Two years, 150 hours, three assessments. The question underneath all of it: why is this place like this?
Read each column top to bottom. Thickness is time — a thick band is a long unit. Colour is strand. Tap any layer to go to the material.
The bands marked ? are the second optional theme — about thirty hours across Year 2, examined on Paper 1 next to Option E. The class votes on which theme fills them. Read the candidates on the Option ? page before you vote.
Session by session for this semester, week by week after that.
Paper 2 · 70 hoursChanging population, global climate, resource consumption and security.
Paper 1 · 30 hoursLeisure, tourism and sport, in four parts, starting late in Year 1.
MethodThe ten-part record every case gets, and the Iran model we build first.
AssessmentPaper structure, command terms, and how short responses earn marks.
PracticeTwelve browser tools that check your answers, the same ones linked from the Learning Interactives module on Canvas.
25% of the gradeFieldwork skills from Year 1, the investigation and report in Year 2.
Three meetings, three jobs. Monday is protected for reflection and synthesis — it is not a catch-up day.
Retrieval, discussion, case study updates, data interpretation, short writing, assessment correction.
Inquiry launch, maps, data, reading, modelling, collaborative investigation, direct instruction.
Case studies, geographic skills, debate, structured writing, feedback, formative assessment.
These are the lenses. A description tells the examiner what is there; a concept tells them why it matters.
The character, meaning and distinctiveness of a location. Every case study is rooted somewhere specific.
The physical and human forces that produce geographic change — erosion, migration, urbanisation, warming.
Who decides, who benefits, and who is left out. States, companies, communities and residents hold it unevenly.
Alternative futures. What could be done, what constrains it, and how well the options would actually work.
Local, national and global at once. Strong answers move deliberately between them.
Flows and connections — of people, money, water, goods and ideas — between places.
Why is this place like this?
Come back to it for every map, process, issue and case study in the course.
| Component | Weight | Format | What it demands |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paper 1 Geographic themes | 35% | 1 hr 30 min · 40 marks Two options, 20 marks each | Resource interpretation, concise structured answers, and one 10-mark extended response per option. |
| Paper 2 Geographic perspectives | 40% | 1 hr 15 min · 50 marks All three core units | Unfamiliar maps, graphs and diagrams; short responses; synthesis with named case study evidence. |
| Internal assessment Fieldwork report | 25% | 25 marks · ~2,500 words 20 hours | Your own geographic question, primary data collected in the field, and an honest evaluation of your method. |
