L.C. Geography HL Advice

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Going into L.C after the holidays and need to get an A1/A2 in Geography for points. Fortunately, I like Geography and am quite good at it as I managed an A1 in my Summer Test (94%). So far we've covered:

• All of Physical
• The Mezzogiorno and Paris Basin (2 European) and SW America (Sub-Continental Region)
• Our option question (Geoecology)
• And 2 chapter of our elective (Human Elective)

I really really need a good grade for points and am just looking for any advice you can give that will aid me to achieve a good grade in this subject. I know the project is worth 20%, is it marked hard/easy?. Is there any books/ ways of studying you would suggest?.

Thanks in advance for any replies! :pac:

Faunge

Hi, I did geography for the leaving cert hoping to get A1/A2 like yourself... the best advice for studying that i can give you is to do out questions from the exam papers to keep your mind refreshed on certain topics you havent studied in a while.. in the last few years the geography exam has been seen to be more difficult but really the department are just asking the same topics but the wording of the question is slightly different to catch out grind schools that just learn questions off by heart. learn your stuff off but also know how to twist the information you know to fit the question if its asked a bit differently

dambarude

Make sure you lay your project out as detailed in the marking scheme. Make it look well (shading, good sketches/bar charts, handwriting). If you do any extra research that you didn't do in class add it in if it fits. Type it out in Word before writing it down so that you can play around with it while knowing the exact amount of words (saves you counting them).

Your teacher has quite a bit done. When I did my LC we didn't do geoecology until a week and a half before we finished up, and were still doing bits of the elective too.:pac:

Be ready for slight twists in questions- learning off answers from previous exam papers mightn't necessarily bring you the whole way. Know what you're meant to know, not what has always come up (but you should know that too!). Practise getting enough SRPs out of map questions (E.g. settlement), because you need next to no prior info to answer them. And use your common sense - it could get you an SRP or two.

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Faunge wrote: »

Hi, I did geography for the leaving cert hoping to get A1/A2 like yourself... the best advice for studying that i can give you is to do out questions from the exam papers to keep your mind refreshed on certain topics you havent studied in a while.. in the last few years the geography exam has been seen to be more difficult but really the department are just asking the same topics but the wording of the question is slightly different to catch out grind schools that just learn questions off by heart. learn your stuff off but also know how to twist the information you know to fit the question if its asked a bit differently

Ok thanks for the advice! Is there any main topics you think would have to be given extra attention?.

dambarude: thanks for the advice! Yeah my teacher is quite good, she's great crack too which is a bonus! For a 30 mark question would 15 SRP's be suffice for every question + diagrams if applicable?.

Keep the advice coming guys, thanks!

dambarude

PictureFrame wrote: »

Ok thanks for the advice! Is there any main topics you think would have to be given extra attention?.

dambarude: thanks for the advice! Yeah my teacher is quite good, she's great crack too which is a bonus! For a 30 mark question would 15 SRP's be suffice for every question + diagrams if applicable?.

Keep the advice coming guys, thanks!

Well unless things change, which they shouldn't, you should never need more than 15 SRPs for full marks in a question. That's only if they're solid SRPs though. What you think is an SRP might not always be corrected as one.

You could lose marks if they specify you need a diagram/specific example etc. and you don't include it though. That is, 15 SRPs wouldn't get you full marks in that case, you'd need 14 SRPs + a diagram or whatever. Look at the marking schemes and you'll see where this comes up.

To be safe I'd always write what you might deem yourself to be 17/18 SRPs (if you know them and you have the time).

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If you did all your questions in bullet point form, would that not show the examiner what you believe is an SRP?.

dambarude

Your examiner mightn't agree that it's an SRP though, even if it's a bullet point!

Like if you said something vague or obvious like 'The Mezzogiorno is a big region' or somesuch. That's a pretty bad example though.

PictureFrame

Ok I get you! A point like emm:

"The Mezzogiorno is a large mountainous area south of Rome in Italy"

would that be considered an SRP?

dambarude

Well that sounds like an SRP to me anyway. If you do your question in bullet points your much less likely to put in waffly sentences that you think are SRPs. When I did my LC we were told to write essays, but that's because for a while they gave coherence marks in every question (not just the option essay).

You have to make sure your SRPs are relevant to the question though. Any 15 SRPs at all won't do. They stipulate thinks like 'Max 6 SRPs if examination is of plate tectonics with no reference to Fold Mountains'

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Ok, I get you! Yep they only give coherence marks for the Option Question now as far as I know!

dambarude

Yup, which is lucky for you! Good luck with it. Though I did well in it, Geog was never a subject I really enjoyed.

brian93

Did the leaving and am looking for an A1 in Geography. Completely aced the paper I thought until I realised that I may have not answered 2 or 3 questions exactly as how they were asked! I always thought to myself that I would never read a question wrong every single time the teachers would say it. But when it really counted, I did!

My advice to getting good marks? It's not hard at all if you're prepared to work, I think. Lots of people think Geography is a walk in the park, and I did too until I got 72% in 5th year. 6 months ago I made a big note in my iPod that ready 'STUDY STUDY STUDY FOR GEO YOU GIMP' and it did help! If you have about 7 long questions for each of the first 3 sections and 3 or 4 for the essay question known well you'll do very well. I only started writing questions out after the mocks when I realised that the same questions come up year after year, you know now, so you could do one or 2 a week starting September, write them out in one page, and then come easter you can re-write them out, and glance through your shortened notes for the exam. You have a big choice of questions in Geography, so that's a great help! It's a really interesting subject!

