Exam Skill: Describing Distribution

Most Geography exams will have at least one question that goes something like this, "Describe the distribution of...." It could be a biome such as rainforest or tundra, it could be world population, it could be earthquakes or volcanoes.  These questions will be accompanied by a map.  Something like this....

From AQA Unit 1 (H) paper, May 2015

And a question like this...

From AQA Unit 1 (H) paper, May 2015

But what is this actually asking you to do?  Something that trips up a lot of students on questions like this is that they don't actually know what distribution means.  It was something highlighted in the Examiners Report for this particular exam...

For the full report on this exam go to http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/AQA-90301H-WRE-JUN15.PDF 

So distribution is about how something (in this case, temperate deciduous forest) is spread out.  It's about looking for patterns in location rather than listing or stating different locations they can be found.  Let's look at the mark scheme for this particular question...

From AQA Unit 1 (H) paper, May 2015

So instead of describing the location of the forests you need to describe how these forests are spread out over the world.  This can be confusing for many students as you obviously need to describe location to some extent, but it goes further than that.  Here's the examiner comments for this particular question...

For the full report on this exam go to http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/AQA-90301H-WRE-JUN15.PDF 

So don't just say "they can be found in Europe, USA, Southeast Asia, New Zealand and East Australia".

Do describe patterns in their location.  "The vast majority of temperate deciduous forests can be found in the Northern Hemisphere, North of the Tropic of Cancer.  The biggest expanse being in Western Europe reaching into Russia and West Asia.  A smaller cluster can be found South of the Tropic of Capricorn on the East coast of Australia and all over New Zealand.  These forests do not occur within the tropics...."

It's not an easy skill for a lot of a students so it's worth practising key words and skills that help describe distribution.

• Confidence using North, South, East and West
• Naming important lines of latitude (Equator and Tropics, but point out these are often marked on their maps!)
• Continents (though again, they're often labelled on the maps)
• Main oceans
• Even, uneven, sparse, dense, clustered

I hope this is helpful for teachers, students and parents.  Please leave a comment if this was useful, or if there's anything else you'd like to know!

Good luck!