Top tips to kick start your revision

AS Geography revision 09 AS Geography revision 09

Top tips to kick-start your AS Unit 1 Revision


What should you be doing?• With the exams approaching it’s

important to get into a high gear and prepare fully.

• Get organised• Sort out files, identify gaps and fill

them. • Make a plan • Identify times when you will revise

different key topics. • Make sure you have a copy of the

Specification• ….and use this as a checklist to

ensure you have covered everything .


Practice makes perfect• Mock on ….• You should practice past

questions from Jan 09, June 09 and Jan 10

• Other exam style questions can be found in the textbooks and unit guides that support the course.

• The more you do, the more feedback you will get and the greater your improvement will be.


Key terminology • Remember that this is a

new Specification. • It contains new terminology

which you need to be able to define. You will need to understand both single words and phrases.

• The terminology is used in exam questions so you need to know what it all means.

• Make glossaries of key terms and consult the textbooks if you are unsure.


Active revision• For the vast majority of students

revision works best when it is active.

• Passive reading of notes is a poor way to revise.

Try to:• Condense notes by re-writing

them • Use diagrams and mind maps • Put key case studies and

examples onto revision cards


Understanding the Papers: Unit 1


Command Words


Unit 1, Section B extended writing skills


What do I have to do? • One question from a choice of 4

– you should spend 30-35 minutes on this

• Each question is worth 25 marks • The 25 marks is split into a 10

mark part ‘a’ and 15 mark part ‘b’• There is a stimulus resource for

the 10 mark question


Choice of Question

• Questions will be based around 4 key themes

• you can expect to have a genuine choice:


• Very importantly you should read all 4 questions

• look at all four accompanying Figures before you make a decision.

• In January 2009 the choice of question was heavily biased towards questions 7 and 8.

Question Popularity Unit 1 Section B January 2009

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Question 7 -Hazards

Question 8 -Climate

Question 9 -Globalisation

Question 10 -Megacities

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The Resource question, part ‘a’

• Notice that the question states ‘such as the one shown’.

• This is indicating a need to move beyond the stimulus material provided and into a discussion of other drought examples and their impacts:

• Ongoing Australian drought the ‘big dry’

• Drought in Niger • Drought in Sudan and Ethiopia


• There is also a structure provided in the question i.e. ‘people and the environment’

• answer needs to cover both in order to be balanced. • Importantly the question is not ‘what are the impacts of

drought?’ but actually ‘why do drought have such severe impacts?’

• Just describing the impacts of drought lacks the explanation the question is looking for.


Description of impact

Explanation of severity

Forest fires Uncontrolled burn devastates wildlife and ecosystems; difficult to manage

Farm production down

Direct reliance on irrigation; scarce water resources diverted to people

Low river flows Made worse by human abstraction for water supply

Fall in tourist numbers

Fear, danger, intense uncomfortable heat

Deaths Vulnerable groups (elderly) ‘silent’ killer

Use the resource, but don’t copy it out.


The Open questions, part ‘b’ • a 15 mark question which will be quite open. • There is no Figure to look at -you are ‘on your own’. • good idea to do a very quick plan just to organise your

thoughts and help structure your answer. • The plan should take less than 1 minute


Mark schemes • for the 15 mark

question they use 4 levels.

• Like a flight of sets which you are trying to climb.

• To go up a step, you need to add something new into your answer.


Ticking the mark scheme boxes • can be a real challenge, but there are various tricks you

can use to help write an impressive answer. • This question is from January 2009 (Question 10b):

• typical. It uses the command word ‘explain’ and is ‘open’.• The question does not directly ask for examples to be

used, but you should just assume you should use them!



Top Tips for extended writingStructure Organisation; logical order and sequencing

Consider a summative statement / very brief conclusion. Depth Issues, problems, factors, explanations etc. need to be examined

and discussed in some depth Examples Need to be used as a matter of course, don’t wait to be asked!Case Studies If the question refers to a compulsory case study then

considerable detail is expected Up-to-date Contemporary knowledge always shines more brightly than the

tired and datedRange Narrow answers, around one factor or explanation will rarely

attain the top level of the mark scheme Facts Factual data support – numbers, facts and figures, always

impress.Terminology Use of the correct geographical terminology increases your

answers currency Evaluative style Some recognition that geographical issues are now always black

and white, combined with some evaluative language. Balance Especially in human geography, a recognition of costs and

benefits, positives and negatives etc.

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Top tips to kick start your revision