So I will start by saying this blog is purely my thoughts and conclusions after reading the AQA GCSE Geography 8035 examiner reports (so may not be relevant to other exam boards) and also my experience as a yr11 teacher last year. I’ve also added some ideas we have used which might help – but I’m sure there are plenty of other ways to do things.
Firstly the message across the reports on all of the three papers seems to be mainly twofold, firstly that the main issues are linked to command words and an inability to realise what the command word is actually asking the student to do. This seems to be more of a case with the more higher ranking command words for example ‘to what extent’ and ‘justify’ to name just a few. However there also does seem to have been a few issues with explain too.
The second key issue seems to have been the use of figures – both text and photographic/maps. Students haven’t often used the material well enough or have simply quoted/identified parts of the figure without going any further. This has stopped them accessing the top level 2 marks and level 3 marks. This is most definitely our main focus for next year as I think it will really push our 3-5 borderline students up.
There also seems to have been an issue with Geographical skills, predominantly completing graphs e.g the bar chart/pie chart on paper 3. But also the maths questions across the three papers – this year they included median, inter quartile range, range, mean as well as some basic calculations.
Paper 1 – physical geography
Reading this report, there seems to have been some positives, particularly following last year’s report. These include examination skills, geographical vocabulary and the ability to extend ideas for the 2 and 4m questions – but not the 6 and 9 as I will touch upon later.
As mentioned above command words are still proving to be an issue with students losing vital marks for missing the main part of the question. In paper these seem to be – explain, compare, suggest and discuss. There was also some issue with geographical terms such as economic/environmental and also physical (not human) factors. One way we’ve attempted to tackle this is including these command word definitions in our starter recall tasks as well as defining them when we ‘BUG’ the question. We also regularly assess key term definitions in class and use command words as we would other geographical terms. Key word bingo is still a firm favourite in my classroom, the students get very competitive and it helps tackle exam technique/BUG without them realising. I’ve added an example below.
Often with ‘discuss’ questions, students don’t actually do much discussion, the level 2 answers often tend to start to discuss but often there tends to be a paragraph on each ‘side’ of the discussion without any real discussion, this is mentioned also in the paper 3 section.
We use PDL (point, develop, link) which we’ve found helps add more discussion because the linking statement helps to revisit their opinion/the question intention. But I wonder if this helps our top end who probably need to be a bit more synoptic, I do know it really helps our grade 3-5 students who need the structure. The report suggests those who scores highly regularly used phrases such as ‘This means that’ or ‘as a result of this’ to connect development.
Another key point across the paper 1 report is the need for case study detail, this appears numerous times across paper 2 as well. Often students are lacking access to the top level 2 marks and level 3 marks because their answers are vague/too generic. I’ve shared below some examples of how we have used our starters to recap case study specifics.
This example above was used for revision but we use these regularly throughout the course to help students remember. We also try to use the same symbols for simular things to add familiarity.
A common theme across all paper reports is the lack of being able to use a stimulus both when it was text and when it was a photograph or map. Across all the figure questions it seems students often quoted parts of text or identified information from the figures without really doing anything with it. Lifting relevant information is although helpful to start a discussion it often doesn’t gain student marks. ‘The most effective answers took clues from the effects given and developed ideas fully’ (qu1.4 paper 1). This is clearly something we need to focus our students on moving forward. Qu 2.9 (paper 1) used a text stimulus and again the report suggests students copied parts ‘without seizing the clues within it and developing the information’. Using IDEAL may help here – although I think the questions have to be thought through carefully. Maybe using some figures from the exam question with the question themese within the ideal questions… an example of IDEAL is below, although I’ve not done the above. Maybe one of my next jobs!
Another area of focus needs to be formation of processes – it’s clear from section C (and also 1.11) that students need to be clearer with processes. Also important students have up to date knowledge on processes – this was mentioned in 1.11 ‘vital to have a secure understanding of plate tectonic theory, ideally updated’ – if you are unsure where to start with this, there’s a few Teaching Geography articles you could read on this – one by Alistair Hamil, who also shares some fantastic diagrams on tectonics in the tweet below.
