Fieldwork Skills | OCR GCSE Geography A (J383)
Fieldwork Skills
- 41 questions
- 3 subtopics
- Component 03
- Component 03
Fieldwork Skills is examined in Component 03, Geographical Skills.
It covers Framing an enquiry question and choosing your methods, presenting, analysing and explaining fieldwork data and Concluding, and evaluating the enquiry.
Sample questions from Fieldwork Skills
Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.
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Framing an enquiry question and choosing your methods
What should be checked about a location before an investigation is planned there?
Show the answer
That it is safe and accessible, that permission is held where it is needed, and that it shows enough variation for the question to have an answer. -
Framing an enquiry question and choosing your methods
How is the discharge of a river worked out in the field?
Show the answer
Multiply the cross-sectional area of the channel, found from mean width and mean depth, by the mean velocity, giving a figure in cubic metres per second. -
Presenting, analysing and explaining fieldwork data
What is a choropleth map, and what is it good for?
Show the answer
A map with each area shaded according to its value, darker for higher, so regional differences such as deprivation or population density can be seen at a glance. -
Presenting, analysing and explaining fieldwork data
What is the difference between describing a result and explaining it?
Show the answer
Describing states what the data shows with figures; explaining gives the geographical process or theory that causes it. -
Concluding, and evaluating the enquiry
Why must a conclusion not claim more than the data can carry?
Show the answer
Because the readings came from one place on one day, so a statement about everywhere or always is not supported by them. -
Concluding, and evaluating the enquiry
What is bias in a questionnaire, and how is it reduced?
Show the answer
Wording or a sample that pushes people towards one answer; it is reduced by neutral questions and by asking a random mix of people at different times and places.
The 3 subtopics
One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.
| Subtopic | What it covers | Questions |
|---|---|---|
| Framing an enquiry question and choosing your methods | Questions that fieldwork can answer, the six stages of an enquiry, hypotheses, checking a location, primary and secondary data, systematic, random and stratified sampling, and how river discharge and velocity, beach profiles and environmental quality surveys are measured. | 14 |
| Presenting, analysing and explaining fieldwork data | Processing raw readings, matching a presentation method to the data, scatter graphs, choropleth maps, proportional symbols and flow lines, land use maps, analysing results, the difference between describing and explaining, treating anomalies, and using a case study to explain results. | 10 |
| Concluding, and evaluating the enquiry | What a conclusion must do, evidence against assertion, judging a hypothesis and results that only partly match, transcripts, not over-claiming, using secondary data, evaluating an enquiry, reliability and accuracy, small samples, questionnaire bias, single-day river readings, human error and subjective environmental quality scores. | 17 |
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
OCR GCSE Geography A Active Recall Guide
Every topic, not just this one. 749 questions with their answers.