Global phenomenon

[Nic K]

Which phenomenon are people studying? I'm doing global tourism and I reckon that it's really interesting. The rest of my class are doing global fishing though, but I managed to convince my teacher to let me do tourism

[mba]

We're doing desertification, which I think about 60% (hope my memory serves me) of the state do. I personally love Geography too, the exams do not seem too difficult, as long as you have a very good understanding of the MDB, human population and become an expert in desertification, your local resource and human population case studies.

Going through the exams, the key thing I gain from them is having an indepth knowledge of management policies/strategies for all four units. Every year there seems to many questions on these topics.

Also, the mapping of your global phenomenon is very important, as well as being able to map locations within the MDB. This has only appeared on the one exam (2006), perhaps it may be back this year?

MBA.

[howeys]

I'm doing human-forest interaction with Distance Ed.

[Nic K]

How are people going with mapping their phenomenon? Are you using the textbook distrubution image or a different one?

[mba]

Using the distribution map in New Perspectives (pg.294) for desertification.

[taiga]

As long as you source your distribution from a reputable source it does not matter, if they can find what you stated on the internet then you will get the marks

[Nic K]

Thanks for that advice. Have you got any other Geography advice?

[taiga]

Hmm try and have policies for population and your own study in very different regions in the world.

They can't make the exam hard as such, but they can ask something like, give examples of one policy on a local scale in the northern hemisphere, and one national scale policy on the southern hemisphere or something like that.

That happened last, year, not too many people had problems with that, but to the people who it did effect, it would have been devastating.

Use the marks allocated as an indication of how much you want to write.

In general highlight all the points where people did weakly in the last few year's exams (check study design) and make sure you can do them, because they generally like to test weakpoints.

[studying_hard]

i hate phenomenons. i am doing the desertification one. arrgh

[lara2707]

I'm doing desertification as well. Not the most interesting topic, but there is a lot of info on it. I really wanted to do animal trading but it was way too hard! I'm using the map in New Perspectives.

Nic K - other advice:
-Make sure that you can apply the spatial concepts well, and use them frequently.
-Know the difference between a policy (aim) and strategy (steps taken to achieve that aim) and know details of them including evidence
-Practise drawing accurate, neat maps TO TIME. You don't want to spend 30 minutes working on a map when it should take you 8! (Think 2 minutes per mark). Don't forget to include BOLTSS.
-Learn to describe distribution patterns well (PQE, which is in New Perspectives at the front somewhere, though you've probably already learnt it!)
-Think about factors for...well...pretty much everything.
-Be able to justify and evaluate policies.
-Know lots of evidence, eg. For the MDB you should know about 20 facts (such as how much irrigation is worth to the economy for example)
-Be able to map your local resource AND map it in regards to the surrounding region.
-Go over past exams and self-correct them. Read the examiners' reports.


They're the main things I can think of right now.