Some OCR questions and answers
Taken from the 2019 Paper 3.
The OCR paper 3 has some interesting synoptic 12 and 33 mark questions. Here is a selection of questions, together with some answers written for them. The marks allocated at the time are also indicated.
The 33 mark essay questions are much more like the old-school, and give students more time to assemble an argument, unlike the current fad of 20 markers for AQA and Edexcel. Note both answers here exceed 900 words, whereas for AQA/Edexcel the limit is more like 450/500 words (600 max) in the time allocated.
Examine how impacts of climate change can affect informal representations of place. (12)
Informal representations of a place can include movies, photos, paintings, blog posts. These are very different to more formal representations of place which include factual statistics taken from governmental records such censuses. Informal and formal data can show completely different sides of a place.
Climate change is a growing problem affecting the entire world but especially poorer LIDCs. Climate change is global news and is reported in a number of ways. If a place has experienced climate-forced hazards such as floods or droughts, this could be reported on the news and viewers could see horrific pictures supporting the story. Photos of a place are probably the best way to cause emotion in people as they can see the real-life situation instead of just hearing basic statistics. However photos of a place will change people’s perceptions of it and this could lead to a decrease in tourism there if people see how devastating the impacts of climate change are. This could really hurt the economy. On the other hand this could lead to an increase of foreign aid into the place and also help the climate change debate by showing real-life impacts it causes.
If a place has suffered from climate change hazards or effects such as the melting of the ice caps, this could lead to more informal representation being created such as documentaries. These documentaries could help raise awareness of climate change and could address what could be done to address it.
More informal representation of a place might not always be good. For example if someone typed Bangladesh into Google images they would see images of devastating cyclones and floods and not the positive side of Bangladesh, such as their tight and helpful communities.
Different political leanings of different newspapers could also affect informal representation. If a newspaper is right-leaning they may present photos showing no effects of climate change whereas left-leaning newspapers like the Guardian will show the bad effects of climate change. These contrasting informal representations could confuse the public on the real impacts of climate change.
[Awarded 11 marks]
Assess how patterns of diseases are influenced by changes in one landscape system you have studied. (12)
Patterns of disease refer to the global distribution and type of disease around the world. The coastal landscape is the area where land and seas/oceans interact. Changes in the coastal landscape are able to influence the patterns of disease. One way this can occur is due to increasing sea levels which may be isostatic or eustatic sea level rise. A cause of this could be thermal expansion of the ocean water due to increased temperature. This sea level rise can cause increased flooding of areas and increased standing water. This means that there are increased breeding grounds for vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever. This could potentially increase the amount of people vulnerable to vector-borne diseases.
Water-borne diseases such as cholera may also be increased by increasing sea levels. However the opposite could be said from decreasing sea levels as there will be decreased standing water etc and decreased likelihood of vector-borne disease. However I believe that changes in the coastal landscape system may have an impact on the pattern of communicable disease and not non-communicable disease (NCD). Changes in the coastal landscape don’t have the ability to influence the patterns of NCDs such as cancers. Furthermore the patterns of disease may only be influenced where the vector-borne diseases are present e.g. between the tropics so may only change the patterns of disease on a small spatial scale only.
[Awarded 10 marks]
Examine how impacts of seismic activity are severely worsened by the water cycle. (12)
Seismic activity refers to activity from earthquakes which are caused from the release of tension in the Earth’s crust. Hazards come in the form of ground shaking, liquefaction, tsunami, flooding and landslides. The water cycle is the processes and stores of water that provide a means for it to be transported from one store to another and stored in various stores such as the atmosphere.
Liquefaction is the process where the pressure in the water between material underground pushes apart this material as it becomes completely surrounded by water and saturated. One necessary condition for this is the presence of groundwater. The larger the groundwater store, the worse the impacts of liquefaction will be. In Christchurch, New Zealand, there were 200,000 tonnes of material that was liquefacted and this was mainly due to the large pressure in groundwater storage. This resulted in the sinking of the ground and large scale damage to property. If the groundwater store was decreased, then the impacts of seismic activity would have been less severe.
If the ocean storage of water is very high then the impacts of a potential tsunami will be worsened. A tsunami is caused by the displacement of ocean water which results in the creation of a large tsunami wave. If the ocean store is high, which may occur in periods of interglacials, then the volume and size of the tsunami wave can be significantly increased. During glacial, there is the net transfer of water from oceans to ice storage meaning that a tsunami wave as a result of an earthquake would be less severe. Currently however volumes of the hydrosphere are increasing meaning the likelihood of worsening impacts.
