

Therefore, the first questions will be in slightly more detail but refer to less sources, and the final SDME exercise will cover 3 points, not 4 (that's what we've been told)

Hope this helps,
Mo

Thanks that's very helpful, one more question will we have to spend all 30 minutes reading or can we begin to write during that time

It's a shame it wasn't on Aid, how did you all find it?

It was pretty rubbish. So boring as it was all about the UK, I didn't use much of my own knowledge and I don't think I have my A

I know, I'd spent ages revising AID, for none of it to be useful :\ That was more settlement than economic development...

Mo

For the 16 marker some of my friends insist it only asked for economic sustainability but I talked about all three (social environmental and economic) but the least about economic so if that really was the case I've done even worse than I think.

Yeah, I tried to mention all of them :\

Mo

How did you find today's exam?

It was better than I thought it would be thanks, I'm very happy with how the exam went Hopefully that'll make up for my not-so-good SDME and coursework. How about you?

Mo