Edexcel Geography A2 Unit 4: Life on the Margins- 16th June 2016

Has anyone finished their report and doesn't mind sharing it (I will share mine too) so I can check if I need to cut down mine or leave it as it is.

Reply 42

fat95

As of yet, I still have no case studies for this exam and have absolutely no idea how to go about this exam. Please please, requesting help from anyone and everyone!

Reply 43

psycho_chicha

What case studies are people using for this paper in terms of famine/surplus? Struggling with the surplus side of things.

Reply 44

Original post by psycho_chicha

What case studies are people using for this paper in terms of famine/surplus? Struggling with the surplus side of things.

me 2 what case studies have you got so far?

Reply 45

dljthomo

Original post by fat95

As of yet, I still have no case studies for this exam and have absolutely no idea how to go about this exam. Please please, requesting help from anyone and everyone!

Mate...

If prepared for, this exam is probably the easiest of the lot. You may be over worrying. The best way to prepare for this is to do some research and literally write the report. I'm not sure what you're aiming for here but for an average grade you need to pull out about six case studies - ideally from geographical areas that have a complex range of issues.

As an example, one case study might be East Africa, it suffers from drought (environmental), suffers from decades of conflict (political), and is has a rapidly growing population (socio-economic).

Find evidence online from sources like Oxfam, World Bank, FAO (literally just google) for each issues. Then write up a mini conclusion explaining what you thing the biggest issue it.

You need to do something like that for each case study. You need to cover areas of surplus, and areas of deficit.

To give you a hand, here are some case studies that may be worth investigating:

Surplus

- Europe (Because of the Common Agricultural Policy)
- United States (similar to above - heavy subsidisation of food)
- Brazil (Because of organisations like Embrapa, and political initiatives like Fame Zero)
- Singapore (Second most food secure country, uses its wealth to invest in foreign food production)

Deficit

- East Africa (as discussed above)
- Haiti (Hazard hotspot - makes it impossible to grow agriculturally)
- Lake Chad - Climate change
- Zimbabwe this year - El Nino, but also political issues.

There are loads. Pick a few, do some research, write up a paragraph or two. Then at the end, write up a big conclusion.

In the actual exam, they are probably going to pick one of the things they have asked you to research (i.e. political, environmental, socio-economic) and something like:

To what extent are political factors the main reason for surplus and famine.

You then effectively write the same report on the day of the exam, but tweak your sub conclusions to address the actual question. So for example, you could still write about Haiti, but argue actually constant hurricanes are the the biggest issue.

The only other tip I can offer you is that you need to focus on food supply, not food insecurity generally. Food supply concerns mainly the distribution of food, and the production of food. You could possibly also include the price of food.

Finally - You also need to write up an introduction with some methods and conclusions. Maybe someone else can advise you on that because I haven't written mine yet. I'd also recommend using the edexcel website and looking at past papers. They have asked a very similar question in the past (I can'r remember which year, but they've only been doing this since 2009 so it shouldn't take you long to find it). If you review the examiners reports, you'll be able to see examples of good/bad answers.

Reply 46

Thebillionthoak

Does anybody have a definition of food supply/food supply inequality? I can't seem to find one

Reply 47

username1254695

OP

Original post by Thebillionthoak

Does anybody have a definition of food supply/food supply inequality? I can't seem to find one

This is how I plan to do it? I used the definitions given from previous mark schemes/examiners report

"Food supply can be defined as the production and distribution of food. Therefore inequality of food supply exists when some people do not have adequate physical, social or economic access to sufficient,safe and nutritious food which meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life (FAO, 1996) whilst others have plentiful supplies"

Original post by psycho_chicha

What case studies are people using for this paper in terms of famine/surplus? Struggling with the surplus side of things.

For famine I'm using Ethiopia, and for surplus I'm using China

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 48

Geograph

How is everyone doing their methodology - I'm so confused about what we have to do. Is it simply a methodology table or do we need to evaluate the sources we've used?

Reply 49

AdobeSlabs

Original post by Geograph

How is everyone doing their methodology - I'm so confused about what we have to do. Is it simply a methodology table or do we need to evaluate the sources we've used?

So we've been taught to do a methodology table with three columns:
1) type of source e.g. article, website
2) name of source e.g. CIA Worldfactbook, Wikipedia, BBC
3) evaluation of source

I think it's worth writing it out a few times so you can just quickly write it from memory in the exam rather than thinking about it too much, as it wont really change no matter the question.

Reply 50

AdobeSlabs

Any advice on how to do the framework? Our teacher told us to do a graph comparing food supply and development (LEDC etc) for our case studies but this seems to basic.

Reply 51

Guys a quick question, when looking at inequalities do you have to talk about why there is surplus in some countries and famine in others?

Reply 52

Geograph

Original post by AdobeSlabs

So we've been taught to do a methodology table with three columns:
1) type of source e.g. article, website
2) name of source e.g. CIA Worldfactbook, Wikipedia, BBC
3) evaluation of source

I think it's worth writing it out a few times so you can just quickly write it from memory in the exam rather than thinking about it too much, as it wont really change no matter the question.

Thanks so much, so helpful to know - my teacher is new and she has no idea what she is doing!!

