OxfordAQA IGCSE Geography: Urban Issues and Challenges — Practice Questions

These are original questions written for Marlbridge, in the style and at the standard of the examination. Questions 3-5 do not name a specific LIC or NEE city — apply them to your own centre’s studied case study. They are not reproduced past-paper questions — examination boards hold copyright in their own papers. Use these alongside the official past papers available free from your board.

Related: Urban Issues and Challenges study guide, Urban Issues and Challenges revision notes

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Section A

1. Define urbanisation and megacity precisely. [3]

2. Explain the difference between push-pull migration and natural increase as causes of urban growth. [4]

Section B (practise using your own studied LIC or NEE case-study city)

3. For your named LIC or NEE case-study city, describe its location and explain two causes of its rapid growth. [6]

4. For the same city, explain two opportunities and two challenges that urban growth has created. [8]

5. For the same city, describe one named example of urban planning, and evaluate how effective it has been in improving quality of life for the urban poor. [6]

Section C

6. Compare London and New York in terms of their role in global finance, business and culture, giving one similarity and one difference. [4]

7. Explain two challenges facing London or New York as a result of urban growth. [6]

8. Define squatter settlement and urban sprawl precisely, and explain why rapid, unplanned urban growth often leads to squatter settlements forming. [5]

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Answers

1. Urbanisation is the increasing proportion of a population living in urban areas [1] [1]. A megacity is an urban area with a population over 10 million [1].

2. Push-pull migration occurs when negative conditions in a rural area (poverty, limited services) push people out, and positive conditions in a city (jobs, education, healthcare) pull them in [1] [1]. Natural increase is population growth from a higher birth rate than death rate, and involves no movement of people at all, unlike migration [1] [1].

3. A strong answer names the case-study city and its country and region, and states its national or global importance (e.g. a capital, a major port, an industrial or commercial centre) [1] [1]. It explains two named causes of growth — for example, rural-urban migration driven by specific push factors (such as rural poverty or drought) and pull factors (such as employment in a growing industrial sector), and/or natural increase from a young population structure with high birth rates [1] [1] [1] [1].

4. A strong answer names two specific opportunities, such as the growth of formal or informal industry creating employment and stimulating economic development, and improved access to services and resources concentrated in the growing urban area [1] [1] [1] [1]. It names two specific challenges, such as squatter settlements lacking clean water and sanitation forming as growth outpaces planned housing, and pressure on health, education and transport services from a rapidly rising population [1] [1] [1] [1].

5. A strong answer names one specific planning scheme (such as a site-and-service scheme, a self-help housing upgrade, or a slum-upgrading project) [1] [1], describes what it actually did to improve conditions [1], and then evaluates its effectiveness — stating what improved and for whom, and noting any limitation such as its cost, limited scale, or whether it reached everyone affected [1] [1] [1].

6. Similarity: both London and New York are major global centres of finance, business and culture, home to leading stock exchanges (the London Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange) and headquarters of major multinational companies [1] [1]. Difference: London’s global importance is also strongly tied to its role as a national political capital and seat of government, while New York’s influence, though the largest city in the United States, comes primarily from its economic and cultural weight rather than being the political capital of its country [1] [1].

7. Any two, 3 marks each: urban deprivation and inequality — despite their wealth overall, both cities contain areas of significant poverty, with marked inequalities in housing, education, health and employment between different districts [1] [1] [1]. Housing pressure and dereliction — high demand for housing drives up costs and can leave some areas affected by dereliction or unequal brownfield/greenfield development pressures [1] [1] [1]. Traffic congestion — dense populations and high volumes of commuting create significant congestion, with knock-on effects for air quality and travel times [1] [1] [1]. Waste, water and energy management — supplying and managing these resources for such large populations creates ongoing infrastructure challenges [1] [1] [1].

8. Squatter settlement — informal housing built without legal permission or planning, often lacking basic services such as clean water and sanitation [1] [1]. Urban sprawl — the unplanned outward spread of a city into surrounding countryside [1] [1]. Rapid, unplanned urban growth often produces squatter settlements because the pace of migration and natural increase outstrips the ability of formal housing and planning systems to keep up, so incoming residents build informal housing wherever space allows, without the infrastructure formal planning would normally provide [1].

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Where marks are usually lost

• Treating natural increase and migration as the same cause of urban growth.
• Answering a case-study question with a generic, unnamed city instead of specific, named detail.
• Describing a planning response without evaluating how effective it actually was.
• Describing London and New York separately rather than comparing them theme by theme.
• Listing urban challenges without first explaining what caused the growth that produced them.

Approaching the case-study questions

Questions 3 to 5 deliberately do not name a specific city, since OxfordAQA candidates study whichever LIC or NEE city their centre has chosen. The most effective preparation is not memorising this page’s generic answer shape, but substituting your own case-study city’s specific facts into each question and writing full timed responses, since the mark scheme rewards named, specific detail over accurate general description. Fix in advance one cause of growth, two opportunities, two challenges and one named, evaluated planning response for your city, in the order cause, growth, opportunity/challenge, response — this is the structure the specification’s own case-study requirement expects.