Geography Essay Tips for Students Taking the New O-Level Syallabus

I have looked at various answer keys and have finally come up with a way to write your answers in recognisable order that will please the examiners. However, you must also carry out your pre-exam research.

Pre-exam research stage

• Decide what you're going to concentrate or write on. (This is easy for Physical Geography because questions rarely change completely).
• Familiarise with pros and cons regarding the very subject itself. For example, you can say seawalls are effective at deflecting and absorbing energy from incoming waves but are expensive and require regular maintainance.
• Find examples of pros and cons on the Internet or by reading up travel guides. Travel guides are full of examples or everyday stuff. For example, from reading a travel guide alone, I know that Pondicherry was spared by the 2004 tsunami thanks to a well-built seawall. From the internet, I discover that seawall failures in the Bahamas was caused by rapid erosion of the base leading to collapse, an epitome of poor construction.

Now that you have gathered facts and examples, time to look at the essay writing stage.

Writing the essay

There are two ways to tackle the essay writing part. There is the three point method and the two sets method.

The three point method is where you come up with three points and a conclusion, similar to a History essay. There is a systematic way of writing a three point essay. I will outline the steps below.

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Write an introduction describing your three points.

1st Paragraph: Write your Point followed by its purpose and benefits (ie why is it a significant point) [P]. Write an Example of the point acheiving its purpose [E]. Next write some Limitations on your point [L]. Then write an Example of such a limitation happening [E].

(To remember this is actually easy for fans of FC Internazionale-Milan or Portugusese footballers. Just remember PELE)

2nd and 3rd paragraphs: Similar to first paragraph.

Statement to link every thing here.

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The two sets method is used for comparison. For example, to get maximum marks for an essay regarding measures taken during an earthquake, you need to write BEFORE (such as structural engineering) and AFTER (such as rescue) measures. Below is a walkthrough on this.

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Write an introduction stating your two sets of points here.

1st paragraph: Write your CRITERIA for the first set of points here. Thene PELE various points under the first set criteria.

2nd paragraph: Similar to first set.

Statement to link here

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I have a sample of PELE at work here (the method, not the footballer).

Seawalls are structures built parallel to the coast attached on the coast itself to deflect and absorb energy from incoming waves [P]. This measure is seen especially effective at places like Pondicherry where it reduced damage done to the town when the 2004 tsunami struck. There was minimal erosion of the banks as compared to other neighbouring towns [E]. However, seawalls are expensive to build and require regular maintainance as erosion actually occurs at the base of the seawall. As such, they are particularly prone to poor engineering. This can be seen when the seawll along Caves Point in the Bahamas collapsed when the base eroded so badly due to poor engineering and maintainance, and the seawall collapsed.

(Please do not memorise or copy this. I have no guarantee that this will fetch full marks, but it should according to the Answer Key. Anyway, I will be on the lookout for those copying this so beware)

I hope this clears your essay writing doubts. Good luck for the students taking the new syllabus for Geography for 'O'-Levels!

{DISCLAIMER: Please attempt this steps at your own risk. I do not hold any responsibilities if anything undesirable happens. I have tried to match the steps as closely to requirements of the Answer Key as far as I can. If anyone wants to raise an issue, please reply via the ChatBox}