This document provides feedback on essays and guidance for improvement. Key points include: 1) Students must thoroughly review comments and grading rubrics to understand where marks were lost. 2) Essays should be several pages long and include a variety of recent, global case studies from different sources to earn high marks. 3) Introductions need to clearly establish the purpose and include relevant context. Conclusions should thoroughly summarize case studies. 4) Analysis must discuss both positive and negative impacts on people and consider a range of perspectives, rather than simplistic statements.

1. Essay feedback
IT IS VITAL YOU LOOK THROUGH THE COMMENTS AND MARKING
GRID TO SEE WHERE YOU HAVE MISSED MARKS

2. Grade Boundaries
A* 62
A 57
B 53
C 47
D 42
E 38

3. Some of you need to speed up
It’s very difficult to get really high grades if you write a small
amount!
In 1½ hours you should be able to write several pages!

4. Particular issues:
Tectonics - intro
Almost no one mentioned why
management was needed/what is the
purpose, in the intro!
Haiti is an LDC, not an LEDC, you
should know this!
Several people spent too long on old
case studies – need to be “topical” for
top marks, so not much after mid-90s
Cultural – intro
Too few people mentioned anything
to do with different scales – global/
national/regional diversity
Too often too few case studies or too
little variety
Don’t get diversity and
multiculturalism mixed up!

5. Methodology
Too many people missing easy marks by not doing enough!
When you know what case studies you’re doing create a table and
learn it off by heart. You can run it past me.
You must have variety – videos, newspapers, journals, webpages,
etc. Please don’t include Wikipedia, or at least only once!
You must say something about how you got reliable, fairly
unbiased data. Good terms to use are “peer reviewed”, “widely
respected”, “cross referenced”,

6. And with the Analysis
Lack of mention of people in general, pushed
many of you down the grid
Very sloppy on “values and perspectives”. You
cannot just say everything is good in MEDCs and
everything is bad in NICs/LDCs/LEDCs. Too few case
studies that show that sometimes things go right in
poor countries
The reason there was no tsunami warning system
in the Indian Ocean in 2004 was because there was
no knowledge that they were a threat in the region.
Little research had been done, and so no one was
expecting it. In hindsight it seems naïve (or did
USGS just not care?)
Too many points were simplistic, and imprecise –
very few people mentioned individual charities
efforts at the “relief” stage, why ever not?
When a country/region/tribe maintains its
traditions, language, etc that is good for global
diversity.
Cultural homogeneity isn’t a bad thing in itself,
only if it’s achieved through coercion or violence
(racism, ethnic cleansing, etc)
Hardly any mention of language, and yet we’ve
done some work about how important it is in
maintaining culture and passing knowledge down
the generations
Very few people mentioned anything to do with
“preservation” as a human factor in maintaining
culture. Surprised that there was so little mention
of UNESCO whose main job is to support diversity
across the globe!
Be topical. When you did mention separatists it
was usually somewhere other than the UK what
about the Scottish?

7. Conclusion and evaluation
At the end of most, if not all, sections do a little sum up – “this shows that ….
is/isn’t important” etc
The conclusion must refer back to the major points in your essay – bring
together your “important” or “less important” bits – so “the case studies of ….
and …. clearly show that …. Is the most important factor, however ….. suggests
that …… is also very important” etc.
To get good marks it has to be “based on content” or even better “thorough
recall of case studies”, in other words it can’t be done in 6 lines!
You must time yourself so you’ve got 15 minutes at the end to get it done

8. Dos and don’ts
Do
Use fairly recent examples
Make sure they are from different regions – feeling
that there’s a bit too much USA!
Have a mix of Volcanoes and Earthquakes
Recognise that scale matters – Japan 2011 and Indian
Ocean Tsunami were mega events!
Don’t
Get too caught up with the different responses to
primary and secondary hazards for the same event, it
makes it seem disjointed
Talk about “good” or “bad” response – instead use
“effective”, “successful”, “unhelpful”, “unsuccessful”
etc.
Do
Think at large scale about some issues, like
globalisation, technological change, language, religion,
UNESCO, TNCs
Then bring them down to the local – so loss of
language is bad because… and this has impacted on
culture in ….
Fine to recognise that globalisation can bring good
things – like better healthcare, but at a price
Make sure you have a few with different physical
factors involved!
Don’t
Say that everyone getting mixed up is a good thing –
eg “TNCs help diversity”, they don’t they destroy it!

9. What next?
Choose one of your case studies and do a
timeline of what happened before, during and
after the event. Who did what and whether it
was effective or not.
Then categorise the actions into the Parks
model pre, relief, rehab and reconstruction
Choose one of your case studies and do a
diagram which shows the factors affecting
culture:
How about this, like a Venn diagram (but
please don’t all do Bhutan!)
Bhutan
Culture
Human factors
Physical factors

10. Next title! Hand in next week!
Assess the extent to which
preparation work undertaken
before the event is the most
effective means of managing
tectonic hazards
Assess the extent to which
human factors are most
important in determining levels
of cultural diversity