NSSCO Geography 6137 common mistakes
NSSCO Geography 6137 · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
When asked to explain why a landform such as a waterfall or an ox-bow lake forms, the candidate names the process (erosion, deposition) and stops, without stating where it happens on the feature or which rock type is involved.
Candidates memorise process vocabulary from notes but never rehearse the sequence 'process + location on the feature + result'. Under time pressure they write the label they remember and move on, believing the term itself earns the mark.
What to do instead
Practise answering with a three-part sentence frame: name the process, say exactly where on the feature it acts (e.g. 'at the base of the fall', 'on the inside of the meander'), then state the resulting shape. Write five such sentences for each of five features and check each against the mark scheme wording for 'process', 'location' and 'result'.
On plate tectonics questions the candidate answers 'because the plates move' or 'because of a collision' without naming the plate boundary type, the direction of relative movement, or the landform produced.
Diagrams in class show arrows and labels together, so learners recognise the picture but never separate the three ideas. In an exam without the diagram, only the vaguest element survives recall.
What to do instead
Build a three-column table for constructive, destructive and conservative boundaries: relative plate movement, resulting landform or hazard, and one named example (e.g. the East African Rift, the Andes, the San Andreas Fault). Then answer past-paper questions using all three columns in one paragraph.
The candidate reads a climate graph or a synoptic-style weather description and describes the numbers ('rainfall is 60 mm, temperature is 24°C') instead of interpreting them ('highest rainfall coincides with highest temperature, so the station is in the southern hemisphere tropics').
Learners treat data questions as reading exercises and are rewarded in class for correct extraction. They have not been taught that the marks sit in the comparison and the conclusion, not the figure.
What to do instead
Use the pattern 'read, compare, conclude': state the figure, compare it with another month or variable, then state what that means for hemisphere, season, climate type or human activity. Do ten graphs, writing no more than two sentences each, each ending in a conclusion.
When asked to describe a nutrient cycle or the effect of removing vegetation from an ecosystem, the candidate lists animals and plants by name but omits the stores (soil, biomass, litter, atmosphere) and the flows between them.
Ecosystem teaching often centres on named species and food chains, so learners think naming organisms is the same as explaining a system. Stores and flows are abstract and get skipped in revision.
What to do instead
Draw the ecosystem as four labelled boxes with arrows, then describe each arrow in one sentence using 'transfer', 'input' and 'loss'. Answer one question on deforestation or overgrazing by tracing what happens to each box in turn, without naming a single species.
Population questions are answered with a single cause ('people move to the city for jobs') and no consequence, no counter-argument and no reference to a named place.
Candidates reduce push-pull factors to a memorised list and never practise the 'cause, consequence, evaluation' structure. They also avoid named examples because they fear getting the detail wrong.
What to do instead
Prepare three case-study cards (one rural-urban migration stream in Namibia or Southern Africa, one ageing or youthful population, one settlement issue) each with cause, consequence, one management response and one limitation of that response. Rehearse writing them in under six minutes each.
The candidate describes a settlement pattern or land-use zone from a map by listing what is there rather than explaining why it is there, and never uses the map evidence (relief, drainage, route junctions) to justify the answer.
Map questions are treated as 'find and copy' tasks. Learners are not trained to link a symbol to a reason, so the explanation step is missing even when the observation is correct.
What to do instead
For every settlement question, force the structure 'evidence from the map, therefore reason, therefore pattern'. Practise on any local topographical map: pick three built-up areas and write one sentence each citing a grid reference and a physical feature as the reason for the site.
Development questions are answered by quoting a single indicator such as GDP per capita or literacy rate and concluding that one country is 'more developed', with no acknowledgement that indicators can mislead.
Learners memorise the definition of development as economic growth and are rarely asked to compare indicators or discuss their limitations, so the evaluative marks are invisible to them.
What to do instead
Learn a fixed set of indicators (GDP per capita, HDI, life expectancy, literacy, access to clean water) and for each write one sentence on what it measures and one on what it misses. Then answer a comparison question using at least two indicators and one explicit limitation.
On resource and sustainability questions the candidate writes 'we should recycle and use less' as the whole answer, without naming the resource, the scale of use, or who is responsible for managing it.
Sustainability is taught as a slogan, and candidates reproduce the slogan because it feels safe. They have not practised attaching a management strategy to a specific resource and a specific actor.
What to do instead
For three resources (water, fish stocks, a mineral such as diamonds or uranium) write a strategy table: the pressure on the resource, a management method, the level at which it operates (household, national, international) and one reason the method might fail. Answer using that table, not generalities.
In map skills the candidate gives a four-figure grid reference when a six-figure one is required, or measures straight-line distance along a curved road instead of using the scale correctly, and gives no units.
The 'along then up' order and the easting-then-northing rule are learned once and rarely drilled, and distance practice is usually done on straight lines. Units are dropped because marks are assumed to be for the number alone.
What to do instead
Drill ten grid references a day for a week, always saying the rule aloud before writing. For distance, practise three curved routes per session, marking the route in straight segments, converting with the scale and writing the unit every time.
Fieldwork and skills questions ask for a method or a conclusion and the candidate writes a general opinion rather than describing the sampling technique, the data collected, or how the data were presented and what they showed.
Fieldwork is often experienced as a trip rather than as a sequence of decisions, so learners remember the place and the weather but not the method. They have never written up a method as a set of steps.
What to do instead
Write a reusable method template: aim, sampling strategy and why it was chosen, equipment, number of readings, how data were recorded, how presented, and one source of error. Apply it to a river, weather or settlement survey and check it names a sampling type and a presentation technique explicitly.
Namibia and Southern Africa case-study questions are answered with generic African examples or invented statistics, with no named place, no named river or region, and no link to the physical or human process being tested.
Candidates know the regional content loosely and, under pressure, substitute a safe general answer. Specific figures are avoided because learners are unsure which are current and fear being marked wrong.
What to do instead
Build a one-page regional fact sheet with five entries (e.g. the Namib desert and its fog moisture, the Orange River and its hydro-electric and irrigation use, the Okavango Delta, coastal fishing and the Benguela current, mining and the Namibian economy), each with location, process and one management issue. Learn approximate rather than precise figures and always name the place.