Cambridge AS Level Geography Tutors Online

Cambridge AS Level Geography is syllabus 9696. This page works from the syllabus for exams in 2027, 2028 and 2029, which is a revised syllabus for first examination in 2027. Exams are available in the June and November series only.

There is no March series for this subject. Cambridge states June and November, and nothing else, so a student in India who is used to a March sitting for other Cambridge subjects will not find one here.

An AS Level candidate takes two compulsory papers, Papers 1 and 2, and both must be taken in the same exam series. Candidates following an AS Level route are eligible for grades a to e. Candidates following an A Level route are eligible for grades A* to E.

Paper 1 is Physical Geography. It lasts 1 hour 30 minutes and carries 60 marks, and it is worth 50% of the AS Level and 25% of the A Level. It covers three topics: hydrology, river processes and hazards; atmospheric processes and global climate change; and earth processes and mass movements.

The syllabus describes these three as developing an understanding of the Earth's major systems, water, atmospheric and earth, using a systems approach, and it says they build on IGCSE or O Level Geography.

Paper 2 is Human Geography. It also lasts 1 hour 30 minutes and carries 60 marks, and it is also worth 50% of the AS Level and 25% of the A Level. Its three topics are population and migration; water resources and management; and urban areas and management.

So the AS Level is six topics in total, and the syllabus says plainly that candidates study all six. There is no topic choice at AS Level anywhere. Choice only arrives at A Level, where two of four topics are chosen on each of Papers 3 and 4. A student cannot dodge water resources because they find it dull, and a student cannot play to strengths by dropping a physical topic.

The syllabus also notes that the order of topics is not a recommended teaching order and that topics can be taught in any order.

The question structure of the two papers is identical, and the arithmetic is unusually tidy. Each paper has two sections. Section A is answered in full: there is one question on each of the three topics, and each question is worth 15 marks. Section B is one essay chosen from three, one on each topic, and that essay is also worth 15 marks.

That means each paper is four questions, and every single question is worth exactly 15 marks. There is no long essay dominating the paper and no short-answer warm-up. It also means the essay is only a quarter of the paper: Section A is three questions and Section B is one.

This is the single most useful thing to know about AS Level Geography here. Many boards make the extended writing carry half or more of the paper. Cambridge does not. A student who writes beautiful essays but loses marks on the structured questions has lost three quarters of the paper.

Section A questions are short answer and extended response, and the syllabus requires each one to involve interpretation of geographical resources, with one or more resources used for each question. The resources are supplied in an insert. So no question on either paper can be answered from memory alone.

Section B questions are essays that require candidates to demonstrate knowledge and understanding and write an evaluative response, with evaluation and conclusions supported by examples and evidence from study of the topic. So the essay is where evaluation genuinely lives.

Candidates answer on the question paper for both AS papers. That is worth knowing before exam day, because the A Level papers, by contrast, are answered on a separate answer booklet.

The resource types are listed in the syllabus and they are specific: survey map extracts at 1 : 25000 and 1 : 50000 scale, thematic maps, distribution maps including flow line, isoline, desire line, dot, proportional symbols and choropleth, and sketch maps. Also colour, black and white, aerial, terrestrial and satellite photographs. Also bar graphs, divided bar graphs, line graphs, scatter graphs including line of best fit, log log and log normal graphs, pie charts, proportional symbols, dispersion graphs, triangular graphs, climate graphs, age and sex structure diagrams, 2D and 3D diagrams, flow diagrams and cartoons. Also written extracts from newspapers, articles and advertisements, and numeric data tables.

GIS is deliberately excluded. The syllabus says Cambridge encourages technology and Geographic Information Systems in the classroom but that these types of resources are not used in exam papers. A student who has only practised on a screen is not practising the paper.

Units are fixed too: metres and kilometres for height and distance, grams and kilograms for mass, millilitres and litres for volume, degrees Celsius for temperature and US dollars for economic data, with cubic metres per second, cumecs, where appropriate.

There is one more line worth quoting because it changes how a student revises: the syllabus states that definitions will not be assessed.

