For Amelie, Matteo, Alessandro, Noah, Matilda and Maisie, twenty first-century citizens.

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© David Burtenshaw 2016

ISBN 978-1-4718-6405-6
eISBN 978-1-4718-6563-3

First printed 2016

Impression number 5 4 3 2 1

Year 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016

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Cover photograph: dabldy/Fotolia. Other photographs: David Burtenshaw (p. 16); akoppo1/Fotolia (p. 18); Jack Sullivan and Paul White – North West England/Alamy Stock Photo (p. 27); David Bagnall/Alamy Stock Photo (p. 68); A.P.S. (UK)/Alamy Stock Photo (p. 98)

This Guide has been written specifically to support students preparing for the WJEC/Eduqas AS and A-level Geography examinations. The content has been neither approved nor endorsed by WJEC/Eduqas and remains the sole responsibility of the author.

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Getting the most from this book

Exam tips

Advice on key points in the text to help you learn and recall content, avoid pitfalls, and polish your exam technique in order to boost your grade.

Knowledge check

Rapid-fire questions throughout the Content Guidance section to check your understanding.

Knowledge check answers

Turn to the back of the book for the Knowledge check answers.

Summaries

•  Each core topic is rounded off by a bullet-list summary for quick-check reference of what you need to know.

About this book

Much of the knowledge and understanding needed for AS and A-level Geography builds on what you have learned for GCSE Geography, but with an added focus on geographical skills and techniques, and concepts. This guide has been designed to help you succeed in the Eduqas and WJEC Geography AS and A-level Changing places. The topics covered in this guide are:

•  Section B of A-level Eduqas Component 1: Changing landscapes and Changing places

•  Section A of AS Eduqas Component 2: Changing places

•  Unit 2 of WJEC AS: Changing places

The format of the different examination papers is summarised in the table below.

The guide has the following main objectives:

•  It provides you with key concepts, definitions, theories and examples that may be used to answer questions in the examination. The examples have been designed to provide you with alternatives to your home area wherever possible.

•  It provides potential fieldwork investigation topics that you may follow up either as a part of the fieldwork requirement for Changing places or for further development when you are considering the topic for the A-level Independent Investigation.

•  It will suggest self-study tasks and further reading that will enhance your knowledge and understanding before you enter the examinations.

•  Finally, it will give you the opportunity to test yourself through Knowledge check questions, which are designed to help you to check your depth of knowledge. You will also benefit from noting the Exam tips, which provide further help in determining how to learn key aspects of the course.

The section order follows the Eduqas specification.

The examinations

Eduqas

At A-level, the total examination time of Component 1: Changing landscapes and Changing places is 1 hour and 45 minutes. Therefore, you have approximately 50 minutes to answer the three questions in Section B: Changing places, which comprises two compulsory structured questions that have a gradation of difficulty and one extended essay question.

The structured questions (Part A) will start with a resource-based question (a), although it might begin with a request for a definition. The resource can lead to a question requiring basic calculation and interpretation of the data, which might be in cartographic, graphical, statistical or photographic form (including air and satellite images). There could also be a short passage of text. The following part will develop from the topic in (a) and will initially require brief description or examination of a relatively small section of the specification. It is worth 13 marks. The extended response question (Part B) is a mini-essay worth 15 marks, for which you will be expected to offer a more reasoned response in continuous prose. There will be a choice from two titles.

At AS, the total examination time of Component 2: Changing places is 1 hour and 15 minutes and you have approximately 40 minutes to answer the two questions in Section A: Changing places. The questions will be presented in an answer book where the number of lines beneath each question gives a clue to the level of detail required. Part A in each question is structured and worth 7–10 marks and Part B is a mini-essay worth 10–13 marks, depending on the question balance. You will be expected to offer a concise, reasoned response in continuous prose. This guide does not cover the fieldwork questions (Section B) at AS, but it will give you suggestions for field investigations.

WJEC

The coverage of Changing places varies in the WJEC specification. This is noted at the start of each section in this guide.

The total examination time of WJEC AS Unit 2: Changing places is 1 hour and 30 minutes, in which time you have to answer two compulsory structured questions (Section A) and a third question on Physical and/or Human geography fieldwork that you have undertaken (Section B). This guide does not cover the fieldwork question, but it will give you suggestions for field investigations or topics for the NEA Independent Investigation.

