Hot Deserts | AQA GCSE Geography (8035)
Hot Deserts
- 52 questions
- 4 subtopics
- Paper 1
- Paper 1
Hot Deserts is examined in Paper 1, Living with the physical environment.
It covers hot desert characteristics, interdependence and adaptations, hot desert biodiversity, opportunities and challenges of developing a hot desert and desertification: causes and how the risk is reduced.
Sample questions from Hot Deserts
Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.
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Hot desert characteristics, interdependence and adaptations
Describe the soils and plant cover of a hot desert.
Show the answer
The soils are thin, sandy or stony and low in nutrients, and vegetation is sparse and widely spaced with bare ground between the plants. -
Hot desert characteristics, interdependence and adaptations
Name three features that help a desert plant lose as little water as possible.
Show the answer
A thick waxy skin, spines or tiny leaves instead of broad ones, and stomata that open only during the cooler night. -
Hot desert biodiversity
How does taking too much groundwater threaten desert wildlife?
Show the answer
The water table falls, so springs, oases and wetlands dry up and the deep-rooted trees and shrubs that other species depend on die. -
Hot desert biodiversity
How does salinisation of irrigated desert land reduce biodiversity?
Show the answer
Irrigation water evaporates and leaves its dissolved salts behind in the soil, and very few plants can grow in salty ground, so the land is left almost bare. -
Opportunities and challenges of developing a hot desert
What attracts tourists to hot desert environments?
Show the answer
Almost guaranteed sunshine and dramatic scenery such as dunes, canyons and rock arches, along with adventure activities and unusual wildlife. -
Opportunities and challenges of developing a hot desert
Besides solar power, what energy resources does the Thar Desert provide?
Show the answer
Strong winds drive the Jaisalmer Wind Park, one of India's largest wind farms, and oil is extracted from fields near Barmer. -
Desertification: causes and how the risk is reduced
What is overgrazing, and how does it degrade the land?
Show the answer
It is keeping more animals on an area than it can support, so they eat plants faster than these regrow and their hooves trample and bare the surface. -
Desertification: causes and how the risk is reduced
How does careful soil management protect land at risk of turning to desert?
Show the answer
Resting fields, rotating crops and adding manure rebuild the nutrients, while ploughing along the contour and terracing slow the runoff so soil stays where it is.
The 4 subtopics
One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.
| Subtopic | What it covers | Questions |
|---|---|---|
| Hot desert characteristics, interdependence and adaptations | Where hot deserts lie and why, rainfall, day and night temperatures, thin soils and sparse plants, the links between climate, soil, plants, animals and people, and plant and animal adaptations. | 10 |
| Hot desert biodiversity | Why desert biodiversity is low yet fragile and slow to heal, and the threats from groundwater pumping, overgrazing, tourism, mining, salinisation, restricted ranges and a warming climate. | 10 |
| Opportunities and challenges of developing a hot desert | Mineral extraction, solar and wind energy, irrigated farming and tourism in hot deserts, the challenges of extreme heat, water supply and inaccessibility, and the Thar Desert's minerals, Bhadla Solar Park, Indira Gandhi Canal and Jaisalmer tourism. | 20 |
| Desertification: causes and how the risk is reduced | What desertification is, how climate change, population growth, fuel wood collection, overgrazing, over-cultivation and soil erosion cause it, and how water and soil management, tree planting and appropriate technology reduce the risk. | 12 |
How the guide is worked
Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.
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Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
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Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
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Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.
Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.
Nearby topics
AQA GCSE Geography Active Recall Guide
Every topic, not just this one. 1,429 questions with their answers.