Reply 53

aemd

7

What environmental factors cause a food surplus? Can't really find info or case studies for this factor

Reply 54

Curlot

4

Original post by aemd

What environmental factors cause a food surplus? Can't really find info or case studies for this factor

It is defintely a difficult one to find case studies on, but I have looked into Global warming (improving conditions and increasing the area avaliable for agriculture) and the Green/Gene Revolution (dramatically increased yields becuase of new techniques).
Hope this helps :smile:

Reply 55

Original post by Curlot

It is defintely a difficult one to find case studies on, but I have looked into Global warming (improving conditions and increasing the area avaliable for agriculture) and the Green/Gene Revolution (dramatically increased yields becuase of new techniques).
Hope this helps :smile:

do we need case studies of both surplus and famine which are caused by different factors??

Reply 56

fat95

Original post by dljthomo

Mate...

If prepared for, this exam is probably the easiest of the lot. You may be over worrying. The best way to prepare for this is to do some research and literally write the report. I'm not sure what you're aiming for here but for an average grade you need to pull out about six case studies - ideally from geographical areas that have a complex range of issues.

As an example, one case study might be East Africa, it suffers from drought (environmental), suffers from decades of conflict (political), and is has a rapidly growing population (socio-economic).

Find evidence online from sources like Oxfam, World Bank, FAO (literally just google) for each issues. Then write up a mini conclusion explaining what you thing the biggest issue it.

You need to do something like that for each case study. You need to cover areas of surplus, and areas of deficit.

To give you a hand, here are some case studies that may be worth investigating:

Surplus

- Europe (Because of the Common Agricultural Policy)
- United States (similar to above - heavy subsidisation of food)
- Brazil (Because of organisations like Embrapa, and political initiatives like Fame Zero)
- Singapore (Second most food secure country, uses its wealth to invest in foreign food production)

Deficit

- East Africa (as discussed above)
- Haiti (Hazard hotspot - makes it impossible to grow agriculturally)
- Lake Chad - Climate change
- Zimbabwe this year - El Nino, but also political issues.

There are loads. Pick a few, do some research, write up a paragraph or two. Then at the end, write up a big conclusion.

In the actual exam, they are probably going to pick one of the things they have asked you to research (i.e. political, environmental, socio-economic) and something like:

To what extent are political factors the main reason for surplus and famine.

You then effectively write the same report on the day of the exam, but tweak your sub conclusions to address the actual question. So for example, you could still write about Haiti, but argue actually constant hurricanes are the the biggest issue.

The only other tip I can offer you is that you need to focus on food supply, not food insecurity generally. Food supply concerns mainly the distribution of food, and the production of food. You could possibly also include the price of food.

Finally - You also need to write up an introduction with some methods and conclusions. Maybe someone else can advise you on that because I haven't written mine yet. I'd also recommend using the edexcel website and looking at past papers. They have asked a very similar question in the past (I can'r remember which year, but they've only been doing this since 2009 so it shouldn't take you long to find it). If you review the examiners reports, you'll be able to see examples of good/bad answers.

You are an absolute Godsend, thank you!

I do have a question though, should it be set out according to factors or case studies?

I'm also confused as to what to write for sub conclusions and the final conclusion - I feel like I'm just repeating myself? I've been going through examiner reports but the examples all tend to be really messy and hard to read

Reply 57

dljthomo

Original post by fat95

You are an absolute Godsend, thank you!

I do have a question though, should it be set out according to factors or case studies?

I'm also confused as to what to write for sub conclusions and the final conclusion - I feel like I'm just repeating myself? I've been going through examiner reports but the examples all tend to be really messy and hard to read

Just answered your PM but noticed you also asked about final conclusion.

Hmm, final conclusion really depends on the points you have argued.

Ultimately, you want to make an assessment of what the biggest factor is. My conclusion is basically along these lines:

- The biggest factor depends on the time period you are concerned with, and depends on scale you are concerned with.

- Environmental factors (particularly natural disasters) have the biggest impact in over a short periods of time - usually in poorer countries with poor readiness for disasters (I compared Haiti and Costa Rica for example to show that natural disasters do not necessarily lead to a food deficit).

- Political factors the biggest impact on a national scale (Used the example of India and Brazil to show political leadership can help bring about a green revolution, also used the example of Sudan to show that conflict leads to huge deficits on a national scale).

- Socio-economic factors have the biggest impact on a local level (used the example of India within the report - India has a surplus but not everyone is able to take advantage of the green revolution. Poor farmers can't afford pesticides, for example).

- Overall, political factors have the biggest impact because have the biggest impact on a national level. And political factors can also help to iron out disparities within a country (used the example of Brazils Zero Hunger where food is effectively redistributed to the poorest).

Hope that helps.

Reply 58

dljthomo

Original post by aemd

What environmental factors cause a food surplus? Can't really find info or case studies for this factor

Yeah, this is difficult.

I don't have any specific case studies for Environmental surplus. Instead, I discussed the environment when looking at places for surplus.

For example, I looked at Europe and the CAP. I spoke about how Europe has a temperate climate, ideal conditions large scale agriculture. However, I also pointed out this alone isn't enough to to have a big impact (because before the CAP, Europe was at a deficit).

Reply 59