What a decision-making exercise asks of you

Overview

Why an unfamiliar case study is not the disadvantage it looks, what is actually being rewarded, and how a recommendation is built from a resource booklet.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   A decision-making exercise hands you a case study you have never studied. Why is that not the disadvantage it first appears?

   Model answer

   Because the exercise is not testing whether you know the place. Everything needed to reach a decision is supplied in the resources, so credit comes from what you do with that material: extracting evidence accurately, applying geographical understanding to it, weighing the conflicting values of the groups involved, considering alternatives and justifying a recommendation. A student who has never heard of the location can do as well as one who has, provided they read the resources closely and argue from them.

2. 2

   What is actually being rewarded when you are asked to recommend a course of action from a resource booklet?

   Model answer

   Application, analysis and evaluation of the supplied material, not recall. You gain credit for using specific evidence from the resources, interpreting it correctly, recognising its limits, examining the conflicting values held by different groups, considering the alternatives on the table and justifying the option with greater overall benefits. Recited facts about a place you happen to have studied earn nothing on their own.

3. 3

   Why does reproducing a learned case study rarely help in a decision-making exercise?

   Model answer

   Because the decision has to rest on the evidence in front of you, and a remembered scheme elsewhere has a different physical setting, different stakeholders, different costs and a different political context. Wider geographical knowledge is still useful, but only as explanation - to say why the supplied evidence behaves as it does, or why an approach has worked in comparable conditions - never as a substitute for the resources.

4. 4

   What are you looking for on a first pass through a set of resources, before you start extracting detail?

   Model answer

   Establish the geography and the question: where this is, what the physical and human setting is, what is being proposed, who is affected, and what options are on the table. Note what each resource is - map, data table, report extract, infographic, diagram, photograph - and what it is likely to be good for. Detail comes on a second pass, once you know which evidence you are hunting for.

5. 5

   How can you prepare for an exercise whose content you cannot revise?

   Model answer

   By practising the technique rather than a topic: extracting evidence quickly from unfamiliar maps, graphs, reports and photographs; converting raw figures into percentages, rates and comparisons; identifying stakeholders and the values behind their positions; setting out trade-offs; and writing a justified recommendation that acknowledges the losers. Solid understanding of geographical processes - flooding, regeneration, energy, migration, coastal management - lets you explain why the evidence looks the way it does.

6. 6

   Distinguish between describing a resource and using it as evidence.

   Model answer

   Describing restates what is there: the graph rises, the photograph shows a derelict quay. Using it as evidence means attaching the observation to a claim about the decision - the graph shows visitor numbers rising by about 40 per cent over five years, so the proposed car park is likely to be at capacity within the scheme's first decade, which strengthens the case for the larger site. Description alone is the commonest way of wasting good material.

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The same content, four other ways.

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Six ways to work the same material.