Look inside the Edexcel GCSE Geography A guide (1GA0)

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Look inside the Edexcel GCSE Geography A guide

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Edexcel · GCSE · 1GA0
Geography A
Active Recall Guide
1,385 questions
Geography AContents
Contents
15 topics, 101 subtopics
  1. Changing Cities156
  2. Coastal Landscapes and Processes71
  3. Ecosystems, Biodiversity and Management140
  4. Energy Resource Management85
  5. Geographical Investigations - Fieldwork139
  6. Geographical Investigations - UK Challenges44
  7. Geographical Skills83
  8. Glaciated Upland Landscapes and Processes75
  9. Global Development126
  10. Mathematics and Statistics Skills100
  11. Resource Management42
  12. River Landscapes and Processes96
  13. and 3 more
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Coastal Landscapes and ProcessesQuestions
Coastal Landscapes and Processes
Coastal processes: weathering, mass movement, erosion, transport and deposition
  1. How does freeze-thaw break up rock in a cliff face?
  2. What is meant by chemical weathering at the coast?
  3. Give two ways living things weather coastal rock.
  4. What happens when a cliff fails by sliding?
  5. How is slumping different from a slide?
  6. What is hydraulic action, and why is it strongest during a storm?
  7. What is abrasion at the base of a cliff?
  8. What does attrition do to the material a wave is carrying?
  9. Which rock types are most affected by solution as a form of erosion, and why?
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Coastal Landscapes and ProcessesAnswers
Answers
Coastal processes: weathering, mass movement, erosion, transport and deposition
  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. Plant roots grow into cracks and prise the rock apart, and burrowing animals and shellfish bore into softer rock and weaken it.
  4. A block of saturated material moves downslope in one piece along a straight surface, keeping roughly its original shape as it goes.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. Waves hurl sand, shingle and pebbles against the rock face, and this load scrapes and grinds away at the cliff like sandpaper.
  8. Loose rock fragments knock against each other and are chipped and worn down, so they become smaller and rounder the longer they are moved.
  9. Limestone and chalk, because rainwater is slightly acidic and dissolves the calcium carbonate they are made of.
13
Geographical SkillsQuestions
Geographical Skills
Describing the site, situation and shape of settlements
  1. What is meant by the site of a settlement?
  2. What is meant by the situation of a settlement?
  3. Which map evidence would you use to describe a settlement's situation?
  4. What is a wet point site?
  5. What is a dry point site?
  6. Why was the inside of a river meander loop a good defensive site?
  7. What is a bridging point site?
  8. What is a nucleated settlement shape?
  9. What is a linear settlement shape?
34
Geographical SkillsAnswers
Answers
Describing the site, situation and shape of settlements
  1. The land the settlement is actually built on, and the qualities of that land such as its relief, drainage, water supply and shelter.
  2. Where it lies in relation to everything around it — the rivers, routes, resources and other towns nearby.
  3. The roads, railways and rivers that meet there, and how far it lies from the neighbouring towns.
  4. One placed where water can always be obtained, such as beside a spring or a river.
  5. One on raised ground above marshy or flood-prone land, so the buildings stay out of the water.
  6. Because water surrounded it on three sides, so attackers could only approach across a narrow neck of land.
  7. A place where a river is narrow or shallow enough to be crossed, so routes gather there and a settlement grows.
  8. Buildings packed tightly around a central point such as a crossroads, a green or a church.
  9. Buildings strung out along a single feature such as a road, a valley or a stretch of coast.
35
River Landscapes and ProcessesQuestions
River Landscapes and Processes
River processes: weathering, mass movement, erosion, transport and deposition
  1. How does repeated freezing and thawing break up rock on the side of a river valley?
  2. How does slightly acidic rainwater weather limestone or chalk in a river valley?
  3. Give two ways living things weather the rock beside a river.
  4. What is meant by mass movement on a valley side?
  5. What happens to material in a slide?
  6. How does slumping differ from a slide on a saturated river bank?
  7. How does abrasion wear away the bed and banks of a river?
  8. How does hydraulic action loosen material from a river bank?
  9. What happens to pebbles carried downstream through attrition?
56
River Landscapes and ProcessesAnswers
Answers
River processes: weathering, mass movement, erosion, transport and deposition
  1. Water collects in a crack, freezes and expands, widening the crack a little each time until fragments snap away.
  2. It reacts with the calcium carbonate in the rock and dissolves it, so the rock is chemically broken down where it stands.
  3. Tree and plant roots grow into cracks and prise them wider, and burrowing animals loosen and expose material.
  4. The downslope movement of soil, loose rock and mud under gravity, delivering material straight into the channel below.
  5. A block of saturated material moves downslope in a straight line along a flat surface, staying largely in one piece.
  6. Slumped material rotates as it moves along a curved surface, so the block tilts backwards and leaves a curved scar in the bank.
  7. Sand and pebbles carried by the flow are hurled against the channel and scrape it away like sandpaper.
  8. The sheer force of the moving water pushes into cracks and compresses trapped air, and the pressure prises fragments out.
  9. They repeatedly knock into one another and into the bed, chipping away so they become smaller, smoother and more rounded.
57
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1,385
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101 subtopics

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1,385 questions
Across 101 subtopics, every one of them from specification 1GA0.
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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.

  1. Step 1 · Closed book

    Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

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