AQA Geography

I'm hoping i just get an E so i can retake it next year >.<

Reply 43

Wasn;t there a question about cross profile too. I wrote about wetted perimeter dunno if thats correct >.<

Reply 44

Barmy Army

I had a howler.

I went in there and just went blank. I think I got myself too worked up, and when I saw questions which weren't just recall of what I had learnt over the past 6 months, I just wrote a load of rubbish and got even more agitated, and basically lost my train of thought.

I'm not going to bother dwelling on it, I was hoping for an A, but thats out the window now - pretty frustrated with myself when I left the exam hall, as I just felt I'd wasted my time revising for weeks. However, I have English Lit and Biology in two weeks so I need to kick up the tempo for them, but I'm curious can you resit this exam? I know for a fact I did horribly, and when I've looked on the AQA website there is no sign of the GEOG 1 exam for January.

Reply 45

leveret

Don't worry - you've probably done better than you think
And yes - there is a chance to take it again in January

Reply 46

It seems that the topics that came up were fine, but the wording of the questions and inclusion of a map just made it much more difficult and that was where people lost marks. if they are going to give us 120 minutes to get 120 marks, they HAVE to word the question easily and allow us enough time to get through the paper- just ridiculous!

Reply 47

ChubbyRain

I want to get an A, but I added up my rough amount of marks and its at about 80-90/120, do you think that the grade boundaries will drop enough for me to get an A... even if I just scrape an A?

Thanks

Yh i need 106 ums (/140) on this to get an A overall, allowing me to get an A* at A2 whichhhh iii rreeeeallly want!

Reply 48

Lauren_lee

It doesnt really matter about grade boundaries, its only about UMS. The whole point of AS is just to bag enough marks to make A2 easier. However if the grade boundaries are as low as they were in january, the UMS grade boundary will go down to around the 100 level i expect.

i need 106 to get an A which i really want because i want an A*

Reply 49

antz_1991

Wasn;t there a question about cross profile too. I wrote about wetted perimeter dunno if thats correct >.<

U talking about the 4 or 7 marker.
The 4 marker was quite open i think, i think you can just state some general characteristics of an upper course river and a lower course one.

The 7 marker- i didnt have time to do it so left most of it out- so depressing!!!

Reply 50

laurenlodge

Don't rely on the boundaries too much; they were only so low last year because the paper was absolutely and totally appalling - so much so that the Chief Examiner apologised for it in a conference afterwards! I think it might have made them modify future papers a bit.

If you'd done that as a mock and this paper seemed easier than the boundaries will probably be higher - comparing how positive some of you guys are to how we were last year makes me think everyone might have done slightly better this year? Our Year 12's certainly seemed better coming out of thei exam this time round - we were all almost crying last year! (Of course they might just be better at it than us, but let's hope not :p:

)

Still, hope it turns out well for y'all. :smile:

Reply 51

Also, on the cold environments part, can anyone clarifty what answer they wanted for annual variations in the active layer?

Alson what did you guys put for the 15 marker- i always hated it!

Reply 52

active layers, i said it created lobes.

Reply 53

lozz2601

)

Still, hope it turns out well for y'all. :smile:

no this paper was much worse, I sat that one and got 90, on this I don't think I even have 60.

Reply 54

laurenlodge

Lyam

no this paper was much worse, I sat that one and got 90, on this I don't think I even have 60.

You think you got 90 marks on last years paper?! Blimey you must have done well.

Seems odd that the examiners went back on their word then but who knows what they think!

Reply 55

Lauren_lee

yeah i definatly thought this one was a lot harder, in my mock of the 2009 june one i finished well in time and got around 90/120 so if they tried to make it easier it didnt work!
i was also annoyed as i'd spent a long time revising, especially for rivers all the landforms and most of the questions in the paper weren't factual recall and were really confusing!
i also really didnt like most of the 15 mark questions and there was not enough time to answer them!!

**also many of the questions, especially during rivers, with the maps were very skilled based, and i swear they were like the same questions that came up in the jan 10 skills paper i did, i thought the whole point of this exam was for the theory stuff and case studies, not the skills!

Reply 56

The one with potholes? yeah I found that pretty easy to be honest which made me awfully confident! My geography teacher knows John Smith and she said she doesn't think he writes very good papers :L

I found the potholes and rejuvination questions pretty easy on that paper! And that was the part people complained about most.

But as for this year, the 15 mark questions were like 'Describe the impact of population structure on population and resources' I spoke about Malthus/Boserup/Simon/Club of rome, those models, and then gave some support from case studies such as the OCP briefly and Africa in 2005 having famine in Niger and Chad but a food surplus overall.

I'll get 0 marks for that :/

Rivers question was ideal mind you, comparing social and economic effects of two rivers, easy.

Health question was pretty hard, the effects of age gender and wealth on Healthcare provision, I spoke about tyneside and different wards, different 'good health' percentages, different social grades to demonstrate different wealths and compared that with good health. Then went on to talk about age and retired people in some areas may be wealthier than students in another area but the students require less health care. And briefly mentioned other health care services such as playing fields. I didn't put much on gender, so maybe 8/9 marks max, if I even put what they were looking for, probably not.

Cold environments was about exploitation in antarctica, and how we can find a balance between development and protection, this would have been a beautiful question had it been antarctica and the tundra, or something like that, but just antarctica is difficult, so I spoke about tourism mostly and the need to regulate, the IAATO and site use guidelines. I knew all the landforms and stuff for both rivers and cold environments, which helped in cold environments, but not at all in rivers, it was all map based. It's a joke, I don't know why I bothered revising, and now it's going to screw my results up and my Uni places. I wish they could just ask straightforward questions and have high grade boundaries... like every other subject.

Sorry for the essay :P

Reply 57

Lauren_lee

I'm lolling at how synonymous your post is to mine, but yours is about 300 less words :P

Reply 58

Also as a point, it's kind of like they wanted to make the paper easier for people who hadn't revised :s by getting rid of most necessity for knowing the subject matter, I could probably have got nearly the same amount of marks if I hadn't revised. With the exception of the rivers case study and some questions on cold environments.

Reply 59