As for the project, just make sure you follow all the guidelines, and don't make simple mistakes like leaving out graph or picture labels, and the same applies to the exam. It's a long-winded answer, but I just want to help people who are in the bloody situation I was in last year!

Do your homework, study for tests and write out questions. The Bog is out.

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brian93 wrote: »

Did the leaving and am looking for an A1 in Geography. Completely aced the paper I thought until I realised that I may have not answered 2 or 3 questions exactly as how they were asked! I always thought to myself that I would never read a question wrong every single time the teachers would say it. But when it really counted, I did!

My advice to getting good marks? It's not hard at all if you're prepared to work, I think. Lots of people think Geography is a walk in the park, and I did too until I got 72% in 5th year. 6 months ago I made a big note in my iPod that ready 'STUDY STUDY STUDY FOR GEO YOU GIMP' and it did help! If you have about 7 long questions for each of the first 3 sections and 3 or 4 for the essay question known well you'll do very well. I only started writing questions out after the mocks when I realised that the same questions come up year after year, you know now, so you could do one or 2 a week starting September, write them out in one page, and then come easter you can re-write them out, and glance through your shortened notes for the exam. You have a big choice of questions in Geography, so that's a great help! It's a really interesting subject!

As for the project, just make sure you follow all the guidelines, and don't make simple mistakes like leaving out graph or picture labels, and the same applies to the exam. It's a long-winded answer, but I just want to help people who are in the bloody situation I was in last year!

Do your homework, study for tests and write out questions. The Bog is out.

Thanks for the advice!. I'm planning on learning 4 essays per week from the week I go back to school. They're not that hard to learn really, I learnt about 20 of them successfully for my Summer Test and got the majority of them correct (A1 woop :L).

Is there any main essays in particular throughtout the whole course you would advise me to learn extremely well?

ChloeElla

If you have exam papers, they should have a grid in the front of what comes up every year, EG A question on an Irish landform (waterfall/ ox bow lake etc) has come up annually. Learn the questions that come up every year/ every second year perfectly. To get an A1, you really need to know most topics and be able to twist it to suit any question

LimerickLad92

I did this subject in a year this year as I was repeating.

As previously mentioned, keep writing out exam questions, fill an A4 hardback copy in neat work throughout the year, best study guide and revision you can have is your own answers!

Faunge

for the physical section make sure to know your diagrams they'l be worht a few srp's if you label them and make sure to give the diagram a title otherwise you wont get any marks for it, you dont need to be picasso when it comes to the diagrams just a simple sketch and theres no need to colour them in unless you have time at the end of the exam otherwise it' take time from your other questions

PictureFrame

Thanks for the advice guys! Keep the ideas coming!. Does anyone know if the book:

"Exam Skills in Geography"- Sue Honan

is worth getting?

AnnaKin

Exam Skills- certainly veerry useful, didnt realise that till the end of fifth year but i can assure you (what with the fact its sample essays on EVERYTHING) i'll be using it continuously throught sixth, thanks for asking that question btw, reallly glad i came across this link

brian93

PictureFrame wrote: »

Is there any main essays in particular throughtout the whole course you would advise me to learn extremely well?

I'm not sure what the equivalent is if you don't do rivers, but learn one of waterfall, delta, oxbow lake etc

Human interaction with rocks

Colonialisation in Brazil if you're doing that chapter

Be smart and learn one primary, secondary & tertiary from either Paris Basin or Mezzogiorno, because they've never asked to specify on one, ie they always say 'in a non-irish european region you have studied', meaning you can do one or the other, but know the basics of the other just in case

Igneous/Sedimentary/Metamorphic rocks. Igneous came up this year, and metamorphic the year before. cough Sedimentary cough! But know the other ones just in case

Human interaction on rivers/mass movement/coastal - I did he river Rhine, you might have done a dam or something else

European union policies, ie cap and fishing policy

There were 2 biome questions this year, might only get one next year. My advice is to learn all the biome ones, and one geoecology one. Definately do the human inetractions on soil and on biomes, and the other biome questions are nice too. There isn't much they can ask for biomes, so you need only leanr about 4 essays

I know that's a lot, but it's obvious you're planning on working hard, and my hat goes off to you. Mind that you don't wear yourself out like I did, don't over-cram for the mocks, and take it easy during the holidays, and get out of the house every Saturday and Sunday for a few hours.

Good luck kiddo, I feel so mature and wise :cool:

astonaidan

Less stress more success and past papers, Got A1 that way, But You need to like the subject I feel to get higher points

thefirsttime

Am I the only one whose teacher is ridiculously behind? We've only covered physical and Paris Basin...hoping other people are like this? I didn't realise we could even have that much done!

AnnaKin

thefirsttime wrote: »

Am I the only one whose teacher is ridiculously behind? We've only covered physical and Paris Basin...hoping other people are like this? I didn't realise we could even have that much done!

i'm not sure exactly how much we are supposed to have done- but i've done them and the elective on population (tbh- i cant remember how much we've done:pac:)

smeal

Keep an A4 notebook with sample essays. Invest in Sue Honan's Exam Skills for Geography (€15 in Easons). Its a wee gem and the only thing I used for geography and I got a B1 in my pre . It has all the sample answers that are possible to come up! Make sure you know your Option question off by heart! There were a lot of discussions on here before the LC as to how many Option essays everyone was learning. My advice is learn 3! If you havent already done the Option its the biggest question on the paper and i think its 30 srps:) You'll be way more confident going into the exam knowing that you already know the Option question:) Oooh and don't forget about the short question revision (which I admit, I didnt study for at all for the real thing). Go back over rivers, weather, simple plate tectonics all that stuff but I'm sure you already know what comes up on that:) Anyways, best of luck!x