Notes from A2 Unit 4B Course – 20 th November 2009 London

Entry for January 2010 is 5,500 for 4B and 4,500 for 4A. Material will only be sent to centres that enter candidates in a session. If you don’t enter candidates enter a

‘dummy candidate’ to generate the material being sent to your school. This is not content based, but the ability to think geographically. 4B – 60 Marks – less than 20 will be on practical skills and fieldwork; the rest will be on issue evaluation. All tests measured in the specification will be covered in a reasonable amount of time.

The Process of Issue Evaluation

This demands the development of the range of geographical skills, knowledge and understanding identified in the Specification.

This one links to health (AS) and cities (A2), but this is just the context. There is no need to review content of that module; stick to the pre-release and linked content.

However if content was glaciations you would need to examine main features and shape of landscape (no need to have detailed understanding of processes).

Teachers are to extend content by looking at a issue. Unit 4B allows candidates to extend the content of the specification within the specialised context of issue

evaluation. Issue is not a problem but something where people have a difference of opinions about. For the majority of the questions there is no right or wrong answer.

To enable candidates to address issues evaluation they must:

Interpret a range of data and resources provided for them in an Advance Information Booklet (AIB) Use techniques to present and analyse data from the AIB. Pure geographic skills; look at data given present and analysis it. E.g . Choropleth map; parallel set of information

to correlate. Consider how additional information could be collected using fieldwork, internet research and other methods. Restrict amount of internet sites used; just use sites provided. Consider Google earth / street view. Not worth looking at any other documents. Consider fieldwork; how might you research these issues through fieldwork. E.g. For the AIB Jan 10 – look at the school travel plan:

o How would you collect the data?o How would you ensure the data is not biased?o Present data.

Possibly go to the location where the data was collected. Relate the data to the body of geographical knowledge and understanding developed through their AS and A2

studies. Questions take into account the fact that students have only studied the core. Where necessary, carry out further research into the issue or the area referred to in the AIB. Further research can be limited to websites proved. May want to provide one lesson looking at background theory.

The questions will take a similar format

The specimen is not a good example of format. There will be a 6 or 7 questions each time.o Skills Qo Fieldwork Qo Synoptic Q

o Question on the Issueo Sting in the Tail