Environment

Traps in Environment

• Uses an everyday idea instead of the geography
  Test the intuition against the physical process; geography terms and causes often differ from their everyday sense.
• Misunderstands farming systems
  Shifting cultivation/bush fallow: subsistence, hoe and cutlass, moving plots as soils tire. Plantation: large-scale cash crops, capital-intensive.
• Reverses the process or effect
  Trace the cause and effect step by step and check the direction at each step.
• Gives only part of the answer
  Recall the full definition or list of factors and check the option covers it.
• Picks the wrong place or location
  Learn each resource or feature with its location on a map, and the reason it occurs there.
• Chooses a true but irrelevant statement
  Test each option against the exact term or feature in the stem.
• Picks a closely related feature or term
  Learn related features as contrasting pairs: how each forms and what it looks like.
• Environmental hazard misconceptions
  Desertification: overgrazing, deforestation, bush burning, drought. Soil erosion control: afforestation, contour ploughing, terracing, cover crops. Floods: heavy rain, blocked drains, deforestation.
• Confuses glacial and desert landforms
  Glacial erosion: cirque/corrie, arête, pyramidal peak, U-shaped valley, hanging valley. Glacial deposition: moraine, drumlin, esker, erratic. Desert (wind): barchan, seif, yardang, zeuge; desert (water): wadi, playa, bajada, inselberg.
• Volcano and earthquake errors
  Focus (hypocentre): point of origin underground; epicentre: point on the surface directly above. Richter/moment magnitude scale measures energy; seismograph records waves. Basic (basaltic) lava is runny → shield volcanoes; acid lava is viscous → steep cones.
• Credits a landform to the wrong agent
  Link each landform to its agent and process: ox-bow lake – river meanders; mushroom rock – wind abrasion; U-shaped valley – glacier; Lake Volta – a dam.