Geography Time Pressure!!??

Mark27493

Hey all,
Just did my Geography mock today and I was a little shocked by the amount of time pressure.... I followed the timing guidelines from the edco papers and managed to get every essay attempted, however, not in as much detail as is needed for full marks.

Does anyone else have similar difficulties with time etc? I'm really worried for June now as I need an A1 in this subject !

Canard

I havent started my mocks yet but whenever we have class tests my teacher confines us to 13 minutes for 30 mark questions, did you ever practice in those conditions? You can build up time on short questions usually. Its also advised to do the option question first in case you didnt know

jojox

Mark27493 wrote: »

Hey all,
Just did my Geography mock today and I was a little shocked by the amount of time pressure.... I followed the timing guidelines from the edco papers and managed to get every essay attempted, however, not in as much detail as is needed for full marks.

Does anyone else have similar difficulties with time etc? I'm really worried for June now as I need an A1 in this subject !

any spoilers please..??

Smithwicks Man

I found this as well.. I tried to keep myself to the time limit but ran out of time. Having spent 30mins on the short questions (attempted all 12) and then 35-40 mins on the elective.

I felt that I had stuck to the time margins fairly well but there was no way I could complete 3 full other questions. In fact I didn't even have time to attempt one of them meaning I lost 80 full marks :O .. I am at fault in that I needed time to think my answers through and didn't know them all of the top of my head but I don't think that come June I will be able to squeeze in an extra full question (as in a 3 part 80 mark question).

I feel there's not enough time for students in this exam. There's certainly not enough time to ''familiarise'' yourself with each question before starting which is recommended.

I don't see the point in setting these exams and not even giving students enough time to complete them fully without having to jump from question to question to make sure all are attempted.

I am looking for a B in Geography and I'm not the only person with this complaint either as most people I talked to felt there was too much to do and not enough time to do it properly in several of the exams including geography, business and in particular accounting.

I have heard the reason there is a tight time schedule for the business exam is to prevent students from ''waffling'' but this is hardly a good enough reason and also does not explain the other two.

partyathisgaff

Hi i got a A1 in my geography exam for the LC. i found the best way to deal with time pressure before the geo exam is to lick an igneous rock.

Best of luck

Holahola94

Here folks ye are lucky your teacher gives you tests.My teacher is s***e. We never get tests,have done barely any of the course and haven't even looked at the field trip.I don't even have any idea on hoe to write a geo essay?Like hoe long is it supposed to even be !!But yeah I find it mad that it is only 2hrs 50, just keep practicing I suppose!

Mark27493

Patchy~ wrote: »

I havent started my mocks yet but whenever we have class tests my teacher confines us to 13 minutes for 30 mark questions, did you ever practice in those conditions? You can build up time on short questions usually. Its also advised to do the option question first in case you didnt know

Yeah I followed all that and had both my short questions and geoecology question completed in 50 minute.... got down to physical and regional with one hours 15 minutes left (15 minutes longer than the reccomended time for these 2 questions) but this is where I really fell down. I don't think i'm physically capable of answering a 30 mark question fully in just 13 minutes... nevermind with diagrams

Canard

Mark27493 wrote: »

Yeah I followed all that and had both my short questions and geoecology question completed in 50 minute.... got down to physical and regional with one hours 15 minutes left (15 minutes longer than the reccomended time for these 2 questions) but this is where I really fell down. I don't think i'm physically capable of answering a 30 mark question fully in just 13 minutes... nevermind with diagrams

What about human/economic geography? I'm doing the economic elective so I dont know a lot about the human one, but if there arent any diagrams in that you could do it first?