Another comment from the examiner report I found useful linked to process formation is the need to use correct terminology to describe the sequence. It seems there were some errors on qu 3.5 and 4.5 linked to the sequence being incorrect and there was a lack of explanation using key terms. Read, edit, improve might be a good activity to use here, see Paul’s example below.
Within the examiner report for paper 1 there is also comments about handwriting, surely this is the case across all three papers (as its the same candidates) although it’s not mentioned. Handwriting is a hard one to tackle, some strategies I’m sure you are aware of include printing key words so examiners can see clearly the use. Some students might also be entitled to a computer/scribe – often this needs to be their usual way of working so it’s worth highlight handwriting issues to your SEND department as early as possible. They may need to provide evidence that the use of a computer is their normal way of working.
Something also to note here is if students are entitled to a scribe do they know to spell words aloud, check their work after etc, I’m sure they do as its common across all papers. But on the scribe cover sheet they have to state this and for geography where there are SPaG marks available they will lose these if they don’t dictate the spelling and punctuation on those 9 mark questions.
Paper 2 – Human Geography
This report is much shorter than paper 1 and although I think the key takeaways are similar there are still some important points to note.
The biggest being that once students have included their specific case study information they need to actually do something with it. For example 1.6, 2.4 and 3.4 where it seems the top answers used and applied their knowledge well, but there wasn’t much in the middle.
Again there was issues with the figure questions, with few students achieving level 3 and most being kept in low level 2, due to a lack of development of the clues from the figure. It seems that students can use their own knowledge in a familiar example fairly well, but when asked to apply what they know about development to unfamiliar places they struggle, even with.the use of a resource. There is clearly scope here to ensure students can use their geographical thinking and apply it to similar places. I have some ideas on how we can do this, and will blog some of them (hopefully) soon.
The mathematical skills questions also seemed to provide more of an issue on paper 2, there is a list of Geographical skills on the aqa website which may be useful to glance over. Something we’ve been doing this year is working with maths to use the Geographical content for some of their mathematical questions in their lessons. And when students haven’t done well on the ‘maths’ questions within a mock/assessment, maths have them used them soon after to show the correct way of working. Here is a link to the Geographical skills list from the AQA website…
https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/geography/gcse/geography-8035/subject-content/geographical-skills
Paper 3 – Geographical Skills
The report for paper 3 is similar to that of the other two in that it states there is still an issue with students using the resource and extending the information given. This limited those students being able to access top level 2 and level 3 marks.
There was again an issue with lots of students missing the graph questions (I.e 2.1) – a pattern we’ve seen on previous years but also a shame as the question itself was really straightforward. Weve added lots of skills type questions into our KS3 assessments in the hope that this familiarity will help with these style of questions at GCSE.
As mentioned above the idea of a discussion was also fairly weak in paper 3, particularly questions 2.6 and 3, which limited students to low level 2. The examiner report suggests that student should ensure ‘the stronger part of the evidence will be used to support the chosen position. If this approach (considering advantages and disadvantages) is used, writing a conclusion which clearly brings the discussion back to sippet the chosen position is a useful strategy.’ The important part to takeaway is for the 9mark question students should use the whole resource booklet and consider a synoptic point of view.
As with the issue evaluation the longer fieldwork questions had similar issues to the 6 and 9m questions on paper 1 and 2. Some students missed the opportunity to discuss and/or identify what the command word was asking. That being said q4.9 was generally answered well with some use of data to justify the statements given about the relationship between data sets.
The familiar fieldwork section clearly suggested that students often missed the purpose of the question I.e 5.3 where they talked about data collection instead of presentation and 5.2 where students didn’t justify the reasons for their data collection methods. Many students described their results rather than linked the accuracy of their data collection to their results and conclusions. Which meant they generally got into level 2 but couldn’t get more than 4 or 5 marks. A key take away ‘the nine mark question within the familiar fieldwork section is quite complex and always demands links between key starnads of the enquiry process.’ This is not a new style of question and has been used previously (although not for the past few years due to the lack of fieldwork due to examination changes), so there is clearly a bit of work to be done here at ensuring students can make links across the six enquiry strands.
The examiner reports for 8035 are available in the secure extranet for 2023.
Jennnnnn_x 