Following on from our delve into the Paper 1 examiner report, it’s time to turn our attention to Paper 2: Human Geography.

As always, the examiner report provides plenty of useful insights into how students approached the different question types, what distinguished the strongest responses and where marks were unnecessarily lost.

Overall, there is some encouraging news. AQA reports that learner preparation for Paper 2 continues to improve, with a slight increase in the mean mark. Students also generally managed their time well, with relatively few incomplete papers. Contemporary Urban Environments remains comfortably the most popular optional topic, chosen by nearly 60% of students, followed by Population and the Environment at around 30% and Resource Security at around 10%. Importantly, there was no discernible difference in performance between the three options.

So, what can we learn from this year's report?

Overall summary

What was done well?

• The 4-mark question on the role of transport in globalisation was the best-performing 4-marker. Students commonly used containerisation, air travel and high-speed rail effectively.
• Students demonstrated good understanding of near and far places, often moving beyond physical distance to consider emotional distance.
• There were some very strong Antarctica essays, demonstrating detailed case-study knowledge of fishing, mining, tourism, climate change and the organisations and agreements involved in managing the continent.
• The Population and Environment essay produced some excellent responses where students combined Malthusian perspectives with climate change, agriculture and food production, particularly when Boserup provided a counterargument.
• Resource Security students generally handled the questions on the sustainability of nuclear energy and desalination well, with good use of examples.

Areas for improvement

There are some very familiar themes here!

• Students need to answer the precise wording of the question rather than the topic they were expecting.
• OS map skills were a notable weakness for some students.
• Students sometimes confused an external agent with an external process or factor.
• Novel resources should stimulate an answer, rather than simply being described.
• Where questions ask for differences between two concepts, those differences need to be made explicit.
• Accurate use of specification terminology remains essential, particularly on the extended questions.

AQA's recommendations make this especially clear: students need greater familiarity with different types of maps, greater sophistication in addressing all the elements of 20-mark questions and more effective application of knowledge when presented with an unfamiliar resource.

4-markers (AO1)

As with Paper 1, the 4-markers assess knowledge and understanding.

Performance was generally secure, with average marks between 2 and 3 marks and relatively few zero-mark responses in the core sections.

Better answers...

• focused directly on the key terms in the question
• were clear and specific
• avoided unnecessary introductions
• made four distinct creditworthy points, or appropriately developed fewer points
• explicitly identified differences when asked to compare concepts.

The Q01.1 exemplar on page 6 is a great example. Rather than spending time defining globalisation, the student goes straight into the role of transport: larger and cheaper aircraft, containerisation, intermodal transport and time-space compression. All four points earn credit.

The message here is simple: four marks doesn't need four paragraphs!

Weaker answers...

• wrote lengthy introductions that earned no credit
• repeated essentially the same point in different ways
• focused on the general topic rather than the precise knowledge being assessed
• misunderstood key geographical concepts.

A particularly stark example comes from the Population and Environment option. One student answered a question about the health impacts of ozone depletion by discussing global warming instead – resulting in no credit.

There is also a useful point for questions that say "outline differences". Students shouldn't write everything they know about A followed by everything they know about B and leave the examiner to make the comparison. The difference itself needs to be explicit.

6-markers (AO3 skills-based)

There is good news here - AQA says the improvement seen in AO3 responses over previous series continued in 2026.

This year's resources included a flow-line map of predicted changes in global trade, population data for two Hereford wards and England, and located bar charts for the optional units.

Better answers...

• identified overall patterns rather than listing individual figures
• recognised spatial patterns
• compared higher and lower values
• selected appropriate evidence
• manipulated data to quantify differences
• identified anomalies
• made connections between different resources.

The trade-flow example on page 10 demonstrates this nicely. The student identifies the largest predicted changes, contrasts these with Russia, adds together negative values for the UK and then comments on a broader pattern involving trade blocs.

Likewise, the full-mark example on page 11 immediately connects the two resources, manipulates the data accurately, identifies anomalies and comments on the relationship between cases and deaths.

Weaker answers...

• adopted a list-like approach
• picked out figures without any clear reason
• made errors reading or calculating data
• failed to support observations with evidence
• tried to explain the patterns rather than analyse them.

That last point is worth reinforcing - on an AO3 analysis question, students don't need to show off everything they know about why a pattern exists. They need to demonstrate that they can interrogate the geographical information in front of them.

6- and 9-markers (AO1/AO2 with stimulus)

These questions require students to apply their geographical understanding to novel resources. Crucially, AO2 carries the greater weighting, so application, assessment and evaluation matter more than simply demonstrating specification knowledge.

This continues to be an area where the balance can go wrong. Some students simply lifted information from the resources; others barely used them at all.

Better answers...

• combined the resource with secure subject knowledge
• used evidence selectively rather than describing everything shown
• applied their knowledge directly to the context
• explicitly assessed or evaluated
• recognised limitations in what a resource could show
• used examples to extend the argument beyond the stimulus.

The OS map question is especially useful here. In the full-mark response shown on page 15, the student uses contours and relief from the map to evaluate its usefulness, but also recognises that other endogenous factors such as climate and soils cannot be seen on that map. That's genuine evaluation rather than description.

The Urban Environments example is another good one - the student uses the VAT reduction shown in the Retrofirst resource, combines it with knowledge of property-led regeneration in London Docklands and then evaluates how challenging different strategies might be.

Weaker answers...

• lifted chunks of information directly from the resource
• described rather than applied
• ignored the command word
• selected isolated features without explaining why they were relevant
• made conclusions without evidence
• sometimes misunderstood the information shown.

AQA summarises the issue neatly - the resource is a vehicle to prompt the answer, not something that needs to be repeated at length.

A word on OS maps...

