Food production and security

This Question and Answer examines a sequence of three questions in the style of the OCR Geographical Debates paper 3. They are from the Future of Food option. They consider both food production and food security. All three questions are marked using levels and test both Assessment Objectives 1 and 2. Question 3 is a high-stakes essay-style question where detailed examples and case-study knowledge need to be combined with a convincing argument. Some of the themes are found in other specifications (see Box 1), although questions and marks do vary. The exam comments are the responsibility of GEOGRAPHY REVIEW and have neither been provided nor approved by the examination board. The answers given are not the only possible answers

Table 1 Geographical Debates options question sequence

The OCR paper 3 Geographical Debates questions have a considerable demand ‘ramp’ as shown in Table 1. Each paper is marked out of 54 with 33 marks (over 60%) coming from the last sub-question. This has implications for your timing in the exam: spending too long on sub-questions a–c could mean not having enough time to do justice to the final sub-question. In terms of timings in the exam they are, roughly:

■ 6-mark question = 8 minutes