Examples are compulsory across all papers. Candidates are expected to support answers with examples drawn from a range of countries that are different in location, environment, climate or human factors, and the syllabus is explicit that an example need not always be a located place. It could be a hard engineering method, a landform, an economic factor or a type of pollution.

The assessment objectives are three, and they were reorganised for this syllabus. AO1 is knowledge and understanding, covering geographical terms, concepts and systems; principles, theories and models; the location and character of environments and places; physical and human factors and processes; similarities and differences; causes and consequences of change; and the importance of spatial and time scale.

AO2 is skills and analysis, covering analysing and interpreting geographical information in different forms and recognising its limitations; using quantitative and qualitative data to identify characteristics, patterns, trends and relationships; using diagrams, sketches and sketch maps to communicate; applying knowledge to unfamiliar contexts; and using information to reach conclusions supported with evidence.

AO3 is evaluation, covering the importance of geographical factors, processes and change; the impact of different values and attitudes of different groups in managing environments; the options available to decision makers; the relative success or failure of initiatives and strategies; the strengths and weaknesses of principles, theories and models; and presenting logical, structured, coherent and evidence based arguments.

The weightings are the sharpest differentiator on the page. At AS Level the split is AO1 at 53 per cent, AO2 at 35 per cent and AO3 at 12 per cent. At A Level it becomes AO1 at 50 per cent, AO2 at 24 per cent and AO3 at 26 per cent.

Papers 1 and 2 carry exactly those AS figures: 53 per cent knowledge, 35 per cent skills, 12 per cent evaluation on each paper. Papers 3 and 4 carry 47 per cent, 13 per cent and 40 per cent.

Read those numbers together and the message is clear. The AS papers are not mini A Level papers. At AS, evaluation is worth less than a third of what skills and analysis are worth, and it is the smallest of the three objectives. At A Level, evaluation more than doubles and skills and analysis fall away sharply.

So a Year 12 student who has been coached to evaluate everything, the way an A Level student should be, will lose marks here. The marks at AS sit in knowing the material accurately and handling data, graphs, maps and photographs confidently. Evaluation still needs to be present, because Section B essays require an evaluative response, but it is not where the paper is weighted.

The syllabus was reviewed and revised for first examination in 2027, and the changes matter because older papers do not match. The assessment objectives were reorganised from four into three: the old AO1 and AO2 were combined into AO1 knowledge and understanding, the old AO3 skills became AO2 skills and analysis, and the old AO4 evaluation became AO3 evaluation.

The paper titles changed as well. Paper 1 is now called Physical Geography and Paper 2 Human Geography. Within Paper 1, hydrology and fluvial geomorphology is now hydrology, river processes and hazards; atmosphere and weather is now atmospheric processes and global climate change; and rocks and weathering is now earth processes and mass movements.

Within Paper 2, the population and migration topics have been combined into one topic, water resources and management is a brand new topic, and settlement dynamics is now urban areas and management. So a student working from pre 2027 past papers is revising a different syllabus.

At A Level the changes are larger. Paper 3 is now Global Environments, where candidates choose two of four topics: tropical environments, coastal environments, hazardous environments and arid environments. Hazardous environments gained a new sub topic on wildfire hazards, and hot arid and semi arid environments was renamed arid environments. Paper 4 is now Global Themes, where candidates choose two of four: climate change impacts and governance, environmental issues and management, trade, aid and tourism, and disease and geography. Climate change impacts and governance and disease and geography are both new, and production, location and change and economic transition have been removed.

On the A Level papers each chosen topic consists of one compulsory structured question worth 10 marks and a choice of one essay from two worth 20 marks. Both A Level papers last 1 hour 30 minutes and carry 60 marks, and each is worth 25% of the A Level.

Nine key concepts run through the qualification: scale, change over time, place, spatial variation, cause and effect, systems, environmental interactions, challenges and opportunities, and diversity, equality and inclusion.

The syllabus also recommends that learners starting the course should have completed a geography course equivalent to Cambridge IGCSE or Cambridge O Level.

On the staged route candidates carry forward their AS Level marks rather than a grade, subject to the rules and time limits described in the Cambridge Handbook.

The qualification is graded a, b, c, d or e for an AS Level candidate.