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AQA GCE Geography Unit 3- 7th June 2013

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Original post by ElChapo
It might be okay assuming that everyone does 4A but not everyone does. Also even if you do know unit 4A, its the fourth unit so you shouldnt expect it in the 3rd unit if we're looking at the numbers here so I don't think a synoptic argument can really be made... It was just a tough question, you could still make comments without understanding Mann Whitney tough


I was told that everyone needs to know all skills and that any could come up from the list from 3 and 4A - no idea whether that's from the syllabus or not, though. Anything could come up in 3 and 4A from the skills list, so while it was a surprise, I don't think they've done anything wrong by doing it as some people seem to have been suggesting.

But yes, you could still make comments without understanding MWU. I think I only wrote 1 of my 3 points on the actual MWU result.
Hi all,

For the D&G essay I wrote mainly about Africa. I started off by describing the characteristics of these countries at low levels of development and went on to talk about the issues they face (e.g. Corrupt governments, land locking, blocking of imports by trading blocs and climate issues). I then went on to talk about aid and the different forms/different ways of spending it (bilateral/multilateral, bottom up/top down etc) I also wrote about how some MEDCs will provide financial aid to produce infrastructure but on the terms that they use contractors from that MEDC. I then wrote quite a bit about trade and the issues they face (again land locking and problems importing into traing blocs). After that I wrote a bit about MEDCs putting advisers into African governments (I.e the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative).

I concluded by saying that these countries had experienced the world develop around them and I said that they now lack the economies, politic and international relations to compete in the global market and that ultimately they need the support of MEDCs and Trading Blocs to stand a chance of development.

Do you think this was along the right lines for what the question was asking and do you think this wa a strong essay structure/foundation?
Original post by clonedmemories
I was told that everyone needs to know all skills and that any could come up from the list from 3 and 4A - no idea whether that's from the syllabus or not, though. Anything could come up in 3 and 4A from the skills list, so while it was a surprise, I don't think they've done anything wrong by doing it as some people seem to have been suggesting.

But yes, you could still make comments without understanding MWU. I think I only wrote 1 of my 3 points on the actual MWU result.

MWU is A2 Skills though not AS, so maybe if it was like Spearmans Rank or Standard Deviation that'd be acceptable
Reply 3223
I suppose its true that synoptic charts come up in Unit 3
Reply 3224
Original post by Ben1995a
Hi,

I did the d & g question but I seriously worried about what my mark will be. I started off by writing about the development continuum and the classification of the ldc in 1968 followed by a definition of it and then developed some more on typical characteristics. In the bulk of the essay I wrote about trade, and putting it into context with an example of Sudan and then spoke about aid, explained the forms and the types in a few sentences and gave several facts relating to Sudan. However, despite talking about both areas both case studies I criticised of not working... Does that make my paper unbalanced? As I was rushed the quality of my writing wasn't great either but it had key words like 'trickle down' 'cumulative causation' etc. I concluded by saying a combination of both is needed, but I didn't focus on the positives in my essay of aid and trade. What do people think? Can I get into the 20s at least?


OMG IM IN EXACTLY THE SAME POSITION AS YOU!! i got 180/200 at AS and need an A for uni! i did the d&g essay. i think you will deffo get above20 from what you wrote! im so worried though i literally just spoke about aid and nothing on trade as i ran out of time and wrote2 pages on just grass roots aid so mine was really imbalanced and i saw a markscheme and max you can get if they think its not balaced is 20 so im soooo worried.im justhoping my structered qs were ok, but i the world cities and tectonis 7 marker were sh**! how were your stuctered qs??
does anyone know what 55ums roughly equates to as a raw mark?
(edited 10 years ago)
Original post by ElChapo
It might be okay assuming that everyone does 4A but not everyone does. Also even if you do know unit 4A, its the fourth unit so you shouldnt expect it in the 3rd unit if we're looking at the numbers here so I don't think a synoptic argument can really be made... It was just a tough question, you could still make comments without understanding Mann Whitney tough


It was a reasonable question to put in.
I did unit 4A in January and unit 3 yesterday, so just because number 4 comes after 3 doesn't meant they can't use skills from there in our content exam. That's the whole point of the 7 markers being a skills question.
I know some people do 4B and not 4A, however skills are on the syllabus for unit 3 otherwise they wouldn't ask a question on it.
Original post by Sophster101
It was a reasonable question to put in.
I did unit 4A in January and unit 3 yesterday, so just because number 4 comes after 3 doesn't meant they can't use skills from there in our content exam. That's the whole point of the 7 markers being a skills question.
I know some people do 4B and not 4A, however skills are on the syllabus for unit 3 otherwise they wouldn't ask a question on it.

A2 Skills is not on the specification for Unit 3, and I dont know what other subjects you do but in all of my other subjects - Maths for example, they cant ask you C4 questions in C3 as C4 is the fourth unit, meaning you learn it last, so it'd be unfair to be tested on something before you've learnt it. The fact that its Geog4a that MWU comes from it would make sense that you aren't expected to know unit 4 in unit 3, the same way at AS you're expected to know unit 1 to answer some questions in unit 2, it doesn't work the other way round.
MWU was really harsh.
Original post by SamEastie
does anyone know what 55ums roughly equates to as a raw mark?


