The Geography assessment route that applies to you depends on your exam year, your entry choices and the fieldwork or alternative arrangement your school or exam centre uses. This page does not list paper details, because they belong to the syllabus document for your year and can change between versions.
What it gives you is a checklist for finding the facts yourself, from the right source.
Which document has the facts?
The Cambridge IGCSE Geography syllabus, code 0460, is the authority. Cambridge publishes it for stated ranges of exam years, and a revised syllabus for 2027 to 2029 is published on its website.
Open the Cambridge Geography 0460 page, select the syllabus that covers your exam year, and read the sections on assessment. You can also run your code and year through the syllabus and exam-year navigator, which flags a transition check instead of guessing a profile.
What should I check, and where?
| What to check | Where to find it | Who is responsible |
|---|---|---|
| Your exam year | Your school or exam centre entry | You and your exam centre |
| Which syllabus version covers that year | Cambridge 0460 page | Cambridge publishes it |
| Paper names, durations and marks | Assessment section of that syllabus | Cambridge publishes it |
| Fieldwork or alternative route | Your school or exam centre | Your exam centre |
| Entry, registration, results, access arrangements | Your school or exam centre | Your exam centre |
| Command words and assessment objectives | Syllabus and Cambridge support material | Cambridge publishes it |
We are not an exam centre. Registration, entry, results and access arrangements belong to your centre and Cambridge.
What does the assessment ask of you?
Whatever the version, Geography assessment tends to combine three demands: knowing content, using geographical skills on supplied evidence, and explaining or judging with support. Check the assessment objectives in your syllabus to see how marks are shared.
Practise each demand separately, then together. For skills, see graphs, photographs and spatial data. For extended writing, see extended geographic explanations.
Worked example: same evidence, different demands
This is an invented item for teaching. A table shows a river’s discharge in cubic metres per second, before and after heavy rain: 12 and 48.
Skill demand: the discharge rises from 12 to 48 m³/s, an increase of 36 m³/s, which is 4 times the original, or a 300% rise (36 ÷ 12 = 3). Quote the units and both values.
Explanation demand: heavy rain adds water faster than the soil can absorb it, so more runs directly into the channel. Say which place and which rain event if the question names them.
Judgement demand: one pair of readings cannot show how often this happens. A qualified conclusion says what the two readings suggest and what more data would add.
The mistake to watch for
The common error is revising from advice written for a different exam year. A student follows a video about a paper layout, then finds their own papers are arranged differently.
Fix this by writing your exam year and syllabus version at the start of your notes, and by reading our note on separating 2026 guidance from the 2027 revision. When a fact matters, check it against the Cambridge page.
How can a teacher help?
Understanding the route is one task. Answering well inside it is another.
A teacher can work through original questions in the style your syllabus describes, and watch how you handle command words, data and explanation. Read about online one-to-one Geography tuition, or return to the learning guide for the topic order.