This document provides revision guidance for an exam on global challenges, highlighting key areas to focus on, such as Section A questions from a past paper and controversy over global warming. It emphasizes revising the specification, avoiding rushing simple questions, and writing to the mark allocation for different question types. The document stresses learning from mistakes and using examples to support explanations. Lastly, it notes last minute cramming sessions scheduled for the upcoming exam.

1. Unit 1 Exam Global Challenges:
Revision session 2!
To see what you need to revise before
Thursday!
To know how to be above average in
Section A: January 2011
To understand that there is
controversy surrounding global warming

2. Starter
•Smile or not....
•What do you know?
• You still have time
to learn it!

3. Typical Section
A Question

4. Stating key factual information
• Questions worth 1 or 2 marks, test basic knowledge.
• Sometimes these are data stimulus questions:
• Seem like simple questions, easy to rush and get wrong:
• Guessing, because didn‟t look at Figure 4.
• Finding the largest number on Figure 4
outside the UK (Thailand, 476),
but not the „European Country‟

5. :
• This question marked low, despite seeming to
be pretty straightforward
•The hazards listed in the specification, are:
Earthquakes
Volcanoes
Landslides
Flood
Drought
Storms (hurricanes, depressions, cyclones etc)

6. Lessons to learn?
• No substitute for basic revision
• Some questions designed to be „easy‟
• Rushing them a mistake
• Know the specification e.g. „hydro-
meteorological‟ is not everyday language,
but it is in the specification and will
therefore be used in the exam paper.

7. Listing reasons
• These questions often have a mark tariff of 3.
• Best approach is to aim to write three different
reasons
• Numbered / bullet points OK
Many candidates:
• Give 1 or 2 reasons, but not three
• Give 3, but actually repeat themselves
• Give too much background / generality
• Describe rather than give reasons especially if the Q
relates to a Figure.
These are focussed questions: reason 1, reason 2,
reason 3.

8. Both are saying the same point!

9. How might global warming increase disaster
risk? (3)
• Warmer ocean = more energy/higher wind speed
• Temperature of 26-27C needed
• More evaporation = heavier rain
• Changes to tracks and could affect more populated
areas
• Hurricanes may increase in magnitude (saffir
simpson scale) and frequency
• Could lead to more storm surges leading to more at
risk.
• May affect ENSO

10. Same
point!
Poverty
Lessons to learn?
•Write to the mark allocation
•Careful not to repeat the same point / reason
•If it helps, use bullets / numbered points for these 3 mark
questions (avoid bullets with only 1 or 2 words)

11. Structured short questions (2+2)
• „structured answer space’.
• 4 marks, answer split into 2 parts.
• Awarded on a 2+2 basis.
They cause problems:
• Candidates write too briefly, get 1+1 but not 2+2
• Write the same thing twice
• Leave one „half‟ blank e.g. advantages, but not
disadvantages or costs but not benefits.
The trick to getting 2 + 2 is to write two extended
points.

13. Describe the strength and weaknesses of adaptation as
a way of managing climate change (4)
• Strengths • Weaknesses
• Lives / property saved e.g. New • Does not tackle underlying cause of
Zealand accepting 75 Tuvaluans climate change, do nothing to reduce
a year as environmental GHG being released.
refugees • Limited scale of many local
• Only option for poor societies strategies, meaning little protection
e.g. Tuvalu has a GDP of $12 in a high-emissions scenario
million. • Human lives may be saved but other
• Necessary as some changes are losses still occur e.g. biodiversity
now inevitable. China and India • Low lying countries e.g. Bangladesh do
want economic growth, not have the money to build defences
mitigation may no be achieved in • Not all countries can adapt due to
time conflict, disease, food shortages,
• Will take a long time for all poverty, unequal access to resources,
countries to agree to reduce water stress
emissions, let alone cease them

14. Lessons to learn?
•MUST try and write either two
extended points or two points,
twice!
•Try and use located / named
examples as this will help get the 2
marks
-Torrential Rain
-Storm Surges
-Weather hazards
-Death of vegetation:
less interception
 Overland flow,
saturation, surface
run off

