Selecting and applying concepts
The concepts, and why you are not being asked to define them
- The seven concepts are printed on page 2 of the resource booklet: environments, perspectives, processes, patterns, interaction, change, sustainability.
- They are supplied so that you apply them. Reciting a definition earns almost nothing; using it to organise evidence earns most of the marks in this standard.
- The standard says analyse the environment through selection AND application of concepts. Two verbs, two separate things to do.
- Selection means choosing the concept the evidence actually demonstrates.
- Application means attaching the concept to specific evidence from the resources and showing that it fits.
What each concept is for
- Environments — the characteristics and features of an area, natural and/or cultural. Use it when the question asks what is this place like.
- Processes — a sequence of natural and/or cultural actions that shapes and changes an environment. Use it when something is happening, and always name the mechanism.
- Patterns — a definite spatial or temporal arrangement. Use it when the resources contain a map or a time series, because a pattern is what those two things are for.
- Interaction — elements affecting each other; flows, links and interrelationships, which may run one or both ways. Landscapes are the visible outcome of interactions.
- Change — an alteration to an environment, spatial and/or temporal, at varying rates in different places. Use it whenever you have two dates.
- Perspectives — bodies of thought or worldviews built up over time, which shape values and explain why groups differ. Use it whenever the resources contain quotations.
- Sustainability — meeting present needs without preventing future generations from meeting theirs. Use it when the question asks about the future, and be prepared to say sustainable for whom, and for how long.
Choosing a concept: three tests
- The evidence test. Which concept can you attach three pieces of resource evidence to? If a concept feels right but you can only support it with one figure, choose another.
- The verb test. Describe usually wants pattern or environments; explain usually wants process or interaction; evaluate usually wants sustainability, change or perspectives.
- The specificity test. A concept that could be applied to any environment on Earth is not being applied — it is being mentioned. Interaction in general is worthless; the interaction between groundwater extraction and subsidence in the northern districts of Teluk is a concept doing work.
- Two well-applied concepts beat five mentioned. Papers reward depth of application, and there is no mark for coverage.
- Name the concept explicitly. Markers are matching your evidence to a concept, and saying this is a pattern of change makes it impossible to miss.
Applying a concept: the four-move sentence
- State the concept, state the evidence, state the fit, state what follows. That is one sentence or two, and it is what application looks like.
- Worked on the invented Sarupa delta: This is a process — groundwater extraction lowers the pore pressure in the delta sediments, so the ground compacts — and the evidence is that subsidence reaches 2.3 m where extraction is heaviest, in the northern districts of Teluk, and under 0.1 m at the landward apex where there is almost none.
- Do not open with a definition. The definition is printed in the booklet; repeating it uses your time to tell the marker something they gave you.
- Reuse one concept across parts. The same concept, applied to different evidence in parts (a), (b) and (c), reads as understanding; seven different concepts read as a list.
- The concept can be the structure of the answer, not just a label inside it — organise part (c) around sustainability and you have both selected and applied it.
Perspectives, which are the concept students under-use
- Whenever the booklet contains quotations, perspectives are being examined. Papers have asked directly for TWO different perspectives and why people hold them.
- A perspective is a worldview, not an opinion. Give the group, what they value, and how that makes them read the same evidence differently.
- In the invented delta: a development perspective reads the aquaculture ponds as 1.9 million people's livelihoods; an ecological perspective reads the same ponds as the reason the mangrove fringe has been cut back; a residents' perspective, from the quotations, is about whether the embankment will hold.
- Use one piece of evidence twice. The same figure read three ways is the fastest demonstration of perspective there is.
- Do not decide who is right in parts (a) or (b). Save judgement for part (c), where an evaluative verb invites it.
Worked Example
Worked example
Analyse the given environment through the selection and application of ONE geographic concept.
The resources on the invented Sarupa delta include a subsidence map, a population table, a photograph of an embankment and two resident quotations. Three candidates choose three different concepts. Judge them.
- Candidate 1 chooses environments. The Sarupa delta is a natural and cultural environment with a river, ponds, mangroves and a city.
- Candidate 2 chooses sustainability. The delta is not sustainable because it is sinking.
- Candidate 3 chooses interaction.
Answer:
Step 1 — judge candidate 1. The concept is correctly named and the evidence is real, but it is a list of contents. Nothing follows from calling the delta an environment, so the concept has been mentioned rather than applied. Achieved at best.
Step 2 — judge candidate 2. Sustainability is a defensible choice, but the application is a verdict with one piece of evidence and no timeframe. Sustainable for whom, and for how long? Without those, this cannot be tested and cannot reach Merit.
Step 3 — apply candidate 3's concept properly, using the four moves.
The concept. Interaction — elements of an environment affecting each other, in one or both directions.
The evidence. Subsidence reaches 2.3 m in northern Teluk, where groundwater extraction is heaviest and the city's population has grown from 0.5 to 1.9 million since 1990. It is under 0.1 m at the landward apex. The embankment in the photograph was built to a height set before the ground beneath it fell.
The fit. These are not four separate facts. Population growth drives extraction; extraction causes compaction; compaction lowers the ground the defences stand on; and lower ground means the same tide floods further inland, which is what the residents' quotations describe. Each element is acting on the next.
What follows. The interaction runs both ways, which is the part worth writing down: flooding pushes settlement inland to ground that has not yet subsided, and that new settlement extracts groundwater there, moving the subsidence with the city. The delta is not sinking in one place — it is sinking wherever the city currently is.