The paper format for WJEC is identical to Eduqas, with a gradation of difficulty. The first two questions in Section A are at AS standard and are answered in an answer booklet. Section B tests your fieldwork investigation in Human and Physical Geography, and will examine your ability to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of the enquiry process as applied to your fieldwork together with an appreciation and understanding of the skills that support your enquiry and its findings.

Timing

The table below shows how to allocate your time depending on the marks to be gained. It can be thought of as ‘1 mark a minute’.

Mark allocation
Minutes to read, recall and plan
Minutes to write answer

Read all questions. Decide on order of questions to be answered.

<3

2

1

1

3

1

2

4

1

3

5

1

4

6

1

5

7

1

6

8

2

6

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2

7

10

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8

13

2

11

15

2

13

Exam tip

When reading questions, highlight the command words and subject matter using different colours so that your recall and planning is focused on the question set.

How answers are marked

When your work is marked the examiner will be using Assessment Objectives (AOs). The AOs for both A-level and AS (Eduqas and WJEC) are as follows:

AO1: demonstrate knowledge and understanding of places, environments, concepts, processes, interactions and change at a variety of scales.

AO2: apply knowledge and understanding in different contexts to interpret, analyse and evaluate geographical information and issues:

•  AO2.1a: apply knowledge and understanding in different contexts to analyse geographical information and issues.

•  AO2.1b: apply knowledge and understanding in different contexts to interpret geographical information and issues.

•  AO2.1c: apply knowledge and understanding in different contexts to appraise/judge geographical information.

AO3: use a variety of relevant quantitative, qualitative and fieldwork skills:

•  AO3.1: investigate geographical questions and issues.

•  AO3.2: interpret, analyse and evaluate data and evidence.

•  AO3.3: construct arguments and draw conclusions.

Mark bands

For AOs being tested in each question the marker will make use of mark bands for each AO to guide his/her decision. Here are the qualities that markers will be looking for in each final band.

Band 3 structured questions: answers to the structured questions (/13) will be clear, factually accurate, displaying good knowledge and understanding supported by developed examples, sketches and diagrams. Descriptions will be clear. Statistical work will be complete and understood. Answers to the mini-essays (/15) will be well written and argued so that the command word (e.g. explain or evaluate) has been followed. Knowledge will be very detailed, accurate and well supported by examples, and issues will be fully understood.

Band 2 structured questions: answers are often unbalanced and partial responses may be unstructured and make points in a random order. Knowledge is present but not always actually accurate or completely understood. The mini-essays will demonstrate some understanding but not all of the points. Examples will be mostly accurate but rather sketchy. Diagrams and statistical work may be less complete. The command word is reinterpreted to mean description rather than discussion or analysis because the answer may take the form of ‘all I know that might be relevant’. The coverage might be limited to, for example, two cases when more might gain more credit.

Band 1 structured questions: Answers have very limited and possibly fragmented factual knowledge. There might be no valid examples or just a single example named but not developed. Any diagrams will be basic and/or incomplete. Statistical responses will be neglected. Mini-essays may be a set of unrelated, undeveloped ideas, possibly only in note form, and rather hit and miss in their relevance to the question. The command word might be ignored.

0: The response is not credit-worthy because it does not answer the question.

The mini-essays have to be answered in 13–15 minutes, but this does not mean that they should be answered in less depth than the longer essays that are demanded in Component 3. It is a top-notch skill to be able to write concisely including all the relevant detailed arguments and examples in a short space (one side of A4 in 13–15 minutes).

Geographical skills

You are expected to develop various skills as a geographer. Skills are both quantitative, using mathematical, computational and statistical procedures to record phenomena and processes, and qualitative, using non-numerical techniques such as cartographic and GIS data, visual images, and interviewing and oral histories. The specification provides a full list. Some statistical skills have been introduced in this text and others will appear in the companion volumes. The mathematical and statistical tests are not unique to Changing places and are expected to be used and tested where appropriate.

