Hate this exam...way too much stuff to remember sort of glad its the first out of all mine though in a way, to get it over and done with...I'll definitely be doing a human geography essay, sliding more towards conflict tbh, as some past world cities essays (urban problems are the same the world over and require the same solutions) are just too complex! If I get something about giving the impacts of the war in Afghanistan or Darfur, or something about poverty, that should be fairly simple
Also what do you predict MOST likely will be on Globalisation and Development - if you had to pick a topic/s for the Short answers and one for the essay?
You couldn't pay me to do this exam again haha.
For globalisation and development, I'd expect LDC's somewhere. I'm fairly certain they will come up somewhere. At the moment I'm leaning towards LDC questions, with either a sustainable tourism / TNC question thrown in.
In terms of the essay, TNCs has to be the most likely essay, although I guess LDCs is equally likely. Wouldn't put it past the examiners if they did some bull**** 40 marker on sustainable tourism.
Nearly had a break down yesterday because I couldn't remember how many buildings were destroyed after the sichuan earthquake haha
yeah i know what you mean, last night in bed i had a random figure in my head and eventually i had to go and find out what if was for because it was bugging me so much
Im a bit confused on what synoptic includes, i know its like everything you've learnt in geography and bring in topics from other areas of the spec but can you give me like an example of a sentence or something for this particular question for example which will give you synoptic marks?
Also when you introduce like e.g. volcano case study, do you write about when they occur? how they occur (what plates involved)? cause i think i usually spent a lot of time doing this and im not sure if its relevant to put it all in or whether i should just go straight to the impacts, responses and management.
This isn't my essay, but I found it somewhere and uploaded it. I could upload mine but I really can't be ****ed lmao.
This whole next part is something I sent to a guy that PM'd me, and I should probably share it, it kind of answers your questions.
acedlol
I didn't do world cities so I'm afraid I can't help you there.
Synopticity although is pretty tricky to get your head around, I still don't really understand it myself. There are several different ways to put it in, essentially,
I see it as basically "Evaluating anything, a theory, case studies, or an argument.
If you do subjects like Psychology or Economics, or even another subject where there are AO1, AO2 and AO3 marks, you'll be able to get this concept much easier. Marks for knowledge, then marks for evaluating, its the same in Geog. If you look at any markscheme, there are 14 AO1, 16 AO2, and 10 AO3 marks. I have looked at many marked examples of papers, and I never once saw these 3 written down, so I would ignore them for now.
With reference to your question
"The hazards presented by volcanic and seismic events have the greatest impact on the worlds poorest people to what extent do you agree?"
Here is the markscheme, for it, every single essay is set out like this. This is what the examiner sees, and this is what he goes on. To the right is the base plan that I set out for any essay, however this isn't perfect, as the synopticity should really come from WITHIN the appropriate content. With your essays, you need to use the appropriate content TO get to synopticity, then rinse and repeat that as many times as you can along an argument.
This is probably confusing to you. Just hold on.
Coincidentally I also have a "supposedly" 40 mark essay for you that someone uploaded.
Like I said, synopticity comes from evaluating anything. To evaluate case studies, I tend to use SPEED (Social, Political, Economic, Environmental, Demographic).
The kid that wrote this is seriously ****ing lucky, the essay isn't worth a solid 40 marks, but its definitely a high 30s. His case study knowledge is fairly standard (but has plenty), but he makes his synoptic points well.
His introduction is pretty good, short and to the point, and he states his answer. This is a smart move, immediately gives his essay a direction.
Look where he uses SPEED:, he compares one country with another, then makes a point. Hes raking in the (S) marks in the margin. This is why case study essays are probably the best to do (if they come up, and you know the case study well). I honestly think some essays / topics are easier to put synopticity in than others, especially those with case studies.
He doesn't also go for the streamlined MEDCs are fantastic, LEDCs are bad, if you still have this concept in your head, throw it out NOW. There are many things that affect hazards like volcanoes / earthquakes
Time of day it occurs, night is bad for everything. Magnitude of scale. VEI1-8, Richter Scale, 30m high waves etc? Type of eruption, earthquake (focus / epicentre), mega-thrust earthquake? Hazards posed (from the Geography of the land), like Lahars (if glacier), or bad soils for liquefaction, or a cove which funnels water up land. Prediction. (Most LEDCs have good enough prediction for the most dangerous volcanoes, with the help of the USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) although some haven't been surveyed), earthquakes are bastards to predict anywhere. Prevailing winds, natural stuff like that. Capacity to cope <- This is a fantastic phrase, which gets the markers almost pissing themselves with excitement, essentially sums up the development of a country and how well its ready to deal with any disaster, the development of a country WILL effect its capacity to cope.
