If you are sitting AQA A-Level Geography in 2027, you are probably already wondering the same thing:
What is actually going to come up?
Nobody outside AQA can know the exact questions in advance, and students should be very wary of anyone claiming otherwise. However, you can make your revision much more effective by understanding exactly what can be assessed, how the two papers are structured and which areas of the specification you need to be prepared to apply to unfamiliar questions.
This guide breaks down AQA A-Level Geography Paper 1 and Paper 2 for 2027, what you should revise and how to prepare for questions you have never seen before.
When are the AQA A-Level Geography exams in 2027?
AQA has scheduled A-Level Geography 7037/1 for the morning of 11 May 2027 and 7037/2 for the afternoon of 20 May 2027. Both written papers are 2 hours 30 minutes long and worth 120 marks.
That gives Geography students just over a week between Paper 1 and Paper 2.
Your NEA makes up the remaining 20% of the qualification, while Paper 1 and Paper 2 are each worth 40%.
What is on AQA Geography Paper 1 in 2027?
Paper 1 is the Physical Geography paper.
Every student studies Water and Carbon Cycles.
You then study one landscape option:
- Coastal Systems and Landscapes
- Hot Desert Systems and Landscapes
- Glacial Systems and Landscapes
You also study either:
- Hazards
- Ecosystems Under Stress
AQA confirms that Paper 1 contains 120 marks across three sections and includes short-answer, levels-of-response and extended-prose questions.
Water and Carbon Cycles
This is compulsory, so every student needs to know it well.
Make sure you can explain:
- stores and flows within the water cycle
- drainage basin systems
- water budgets
- changes in stores
- carbon stores and transfers
- the carbon budget
- feedback mechanisms
- links between the water and carbon cycles
- human impacts on both cycles
- climate change
- relevant case studies
One mistake is learning the water cycle and carbon cycle as completely separate topics.
AQA Geography frequently rewards students who can recognise systems, interactions, feedback and connections.
Do not just memorise definitions such as infiltration, sequestration and evapotranspiration. You need to be able to use them to explain geographical change.
Could coasts come up in AQA Geography 2027?
If you study Coastal Systems and Landscapes, technically any content within the relevant specification can be assessed.
That includes:
- coastal systems
- sediment cells
- sediment budgets
- erosion
- transportation
- deposition
- weathering
- mass movement
- coastal landforms
- sea-level change
- coastal flooding
- coastal management
- human intervention
AQA specifically treats coasts as systems involving inputs, outputs, stores, transfers, feedback and dynamic equilibrium.
That systems language is worth using in longer answers.
For example, instead of simply saying that groynes stop sediment moving, a stronger response could discuss how interrupting sediment transfer affects the sediment budget elsewhere within the coastal system.
That is much closer to A-Level geographical thinking.
What about Hazards?
Hazards is another topic where simply memorising case studies is dangerous.
You need to understand the underlying processes as well as examples.
Be prepared for questions involving:
- hazard perception
- risk
- vulnerability
- resilience
- tectonic hazards
- volcanic hazards
- seismic hazards
- storm hazards
- wildfires
- responses to hazards
- factors affecting the impacts of hazards
Your case studies should be flexible.
Instead of learning one memorised essay about an earthquake, know enough evidence to use that earthquake in questions about vulnerability, governance, economic development, prediction, response and resilience.
What is on AQA Geography Paper 2 in 2027?
Paper 2 is Human Geography.
Every student studies:
- Global Systems and Global Governance
- Changing Places
You then answer one option from:
- Contemporary Urban Environments
- Population and the Environment
- Resource Security
Paper 2 is also 2 hours 30 minutes and worth 120 marks.
Global Systems and Global Governance
This is much more than simply learning what globalisation means.
You should be comfortable with:
- dimensions of globalisation
- flows of capital, labour, products and information
- global production networks
- TNCs
- global inequalities
- international trade
- unequal power relationships
- global governance
- international organisations
- the global commons
- Antarctica
- relationships between different geographical scales
The best responses often recognise that globalisation creates both opportunities and inequalities.
Be careful with absolute claims such as:
“Globalisation benefits everyone.”
or:
“TNCs are always bad for developing countries.”
High-level answers normally recognise that outcomes differ between places, groups and scales.
Changing Places
Changing Places can catch students out because it appears less content-heavy than other topics.
In reality, it demands very precise application.
AQA's specification includes concepts such as near and far places, experienced and media places, insider and outsider perspectives, endogenous factors, exogenous connections, representation and changing place character.
You need to know your studied places in detail.
That could include:
- population structure
- employment
- deprivation
- housing
- migration
- architecture
- land use
- cultural characteristics
- historical development
- investment
- regeneration
- external connections
- representations of the place
Do not memorise a generic paragraph about your local place.
You should be able to use the same place differently depending on the question.
Contemporary Urban Environments
If this is your optional topic, revise processes rather than just cities.
Important areas include:
- urbanisation
- suburbanisation
- counter-urbanisation
- re-urbanisation
- migration
- economic change
- deindustrialisation
- urban climate
- urban drainage
- waste
- pollution
- inequality
- gentrification
- regeneration
- sustainable urban development
You should also be able to make comparisons between contrasting urban areas.
A common mistake is writing two separate case studies without actually comparing them.
Instead of:
“London has experienced…”
followed by:
“Lagos has experienced…”
try to explain why the importance of a process differs between them.
Population and the Environment
Students taking this option should be comfortable connecting physical and human geography.