Mark27493

yeah did that early on and got it in the half hour.. my exam order was:

1. short questions
2. Biome question
3. Human elective
4. Physical
5. Regional

4 and 5 are problem areas time-wise... im fairly confident I got full marks in every other section

Canard

Mark27493 wrote: »

yeah did that early on and got it in the half hour.. my exam order was:

1. short questions
2. Biome question
3. Human elective
4. Physical
5. Regional

4 and 5 are problem areas time-wise... im fairly confident I got full marks in every other section

Hmmm, thats probably the best order to do it. The only thing I can think of is to try and build up some more time on the first two sections, or do the A parts of the core units first to get those 40 marks then go back to B and C

Mark27493

That seems like a good idea about doing the part A's, Thanks for the tip

**Timbuk2**

Geography was one exam I definitely felt needed an extra 20 minutes at least (accounting being the other one).

A good way to reduce the time you spend on each question is to be more succinct. Try keep the waffle to a minimum, and make every sentence very straightforward and to the point.
If you're doing geography you are probably familiar with SRPs (significant relevant points) - you want to get SRPs in as few sentences as possible, basically!

A good method that works is the SPEED Method
Statement
Process that leads to formation
Explanation
Example
Diagram

(not all bits of that are relevant to every question, but can keep your answer structured and therefore succinct). Note you don't have to do it in that order - in fact I think doing the diagram after the statement and process is helpful - that way you can kind of refer to it while you are answering - e.g. a question on deposition

State that you will discuss the formation of a beach
This is a result of marine deposition.
[Diagram]
Explanation: kind of work through your diagram explaining various bits, gathering up SRPs.
Example: Courtown, Co. Wexford, (or whichever beach you are referring to).

Remember, you will nearly always get an SRP for
Your statement
Naming the process
A quick labelled diagram (does NOT need to be a work of art) - label it well, you can get 2 SRPs out of this sometimes.
An example

That's a quick 5 SRPs in the bag, you are aiming for around 12/13.

MaevelovesNY

I just did my Geog mock last week and am completely shocked abkut the timing.I consider myself to be a fast enough writer but I needed EVERY minute!Plus,I didn't even do the last question which is probably the longest! Shocked!I thought history or english would be my real 'time pressure' subjects...

PictureFrame

Mark27493 wrote: »

Hey all,
Just did my Geography mock today and I was a little shocked by the amount of time pressure.... I followed the timing guidelines from the edco papers and managed to get every essay attempted, however, not in as much detail as is needed for full marks.

Does anyone else have similar difficulties with time etc? I'm really worried for June now as I need an A1 in this subject !

I did my Geography Mock this time last week and am fairly sure I got a good B2 in it hopefully! For the timing issue, I used every second I had. Do you have any other subjects where timing is short? For English (I & II), Business and Economcis I used every moment I had in the exam to get everything written down.

We were always advised to do your Option (Geoecology) first as it's the only section your guaranteed the question you learnt off will be on the paper. If you know your option really well you can just puke it out on the page. For the mocks, I did a 5 page Soil Essay in 35 minutes as I knew it off by heart.

We were told then to do your best long section. I did Regional, got it done in about 30 minutes.

We were then told to do your next best long section, I did Physical and got it done it 32 minutes.

I then tackled the shorts, which in my opinion were the most time consuming question on the paper. They could me nearly 40 minutes to do! :O

Finally I did my Elective (Human) as I had studied the least for it, luckily I found an easy question that required a lot of common sense and did it! It actually turned out to be my easiest question!

So to sum it up, orderwise:

1. Option
2. Regional
3. Physical
4. Shorts
5. Elective

This time frame worked for me and I managed to write 24 pages for the exam! (Keep in mind I am a frantically fast writer, never took my hand off the page and knew the course quite well so I hardly needed to stop and think for the answers)

Geography is tough enough timing-wise, but just keep practising doing LQ in the time alloted (max. 13 minutes) and you'll do fine! Best of luck getting the A1, God knows I need it too!

Lord Ned Stark

what we do in my class is 30 mark questions 12 mins each . A parts 8 mins. geoecology 32 mins . did my mock last week close to an A and finished with ten minutes to spare

rkeano5

How much do ye guys write for the 30markers? We were told a page and a half but I'll find that impossible. I hate not being able to write uber fast, hoping for an A in Geography..