However, you have to understand that the capacity to cope HAS limits. I love using the Japan Tsunami as an example, even though Japan is leagues ahead of everyone in development and its capacity to cope (best in world), you can't stop a Tsunami, hence why 20,000 were killed. Did you know 40% of the coastline had 10m high walls? There is pretty much nothing more the Japanese government could have done. The capacity to cope has its limits <- HUGE synopticity).
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So with reference to the essay that you set out:
"The hazards presented by volcanic and seismic events have the greatest impact on the worlds poorest people to what extent do you agree?"
You obviously need at least 2 case studies here.
You could use SPEED to get to a synoptic point. (I'm going to talk about earthquakes, as I can actually remember that ****)
The powers of prediction are also not a big influence on the disaster that happens, although on several occasions lives can be saved, sometimes the effect that they have is very much negligible. For example, Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere, with a GDP of 5.7 billion, it has significant human, social and environmental problems. It also happens to be on a plate boundary (if you can name it), with the last major earthquake striking the island 200 years previously. 2 years before the Haiti earthquake, geologist Paul Mann alerted the island that a big earthquake was imminent, and would have devastating consequences upon the poorly prepared population. Although Haiti, with its human, social, economic and environmental problems doesn't have the capacity to respond to anything, as it has much bigger issues like poverty, corruption and deforestation. Even with the warning, they could do nothing, it was a disaster waiting to happen. 7.0 struck, (GIVE TIME OF DAY TO SYNOPTICALLY EVALUATE LATER) 200,000 died (fire off facts, but DON'T WRITE EVERYTHING YOU KNOW, THIS WILL NOT WORK).
Japan has a GDP of 5.71 trillion, making it one of the richest countries in the world, blah blah blah highly active seismic zone, big organizations to deal with any hazards, earthquakes, tsunamis, managed to get a 20 minute warning off about the tsunami, (within 1 minute of the earthquake happening they had messages being sent to everyone, tsunami horns blaring etc, teams deployed, military mobilized, but 20,000+ still died.
This is the kind of case study ammo you want to arm yourself with, don't learn dates or where it hit hardest, get hard figures and facts with relation to SPEED.
I've probably synoptically overloaded you, but I can't do anything more to explain it.
im currently revising Plate tectonics, World cities, DevtG.
Remember you have to do:
1 PHYSICAL + 1 PHYSICAL ESSAY + 1 HUMAN
or
1 HUMAN + 1 HUMAN ESSAY + 1 PHYSICAL.
So you won't be able to do a plate tectonics essay because you have 2 other human topics.
If any of you are doing weather, I'm so bloody sure they'll ask something about the British Isles / Climate Change for the essay.
If it doesn't come up I'll eat my hat.
haha I agree with that prediction though. If it's something about how weather affects life in the british isles, I know this may sound stupid, but how would you say it affects life? Like when farmers should harvest crops, if you need to take an umbrella...
So are you going to only revise all the stuff which has previously been examines on such as ate tectonics theory, mitigating the effects of earthquake/volcanoes and factors inflicting the impact?? I'm not sure whether to revise the whole course for it such as extrusive activity just on case the 40 marker is on something different?
So are you going to only revise all the stuff which has previously been examines on such as ate tectonics theory, mitigating the effects of earthquake/volcanoes and factors inflicting the impact?? I'm not sure whether to revise the whole course for it such as extrusive activity just on case the 40 marker is on something different?
I'm revising everything for tectonics in as much detail as possible in case aqa try to catch us out. I am predicting a tectonic theory/volcanic activity question though purely as the Jan2013 was on seismicity and everyone has done that as a mock.
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'd say it wants us to talk about causes of earthquakes, and to what extent have we as humans made these events become disasters. Include ideas that a disaster is only a disaster if a population has been affected - deaths, injuries, infrastructure destruction etc. You might want to include management, but I think the debate its trying to trigger (excuse the pun, tehe) is whether the disasters nowadays are naturally occurring or are we encouraging them?
What's the likelihood of Retail as structured questions in World cities? Worth intense revision on?
They have retailing in spec1, jan11 and jan13, so I personally wouldn't say its likely. If anything it would most likely be your out of town case study