Data stimulus questions
Urban geography and liveable cities
Data stimulus questions are a common feature of A level Geography exam papers. They are different to data response questions in that although students need to refer to the data provided, they are also required to go beyond the data to answer the question. The data is provided as a stimulus, or a launchpad, with students being required to demonstrate that they know and understand the background to the data (AO1) and demonstrate their ability to apply this knowledge/understanding to the question set (AO2). The context of the question is a ‘novel situation’ - one where it is unlikely the student will have encountered the data before. The student is therefore required to ‘think on their feet’.
Exam board variations
Hence, data stimulus questions test the assessment objectives AO1 and AO2 for the exam boards AQA and Edexcel (though for two smaller exam boards, OCR and WJEC/Eduqas, it is stated that they assess AO2 and AO3 – the latter being the skills assessment objective).
The exam board AQA also flags up the nature of a task being data stimulus by using the phrase ‘…… and your own knowledge….’ in the question. Other boards do not use this phrase.
All exam boards tend to use the command words: suggest, examine, analyse and assess for such questions.
Assessment
Depending on the mark allocation of these questions, they are assessed by either a 2 Levels mark scheme or a 3 Levels mark scheme. Most of such mark schemes written by the exam boards are usually quite wordy and difficult to comprehend. However, they do tend to have the same underlying philosophy. In very simple terms (and I make no apology for this), they can be summarised as follows:
2 Levels mark scheme
Level 1: attempted the question but not answered it.
Level 2: answered the question.
3 Levels mark scheme
Level 1: attempted the question but not answered it.
Level 2: answered the question.
Level 3: answered the question well.
In the following section, I will examine an answer to the following question (the data is shown below):
Using Figures 2a and 2b and your own knowledge, assess the factors that influence high liveability index scores for cities such as these.
To answer this question well, you should:
• use both figures to suggest relevant factors to assess.
• consider a range (more than one) of factors.
• use some of your own knowledge.
• assess the figures and recognise their limitations in terms of making judgements.
• draw the answer together with a sensible conclusion that links back to the main body of the answer.
So, here is the question in full, with two versions of the same answer.
The first answer is unannotated.
The second answer is in two formats:
(a) AO1 in italics
(b) AO2 in bold.
Using Figures 2a and 2b and your own knowledge, assess the factors that influence high liveability index scores for cities such as these.
Figure 2a
Figure 2b
Answer version 1
Figure 2a shows that all the top 10 cities are in high-income countries in Europe, Japan, Canada and Australasia. This suggests that the most important factor in liveability is wealth or per capita GDP.
However, it could also be that these cities are well-governed places with effective city government because they are all in ‘western’ democracies. There are other wealthy places (UAE, Saudi Arabia, China) but their cities are not in the top 10 and they are less democratic.
Wealth is likely to be very important because wealthy cities can invest in infrastructure (transport, water supply, hazard management) as well as services like health and education.
It is also noticeable that the top 10 cities are in places with temperate climates away from the equator which might make them more liveable year-round because they rarely get extreme heat and probably have a good water supply. However, cities 11–20 will also be very liveable and some of these could be in more extreme climates. There isn’t enough data to make a full judgement.
Figure 2b shows a wealthy suburb with lots of green space, quiet roads and large houses at low density. This is a very liveable place, but not all cities are like this so it’s not very representative.
Cities like Osaka in Japan and Geneva in Switzerland are likely to be high density, but this does not necessarily reduce the quality of living, especially if people are wealthy. On the other hand, there are low-income parts of cities like Sydney and Vancouver where the liveability score, for specific parts of the city, will be lower because the measure is an average across the whole city.
The cities in the top 10 are quite small. There are no megacities like London and New York and this suggests that smaller cities might have higher liveability. For instance, in the UK Edinburgh and Bristol have lower air pollution, less congestion and better housing affordability than London so might be more liveable than the capital.
Overall, wealth is the most important factor because all the top 10 cities are in rich, highly developed countries, but small size, low density and physical factors such as climate seem to be common factors too. It would be useful to see the top 30 cities before making firm conclusions because 10 is a small sample size.
Answer version 2
Figure 2a shows that all the top 10 cities are in high-income countries in Europe, Japan, Canada and Australasia. This suggests that the most important factor in liveability is wealth or per capita GDP.
However, it could also be that these cities are well-governed places with effective city government because they are all in ‘western’ democracies. There are other wealthy places (UAE, Saudi Arabia, China) but their cities are not in the top 10 and they are less democratic.
Wealth is likely to be very important because wealthy cities can invest in infrastructure (transport, water supply, hazard management) as well as services like health and education.
It is also noticeable that the top 10 cities are in places with temperate climates away from the equator which might make them more liveable year-round because they rarely get extreme heat and probably have a good water supply. However, cities 11–20 will also be very liveable and some of these could be in more extreme climates. There isn’t enough data to make a full judgement.
Figure 2b shows a wealthy suburb with lots of green space, quiet roads and large houses at low density. This is a very liveable place, but not all cities are like this so it’s not very representative.
Cities like Osaka in Japan and Geneva in Switzerland are likely to be high density, but this does not necessarily reduce the quality of living, especially if people are wealthy. On the other hand, there are low-income parts of cities like Sydney and Vancouver where the liveability score, for specific parts of the city, will be lower because the measure is an average across the whole city.
The cities in the top 10 are quite small. There are no megacities like London and New York and this suggests that smaller cities might have higher liveability. For instance, in the UK Edinburgh and Bristol have lower air pollution, less congestion and better housing affordability than London so might be more liveable than the capital.
Overall, wealth is the most important factor because all the top 10 cities are in rich, highly developed countries, but small size, low density and physical factors such as climate seem to be common factors too. It would be useful to see the top 30 cities before making firm conclusions because 10 is a small sample size.
[Finally, I am often asked when I do this type of post what mark the answer would get. I consider my answers to be very good ones (why else would I post them?). But, it is up to others to determine the actual mark.]