This module is about how geographers describe people and places with evidence: how a population is made up, why people move, what a town does for the area around it, how a city spreads, and what a single average can hide. It sits within the IGCSE Geography learning guide and leads on to development and inequality.
Almost every question here gives you a diagram, map or table and asks for a careful reading. Marks go to the right unit, the right date, a clear cause and an honest limit.
What do you need before starting?
You need to read a bar chart and a simple table, and to work out a percentage and a mean. If you can find 25% of 8,000 or divide 3,500 by 250, you are ready.
What does a worked example look like?
Here is a small one that touches the whole module. An invented country, Country K, has this age structure in 2020, shown as a percentage of its total population.
| Age group | Share of population |
|---|---|
| 0 to 14 | 25% |
| 15 to 64 | 65% |
| 65 and over | 10% |
Step 1, name the evidence: the figures are percentages, not counts, and they refer to 2020.
Step 2, find the dependants: 25% + 10% = 35% of the population is under 15 or 65 and over.
Step 3, compare with the working-age group: 35 ÷ 65 = 0.538, so there are about 54 dependants for every 100 people aged 15 to 64.
Step 4, say what it means: a large share of young people suggests pressure on schools, and the figure alone cannot tell us why. We would need birth and migration data for that.
The same habit runs through every lesson: unit, date, calculation, meaning, limit.
In what order should you study the lessons?
- Read a population structure diagram with units and date: the base skill for everything else.
- Explain a migration factor without stereotyping: moves from description to cause, using evidence.
- Compare settlement functions from supplied evidence: uses ratios to compare towns fairly.
- Interpret an urban-growth pattern: adds change over time, in area and in percentage.
- Distinguish an average from a distribution: the check you apply to every table you meet.
What are the common traps?
- Reading a bar as a number of people when the axis shows a percentage.
- Leaving out the date or the unit in your answer.
- Explaining migration with one reason, or with a claim about a group of people.
- Judging a town’s function by its size alone.
- Quoting a mean without asking how the values are spread.
How do you use the practice set?
Work through the mixed practice once the lessons feel familiar. Cover each answer, write your working on paper, then compare step by step. Record each slip in the mistake log and retest queue and return to the matching lesson.
You can also try your own small data sets in the statistics and distribution explorer. If you want a teacher to look at your written answers, see IGCSE Geography one-to-one tuition.