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2013 Notes from the Marking Centre – Geography

Introduction

This document has been produced for the teachers and candidates of the Stage 6 Geography course. It contains comments on candidate responses to the 2013 Higher School Certificate examination, highlighting their strengths in particular parts of the examination and indicating where candidates need to improve.

This document should be read along with:

Section II

Question 21

Candidates showed strength in these areas:

  • calculating local relief along a cross-section which requires taking the highest point from the lowest point (part a)
  • knowing and applying the gradient formula (part b)
  • identifying the different scales for vertical (1/150) and horizontal (1/2000) (part c)
  • correctly using the vertical exaggeration formula (part c).

Candidates need to improve in these areas:

  • understanding that the concept of relief requires taking the highest point from the lowest point – some students looked at the start and finish points of the cross-section (A and C) and ignored Point B (part a)
  • understanding the difference between metres and kilometres (part b)
  • expressing the vertical exaggeration correctly (ie 1:30, 1 in 30) (part c)
  • writing the different scales as a fraction, 1/150 and 1/2000 (part c).

Question 22

Candidates showed strength in these areas:

  • understanding the concepts of protection and management of ecosystems and the reasons to protect and manage ecosystems (part a)
  • referring to the source (part a)
  • using observational skills to analyse the content of the photo (part a)
  • making specific reference to both diagrams (part b)
  • understanding how ecosystems function (part b)
  • using correct terminology to explain the interactions of a functioning ecosystem (part b).

Candidates need to improve in these areas:

  • selecting two reasons that were evident in the photograph (part a)
  • using the terminology of the syllabus (part a)
  • explaining geographical concepts rather than just describing them (part a)
  • using elements of the source to answer the question rather than just mentioning the source (part a)
  • moving beyond describing or defining the four spheres in the diagrams (part b)
  • understanding nutrient cycles and energy flows in an ecosystem and the interactions that are part of these cycles (part b)
  • explaining geographical concepts rather than just describing them (part b).

Question 23

Candidates showed strength in these areas:

  • drawing on a global perspective relating globalisation, dominance/dependence, the role of transnational corporations, economic restructuring, decentralisation policies, changing technologies, etc, as reasoning behind the changing relationship (part a)
  • understanding how and why small towns lose services and populations (part a)
  • using sample study examples such as Dubbo, Wagga and Armidale (part a)
  • referring to global expansion of megacities as a whole and then bringing the scale to the individual city with explicit use of the stimulus (part b)
  • providing reasons for the cause of rapid growth (part b)
  • referring specifically to the provision of services with clear cause/effect relationships (part c)
  • referring explicitly to the source photographs, generally more than once (part c)
  • using examples to highlight and explain the challenge (part c).

Candidates need to improve in these areas:

  • using appropriate examples (part a)
  • providing reasons for growth, not just giving a general outline (part b)
  • using the source explicitly (parts b and c)
  • describing a challenge that is related to the stimulus (part c)
  • not just listing a number of challenges (part c).

Question 24

Candidates showed strength in these areas:

  • indicating the spatial patterns of the economic activity using geographic terminology (eg latitude, longitude, altitude) (part a)
  • referring to Old World and New World countries by name (for viticulture) (part a)
  • referring to developed regions/countries (eg Europe/USA) as the major source of tourists and the traditional destination of tourists (for tourism) (part a)
  • providing characteristics of one (environmental, social or economic) impact of the activity, using specific examples (part b)
  • using statistics to support the answer (part b)
  • explaining how two factors (biophysical, ecological, economic, sociocultural, technological, organisational, political) contributed to the future directions of the economic activity (part c)
  • providing appropriate examples (part c).

Candidates need to improve in these areas:

  • knowing the difference between the global economic activity and the local economic enterprise (part a)
  • stating the spatial patterns of the economic activity, not just defining the economic activity (part a)
  • knowing the difference between the (global) economic activity and the (local) economic enterprise (parts b and c)
  • not using historical examples when referring to future directions (part c).

Section III

Question 25

Candidates showed strength in these areas:

  • making a judgement of the results of negative human impacts, such as rates of climate change or the extent of deforestation
  • knowing the functional processes occurring within TWO different ecosystem case studies
  • correctly naming and locating illustrative examples of these ecosystems
  • understanding the human-induced modifications to the functioning of the ecosystems, such as the energy flows, nutrient cycling and relationships between biophysical components
  • using geographical terminology such as trophic levels, biodiversity, seral progression and issues such as ecological sustainability, intergenerational equity, loss of utility values and heritage values
  • using relevant facts and figures of variables to support judgements.

Candidates need to improve in these areas:

  • not restricting the analysis to human impacts
  • supporting judgements with examples and statistics.

Question 26

Candidates showed strength in these areas:

  • identifying a large city in the developed world
  • recognising which urban dynamics best suited this question (eg suburbanisation, urban decay and renewal, urban consolidation and decentralisation rather than urban village and spatial exclusion)
  • understanding the concept of ecological sustainability
  • defining at least two urban dynamics and linking each with an illustrative example.

Candidates need to improve in these areas:

  • understanding the geographical concept of a city within the developed world
  • understanding what the term ‘analyse’ means
  • understanding that gentrification and urban sprawl are not urban dynamics.

Question 27

Candidates showed strength in these areas:

  • using a variety of the following methods to locate their economic enterprise: direction, distance, latitude/longitude, sketch maps, regional description
  • using biophysical locational factors
  • using geographical terms linked to their economic enterprise and the wider economic activity
  • making judgements about the locational factors that have influenced their economic enterprise.

Candidates need to improve in these areas:

  • evaluating the locational factors equally
  • referring to the selected economic enterprise needs consistently throughout the response
  • balancing consideration of biophysical and human locational factors.
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