Pearson Edexcel GCSE (9-1) Geography B (1GB0) · Spec 6 and 6-river
Fieldwork: river processes and pressures
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.
- River enquiries often measure channel width, depth and velocity, and look at flood risk. The Bradshaw model predicts how river features change downstream, and you compare your results with it.
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.
- Bradshaw model
- A model that predicts how width, depth, velocity and load change as a river flows downstream.
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, 11 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 of collecting data in a river flood-risk investigation?
- Question 2 · Multiple choice[1 mark]
Which of these is a secondary source for a river flood-risk enquiry?
- Question 3 · Multiple choice[1 mark]
A pupil writes about the Bradshaw model in a river investigation. Which statement is correct?
- Question 4 · Multiple choice[1 mark]
A pupil repeats a float velocity reading three times at each site. Which statement is correct?
- Question 5 · Fill the gaps[2 marks]
The ___ is the highest value minus the lowest; the ___ is the middle value when ranked.
Word bank: mean · median · range
- Question 6 · Choose more than one[2 marks]
Which TWO of these are secondary data sources?
Choose 2.
- Question 7 · True or false[3 marks]
Decide whether each statement about fieldwork data and sampling is true or false.
1. Census data collected by others is secondary data.
2. A tape measure used in a river is a presentation technique.
3. Stratified sampling takes sub-groups in proportion to their size.