Your GCSE, National 5/Scottish Highers geography exams are on the horizon, and as you get your revision timetable sorted, you may feel like you need a little help knowing where to start. If that’s the case, then you’ve come to the right place!

We asked Helen Young, aka the Geography Geek, for her top tips that will help you tackle your exams.

Tip one: Revise the right content!

All exam boards offer optional units. For example, in AQA, students study two of three landscape options: coasts, rivers or glaciated landscapes. Make sure you know the units your school has chosen so you don’t waste time revising the wrong content or answering questions on units you haven’t studied. If you’re not sure, check with your teacher or look at your notes.

• Check which optional units your school has chosen
• Make a revision timetable that includes every unit
• Start early – revising everything takes longer than you think!

Top two: Know your case studies

Case studies are examples of places or environments. They help to show you understand a concept by relating it to the real world. Some longer-mark questions might even ask you to use a case study, for example: 'Using an example you have studied…' or 'With reference to a named example…'

Learning case studies can be tricky because there’s a lot to remember. Questions might ask about the causes, impacts or responses of an event, so make sure you learn the whole case study rather than just one part. It can also help to learn a few specific facts, such as place names, dates or statistics - these make your answers more detailed and convincing.

Repetition is the key to remembering case study details. You could do this using online or paper quick-fire questions, revision cards or mind maps. Don’t just make revision materials - use them. Test yourself regularly. You could do this by studying the resource, hiding it, and trying to recreate it from memory. Add anything you forgot in a different colour and repeat.

Tip three: Understand key words and command words

Geography uses many key words. It’s important to know what these words mean so that you can understand questions and write good answers.
You also need to understand command words - the part of a question that tells you what to do. For example, ‘describe’ is a very different command word from ‘explain’. You might be able to describe how a river changes from the source to the mouth, but if the question asked you to explain why it changes, you would need to talk about the processes that lead to the changes rather than what they are.

A common mistake in longer-response questions, especially those using case studies, is not using the command word correctly. Sometimes, students write everything they know about a case study rather than reading the command word and answering the question. For example, if a question asks you to evaluate ways cities have been managed, don’t just write a list of improvements - explain which improvements worked best and why.

Here are three ways you can improve your understanding of command words:

• Make a list of command words and their definitions
• Practise spotting them in past paper questions
• Write an answer and check that it matches the command word

Tip four: Practise geography skills

Geography exams test your ability to use numbers, analyse graphs, describe relationships, and read maps. These questions often appear alongside data or figures. Practise these skills and use past papers to see what to expect.

Fieldwork is an important part of geography, and you should have carried out two different pieces of fieldwork. It’s important to make sure you know what you did, why you did it, and what your results showed. In the exam, you will be asked questions about your fieldwork and about unseen fieldwork data. It’s tricky to revise for unseen fieldwork because you don’t know what it will be! The best thing to do here is to look at past paper questions and see what kinds of things you could be asked. Being prepared in this way helps you to be confident in the exam.

Tip five: Plan your longer answers

All geography GCSE exams involve longer-mark questions. Planning your answer helps you stay focused and pick up more marks. Here’s how to approach it:

• Underline key words in the question - and keep checking them. Exams can be stressful and it’s easy to forget the question halfway through writing the answer.
• Use paragraphs - each paragraph should focus on one idea. Sometimes this is easy, as the question might ask about more than one thing, but other times it’s more difficult.
• Write your points in a sensible order - for each paragraph, use a structure like PEEL (point, explain, evidence, link) or PEA (point, evidence, analysis).
• Use case studies - if they are relevant.

If you need support

You should always tell someone about the things you’re worried about. You can tell a friend, parent, guardian, teacher, or another trusted adult. If you're struggling with your mental health, going to your GP can be a good place to start to find help. Your GP can let you know what support is available to you, suggest different types of treatment and offer regular check-ups to see how you’re doing.

If you’re in need of in-the-moment support you can contact Childline, where you can speak to a counsellor. Their lines are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

There are more links to helpful organisations on the BBC Bitesize Action Line page for young people.