Pearson Edexcel GCSE (9-1) Geography B (1GB0) · Spec 6 and 6-coastal
Fieldwork: coastal change and conflict
Read the notes, then try the questions. Each one is marked the moment you press Check, and shows the right answer and why.
Key ideas
- You study two fieldwork enquiries: one from coasts or rivers, and one from urban or rural. They must be outside the school grounds, and in the exam they are set in a UK context.
- An enquiry runs in stages: question or hypothesis, planning and risk assessment, collecting data, presenting, analysing, concluding and evaluating.
- Primary data is collected by you. Secondary data is collected by others. Quantitative data is numbers. Qualitative data is descriptive.
- Coastal enquiries often measure beach profiles or pebble size and shape, and judge how well a defence works. Longshore drift can make pebbles smaller and rounder along the beach.
Key terms
- Primary data
- Data you collect yourself, such as your own counts or questionnaire answers.
- Secondary data
- Data someone else collected, such as census figures, maps or Environment Agency records.
- Quantitative data
- Data in numbers, such as widths, speeds and counts.
- Qualitative data
- Data in words or pictures, such as views, field sketches and photographs.
- Powers index
- A scale used to classify how rounded a pebble is.
Common mistakes
- Mixing up accuracy and reliability. Accuracy is how close a measurement is to the true value. Reliability is whether results are repeatable and representative.
- Saying the sample was small and stopping. Say what effect it had, for example that 12 people cannot represent a whole town.
- Calling a theory such as Bradshaw or Power's index a method. A theory is used to interpret results. A method is how you collected them.
Exam tip
Paper 2 Section C is worth 18 marks for each option you answer, and it mixes questions on your own fieldwork with questions on a new situation shown in the paper. For Evaluate or Assess, give strengths and weaknesses of your methods, say what effect each had on your results, and reach a conclusion.
Free practice questions
7 questions, 12 marks. Answer, then press Check. The marking guide explains how the marks are worked out. Nothing is saved.
- Question 1 · Multiple choice[1 mark]
Which of these is a QUALITATIVE method for judging how well a coastal defence is working?
- Question 2 · Multiple choice[1 mark]
A group wants a secondary source for a coastal enquiry. Which one is secondary data?
- Question 3 · Multiple choice[1 mark]
A group measured 10 pebbles at each of only 4 sites along a beach. Which change best improves THAT limitation?
- Question 4 · Multiple choice[1 mark]
A group interviewed a cafe owner and a hotel owner about a coastal defence scheme. Which person would add a NEW type of stakeholder?
- Question 5 · Fill the gaps[2 marks]
A ___ is a testable statement, and a risk ___ is completed before fieldwork starts.
Word bank: conclusion · hypothesis · assessment
- Question 6 · Matching[3 marks]
Match each sampling term to its meaning.
- Question 7 · Matching[3 marks]
Match each fieldwork hazard to a sensible control measure.