Finally increased precipitation can cause the ground to become less consolidated and more prone to ground shaking processes. This means if precipitation increases, then the impact of ground shaking will be higher and the hazard will pose a large threat to humans, buildings and property.
[Awarded 12 marks]
To what extent are national and sub-national policies more effective than international responses to climate change? (33)
Climate change is a growing concern within the world today but with more and more people listening to the 97% of scientists who believe in climate change, decisions have been made and introduced to tackle these problems. A range of organizations are involved in tackling these problems such as the United Nations Framework Convention against Climate Change (UNFCC) and the Intergovernmental Panel against Climate Change (IPCC) and also smaller organizations on national scales such as the EU and individual countries.
There are a number of reasons why climate change is an issue to the world and why it is finally being tackled. Since the industrial revolution of Europe and the USA in the 19th century there has been a sharp increase in CO2 emissions linked with the burning of fossil fuels such as coal. There is a lot of evidence to suggest this human-caused increase and its link to increased temperatures such as the Keeling Curve and Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick diagram. These all show the effect humans have had with increased CO2 in the atmosphere and increased temperatures caused by it. There has been a number of devastating impacts such as extreme weather events such as the 32 extreme weather events seen in the USA recently (including Hurricane Katrina), flooding in countries like Bangladesh (where 20 million people live in an area only 1m above sea level) and Australia and severe heatwaves (such as the 2003 heatwave in Europe which killed around 30,000 people most of them elderly). For all these reasons, international and national organizations are tackling the problem.
The UN is the leading international fighter of climate change and has developed a number of legally binding treaties to try and cut CO2 emissions in order to reduce temperature before we reach a permanent change of 2C or higher, which could lead to irreversible consequences for our world. Their Kyoto Protocol was the first legally binding treaty set up in 1997 to try and reduce countries carbon emissions. However, very few main emitting countries ratified the treaty, like USA, Russia, China and India. Despite China being the largest emitter of CO2 they were still an EDC so were exempt from the treaty. The same applied to India with it stating they will not reduce CO2 emissions for another 30 years to give them time to develop, and tackle poverty.
Without these two large emitters ratifying little reduction globally would be made. USA used this as their argument not to ratify as they saw no benefit in ratifying if not all countries were going to do so. When Kyoto ended in 2012 and extended again from 2013 to 2020, high targets of 25% cut were put in place meaning countries like Germany and Canada pulled out. Despite Kyoto still having a lot of countries ratified they only contributed to 14% of all the world’s CO2 emissions making Kyoto a failure at improving international CO2 emissions.
COP meetings are held every few years now in order to discuss and manage climate change. The COP held in Paris in 2015 came up with some effective ideas such as the REDD scheme and the Green Fund. The Green Fund was the idea that ACs would invest money into LIDCs that were most at risk from climate change hazards in order to help them manage the impacts. Sadly, this as well as the REDD fund (which paid countries not to cut down forests) had little success as not all countries including the USA and China did not invest. Despite their best efforts little success has come from international responses making them ineffective.
Having more success in tackling change on a smaller scale have been national and supra-national policies such as those of the EU and individual countries such as Denmark, and states such as California. The EU is one of the biggest leaders in climate change and sets strict targets of 20% reduction by 2020 and 80% reduction of CO2 emissions by 2050 in all member states. The EU has the largest cap and trade system in the world and encoyrages over 10,000 powers stations and factories to take part. Each factory/station is allocated a certain amount of credits (emissions per tonne) they are allowed to use. If they go over their budget they can trade with other stations in order to gain more. If they are unable to claim new credits they will get fined €100 per tonne over what they have used. They are also names and shamed f they do go over. This cap and trade system is very successful and has been adapted in places like Australia and California too. However there has been some criticisms of the many credits being handed out to begin with.
Individual countries have also been effective at creating policies and targets that help tackle climate change. A good example of this is Denmark. Denmark is at risk from climate change due to their flat land which is less than 1m above sea level. They have successfully created policies to decrease emissions of CO2 by 80% by 2050 by increasing renewable energy and cut some fuels out completely by the end of the century. As well as successful policies they also have good adaption techniques such as building sea walls and reservoirs and creating effective sewage pipes. None of these policies are legally binding but Denmark still took the idea and tried to tackle climate change.