Specialised concepts

The following terms are essential for a twenty-first-century A-level geographer to know and understand. Use them correctly in context whenever you can, because the examination questions will expect you to understand what they mean. This book will highlight where the terms are relevant. (Here they are in alphabetical order.)

Adaptation: the ability to respond to changing events and to reduce current and future vulnerability to change.

Attachment: the linkages between individuals and groups and places.

Causality: the relationship between cause and effect. Everything has a cause or causes.

Difference: the way in which places, populations and objects are not identical. It can be measured statistically, qualitatively and through the expression of opinions.

Feedback: the way that environmental changes become accelerated, or are negated, by the processes operating in a human or physical system.

Globalisation: the impact of world development on nations, regions, settlements and localities. The process by which the world is becoming increasingly interconnected as a result of increased integration and interdependence of the global economy.

Identity: how people view changing places from different perspectives and experiences. What a place means to them.

Inequality: social and economic (income and wealth) inequalities between people and places that Robert Schiller (Nobel Prize for Economics 2013) recognised as the greatest threat to society today.

Interdependence: relations of mutual dependence that are worldwide — the world economy, structure of trade, communications and production are interdependent.

Meaning: what a geographer understands from what is observed or imagined and the way that information is represented to the individual.

Mitigation: the reduction of a phenomenon that is having a negative effect on people, places or the environment.

Place: this is the most important concept to understand. It is a portion of geographic space occupied by a person or thing to which meaning has been given. It may have uniqueness and distinctiveness as a result of the way it has developed and changed. It is a place to which meaning has been ascribed. It is shaped by the relationships to other places and spaces at a range of scales. It is real and part of one’s everyday life. Place has an identity, a personality and a position in space. Place has a layered history, a bit like geological strata, which builds up over time. Place can be defined by:

(a) its architecture — Georgian Bath and Clifton, Bristol

(b) its age — the nineteenth-century terraces of Abercanaid and Llwyn yr in Eos, Merthyr and Aberdare respectively

(c) the current or former economic base of the place —Shoreditch (silicon roundabout) and Ebbw Vale (iron and steel).

Representation: how a place or area is portrayed by formal agencies (the local council or tourist board) and people representing what they see and experience. How people are represented in a political sense. It may also refer to how a place is represented in literature and the media.

Resilience: the ability of an object or a population to adapt to changes that have a negative impact upon them.

Risk: the possibility of a range of possible outcomes resulting from a decision or a course of action that might affect people or the place. It exists when probabilities of outcomes are known from previous experience. It is a systematic way of dealing with society’s modernisation and manufactured risks, such as pollution. It can also be natural risk in relation to natural hazards. These risks can combine, as in the case of Fukushima (earthquake, tsunami and radioactive pollution).

Scale: is familiar when it comes to maps, but it can also refer to coverage of an issue that may be in detail in one area but lacking detail in others. Scale can be used to compare similar sized areas, can be contextualised moving from the large to small scale and aggregated as one moves from small to larger areas.

Space: the area occupied by an object or objects, the distance between objects — basic in geography because of spatial distributions and spatial relationships.

Sustainability: development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It is underpinned by two key concepts:

1  The needs for water, food and shelter are essential for the world’s poor.

2  The state imposes limitations of technology and social organisation on the environment’s ability to meet both present and future needs.

Systems: a set of interrelated objects. They can be either closed — no import or export of materials or energy — or open, where imports occur and are essential for the system.

Threshold: the minimum demand or population needed to support the provision of a good or service. A critical limit or level that must not be crossed in order to prevent a system from undergoing accelerated and potentially irreversible change. The tipping point for change within places.

Time: is a key element of change that can be noted at any scale whether it be short or long, from seconds to decades, centuries and geological time. Time can be related to distance between objects and people.

Fieldwork and the Non-Examination Assessment (NEA)

Whether you are studying for AS or A-level, you must spend a day on a fieldwork exercise related to Changing places. For A-level, your school/college will have to declare what you studied on a form, which will accompany your individual project (NEA). AS students will be asked a third question in the examination, which will cover the generic aspects of the work that you did in the field.

Fieldwork may lead to ideas for your individual investigation (NEA). The investigation can also arise from your other studies, whether it is an aspect of places or any of the rest of the core and option content. Some brief ideas for field study will be presented in each section of this guide.