Revised format to the examinations
By Marjorie Henry, Contributor

Professor, The Honourable Kenneth Hall, Governor-General, is surrounded by students from his former school, Rusea's High after earlier declaring the opening of research day 2006 on the topic 'Caricom Single Market and Economy: Opportunities and Challenges' at the University of the West Indies Mona', on Thursday, January 26. - Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer

In the previous lesson I shared with you, briefly, information on the new geography syllabus which becomes effective for examinations in 2007. As I indicated, those of you who are now in grade 11 will be the first set of students to be examined by this new syllabus. It goes without saying then that your preparation must be guided by it and not the former syllabus. The revised syllabus reflects a change in the format of the examinations. I will focus on this in today's lesson.

The examinations will still be offered at both the general and basic proficiency levels. The number of papers to be done at each level remains the same, namely, two for basic proficiency and three at the general proficiency level. The third paper for the latter is the school-based assessment (SBA) which is assessed internally by your teacher. Papers 1 and 2 are assessed externally for both levels. Let us look a little more in-depth at each paper.

Paper 1 is the multiple choice paper. This is a common paper for both the basic and general proficiency levels. It consists of 60 items drawn from all areas of the syllabus. The duration of this paper is one and a half hours.

Paper 2 is usually referred to as the essay paper. There are three constructed-response questions to be done along with one compulsory map reading question. This is so for both proficiency levels. The difference, however, is in the distribution of marks across the questions and profiles. Paper 2 has four sections, namely A, B, C and D. Each section is as follows:

• Section A - One compulsory map reading question
• Section B - Natural systems
• Section C - Human systems
• Section D - Human and environmental systems

You would have observed that these sections coincide with the layout of the syllabus. You must answer a total of four questions: the compulsory map reading question of section A and one question from each of sections B, C and D.

As I have already stated, the SBA must be done by all students who will be sitting the examination, at the general proficiency level. This is a field study report in which you are required to identify and define a problem. You must find information on the problem then prepare a report based on your findings and submit it. The problem identified must be stated as a question. This then forms the title for your study. The report must be based essentially on primary data, that is, information that you have obtained for yourself through such medium as observations, the administering of questionnaires, conducting interviews and reading different bits of literature relevant to your chosen topic.

Literature

The sources of literature can be your textbook, pamphlets, newspaper articles and the Internet. However, a word of warning to you: the information should not be copied directly. If you do so, you will be guilty of plagiarism and you will be penalised for this. There are specific guidelines for this report to which you must strictly adhere. Again, you will be penalised if you do otherwise. I feel certain that your teacher would have informed you of these guidelines for the field study already and you are well on your way in procuring the information for your study. In fact, a part of your summer holiday should have been spent sourcing the information for the study.

May I encourage you to do a good presentation of your field study report. You may wish to treat it as answering a question outside of examination conditions. Make sure that the information obtained is well organised, well developed and written in a logical sequence. Do your maps and illustrations neatly. Ensure that the illustrations are well integrated in the written account, not just a mere reference to them.

Make your conclusion relate to the aim of your study. Remember, do not introduce any new material in the conclusion. A new aspect of the mark allocation in the SBA is that of 'communication of information'. Four marks are given if you have no grammatical errors or flaws and if you have used appropriate geographical terms. In short, aim at obtaining most of the 40 marks allocated to the SBA.

In the next lesson I will begin to share with you information on some of the new areas of the syllabus.