15. Explanations
• Longer questions worth 5 marks. (Jan 2011 - 6 of these, 30 marks)
• Normally use the command word explain, or suggest reasons.
• Can be complex questions, with more than one aspect to them.
• Can score quite poorly in some cases
You could be
asked to use
named examples
There could be
two key words
„raised‟ and
„improved‟
There could be a
narrow focus
There could be a
need for balance
– physical and
human

16. -Future trends in GHG emissions are
hard to forecast.
-how much ice will melt ?
- how much thermal expansion ?
-Difficulties in predicting economic
growth e.g China
· Science of sea-level rise still not fully
understood e.g. operation of carbon
sinks ?
· Unexpected positive feedback events
/ tipping points e.g. albedo changes at
Arctic
· Mechanisms of ice melting not
understood so IPCC ignored it in the
scenario policy-makers use
· Natural causes of change?

18. Suggest reasons why the economic impacts of climate
change in the continent of Africa are complex (5)
• Nile delta: 1% rise in sea level could affect 15% of habitable land ( 7 million people) .
Salt water affects crops.
• How to tackle dept: No money for mitigation of climate impacts and adaptive
strategies?
• War in Darfur in Sudan (pastoralists fighting arable farmers). Political inertia.
• Animals may die so some farmers e.g. in semi-arid Sahel belt may have to abandon
their way of life altogether
• Locust plagues could threaten growth of crops: No money!
• Crops may need to change / adopt more drought tolerant varieties which costs
farmers money. Could face changing patterns of rainfall (E Africa wetter, W drier).
• Farmers face problems over subsistent farming / cash crops e.g. Kenya and roses.
• Positive benefits can be linked with increased rainfall
• Could see loss of tourism revenues if habitats are lost e.g. Coral bleaching in
Zanzibar
• Movement of environmental migrants to coastal African areas puts added strain on
local economies for jobs/food etc and areas often become overcrowded especially N
and W e.g. Accra, Ghana; Lagos, Nigeria

19. Lessons to learn?
•These questions are crucial if you want a high grade.
•They are NOT essay questions
•Bullets normally don’t work – the questions are too complex
•You should use examples (places, countries, organisation, companies,
cities) as a matter of course – don‟t wait to be asked
•Watch out for difficult key words (ecological, post-colonial,
vulnerability)
•Don‟t miss important words that don‟t look important (complex,
recent years) these are often the difference between 4/5 and 5/5
marks.
•Be prepared to explain: “because” “this is why” “this causes” “the
reason is that” i.e. the language of explanation.

20. Is the IPCC right?
• You should be aware of some
of the controversy
surrounding global warming
• Recognise that some people
do not accept it is happening
• or do not believe anything
should be done about it.
• E.g. Big business is often
accused of „greenwashing‟
because drastic cuts in
emissions do not fit their
business model.
• On the other hand there are
savings to be made by
reducing energy consumption
and waste production.

21. • Some people do not accept the Science e.g. the „Hockey Stick Graph‟
controversy over temperature reconstructions produced by Michael
Mann among others.
• This graph cannot be „accurate‟ in the modern sense before about
1900
• It uses proxy data to reconstruct climate in the past
• this does not mean it is wrong however.

22. The IPCC has been criticised !
• By the time its reports are published, the data is out of date because
the process of writing the reports is now so complex (2500 scientists)
• Political interference „softens‟ some of the conclusions – most notably in
2007 that sea levels will rise 19-59cm by 2100, whereas many scientists
think a figure of 100cm is more likely.
• The huge nature of the reports (2007 report was in 4 volumes) making
the message difficult to digest.
• IPCC Himalayan glaciers error - the IPCC report in 2007 quoted a
WWF report which used the year 2035 rather then the correct date of
2050. • “Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding
faster than in any other part of the world
(see Table 10.9) and, if the present rate
continues, the likelihood of them
disappearing by the year 2035 and
perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth
keeps warming at the current rate. Its
total area will likely shrink from the
present 500,000 to 100,000 km2 by the
year 2035”

23. Last minute cramming!
• World at risk • Going Global
• Thursday 1 and 2: • Thursday 3 and 4:
U23 Sixth form

24. Unit 1 Exam Global Challenges:
Revision session 2!
To see what you need to revise before
Thursday!
To know how to be above average in
Section A: January 2011
To understand that there is
controversy surrounding global warming