Possible areas include:
- population distribution
- population growth
- optimum population
- carrying capacity
- climate and population
- soils
- agricultural productivity
- food security
- health and disease
- population and resources
- future population change
- environmental impacts
AQA explicitly includes relationships between climate, soils, agricultural productivity, population and development.
That means a question may require you to assess several interacting factors rather than explain one in isolation.
Resource Security
For Resource Security, make sure you understand the concept rather than simply learning lists of resources.
Revise:
- resource stock and flows
- resource consumption
- resource inequality
- resource supply
- resource demand
- energy security
- water security
- mineral resources
- resource frontiers
- geopolitics
- TNCs
- national governments
- environmental impacts
- sustainable resource management
Questions can combine several parts of the topic.
For example, a resource-frontier question could simultaneously require understanding of supply, technology, sustainability, environmental impacts and future resource insecurity.
So what is most likely to come up in AQA Geography 2027?
This is the important part.
Do not interpret a list of “predicted topics” as permission to ignore everything else.
AQA can assess content from anywhere within the specification.
A much better strategy is to identify areas that would cause you problems if they appeared tomorrow.
Ask yourself:
Could I answer a 20-marker on this topic?
Could I apply it to an unfamiliar figure?
Do I have a named example?
Could I evaluate it rather than just explain it?
Could I compare it with another factor?
If the answer to any of those is no, that topic belongs near the top of your revision list.
The topics students often under-revise
Most students spend plenty of time revising obvious content.
The dangerous areas are often smaller specification points.
For Paper 1, do not neglect:
- feedback mechanisms
- sediment budgets
- system concepts
- water budgets
- vulnerability and resilience
- relationships between processes
For Paper 2, do not neglect:
- near and far places
- representations of place
- unequal power relations
- governance at different scales
- urban climate
- environmental impacts of consumption
- resource frontiers
These smaller concepts can easily become part of a 4, 6 or 9-mark question.
Do you need to memorise case studies for AQA Geography?
Yes - but not entire essays.
A much better approach is to build a bank of flexible evidence.
For each case study, learn:
- 5–10 strong statistics
- key processes
- causes
- major impacts
- different stakeholders
- responses
- successes
- limitations
Then practise using the same evidence for different questions.
An examiner is not awarding marks because you remembered a statistic.
The statistic is valuable because it supports your geographical argument.
How should you revise 20-mark Geography questions?
Twenty-mark questions are where a large amount of your grade can be won or lost.
Do not simply write everything you know.
For every 20-marker:
- Identify exactly what is being debated.
- Decide your initial argument.
- Select three or four factors.
- Use specific geographical evidence.
- Evaluate each factor as you go.
- Compare their relative importance.
- Reach a clear overall judgement.
Think in terms of:
“X is important because…”
rather than:
“One factor is X.”
Then challenge your argument.
“However, X is likely to be less important where…”
That immediately creates evaluation.
Do data questions matter?
Absolutely.
Students sometimes treat maps, graphs and tables as the easy part of the paper.
They are not.
AQA expects students to develop geographical skills alongside subject content, including quantitative and qualitative methods, data manipulation and interpretation.
When analysing an unfamiliar figure, look for:
- overall pattern
- trend
- relationship
- highest and lowest values
- comparisons
- anomalies
- change over time
- spatial variation
Then support your analysis with precise evidence.
Do not simply copy numbers from the figure.
The best way to prepare for AQA Geography 2027
Once you have covered the content, stop spending all of your revision time rereading notes.
Start answering questions.
Exam practice exposes weaknesses that passive revision hides.
You may think you know Changing Places until you have to write a 20-mark judgement about the relative influence of past and present connections.
You may think you understand energy security until you are given two unfamiliar graphs and six minutes to analyse their relationship.
That is why timed papers become increasingly valuable as you approach the exam.
Studying AQA Geography in 2027?
Put your knowledge into practice with our A-Level AQA Geography 2027 Predicted Papers for Paper 1 and Paper 2.
They are designed to give you fresh exam-style questions, unfamiliar maps and figures, extended-response practice and comprehensive mark schemes so you can identify weak areas before the real exams.
Rather than simply reading another set of notes, sit a complete paper under timed conditions, mark it properly and use every lost mark to decide what you revise next.
AQA A-Level Geography 2027 FAQs
When is AQA A-Level Geography Paper 1 in 2027?
AQA Geography 7037/1 is scheduled for the morning of 11 May 2027.
When is AQA A-Level Geography Paper 2 in 2027?
AQA Geography 7037/2 is scheduled for the afternoon of 20 May 2027.
How long is AQA A-Level Geography Paper 1?
Paper 1 is 2 hours 30 minutes and worth 120 marks.
How long is AQA A-Level Geography Paper 2?
Paper 2 is also 2 hours 30 minutes and worth 120 marks.
What percentage is each AQA Geography paper worth?
Paper 1 is worth 40% of the A-Level and Paper 2 is worth 40%. The Geography fieldwork investigation accounts for the remaining 20%.
Can you predict the AQA Geography 2027 questions?
Nobody can know the exact questions before the exam. Predicted papers and topic predictions should be used as additional exam practice rather than as a replacement for revising the full AQA 7037 specification.
What is the best way to revise AQA A-Level Geography?
Combine specification-based content revision with active recall, accurate case-study evidence and regular timed exam-question practice. Spend particular time practising 6, 9 and 20-mark responses and analysing unfamiliar geographical figures.
