VCE Geography study guide
VCE Geography · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
VCE Geography is a Victorian Certificate of Education study accredited by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) for an accreditation period from 2022, with the study design document updated in April 2021. It is designed for senior secondary students in Victoria who are building a Units 1–4 sequence in geography, typically across Year 11 and Year 12, and who will sit an external end-of-year examination for the scored Units 3 and 4 sequence. The study design sets out the areas of study, outcomes and assessment requirements for Units 1 to 4 from 2022. Across the sequence, students investigate geographical phenomena at a range of scales, working with fieldwork, data, maps and spatial technologies, and applying geographical concepts and command terms to analyse change and management of places. Topics on this exam: Unit 3 and Unit 4. The VCE Geography study guide has 2 sections and about 595 words.
01Unit 3: Changing the Land - Land Use, Land Cover and Change
Unit 3 examines how natural and human processes reshape land cover and land use at local, regional and global scales. You must be able to read and interpret land-use maps, choropleth maps, topographic maps and satellite imagery, and to describe spatial patterns using direction, distance, scale and density. Understand the difference between land cover (what is physically on the surface - forest, cropland, ice, urban) and land use (the human purpose - recreation, agriculture, conservation). Know the drivers of change: population growth, economic development, urbanisation, agricultural intensification, deforestation, mining and climate change.
298 words, about 1 min02Unit 4: Human Population - Trends, Structure and Change
Unit 4 investigates population size, distribution, composition and change. You must understand the demographic transition model , population pyramids, birth and death rates, natural increase, net migration, fertility and mortality measures, and dependency ratios. Know how to calculate and interpret rates, including crude birth rate, crude death rate, infant mortality rate, total fertility rate and rate of natural increase (births minus deaths per 1,000 people). Understand population momentum and the difference between population growth and population ageing.
297 words, about 1 min