This feels worthy of its own section because AQA explicitly identifies the OS map in Q02.3 as challenging for a considerable number of students.

Too many answers simply picked isolated locations or features from the map. The question required students to evaluate the usefulness of maps in showing how endogenous factors influence place characteristics.

AQA recommends giving students greater exposure to OS and other maps. Students should be comfortable using evidence such as:

• relief and topography
• the shape and extent of the built environment
• urban/rural character
• coastal location
• evidence of tourism.

In the Filey resource, for example, tourism-related features could be used to infer its resort character. Students should also consider what maps cannot tell us.

This is perhaps something worth building into Changing Places teaching routinely rather than leaving map skills solely to fieldwork preparation.

9-markers (AO1/AO2 without stimulus)

These appeared in the optional sections and required specification knowledge combined with evaluation.

Average performance was comfortably within Level 2, while detailed and well-supported approaches accessed Level 3.

Better answers...

• demonstrated accurate knowledge of the concept
• evaluated throughout
• used located examples
• considered alternative approaches
• supported arguments with detail
• reached an overall judgement.

For Contemporary Urban Environments, stronger responses evaluated incineration using examples including Singapore, Amsterdam and Copenhagen, with some comparing it against landfill and other waste-management approaches.

For Resource Security, students drew effectively on examples including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, California and Beckton in east London when evaluating desalination.

The full-mark desalination exemplar on pages 22–23 is particularly useful. It begins with secure process knowledge, evaluates desalination as a way of increasing water supply, applies California effectively, considers energy and environmental implications and reaches an overall conclusion.

Weaker answers...

• remained generic
• offered limited illustration
• didn't develop the geographical processes sufficiently
• confused key categories or concepts.

For example, some Population and Environment students confused physical and human factors influencing population density. Answers which identified factors such as relief, climate and water availability and illustrated their influence had much greater potential to access the higher marks.

20-markers

There's another positive message here: AQA reports that performance on the 20-mark questions continues to improve. Answers are increasingly focused and clearly structured, students are balancing AO1 and AO2 more effectively, and evaluative conclusions are becoming more common.

Better answers...

• demonstrated detailed, accurate knowledge
• selected relevant case studies rather than simply reproducing them
• balanced AO1 knowledge with AO2 argument
• considered different viewpoints
• explored different spatial and temporal perspectives where appropriate
• maintained focus on the statement throughout
• reached a conclusion based on the preceding argument.

AQA's full-mark Antarctica exemplar on pages 26–28 illustrates this well. The student considers resources including oil and iron, fishing and whaling, discusses threats to Antarctica, applies knowledge of treaties and management systems, maintains a good AO1/AO2 balance and finishes with a detailed conclusion.

The full-mark Population and Environment example is similarly useful. It considers the impacts of climate change on agriculture and food production at different spatial scales, uses evidence from different places and introduces an alternative positive viewpoint before reaching a clear conclusion.

Weaker answers...

• lost focus on the actual question
• used terminology inaccurately
• presented simplistic or stereotypical arguments
• retold a prepared case study
• demonstrated AO1 but did little with it to generate AO2.

AQA describes this last problem as a 'storytelling' approach - students are determined to tell the examiner their learned case study rather than adapting the material to answer the question.

And there are two especially useful examples of this problem in this year's report - external agents ≠ external processes...

Q02.4 asked about the influence of external agencies on place meaning. This caused problems because students often knew their Changing Places case study really well - but hadn't understood the key terminology in the question...

Students writing about Brick Lane, for example, sometimes discussed migration or gentrification. Those are processes, not external agents. More obvious examples of agencies might include car companies in Detroit or the Olympic Authority and retail investors in Stratford.

The exemplar on pages 31-33 demonstrates the consequence perfectly. The student clearly knows New York's Lower East Side, discussing immigration, slum clearance and gentrification, but doesn't identify the actions of external agencies. Despite plenty of place knowledge, the response is therefore limited to 8/20 - this is an excellent example to use with students because it demonstrates why knowing a case study is not the same thing as answering an essay question.

The same lesson appears in Resource Security - the Q05.5 response reproduced on pages 34-35 discusses copper mining and environmental problems associated with extraction. Perfectly valid geography - but that wasn't really the question. Students needed to address whether technological developments could reduce environmental impacts and improve sustainability. Because the exemplar didn't sufficiently engage with that central issue, it remained a partial answer and scored 7 marks. Again, the knowledge isn't necessarily the problem - application of the knowledge to the exact wording is.

So, what the key takeaways for the classroom?

• Specification terminology matters - students need to understand terms such as external agency, endogenous factor, near and far places, ozone depletion and physical factor precisely.
• Don't waste time on introductions in 4-markers - get straight to creditworthy geography.
• Make differences explicit - if a question asks students to distinguish between two things, don't leave the comparison for the examiner to infer.
• Keep practising maps - OS maps shouldn't suddenly appear as an unfamiliar skill on exam day.
• AO3 is about interrogating the data - identify patterns, compare, quantify, manipulate, find anomalies and connect resources.
• Resources are prompts, not scripts - students should use them selectively to generate applied AO2 rather than copying them.
• Case studies need to be flexible - a prepared case study is a toolbox, not a pre-written essay.
• Read the exact wording of 20-mark questions - one misunderstood term can put a ceiling on an otherwise knowledgeable response.
• AO1 + AO2 need to work together - strong knowledge provides the evidence; application and evaluation turn that evidence into an argument.

Perhaps the clearest message across the whole Paper 2 report is that knowing lots of geography is only half the battle. AQA's strongest exemplars aren't necessarily those that throw the most knowledge onto the page. They're the ones where students select the right knowledge, apply it to the precise question and use it to build a convincing geographical argument.