GeographyQ&A by dot point

The economic, social, political and technological processes that change places (deindustrialisation, globalisation, gentrification, counter-urbanisation); the role of players in driving change; and the strategies of regeneration, rebranding and re-imaging used to manage it.

How places are shaped by endogenous factors (location, physical geography, land use, built environment, infrastructure and demographic and economic characteristics) and exogenous factors (relationships and flows of people, money, ideas and resources), and how these interact over time.

How places are represented through formal (statistical, cartographic) and informal (media, art, literature, marketing) sources; how representations create and contest meaning and identity; and how players use representations to influence perceptions of place.

The requirement to study a local place and a contrasting distant place in depth, using a range of quantitative and qualitative sources to investigate their character, the lived experience of those who live there, and how and why they have changed.

The concepts of place and space; the distinction between location, locale and sense of place; insider and outsider perspectives; and the factors that shape how individuals and groups perceive and attach meaning to places.

The consequences of carbon-cycle change for the atmosphere, oceans and ecosystems; the links between the carbon cycle and climate; and the mitigation and adaptation strategies that manage the water and carbon cycles at different scales.

The carbon cycle as a closed global system of stores and fluxes; the biological, geological and oceanic sub-cycles; carbon sequestration over short and long timescales; and the natural and human factors that change carbon stores and fluxes.

The global water cycle as a closed system of stores and flows; the drainage basin as an open sub-system with inputs, flows, stores and outputs; the water balance; and the natural and human factors that change water stores and flows across scales.

The interlinked operation of the water and carbon cycles in the Arctic tundra, the diagnostic role of permafrost and frozen stores, and the impact of human activity and climate change (especially permafrost thaw) on its water and carbon balances.

The interlinked operation of the water and carbon cycles in the tropical rainforest, the diagnostic stores and flows of this ecosystem, and the impact of human activity (especially deforestation) on its water and carbon balances.

The evidence for and causes of past and present climate change; the greenhouse effect and feedbacks; the differential impacts on people and environments; and the mitigation and adaptation responses, evaluated synoptically across physical and human geography.

The spatial distribution and diffusion of communicable and non-communicable disease; the links between disease, environment and development; the global and national strategies to manage disease; and the synoptic evaluation of disease as a barrier to and product of development.

Oceans as physical systems (circulation, the role in climate and carbon); oceans as contested resources (fisheries, minerals, energy); the geopolitics and governance of marine space; and the synoptic evaluation of ocean management under environmental and political pressure.

Plate tectonic theory and the processes generating earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis; the relationship between hazard, vulnerability and risk; the variation in impact by development and governance; and the synoptic evaluation of tectonic hazard management.

The patterns of global food production and consumption; the causes and consequences of food insecurity; the role of globalisation, trade and technology in food systems; and the synoptic evaluation of strategies to achieve sustainable food security.

The range of cartographic skills (OS maps, GIS, choropleth, isoline, proportional and flow-line maps) and graphical skills (line, bar, scatter, logarithmic and population pyramids), and how to select, construct and interpret them for geographical data.

The stages of geographical enquiry; the collection of primary and secondary data using appropriate physical and human methods; sampling strategies and their justification; and the evaluation of data reliability, accuracy and bias.

The statistical techniques used in geography (measures of central tendency and dispersion, percentage change, Spearman's rank correlation and significance testing) and how to calculate, apply and critically interpret them in geographical contexts.

The nature, requirements and assessment of the Independent Investigation (the non-examined assessment): an independent, fieldwork-based enquiry of around 3000 to 4000 words using primary and secondary data, structured through the enquiry process and marked against OCR's criteria.

The patterns and trends of global migration; the economic, social, political and environmental drivers of voluntary and forced movement; the consequences for source and host regions; and the governance of migration by states and international organisations.

The nature and variation of human rights; the patterns and causes of human-rights violations; the global governance of human rights by states, the UN and NGOs; and the geography, effectiveness and consequences of intervention.

The nature of sovereignty, the state, nations and borders; the threats to territorial integrity and state sovereignty; the global governance of political and territorial issues; and the consequences of intervention in contested spaces.

The patterns and processes of contemporary global trade; the role of comparative advantage, trade blocs, TNCs and global production networks; the resulting inequalities and interdependence; and the differential consequences of trade for places and people.

The coastal landscape as a system within a sediment cell; sources of energy and sediment; marine and sub-aerial processes; erosional and depositional landforms; the influence of sea-level change; and how human activity and climate change modify coastal landscapes.

Human influences on landscape systems and the management of landscape risk; hard and soft engineering and managed realignment; conflicts between players; and the sustainability of management in a changing climate.

The dryland landscape as a system shaped by climatic and tectonic controls; aeolian and fluvial (and weathering) processes; the erosional and depositional landforms they create; desertification and landscape change; and the human use and sustainable management of drylands.

The glaciated landscape as a system governed by mass balance; glacial, fluvioglacial and periglacial processes; the erosional and depositional landforms they create; the distribution of past and present ice; and the value, threats and management of cold environments.

The landscape as an open system of inputs, stores, flows and outputs in dynamic equilibrium; the operation of weathering, erosion, transport and deposition; and how energy, sediment, climate and human activity drive landscape change at varied scales and timescales.