AQA GCSE Geography examiner reports - key takeaways

In this blog I am going to highlight the key takeaways from the three examiner reports.

This will be followed by three separate blogs looking at the feedback in a bit more detail for each paper.

Paper 1: Overall summary

What was done well?

• The paper seemed to be accessible to all students and students scored higher marks than in previous sessions
• There was a clear understanding of assessment objectives from teachers and students
• Time management was not an issue – the majority of students finished the whole paper within the time given – very few questions were left unanswered
• There were fewer rubric errors this year – most students knew which part of the paper they had to answer based on optionality
• Further improvement in exam skills (based on previous feedback, particularly with photographs but also interpretation of maps and diagrams)
• More use of case study evidence, even when not specifically required, and this was applied better than in previous years
• Maths-based questions were answered particularly well (and this was also seen with lower ability students)
• Mid-tariff questions were answered concisely but with good development
• Good deconstruction of high tariff questions – lots of evaluation seen

Areas for improvement

• Basic map skills – some students struggled with the describing relief and drainage so need more exposure to OS maps and physical features
• Some generic answers given, lacking place specific detail
• Some students regurgitated case study material and didn’t apply it to the specific demands of the questions
• Some confusion over command words and what they require
• Still an issue with the understanding of specific processes, and also recognising specific landforms in photographs
• Students need to understand that extended writing questions need evaluation, not just knowledge and understanding
• Lower ability students often ignored the resources provided
• Some students still missing the graph completion questions
• Students performed worse on section C (UK landscapes) overall, and those who answered questions on glacial landscapes wrote slightly poorer answers than those who wrote about rivers and coasts

Paper 2: Overall summary

What was done well?

• Good use of local examples and good recall of case studies
• Further improvement with interpreting a range of sources
• Generally accurate calculations – good application of skills
• Very few questions not answered
• Evidence of planning with high-tariff answers to apply knowledge to the demands of the question

Areas for improvement

• Locational knowledge – a lot of students couldn’t mark their named NEE on the world map
• Decoding the higher tariff questions (particularly 9 markers)
• Lots of students cannot calculate percentage increase
• Students need to make better use of figures – a lot of repetition of text, repeating case study information, or ignore the figure entirely

Paper 3: Overall summary

Section A: Issue evaluation

• Most students were well-prepared and understood the complexity of the issue
• Teachers should explicitly identify links from other parts of the spec when studying the pre-release materials
• Students need to consider human, physical and environmental geography here
• Students need to understand that some questions will be very specific to the named proposed project, and some will be broader and related to the overall topic of the pre-release (e.g. the UK housing challenge)
• Students need to carefully select appropriate evidence from the resource booklet – they need to develop these rather than simply repeat them

Section B: Fieldwork

• Students demonstrated their geographical skills well in the unfamiliar fieldwork section – particularly in terms of presenting data appropriately
• Familiar fieldwork had a much greater variation in quality and many students didn’t attempt this section
• It is important that students understand the different strand of fieldwork which may be asked about
• Students should also have a copy of the skills checklist to ensure that they are familiar with all of the skills on there
• Many students couldn’t write their fieldwork titles – sometimes this was left blank, sometimes they just wrote the location
• Students need to read questions carefully in terms of writing about human or physical fieldwork
• Still confusion between data collection and data presentation

What was done well?

• Time management – no evidence that anyone ran out of time this year
• Most MCQs were completed – high level of accuracy
• Very few students left questions blank in the issue evaluation
• Good use of pre-release booklet to provide evidence to support answers
• Better understanding of physical geography from the OS map than when this was last tested

Areas for improvement

• Understanding requirements for 2-3 markers – lack of development
• Too much copying of pre-release material without elaborating it
• Some confusion over OS map physical features, e.g. relief and drainage
• Students didn’t appreciate that the unfamiliar fieldwork questions were sequenced in a scenario and often dealt with them separately rather than referring back to earlier questions
• Many students failed to complete the simple graph questions
• Need to learn fieldwork titles as it is hard for examiners to assess what they are writing about