Geography Case studys- Are they that important?

[theboro76]

On the back of a few Georgraphy questions lately, I've decided to ask one of my own.

I recently started geography, which is going well. I find it fairly easy, except I dont know many case studies for it.

• Which leads me onto my question, how important are they? I.e. will we need one for each syllabus dot point, more than that, or just one for every topic.
• Should they be mostly background (words and social conditions explaining it) with a few statistics or mostly statistics with a few explaining words.
• Should the statistics be raw numbers be raw quantities or can they be relative? e.g. is it better to say thet the aboriginal unemplorment rate is twice the non-indigenous rate OR the aboriginal unemployment rate is 10% compared to ^% for the non-indigenous population.

Thanks in advance and I hope I made some sense.

[Nabz]

On the back of a few Georgraphy questions lately, I've decided to ask one of my own.

I recently started geography, which is going well. I find it fairly easy, except I dont know many case studies for it.

• Which leads me onto my question, how important are they? I.e. will we need one for each syllabus dot point, more than that, or just one for every topic.
• Should they be mostly background (words and social conditions explaining it) with a few statistics or mostly statistics with a few explaining words.
• Should the statistics be raw numbers be raw quantities or can they be relative? e.g. is it better to say thet the aboriginal unemplorment rate is twice the non-indigenous rate OR the aboriginal unemployment rate is 10% compared to ^% for the non-indigenous population.

Thanks in advance and I hope I made some sense.

Well the importance of case study can be determined by the fact that in paper 3 and 1 you have a 15 marker question and in paper 2 you have to answer 3 questions worth 10 marks each. For each of them, you have to have a case study in your essay or else you will only get like 20% at max really. The purpose of case study is to understand the "question" in real life scenario really. When a question says "Evaluate ..." what you're doing is using an example, you're giving your opinion supported by facts. It's very much like when you provide evidence for accusations in a court really.

You have to have at least 3-4 case study for each option theme i think or maybe more.

I hate geography only because of the case studies as they can get a pain in the neck when it comes to learning the statistics etc.

[flinquinnster]

Case studies are quite critical in geography, as they are the evidence for... umm... geographical trends and stuff - for example, if you are looking at an ageing population, doing a case study of Japan's ageing population will illustrate what impacts an ageing population has. Okay, now onto your points of query:

1. I would suggest you are able to quote a 'case study' for each section of the syllabus, unless it has a simple command term like 'define' and 'describe'. However, if it is something like defining ecological footprint, you still might want to know some statistics, if not a whole case study - for example, you might want to look at differences between US/Bhutanese ecological footprint, and then explore perhaps how ecological footprint is changing in a local area.

I would recommend that you try and memorise the same case studies for different syllabus points - e.g. I use migration case studies from the core to facilitate my urban migration case studies in the Urban option. With things like ecological footprint also, urban ecological footprint case studies can be used to discuss environmental sustainability. Slums feature in both the core and the urban option. Basic geographical models of core/periphery feature in both core and global HL. I could go on, but there are many interconnections.

2. I use a combination of statistics and words - roughly equal. It depends on the kind of learner you are. You need to make sure that there aren't too many statistics though, because then it breaks the flow of writing. I would suggest slightly more words than statistics because of this. You need some statistics to back up your words - your words seem like assertions if you haven't got some figures to support it.

3. Personally, my favourite kind of statistic is the 'relative' one. Sometimes, a raw figure like '10 000 people are affected by tuberculosis in Country X' means nothing, but if you can quote something like '45% of the population is affected by tuberculosis at any one time in Country X', it is far more persuasive and places the statistic in context. I also like relative statistics because they tend to be easier to remember - e.g. it is easier to remember something like 50% of a population is affected by Disease X, as opposed to 12 million people are affected by Disease X.

However, having said that, you cannot be too vague in your statistics - for example, if you go around in all your essays saying that 'urban migration rate is roughly double in LEDCs versus MEDCs', it sounds as though you are making statistics up to try and support the basic knowledge you have - make sure you still have one or two of your 'absolute' figures that make you sound as though you've memorised exact figures! But try to avoid making statistics up completely, because examiners are starting to get internet when marking and will definitely pick up if you get too ridiculous!

Geography seems so easy, but it can be surprisingly hard to bring it all together. Knowing case studies, and practising how to integrate them into extended response, is actually surprisingly tricky. So start early, and don't leave it to too late otherwise you too will be slightly regretting it when you realise you haven't made proper notes for a whole entire paper.

[theboro76]

Thanks heaps for your responses, they are fantastic!!!

One final question, dshould I have a range of case studies from different countries? Flinquinnster thats a great point about reusing the cases but is it acceptable to have many form one country. For example I realised almost all of mine were based in Australia, either from "Australian Geography" or just common knowledge. Should I have a variety and will I be marked down if I reference a few case studies in different questions but they are all form the same area?

[flinquinnster]

Thanks heaps for your responses, they are fantastic!!!

One final question, dshould I have a range of case studies from different countries? Flinquinnster thats a great point about reusing the cases but is it acceptable to have many form one country. For example I realised almost all of mine were based in Australia, either from "Australian Geography" or just common knowledge. Should I have a variety and will I be marked down if I reference a few case studies in different questions but they are all form the same area?

I have a similar issue - most of my case studies are Australia, simply because I find it so much easier to memorise case studies from my home country You definitely need to make sure you have a range across LEDCs/NICs/MEDCs because many questions in Paper 2/3 will ask for comparisons across these different types of countries. However, in terms of the region, most geography questions (unlike history) will be less hung-up on the spatial location on the country from which you derive your case study - however, it is still usually good, if you are doing a comparison, to look across at least 2 different regions/continents. I don't think you will necessarily be marked down from focusing your case studies in one area, but the examiner may hesitate to give you the scores in the really high mark ranges because you haven't demonstrated a wide variety of knowledge.

I usually focus my case studies in Australia, Bhutan, China (all in the Asia-Pacific!), but I do usually take some case studies from Africa and Europe to draw a contrast. You could also argue that the Middle-East and India have different characteristics as well.

So I definitely do think it's necessary to have case studies from more than one country, but you could still choose to have more case studies in one region than another.