Is geography A-Level easy?

Or is it considered a hard subject? Because GCSE was easy.

Personally, I don't find the subject too easy. It takes a lot of hard work on my part and many extra hours of extra work in order to me to achieve the grade that I want. I suppose it depends on if you have the mind for it. Applying the basic theory is easy, it's just remembering the large quantity of information that's the most difficult part. Because no-one can know what questions you're going to be asked, you need to revise the entire unit in depth, case study by case study, key term by key term and know them religiously. Once you understand and know everything you need to, the application of that knowledge is easy.

AS is probably harder than A2 in terms of the exam, although the AQA A2 exam is 2 1/2 hours long, you only have to answer questions on 3 of the 4 units that you have studied (in my case; Plate Tectonics, Development and Globalisation, Weather & Climate, and World Cities) leaving room for a weaker subject. But it does rely solely on the questions and which you find easiest to answer.

Reply 2

multiplexing-gamer

OP

15

Original post by Shayn

Personally, I don't find the subject too easy. It takes a lot of hard work on my part and many extra hours of extra work in order to me to achieve the grade that I want. I suppose it depends on if you have the mind for it. Applying the basic theory is easy, it's just remembering the large quantity of information that's the most difficult part. Because no-one can know what questions you're going to be asked, you need to revise the entire unit in depth, case study by case study, key term by key term and know them religiously. Once you understand and know everything you need to, the application of that knowledge is easy.

AS is probably harder than A2 in terms of the exam, although the AQA A2 exam is 2 1/2 hours long, you only have to answer questions on 3 of the 4 units that you have studied (in my case; Plate Tectonics, Development and Globalisation, Weather & Climate, and World Cities) leaving room for a weaker subject. But it does rely solely on the questions and which you find easiest to answer.

What did you get at gcse?

Reply 3

Smalley

I got an A at geography in GCSE, and for me the A-level isn't too awful.
The courses are very similar, the only major differences is we covered glaciation in AS and the skills paper in A2 and there wasn't much like it in GCSE.
Globalisation we hadn't done at GCSE, so we had to cover everything, but once you know the basic information it is just a matter of learning case studies to argue your point

We had an essay about 'Is poverty the real killer in Earthquake disasters', and you just had to put down earthquake events in an MEDC and LEDC, then argue about buidling quality, disease from contaminated water, aid from other countries...
It is all just about learning case studies and some general info on the topic, then you just have to choose the best to argue with.

Reply 4

Shayn

Original post by multiplexing-gamer

What did you get at gcse?

I got an B at GCSE.

Reply 5

Dracoia

I got an A at GCSE but A level (more A2 than AS) is a lot harder. Its what im doing at uni so Im kinda throwing myself at it lol its hard but enjoyable =]

Reply 6

street.lovin'

17

Easy concepts. But the exams are so time pressured!!!!

Reply 7

Shayn

Original post by Dracoia

I got an A at GCSE but A level (more A2 than AS) is a lot harder. Its what im doing at uni so Im kinda throwing myself at it lol its hard but enjoyable =]

I'm exactly the same. Haha. Even though it is hard I do find it really fun to do. :biggrin:

Reply 8

Zottula

16

If you put the effort in to learn the stuff and learn your case studies it is not too bad. I enjoyed A level Geography. The A level is much more difficult than the GCSE though.

Reply 9

Heyimdec

8

I got a B at GCSE.

I find AS level quite easy so far, been getting A's in the mocks :smile:

Hopefully A2 won't get really difficult as I like the level we're working at now :colondollar:

Reply 10

Steelie

AS geog is pretty straightforward if you put the effort in. A2 is definitely harder, or at least it was for me (was with WJEC). Still got an A* though so who knows.

Incidentally I'm also doing geog at uni. It's what all the cool kids choose.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 11

becomingbindy

10

I assure you the A-Level's not easy, particularly the A2. It's not particularly difficult to understand but there's a lottt of information and case studies to learn, so you need a really good memory (or work really hard to remember everything).

In general, GCSEs are pretty easy... from my experience I found all of my A Levels a lot, lot harder than the same subject GCSEs. I mean you expect them to be harder, but I thought the jump from one to the other in Year 12 was massive.

Reply 12

Architecture-er

19

Original post by multiplexing-gamer

Or is it considered a hard subject? Because GCSE was easy.

You need to be able to write like a boss in the exam.

I didn't find it too hard because I prefer understanding a subject rather than memorising loads of stuff, so geographical processes (which are fairly logical) were easy to get my head around.

It's a LOT of work, but the content itself isn't particularly challenging, if that makes sense.

Probably going to get a lot of opinionated neg warriors in this thread - oh well.

Reply 13

alice24

Well i got an A* at GCSE found it very easy as most of it was common knowledge and then all you had to learn was the case studies

However i am now doing geog AS and it is a lot harder, its more like science which lots of key terms to learn (LOADS) and for my glaciation topic i have 20 landforms to learn!!! You have to change the way you write your answers aswell, the simple repsonses that you could put at GCSE are no use, i had to change this loads just to get any marks

So it is harder, different and more work but i think that applies to every a-level going. My advice would be to check the topics ure going to do for a-level and check you like them cause i absoutly hate glactiation!

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 14

Dracoia

Original post by Heyimdec

I got a B at GCSE.

I find AS level quite easy so far, been getting A's in the mocks :smile:

Hopefully A2 won't get really difficult as I like the level we're working at now :colondollar:

A2 is a LOT harder lol good luck =]

Reply 15

jaet1989

Original post by multiplexing-gamer

Or is it considered a hard subject? Because GCSE was easy.

Yes, it is easy. No, it is not considered a hard subject.

Reply 16

jthmpsn

If you are doing hard alevels as well at Alevel geography feels so much easier.
As level is just basically population and rivers from Gcse with a little more depth and case studies more depth. Then two other topics such as cold envrioments and food supply which are not as easy

Reply 17

Jack Dolan

12

I personally find it easy - definitely the easiest out of my AS subjects. I got 100% in my Unit 2 exam in Jan, and I'm pretty sure this one on Tuesday will be absolutely fine. I think people are exaggerating a little, there aren't actually that many case studies you need to know, (about 15 max), and you can second guess the exam a bit anyway. Coupled with ridiculously grade boundaries, I believe that Geography's an A-Level that's very easy to get a good grade in, provided you have some degree of common sense. I got an A* at GCSE