Geographical Skills (Unit 2 GEOG2)
30% of AS, 15% of A Level
1 hour written examination
50 marks
Structured skills and generic fieldwork questions
You will develop the use and application of a variety of geographical skills.
These should broaden and deepen your existing knowledge of skills which
should be employed with a greater degree of independence. A statement of
the required skills under the different categories is given in the Skills Checklist
(on the following page).
Assessment
The exam will assess your ability to apply your knowledge and skills to
unseen information/resources and with reference to fieldwork.
A range of skills taken from at least three of the six categories – basic,
investigative, ICT, graphical, cartographical and statistical will be examined in
each exam series. Investigative skills, and consequently the assessment of
fieldwork, will always be tested in this paper. You will therefore need to take
part in personal investigative work in the field to ensure you are familiar with
these.
Question 1 will be set on one of the two compulsory core sections of the
physical and human geography from unit 1. This first part of the paper will be
based on a variety of resources relating to the topic selected.
Question 2 will relate specifically to candidates’ own fieldwork and
investigative research skills. The fieldwork you undertake should be linked to
the content of the specification.
Skills Checklist
You will need to develop a variety of basic, investigative, cartographic,
graphical, applied ICT and statistical skills. They will need to develop a critical
awareness of the appropriateness and limitations of different skills and
resources. The level of accuracy, sophistication and detail are all expected to
be greater at AS than at GCSE, and similarly between AS and A2.
You will need a basic mathematics set, including a calculator.
Basic Skills
To include:
 annotation of illustrative material, base maps, sketch maps, OS maps,
diagrams, graphs, sketches, photographs etc
 use of overlays
 literacy skills.
Investigative Skills
To include:
 identification of aims, geographical questions and issues, and effective
approaches to enquiry
 identification, selection and collection of quantitative and qualitative
evidence, including the use of appropriate sampling techniques, from
primary sources (including fieldwork) and secondary sources.
 processing, presentation, analysis and interpretation of evidence
 drawing conclusions and showing an awareness of the validity of
conclusions
 evaluation, including further research opportunities
 risk assessment and identification of strategies for minimising health
and safety risks in undertaking fieldwork.
Cartographic Skills
To include at AS use of:
 atlas maps
 base maps
 sketch maps
 Ordnance Survey maps at a variety of scales
 maps with located proportional symbols – squares, circles, semicircles, bars
 maps showing movement – flow lines, desire lines and trip lines
 choropleth, isoline and dot maps.
Graphical Skills
To include at AS use of:
 line graphs – simple, comparative, compound and divergent
 bar graphs – simple, comparative, compound and divergent
 scatter graphs – and use of best fit line
 pie charts and proportional divided circles
 triangular graphs
 radial diagrams
 logarithmic scales
 dispersion diagrams.
ICT Skills
To include:
 use of remotely sensed data – photographs, digital images including
those captured by satellite
 use of databases, eg census data, Environment Agency data;
meteorological office data
 use of geographical information systems (GIS)
 presentation of text and graphical and cartographic images using ICT.
Statistical Skills
To include at AS:
 measures of central tendency – mean, mode, median
 measures of dispersion – interquartile range and standard deviation
 Spearman’s rank correlation test
 application of significance level in inferential statistical results.
Guidance on writing a report
Introduction and hypothesis
 What was the location of the fieldwork?
 When was it was carried out?
 Why was this site chosen for your investigation?
 What are the geographical concepts and processes you are
investigating?
 What are you going to investigate?
 What do you think you will find?
Aims
 What do you want to find out?
 What are the aims, geographical questions and issues you want to
investigate?
Methodology
 What primary data are you collecting?
 What secondary data are you collecting?
 How are you carrying out these methods? What equipment did you
use? How many repetitions of each measurement?
 Why are you using these methods?
 What quantitative and qualitative data did you collection?
Risk assessment
 What risks are involved in your investigation?
 What are you going to do to minimising health and safety risks out in
the field?
Results
 How are you going to present your data?
 Examples:
o Graphs - bar, line, scatter, pie.
o Maps - chloropleth, OS maps, field sketches.
o Photographs (annotations).
o Overlays.
 How are you going to use ICT to present text, graphs and cartographic
images?
Analysis
 What do your results show?
 How are you going to use statistics to explain what your results show?
 Examples: Mean, mode, median, interquartile range, standard
deviation, Spearman’s rank correlation test, application of significance
level in inferential statistical results
 Why are you using these?
Conclusion
 Can you summarise your results and relate them to specific aims and
hypotheses?
 Can you show an awareness of the validity of your conclusions?
 What are the limitations and implications of your study?
Evaluation
 What you would do to improve your investigation if you did it again?
 Would you use different methods? Different location? More data? More
varied data?
