What's A level Geography like?

Thank you.To all the sixth forms i applied to,none of them does WJEC for sure!(They do either AQA/OCR/Edexcel although both sixth form's haven't revealed a exam board yet,the decision is impending)

And for everything else

At a college i went to (a really inadequate one+ i wouldn't be suited for the disgusting environment) they did WJEC for English A level,i asked them "Why WJEC as opposed to AQA/OCR/Edexcel" and they said "When Univeristies look at candidates,if a candidate has done WJEC,since not many schools do WJEC as a exam board,it will make the student look better"

#FacePalm

Hi.I currently get A* in Geography.I'm also quite good at essay writing
Anyways,how is Geography like at A level>
Also,is there a human side to it(like at gcse)

I'm currently in year 13 and doing A-level geography with OCR. I felt as though AS was really similar to GCSE, with the only difference being there was a 25 mark question in each exam. However, they're not hard to adapt to as the majority of your marks come from answering the question directly and relies a lot on your case study knowledge. There was a human and physical exam, each worth 50% of the grade.

A2 is all about forming your own argument throughout the 30 mark essays you have to write. Everything revolves around evaluation, rather than case study knowledge as now that's just pretty much assumed. Also, human and physical geography is mixed at this level. There's also a geographical skills component which tests knowledge is investigations.

However, the OCR spec is changing this September I believe so it will all be a bit different. I saw the topics you get to study though, you have some modules on disease, climate change and oceans I believe. Although, you choose a certain number (I think 2/3) from a group to study for the exam. It looks really interesting though, I wish I would have gotten the chance to learn about a few of them.

Good luck with whatever happens though! Hope you do go on to do geography, you won't regret it in my opinion!


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Lotsa lotsa colouring in I'm guessing

Yes Case studies.I love them.I always get full marks on them

Only thing i hate about Geography is MAP SKILLS and stuff urghhhh

Also do you do coursework?Could you do it based on a Human topic(much better at that tbh)

Thanks btw.

There's not a whole lot of map work to be honest, they sometimes crop up in 4 mark questions at AS and 10 mark questions at A2 but nothing hard, they're usually fairly obvious. You do do coursework at A2 but it's not something that's handed in. We chose a question/hypothesis as a class (ours was physical but it can be human if you like) and carry out the investigation. You're then tested on the skills you learnt in a 90 minute exam called geographical skills, with some shorter questions on general knowledge of fieldwork and two 20 mark essays focused entirely on your investigation. I've attached a link to a geographical skills paper I'm actually answering at the moment if you want to have a flick through, as it really isn't difficult. You choose the question you want to answer from 1-3 and then have to answer 4 and 5. http://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/63893-question-paper-unit-f764-geographical-skills.pdf

Hope this helps and just ask if you have any more questions. However, remember the spec is changing this year so I don't even know if geographical skills will still be in place. However, there will definitely be some sort of coursework/investigation skills component.

Also, you mentioned you love the case studies. How do you memorize them? I used to get full marks too but I'm struggling now as there's so many more and because they're longer. I'm on the hunt for a new revision strategy if you don't mind sharing. Thanks

Well tbh idk if my way will help you

Anyways i just read the case study and memorise the facts and statistics.A important thing i do is talk about the effects it has

btw my prospective school does AQA geography,yet i appreciate your OCR link

My case study(for GCSE) is out of 8 ..so its much easier then A2

Good luck on your A2

PS:What did you mean by the bold underlined part and i apologise if my advice isn't useful to you.BTW i recommend asking your teacher to mark your case studies?

The underlined part: We chose an investigation to carry out, and we did the entire thing but we didn't have to send anything we did, recorded or any of our conclusions to the exam board. All the exam board is interested in is what you learnt, which is assessed by the 90 minute exam. So you complete the coursework, but only for your benefit as it is not handed in.

I did the same at GCSE with the memorising. I wish it still worked but it gets confusing when you have around 60 case studies to learn at A2! Thanks though!

What do you get for Geo and which other alevels do you do

Do you have any tips for GCSE geography?Even though i get A*,albeit a low one,i still need help-i HATE physical(love Human and case studies though)

I got a B for AS geography, which I was really disappointed with in all honesty as I was getting straight A's in all of my mocks. I was two marks off an A though, I don't know whether that's better or worse to know though to be honest! I did geography along-side biology, chemistry and maths at AS but dropped chemistry before I started year 13 as I really struggled with it.

What A-levels are you thinking of taking? Physical was always my favourite (and still is!). For physical case studies at GCSE, I used to stick a picture of the coast/river/volcano in the middle of an A4 page and have the facts coming out of it as a spider diagram, after I kept going over them I was able to visualise the page in my head. To make it even easier, take a look at your spec and see exactly what they need you to know for each case study e.g. They might specify the impacts (split into primary and secondary for example) and maybe write a small paragraph for each point.
That's what I'd do for the case studies to learn them, and then it's all about practice, answer as many physical questions as possible and check them against the mark scheme as there's really only so many things they can ask. Practice is vital, really work on those physical questions!

Hope this helps


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