In conclusion, international responses to climate change could be very successful and really help tackle the issue but without the agreement and cooperation of all countries, especially the USA, India, China and Russia, very little impact will be made. Therefore national and supra-national policies are more effective at tackling climate change. However, they are too small and if a real difference is to be made then they need to happen on a global scale. [976 words]
[Awarded 27 marks (6 AO1 + 21 AO2)]
To what extent are the socio-economic impacts of communicable disease more severe than the socio-economic impacts of non-communicable disease? (33)
A communicable disease is one that cannot be spread from person to person but is spread by a vector. A key example of a communicable disease is malaria which is endemic within 75% of Ethiopia. In comparison a non-communicable disease (NCD) is received by genetics or by lifestyle choices. Similarly to a communicable disease, NCD can also not be passed from person to person. An example of an NCD is cancer which occurs often within the UK. With both malaria and cancer there are personal socio-economic impacts as well as national ones.
Firstly, on a personal scale, within the UK, it was found that 83% of cancer patients were £570 a month worse off. This is a large economic impact to families and households because they may not be able to afford how they live daily, meaning that changes within their lifestyle need to be made. In comparison to within Ethiopia a large impact is also the change of lifestyle that has to be made. As there is an endemic disease within the lowlands of Ethiopia where the best fertility soil is, families may have to move out. This means there is a loss of income as soil is not as fertile in other places. As Ethiopia’s government is unable to provide a social security system of benefits, those without income from farming will be left with little or no income at all. Relative to the UK, where the government is able to provide benefits to those who need them, this shows that Ethiopia is much more affected by the impacts of malaria than the UK is in terms of having to change their lifestyle as a result of disease. This shows that the relative impacts of a communicable disease are worse in this case.
Similarly within Ethiopia, 40% of the health expenditure goes on treatment of malaria. This shows a large governmental burden of the disease which leads to the inability to spend on other things, for example decreasing import dependency which is essential for Ethiopian growth and development. This is very similar to the UK where £600 million of the NHS budget was put aside simply for cancer treating drugs. This shows that within both countries there is a health expenditure burden. However I strongly believe that the burden on Ethiopia is worse, mainly due to the poverty cycle. A fundamental part of the poverty cycle is the fact that one is not well enough to go to work or school meaning that little income or education is gained. This shows that with 40% of national health expenditure going on malaria with no decrease in case numbers then the poverty cycle is going to increase. In comparison to the UK, the health expenditure that has occurred has been beneficial towards cancer patients as survival rates are constantly increasing. It can therefore be seen that whilst there is lots being spent on treatment within Ethiopia, perhaps they should spend more on mitigation strategies that would stop the infection in the first place. This would make spending more effective. It can be seen, by referring to the UK, that if funds are spent on the right thing that the economic impact becomes belittled as the population who are impacted by cancer are soon treated and able to go back to work. Therefore within the UK, whilst therefore there is a large economic impact it becomes smaller as there are large impacts on what the spending is on whereas within Ethiopia the spending is almost wasted. Therefore the socio-economic impacts of a communicable disease are worse that for a NCD.
A key social impact of cancer is the inability to go to school when the NCD impacts those who are of a younger age. On average, 7 months of school is missed by those who have cancer which can socially impact you. These social impacts include being unable to socialize with friends, which they need for maintaining a stable mental health as well as not being able to gain an education. This can also be seen in Ethiopia as children are unable to go to school due to either having malaria or having to care for those who do. Within Ethiopia this lack of education is also part of the poverty cycle as without an education there is little way of gaining skills needed for later life. Within Ethiopia it is estimated that there is a loss of $41 billion within the economy due to malaria which starts off at the fact that there is little education. This shows that whilst an education is very important to children within the UK, there is not as larger impact on the wider economy as the number of children impacted by cancer is relatively low in comparison to those affected by malaria. It can be analysed that in the case of education that NCDs have a much lower impact than communicable disease, mainly due to the lack of a poverty cycle in the UK.
Overall, it can be concluded that the socio-economic impacts caused by malaria are much larger than those caused by cancer. The deciding factor in this is the fact that cancer doesn’t have a significant burden on the UK whereas there is a very significant one in Ethiopia that is caused by malaria. Due to this impact, the disease is acting as a barrier to economic development and is consequently more severe. Therefore socio-economic impacts of a communicable disease are much more severe than for a NCD to a large extent. [920 words]
[Awarded 33 marks]