Can you make up case studies on the IB Geo exam?

[Peanut Butter Jelly]

Im being serious here. Like actually make up stuff, obviously keeping it realistic to support yourself.

[~Lc~]

What do you mean by "making up". If you mean studying something new, then perhaps. If you mean making up your results... I wouldn't advise it!

[Peanut Butter Jelly]

i mean for the written essay of the geo HL paper . Like say you say birth rates have been declining and then you make up a case study and say. For example, as seen in the northeast region of china, blahblahblah

Edited June 4, 2011 by Summer Glau
no text speak

[Rigel]

i mean for the written essay of the geo HL paper . Like say you say birth rates have been declining and then you make up a case study and say. For example, as seen in the northeast region of china, blahblahblah

I wish we could do that...

[ZiggyM]

In the smaller class tests, it's amazing how much you can make up and then realise that it is actually very close to the truth. They aren't going to penalise you for saying 0.7 instead of 0.7135 kind of thing. However, it is obviously a lot better to actually know your statistics! From my experience with Geo, it isn't HARD, there's just lots of random stuff in it. Therefore, you arn't having to spend heaps of time studying the difficult parts of geo (because there aren't really any) and thus you could benefit dramatically from actually studying your case studies. Because your case studies actually are very indicative of the point they support (that's kind of the idea...)

So yes, I'd say you CAN make them up IF you have some knowledge of the area you are talking about - if you just can't remember the specific number, so not really making it up actually You aren't going to say something happens in northwest china if you actually don't know if it does, it's way to risky. HOWEVER if you are using case studies out of very popular textbooks that the examiner will know, eg Planet Geography, make sure you know them well. If you feel that you don't have a mind that can remember numbers accurately, I would say to put that extra little bit of effort in to find other, less well known case studies, so that just in case you do have half of a mind blank, you won't get penalised so much

Oh and just remember, you should ALWAYS have examples, not just in your essays. Throw them EVERYWHERE! They love that

[vapedo]

When you think about it, examiners dosn't know everything for every possible case studies (e.g, every statistics, places, etc...) except if its from textbook case studies or from famous places. So lets say you use a place that you are almost sure the examiner knows nothing about, such as the effect of the sea level rise in Togo (a country in Africa), you can probably get away by making up a bunch of statistices, fake examples and false facts. I dought that an examiner will take time to check every piece of information on internet especially if it looks legit.

[cjy]

Bit late on this. 

I did IB geo HL in 2013 and made up huge parts my case studies. These were based partially in reality but I fully made up a fish species that went to near extinction after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. So as long as it sounds true enough, examiners will not fact check unless its preposterous and unbelievable.  

FWIW I got a 6 with 7s in Papers 1 and 2, which is where I made up most of the case studies.