AQA GCE Geography Unit 3- 7th June 2013

The Jan 2013 essay question for tectonics was:

"Natural disasters are often not natural disasters, but are in fact human disasters."
(AQA Geography Student - June 2010)

Discuss this statement in relation to seismic events.

how did you do at AS?

I don't understand how you can answer this question. Does it want you to discuss management? That's the only way to answer it that I can see.

I don't understand how you can answer this question. Does it want you to discuss management? That's the only way to answer it that I can see.

Does anyone know how to work out what they need to get in the exam based on last years results? Trying to work it out and I'm getting confused with UMS and raw marks


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In januarys paper it was 37/90 raw marks for a D

i originally got a E bad times then re-sat in jan and gained a C!

That low? Damn haha

I got 37/40 on it, and I went around it like this.

I used the examples of Japan Tsunami and the Haiti Earthquake.

Japan, the most advanced country in the world, technologically supreme to everyone. Fantastic warning / alert system, instant army deployment (within a few minutes), mass evacuations blah blah blah. 20,000 still died.

Haiti, poorest in western hemisphere, total car wreck of a nation. Even with foresight (geologists warned that there would be a earthquake) they could do nothing. 200,000 dead.

But what we really have to see here, is the capacity to cope.

Japan, even though it was capable to cope, couldn't save everyone. 40% of coastline has 10m high walls? What more could Japan have possible done to avert the 20,000 deaths? Nothing. Because nothing beats 30m high waves. Japan was a natural disaster. Wasn't preventable

Haiti on the other hand was a human disaster. Those 200,000 wouldn't have died if they even had semi-good buildings, Japan regularly gets 7.0 magnitude earthquakes and they are semi-chilled about those. 7.0s? They get one of those almost every year. You see Japan losing so many lives?

Lots of talk about other factors:

Magnitude of the earthquake. (7.0 / 9.0 etc)
Time of day / season. (Japan in Winter, afternoon, haiti in early evening, hindered response).
Capacity to cope. <-

Compare specifically economic/social/political differences with reference to the capacity to cope between my case studies (unlock mega synopticity marks).

Nice big long conclusion to round it off.

Yeah, it was only 63/90 for an A* aswell. They always seem to be pretty low grade boundries

I don't understand how you can answer this question. Does it want you to discuss management? That's the only way to answer it that I can see.

I'm having tonight off, then it's three days solid revision!

how'd ur exam go?

mate, I got like 2 hours sleep - the first question was really nice and I think I did okay - the second question was diabolical - the sources, essay and everything was just a mess arghhhh

Yeahh i am but im just gonna leave it till the last 3 days and cram it. Im just gonna do a lot of background research, make notes, revise the notes, annotate the graphs and thats all you can really do....

:/, hopefully you did alright. did you need to do well in it?

I got 37/40 on it, and I went around it like this.

I used the examples of Japan Tsunami and the Haiti Earthquake.

Japan, the most advanced country in the world, technologically supreme to everyone. Fantastic warning / alert system, instant army deployment (within a few minutes), mass evacuations blah blah blah. 20,000 still died.

Haiti, poorest in western hemisphere, total car wreck of a nation. Even with foresight (geologists warned that there would be a earthquake) they could do nothing. 200,000 dead.

But what we really have to see here, is the capacity to cope.

Japan, even though it was capable to cope, couldn't save everyone. 40% of coastline has 10m high walls? What more could Japan have possible done to avert the 20,000 deaths? Nothing. Because nothing beats 30m high waves. Japan was a natural disaster. Wasn't preventable

Haiti on the other hand was a human disaster. Those 200,000 wouldn't have died if they even had semi-good buildings, Japan regularly gets 7.0 magnitude earthquakes and they are semi-chilled about those. 7.0s? They get one of those almost every year. You see Japan losing so many lives?

Lots of talk about other factors:

Magnitude of the earthquake. (7.0 / 9.0 etc)
Time of day / season. (Japan in Winter, afternoon, haiti in early evening, hindered response).
Capacity to cope. <-

Compare specifically economic/social/political differences with reference to the capacity to cope between my case studies (unlock mega synopticity marks).

Nice big long conclusion to round it off.