Edexcel GCSE Geography A Active Recall Guide (1GA0)
Edexcel · GCSE
Edexcel GCSE Geography A Active Recall Guide
Every topic of specification 1GA0 written as exam-style questions with the answers printed after them. 1,385 questions across 15 topics and 101 subtopics, including every optional topic so the guide fits whichever ones you sit.
- Edexcel
- GCSE
- Specification 1GA0
- 1,385 questions
Guide overview All 15 topics Sample questions Papers and weighting Look inside Questions and answers
What the exam asks of you
Edexcel GCSE Geography A is three written papers. Paper 1, The Physical Environment, is 1 hour 45 minutes, 94 marks, 37.5 per cent. Paper 2, The Human Environment, is 1 hour 30 minutes, 94 marks, 37.5 per cent. Paper 3, Geographical Investigations, is 1 hour 30 minutes, 64 marks, 25 per cent, and covers fieldwork and UK challenges.
Each of the first two papers carries a choice, and geographical skills and mathematics run through all three. Every option is in the guide.
| Paper | Covers | Length | Marks | Weighting |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Paper 1 The Physical Environment |
The Changing Landscapes of the UK Coastal Landscapes and Processes River Landscapes and Processes Glaciated Upland Landscapes and Processes Weather Hazards and Climate Change Ecosystems, Biodiversity and Management Geographical Skills Mathematics and Statistics Skills |
1 hour 45 minutes | 94 marks | 37.5% |
|
Paper 2 The Human Environment |
Changing Cities Global Development Resource Management Energy Resource Management Water Resource Management Geographical Skills Mathematics and Statistics Skills |
1 hour 30 minutes | 94 marks | 37.5% |
|
Paper 3 Geographical Investigations: Fieldwork and UK Challenges |
Geographical Investigations – Fieldwork Geographical Investigations − UK Challenges Geographical Skills Mathematics and Statistics Skills |
1 hour 30 minutes | 64 marks | 25% |
What is in the guide
All 15 topics
Every topic has its own page with its subtopics, what it covers and sample questions.
Sample questions
Taken from the guide. Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.
-
Global urbanisation trends and rates
Describe the pattern of urban growth in emerging countries over the past half century.
Show the answer
Very rapid growth, with millions moving into industrial cities and several reaching megacity size. -
Coastal processes: weathering, mass movement, erosion, transport and deposition
How is slumping different from a slide?
Show the answer
Slumped material rotates as it moves down a curved failure surface, so the slipped block tilts backwards and leaves a scar shaped like a spoon. -
The world’s large-scale ecosystems and what controls their distribution
What climate produces tropical grassland, and what vegetation results?
Show the answer
A clear wet season and a long dry season on either side of the rainforest belt, giving tall grasses with scattered drought-resistant trees. -
Renewable and non-renewable energy resources compared
Why are coal, oil and gas grouped together as fossil fuels?
Show the answer
They all formed from the buried remains of plants and animals over millions of years. -
River fieldwork: enquiry questions, methods and secondary data
Why does a float on the surface give a faster reading than the channel as a whole?
Show the answer
Friction against the bed and banks slows the water lower down, so the surface moves faster than the average. -
The UK’s resource consumption and sustainability challenge
How does a larger population raise the demand on UK water, energy and food supplies?
Show the answer
Every extra home has to be supplied with water, heated and lit, and its occupants fed, so total demand climbs even if each person consumes no more than before. -
Atlas and map skills: distributions, patterns and sketch maps
What is an anomaly in a distribution?
Show the answer
A place or value that does not fit the general pattern shown by the rest of the map. -
Glacial processes and the processes at work on relict landscapes today
What causes a glacier to deposit the load it is carrying?
Show the answer
Melting, because ice that is thinning or retreating no longer has the energy to move its load and simply drops it.
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.
-
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.
Look inside
Questions for a subtopic print together and the answers for that section print after them.
- Changing Cities156
- Coastal Landscapes and Processes71
- Ecosystems, Biodiversity and Management140
- Energy Resource Management85
- Geographical Investigations - Fieldwork139
- Geographical Investigations - UK Challenges44
- Geographical Skills83
- Glaciated Upland Landscapes and Processes75
- Global Development126
- Mathematics and Statistics Skills100
- Resource Management42
- River Landscapes and Processes96
- and 3 more
- How does freeze-thaw break up rock in a cliff face?
- What is meant by chemical weathering at the coast?
- Give two ways living things weather coastal rock.
- What happens when a cliff fails by sliding?
- How is slumping different from a slide?
- What is hydraulic action, and why is it strongest during a storm?
- What is abrasion at the base of a cliff?
- What does attrition do to the material a wave is carrying?
- Which rock types are most affected by solution as a form of erosion, and why?
- Water collects in a crack, freezes and expands by about a tenth of its volume, and repeated freezing widens the crack until fragments split away.
- The rock is broken down by a reaction that changes its minerals, such as slightly acidic rainwater dissolving the calcium carbonate in limestone and chalk.
- Plant roots grow into cracks and prise the rock apart, and burrowing animals and shellfish bore into softer rock and weaken it.
- A block of saturated material moves downslope in one piece along a straight surface, keeping roughly its original shape as it goes.
- Slumped material rotates as it moves down a curved failure surface, so the slipped block tilts backwards and leaves a scar shaped like a spoon.
- It is the force of breaking waves compressing air into cracks so the rock is blown apart, and storm waves carry far more energy so the compression is greater.
- Waves hurl sand, shingle and pebbles against the rock face, and this load scrapes and grinds away at the cliff like sandpaper.
- Loose rock fragments knock against each other and are chipped and worn down, so they become smaller and rounder the longer they are moved.
- Limestone and chalk, because rainwater is slightly acidic and dissolves the calcium carbonate they are made of.
questions
Scroll sideways to turn through the pages.
Questions students ask first
I only do some of these topics. Is the rest wasted?
No. On Paper 1 you take The Changing Landscapes of the UK plus two of coastal, river and glaciated upland landscapes, then Weather Hazards and Climate Change and Ecosystems, Biodiversity and Management. On Paper 2 you take Changing Cities, Global Development and Resource Management, then one of energy or water.
All the options are in the guide because schools choose differently. Work yours and skip the rest.
Is my own fieldwork covered?
Paper 3 asks about fieldwork you have done: the question, the methods, the data, the conclusion and the problems with it. The guide covers the fieldwork techniques, sampling, data presentation and evaluation that the questions are built on. The specifics of your two days out are yours.
How much maths is there?
Enough to have its own topic of 100 questions. Means, medians, modes and ranges, interquartile range, percentages and percentage change, ratios, scale, gradient, and reading graphs, choropleth maps and cross-sections.
Do I need my own case studies?
Yes, and your school will have taught specific ones. The guide covers the processes and the standard examples. Use your own named places where you have them, because examiners credit specific detail.
Edexcel GCSE Geography A Active Recall Guide
Every question paired with its answer, grouped by topic and subtopic, ready to work in three passes.