Like a D/E :P I think its an E - is this for unit 3?

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Original post by ElChapo
A2 Skills is not on the specification for Unit 3, and I dont know what other subjects you do but in all of my other subjects - Maths for example, they cant ask you C4 questions in C3 as C4 is the fourth unit, meaning you learn it last, so it'd be unfair to be tested on something before you've learnt it. The fact that its Geog4a that MWU comes from it would make sense that you aren't expected to know unit 4 in unit 3, the same way at AS you're expected to know unit 1 to answer some questions in unit 2, it doesn't work the other way round.


The principle of what you say is correct, but what you say about geography and skills is a load of crap.

It doesn't actually come under Unit 4A. It actually comes under skills checklist, which means it can come up in any unit of A2, read the specification (3.6), it is very clear. It states A2 not specifically 4A, very clever writing in the specification.

I went in to AQA after the exam was sat and got to read through the paper, was hard paper in parts, but it was all within the specification and within what you needed to know for unit 3.
(edited 10 years ago)
Original post by study ninja
does anyone have any idea what the diagram on the ecosystems short question was?


I don't know if anyone has answered this, but I'm fairly sure it was an area of rainforest that had been cleared for mining. It wasn't very clear though.

I thought the paper was pretty good, all the things I wanted to come up came up. I (unlike most of you guys) am glad there was a ten marker on urban routeways, cause my teacher really drilled that topic into me.
(edited 10 years ago)
Original post by ToxicBadger
I don't know if anyone has answered this, but I'm fairly sure it was an area of rainforest that had been cleared for mining. It wasn't very clear though.

I thought the paper was pretty good, all the things I wanted to come up came up. I (unlike most of you guys) am glad there was a ten marker on urban routeways, cause my teacher really drilled that topic into me.


I thought routeway was a nice one too :smile:! I hope it went well, I wrote as much as I could remember...

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I wrote about railway lines, roads and a bit about canals. I think I wrote enough for ten marks, and it's the sort of question where you can basically just write out stuff from the textbook.

It was a 10 mark question on a very specific and small part of the course though, so I can see why some people might have hated it.
Hi guys
Thought the exam was fairly reasonable. Two questions that threw me a bit was the 7 mark question on the Tectonics structured questions on the Man-Whitney U test which I believe a lot of people had trouble with. The 8 mark question on World Cities also threw me as I had not even come across any questions like that before so I hope I've written enough relevant information to at least get a low level 2 answer.
For the essay I chose the Weather and Climate essay on Global Warming as I'd done a very similar essay in class. I split Al Gore's argument into three parts : Are global temperatures increasing. Are humans causing this rise in temperatures and Should we do something about it. Went on to talk about the greenhouse effect. Evidence for global warming(Ice cores, radiocarbon dating, seafloor analysis, cave paintings). Other periods of warming (Boreal period) and other causes of Global Warming (Milankovitch cycles, earth's tilt, volcanoes, sunspot activity). Then a small paragraph on the possible effects and why some countries might want to take action (stronger hurricanes, economic loss, etc) and other countries which may not (easier to extract oil, tourism). Concluded by addressing each part of the quote and using my own opinion. I tried to write a really good essay to make up for marks lost in the structured questions but only time will tell I guess. Good luck everybody and I hope you all get what you need come results day :P
Reply 3235
Original post by emah123
OMG IM IN EXACTLY THE SAME POSITION AS YOU!! i got 180/200 at AS and need an A for uni! i did the d&g essay. i think you will deffo get above20 from what you wrote! im so worried though i literally just spoke about aid and nothing on trade as i ran out of time and wrote2 pages on just grass roots aid so mine was really imbalanced and i saw a markscheme and max you can get if they think its not balaced is 20 so im soooo worried.im justhoping my structered qs were ok, but i the world cities and tectonis 7 marker were sh**! how were your stuctered qs??


My structured were ok, did tectonics and world cities but not incredible. Even tho I have spoken about both areas tho surely my essay is also Imbalanced if I haven't really focused on many positives of them. I said trade for Sudan allowed it to go from agriculture to oil in 1990s and has built up a trade deficit but benefits are in the hands of just a few as 80 per cent of employment is still in agriculture and for aid I said that the money given to Uganda has simply been squandered/stolen by governed officials so didn't really say much in the way of good stuff about either...
Original post by SamEastie
does anyone know what 55ums roughly equates to as a raw mark?


Prob 31-32/90 Raw for this exam.
Reply 3237
Anyone whos does 4B and gots high marks in, care to share any tips and tricks? :smile:
Original post by St. Brynjar
MWU was really harsh.


Agreed. I hope they bring the grade boundaries down for that this year :/
Anyone who done plate tectonics essay pleaseee pm meeeeee

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