Geographic Inquiry and Critical Thinking
Thinking like a geographer
The course is built on six concepts - place, process, power, possibility, scale and system - and examiners reward candidates who use them to organise an argument rather than to decorate it.
What critical thinking means here
- Deconstruct the command term: 'describe' needs a pattern; 'explain' needs mechanism; 'evaluate' needs criteria, evidence on both sides and a judgment.
- Interrogate data: who collected it, when, at what resolution, for what purpose. National averages hide distribution - that is exactly what the Gini coefficient and the inequality-adjusted HDI expose.
- Treat models as simplifications with a purpose and a limitation (DTM, Rostow, Burgess, the Brandt line).
- Separate correlation from causation, and ask at which scale a claim actually holds.
Worked example
Countries A and B both have GNI per capita (PPP) of about $12,000. A has a Gini of 0.27; B has 0.58, and B's IHDI falls much further below its HDI. Reasoning: the income component of HDI is identical, yet lived development differs, because in B a large share of households sits far below the mean. A defensible answer states that the averages are equal but the distribution is not, and that household survey data, regional breakdowns or gender-disaggregated data would be needed before judging which population is better off.
Traps
Answering 'evaluate' with description. Using a single case study as proof of a global trend. Asserting causation from a scattergraph. Omitting the final judgment, which is where the highest marks sit.