Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

Revising methods for geography?

Compare to all my other subjects Maths and sciences, geography would be the subject that is an essay based exam.

Its always been clear what I had to revise for things such as C1-C2 or Chemistry Unit 2. Theres are books which pretty much covers everything in the exams. However when it comes to geography... the vast amount of information.

Where do you even begin with such a subject?
Do you just revise through the countless and countless case studies or can there actually be a plan behind revision for such a subject?

Reply 1

Montrose

For essay subjects in general (I didn't do Geography I did similar), my first port of call was to look at past exam papers and the syllabus. From that, you can then organise your notes into what is useful and what isn't - it should be pretty obvious what you can use in an exam. The technique which then worked for me was simply reading my notes over and over, and committing key points to memory. However I am aware I have a very good memory and for some people more practical work is required i.e. writing essay plans, activities etc.

Reply 2

alex p

i had the same problems myself when doing it, as there are no obvious things. allways make sure you can quote case studies easily, thats one of the most important parts.

otherwise its just knowing general things like urban to rural migration. as long as you know the general theories youll be fine. though they should be based on sustainable development, cause thats what they really want from it, depending on which paper youre doing. nat hazards is an easy one to revise for, its mainly the synoptic thats a bugger.

Reply 3

bumblebee16

i found that there are a number of key bits to learn to do well. make sure you are really confident on all the theory and models etc. this can all be learned in a similar way to science and maths. then make sure you have a range of case studies to exemplify all the important bits of theory and a few case studies that are all purpose and cover more than one topic that you are very familiar with eg a local example, just in case they throw a different slant on a topic/theory. do a few practise essays and you'll be laughing by exam time....
good luck with it all!

Reply 4

Alpott

Don't forget your Case Studies! Every important!

Reply 5

sahsum

Hey, i got hold of the syllabus and literally went through every bullet point on it making sure I had sufficient notes and case studies. After having collected a good set of notes it was just a case of Reading them through lots of times. For certain things I felt were key points I simplified them onto flash cards so I could have a quick glimpse on the way to the exam etc Also make sure you look over past exam papers, and even through essays you've written yourself that you did well in cos questions may always be similar, and case studies can often be applied to more than one topic.

Reply 6

**kaye**

hey,
my teacher always talks about 'banker' questions - the questions that 99% of the time turn up. The best way to find out which are the bankers is to look over past papers and identify the same/similar questions that always come up. This is usually a good starting point! Then with case studies, its pretty useful to brainstorm all you know about them and decide where the gaps in your knowledge lie...and then go to revision books/teachers/notes for more info. Just before your exam its really useful to do a few practice papers so you know that your timing is spot on and to collect your thoughts together. It is also useful at this stage to think of possible intro's and facts you can put in to save you time in the exam if something along those lines comes up.