 What further research opportunities are there in this field?
 What are the limitations of your data collection methods and fieldwork?
AQA Geography Unit 2 – Geographical skills
You have experienced geography fieldwork as part of the course. Use this
experience to answer the following questions.
May 2009
2 (a) (i) Describe the location of your fieldwork and outline why this was a suitable
site for your investigation (4 marks).
2 (a) (ii) State one hypothesis or research question or issue for evaluation that you
have investigated in 2(a)(i). Describe one method of primary data collection used in
this investigation (5 marks).
2 (a) (iii) Discuss the limitations of your chosen method in 2(a)(ii) (6 marks).
2 (b) Outline and justify the use of one or more techniques used to analyse your
results (5 marks).
2 (c) Drawing upon your findings, explain how your enquiry improved your
understanding of the topic (5 marks).
January 2009
2 (a) Explain the geographical concept, process or theory that underpinned your
fieldwork enquiry (4 marks).
2 (b) How did you respond to risks associated with undertaking your primary data
collection? (4 marks).
2 (c) Outline and justify one method of data collection that you used in your enquiry
(6 marks).
2 (d) With the aid of a sketch diagram, describe one technique that you used to
present data in your enquiry (6 marks
2 (e) Making specific reference to your results, suggest how your enquiry could be
improved (5 marks).
January 2010
2 (a) (i) State the aim of your investigation and describe one method of data
collection associated with the aim (6 marks).
Aim……………………………………..
Method ...........................................................................................................................
2 (a) (ii) Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the method of data collection in
2(a)(i) (6 marks).
2 (b) Describe one method used to present your data (5 marks).
2 (c) How far did your fieldwork conclusions match the geographical theory, concept
or idea on which your investigation was based? (8 marks).
June 2010
You have experienced geography fieldwork as part of the course. Use this
experience to answer the following questions.
 2 (a) Describe the geographical theory, concept or idea that formed the basis
of your fieldwork investigation. (5 marks)
 2 (b) (i) With reference to your fieldwork investigation, distinguish between
qualitative and quantitative data. (3 marks)
 2 (b) (ii) Describe one method that you used for the collection of primary or
secondary data (6 marks)
 2 (b) (iii) Outline one technique that you used to present results from your data
collection. (4 marks)
 2 (c) Evaluate your investigation. In your answer, you should:
• comment on the strengths and weaknesses of different aspects of the study
• suggest improvements. (7 marks)
Jan 2011
You have experienced geographical fieldwork as part of the course.
Use this experience to answer the following questions.
 2 (a) (i) Describe the purpose of your fieldwork enquiry. (5 marks)
 2 (a) (ii) In the box provided below, draw an annotated sketch map of the
location of your study area to show its basic characteristics.
 (5 marks)
 2 (b) Distinguish between primary and secondary sources of data used in your
fieldwork enquiry (3 marks)
 2 (c) With reference to one technique you chose to present data in your
enquiry, justify the choice of this technique. (6 marks)
 2 (d) Explain how your fieldwork enquiry could have been improved.
 (6 marks)
Jun 2011
You have experienced geographical fieldwork as part of the course.
Use this experience to answer the following questions.
 2 (a) (i) Outline the purpose of your enquiry. (5 marks)
 2 (a) (ii) Using specific examples from your fieldwork, describe the risk
assessment you undertook in relation to your enquiry. (6 marks)
 2 (b) Evaluate one of your methods of data collection. (5 marks)
 2 (c) (i) Summarise the main findings of your fieldwork enquiry. (4 marks)
 2 (c) (ii) How far did your findings reflect your expectations at the start of the
enquiry? (5 marks)
Jan 2012
You have experienced geography fieldwork as part of the course. Use this
experience to answer the following questions.
State the aim of your fieldwork enquiry.
..................................................................................................................................
..................................................................................................................................
 2 (a) Describe the advantages of your chosen location for the fieldwork
enquiry. (4 marks)
 2 (b) Evaluate one method of primary data collection that you used in your
enquiry. (6 marks)
 2 (c) Outline how you obtained and why you used secondary data in your
enquiry. (5 marks)
 2 (d) Describe advantages of a technique that you used to analyse your
data. (5 marks)
 2 (e) With specific reference to your results, summarise the main
conclusions of your enquiry. (5 marks)
June 2012
You have experienced geography fieldwork as part of the course. Use this
experience to answer the following questions.
 2 (a) Describe the purpose of your fieldwork enquiry. (6 marks)
 2 (b) Describe a sampling technique you used to collect data. (5
marks)
 2 (c) Justify the use of one technique used to analyse data in your
enquiry. (6 marks)
 2 (d) Referring to your results, outline the main conclusions of your
enquiry and suggest further areas of research. (8 marks)