OCR A-level Geography
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Lessons and practice for this course
These lessons cover selected parts of the course, including optional topics. Follow the options your class studies.
- Climate change
- Glacial landscapes
- Food security
- Geographical enquiry
- Water cycles: budgets, residence time and feedback
- Carbon cycles: stocks, fluxes and changing feedbacks
- Coastal systems: budgets, thresholds and pathways
- Hazard systems: cascades, probability and resilience
- Globalisation: flows, value capture and dependence
- Changing places: meaning, evidence and connections
- Regeneration: success for whom and compared with what?
- Population and health: structure, rates and environment
- Migration: flows, identities and uneven effects
Map, graph and calculation practice · General fieldwork methods · Written-answer practice
My taught options
Choose the options your class studies. Your choice stays on this browser.
Practise an exam answer
Official specification and assessment requirements
Open the official qualification source
Explore selected parts of your course through skills practice, process lessons and sourced case evidence.
Optional geographical debates need individual mapping before examination advice is released.
OCR AS H081 is being withdrawn; its final assessment is June 2027. The A-level route remains separate.
2027 assessment route
| Component | Duration | Marks | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Physical systems | 90 minutes | 66 | 22% |
| Human interactions | 90 minutes | 66 | 22% |
| Geographical debates | 150 minutes | 108 | 36% |
| Investigative geography | Independent assessment | 60 | 20% |
Assessment objectives
Save your taught options
Topic coverage by component
These links cover selected parts of the specification. Use your school course and the official specification to check the full requirements.
Physical systems
- Coastal landscape systems (option): Coastal processes and management — partial
- Glaciated landscape systems (option): Glacier change and measurement — partial
- Dryland landscape systems (option): no dedicated concept lesson yet
- Earth’s life support systems: Drainage basins as systems, Forest conversion and distant demand — partial
Four and six figure grid references · Map scale and distance · Bearings · Contours and relief · Gradient · Climate graphs · Population pyramids · Scatter plots · Choropleth maps · Percentage change · Mean, median and range · Source evaluation · Interquartile range · Standard deviation · Spearman rank correlation
Human interactions
- Changing spaces; making places: Evaluating regeneration — partial
- Global systems: trade (option): Global value chains — partial
- Global systems: migration (option): no dedicated concept lesson yet
- Global governance: human rights (option): no dedicated concept lesson yet
- Global governance: power and borders (option): no dedicated concept lesson yet
Four and six figure grid references · Map scale and distance · Bearings · Contours and relief · Gradient · Climate graphs · Population pyramids · Scatter plots · Choropleth maps · Percentage change · Mean, median and range · Source evaluation · Interquartile range · Standard deviation · Spearman rank correlation
Geographical debates
- Climate change (option): Adaptation to changing conditions — partial
- Disease dilemmas (option): no dedicated concept lesson yet
- Exploring oceans (option): no dedicated concept lesson yet
- Future of food (option): no dedicated concept lesson yet
- Hazardous Earth (option): Hazard, exposure and vulnerability — partial
Four and six figure grid references · Map scale and distance · Bearings · Contours and relief · Gradient · Climate graphs · Population pyramids · Scatter plots · Choropleth maps · Percentage change · Mean, median and range · Source evaluation · Interquartile range · Standard deviation · Spearman rank correlation
Investigative geography
Recommended investigation length: 3,000–4,000 words.
- Independent investigation: Sampling and representativeness, What a statistical test can establish — partial
Four and six figure grid references · Map scale and distance · Bearings · Contours and relief · Gradient · Climate graphs · Population pyramids · Scatter plots · Choropleth maps · Percentage change · Mean, median and range · Source evaluation · Interquartile range · Standard deviation · Spearman rank correlation
Fieldwork and independent assessment
At least four days of fieldwork must include physical and human geography.
The independent investigation remains the learner’s own question, analysis and writing. These formative lessons cannot provide a project-specific assessed report or model answer.
Case and example requirement slots
Check the requirements for each example you study. Assign saved examples to these roles from Your practice.
The assessment and option structure is verified against the live official overview. The full PDF edition, AO percentages and complete located-example inventory remain unverified; the empty inventory is an explicit audit gap.
Water and carbon require rainforest AND Arctic tundra contexts. Dryland systems, human rights, power and borders and ocean debates need dedicated teaching. Disease and future food reuse is introductory and does not reach the full A-level debate.
What is available here
Explore maps and data, practise methods, use case evidence and try an original assessment pack.
Skills practice · Written-answer practice · Create an original assessment
Mapped content areas
- Landscape systems
- Earth’s life support systems
- Changing spaces; making places
- Global connections
- Geographical debates
- Investigative geography
Check your taught examples
- A tectonic hazard eventName and date the event.; Separate the tectonic process from exposure and vulnerability.; Use contrasting examples where your specification requires them.
- Coastal managementIdentify the defended or realigned coastal stretch.; Explain how the intervention changes risk and sediment or habitats.; Evaluate consequences for different people and timescales.
- Water supply and securityDefine the supply area and period.; Connect physical availability, demand and infrastructure.; Evaluate financial, energy, ecological and distributional effects.
- RegenerationDefine the project boundary and baseline.; Distinguish announced objectives from completed outcomes.; Evaluate outcomes for residents, workers and businesses separately.
- Energy supply and transitionsDistinguish capacity from generation.; Identify the technology, location and time period.; Assess reliability, access and environmental consequences.
- An ecosystem and its managementIdentify the ecosystem’s scale and processes.; Explain interactions and human pressures.; Do not attribute every change to a single cause.
- Migration and population changeDefine the origin, destination and period.; Distinguish internal migration from international movement.; Use evidence about differing household choices.
- Global production and connectionsTrace flows of goods, investment, labour or information.; Distinguish exports from domestically retained value.; Explain uneven opportunities and dependencies.
- Place and changing meaningsDefine the neighbourhood or place.; Combine numerical indicators with lived experience.; Compare whose perceptions and outcomes the evidence represents.