Geography
Geography tests both physical and human geography: map skills and spatial reasoning, Earth systems and landforms, climate and biomes, population and migration, economic activity, and the relationship between people and environments.
Core rules and concepts
- The five themes - location (absolute via coordinates, relative via relation), place, human–environment interaction, movement, and region - structure most questions.
- Map projections distort shape, area, distance, or direction; the Mercator preserves direction for navigation but inflates high-latitude area, making Greenland look larger than South America's true size would suggest.
- Scale converts map distance to ground distance; small-scale maps cover large areas with less detail.
- Plate tectonics explains earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountain belts at convergent, divergent, and transform boundaries.
- Climate (long-term averages) differs from weather; the Köppen system classifies by temperature and precipitation, and continentality, latitude, altitude, and ocean currents drive variation.
- Demographic Transition Model: high birth and death rates, then falling death rates with rapid growth, then falling birth rates, then low stable rates.
- Economic sectors shift from primary (extraction) to secondary (manufacturing) to tertiary and quaternary (services, information) as development proceeds.
Worked example
A population pyramid is broad at the base and narrow at the top. Reasoning: a wide base indicates high birth rates and a large cohort of children; rapid narrowing indicates lower life expectancy and a small elderly population. This profile fits stage 2 of the demographic transition, where death rates have fallen but birth rates remain high - implying continued rapid growth and heavy future demand for schools and later for jobs.
Traps that cost marks
- Reading projection distortion as a factual claim about size.
- Confusing weather with climate, or climate with biome.
- Mixing push factors (origin conditions) with pull factors (destination attractions).
- Assuming rapid population growth always means economic growth.