Geography

Assessment

The A-Level has three exams at the end of Year 13 that constitute 80% of the course. There is also an Independent Investigation (known as the Non-Examined Assessment) involving fieldwork that is worth 20% of your final grade. We follow the Edexcel course and the exams are as follows: • Paper 1: Physical Geography including tectonics, coasts, water, and carbon cycles. • Paper 2: Human Geography including regeneration, globalization, superpowers, and geopolitics. • Paper 3: Synoptic Investigation of a Geographical Issue. These exams combine a mixture of question types including short answer knowledge-based questions, essays, and data response and analysis questions. Some questions are worth four marks whilst some are worth 12 and 20 marks; these questions ask you to ‘assess’ and ‘evaluate’. A calculator will be required for all the exams. The nature and content of the A-Level Geography assessment, including the coursework, means that you will require strong literacy and numeracy skills, as well as geographical skills such as fieldwork. We will provide two opportunities for you to conduct local fieldwork using Start Bay in South Devon for physical fieldwork and Exeter for human fieldwork. We ask for a financial contribution from you to support these two days. You are required to complete four days of fieldwork in total across the two years, some of which will be completed independently as you collect the necessary data for your Independent Investigation (NEA).