Canard

Yeah, page and a half. Main thing is getting your 15+ SRPs in though

PictureFrame

rkeano5 wrote: »

How much do ye guys write for the 30markers? We were told a page and a half but I'll find that impossible. I hate not being able to write uber fast, hoping for an A in Geography..

I write ussually a page and a half, if it's physical and an answer has a diagram it ussually goes to 2 pages though!

rkeano5

Thanks, I have extremely small writing so a page will probably do.. (just reassuring myself really).

F9Devil

I sat my Geography mock today, and like you felt the pressure.

Honestly, I'd ignore the people posting lovely detailed long replies telling you what to write, in what order, etc.

The only thing that's going to enable you to write full answers for every question is writing faster.

Wesc.

Just to let ye know if you look at the timetable:

http://www.examinations.ie/exam/2012_LC_Written_EV.pdf

And read note 2 on the bottom left, it will tell you that traditionally you are allocated an extra 20 minutes to complete the Geography exam, aswell as English, Irish and History.

Hope that helps!:D

PictureFrame

Wesc. wrote: »

Just to let ye know if you look at the timetable:

http://www.examinations.ie/exam/2012_LC_Written_EV.pdf

And read note 2 on the bottom left, it will tell you that traditionally you are allocated an extra 20 minutes to complete the Geography exam, aswell as English, Irish and History.

Hope that helps!:D

Nope, this is a common misconception. The extra 20 minutes is included in the 2 hours 50 minutes we're allotted for the Geography exam.

So the overall time we are getting is 2 hours 50 minutes, NOT an extra 20.

Wesc.

PictureFrame wrote: »

Nope, this is a common misconception. The extra 20 minutes is included in the 2 hours 50 minutes we're allotted for the Geography exam.

So the overall time we are getting is 2 hours 50 minutes, NOT an extra 20.

:mad:

Mark27493

Me too I'm a terribly slow writer!

Mark27493

Well, despite the time pressure, I got my mock back today and it was A1

PictureFrame

Mark27493 wrote: »

Well, despite the time pressure, I got my mock back today and it was A1

Congrats!! Was yours sent away?

Mark27493

Thanks! Yup sent to DEB, got 93 per cent

Mark27493

Thanks! Yup sent to DEB, got 93 per cent

Wesc.

Mark27493 wrote: »

Thanks! Yup sent to DEB, got 93 per cent

Yeah I had DEB too and I'm fairly confident I got an A1...but I had just over half an hour of time left? :P

Canard

What the hell is the secret to A1s in geography?! Someone tell me! :pac:

PictureFrame

Mark27493 wrote: »

Thanks! Yup sent to DEB, got 93 per cent

When did you do yours? Did you think the marking was good? Did mine 3 weeks Tuesday, hope I get it back this week!

Patchy~: I don't know either! Hope I get a B2! Going for an A1/A2 in June though!

Canard

PictureFrame wrote: »

When did you do yours? Did you think the marking was good? Did mine 3 weeks Tuesday, hope I get it back this week!

Patchy~: I don't know either! Hope I get a B2! Going for an A1/A2 in June though!

I'm hoping for an A too, no point getting less since it is quite a handy subject! Good luck to us both :P

Wesc.

Patchy~ wrote: »

What the hell is the secret to A1s in geography?! Someone tell me! :pac:

Learn off the questions that come up every year, and when one of those questions doesn't show up, that's where the bull****tin comes into play!

Mark27493

PictureFrame wrote: »

When did you do yours? Did you think the marking was good? Did mine 3 weeks Tuesday, hope I get it back this week!

Patchy~: I don't know either! Hope I get a B2! Going for an A1/A2 in June though!

Yeah marking seemed fairly solid! I was actually quite surprised with the A, I thought it was quite a tough paper :P