Regional geography

Traps in Regional geography

• Picks the wrong place or location
  Learn each resource or feature with its location on a map, and the reason it occurs there.
• Picks a closely related feature or term
  Learn related features as contrasting pairs: how each forms and what it looks like.
• Gives only part of the answer
  Recall the full definition or list of factors and check the option covers it.
• Misattributes landform processes
  River: V-shaped valleys, meanders, ox-bow lakes, deltas. Wind: mushroom rocks, barchans, zeugen, yardangs. Glacial: U-shaped valleys, cirques, moraines.
• River profile errors
  Upper course: V-shaped valleys, waterfalls, rapids, interlocking spurs. Middle: meanders, wider valley. Lower: floodplains, levees, ox-bow lakes, deltas.
• Mining and resources location errors
  Nigeria: crude oil (Niger Delta), tin (Jos Plateau), coal (Enugu), limestone (Ewekoro, Nkalagu). Ghana: gold (Obuasi, Tarkwa), bauxite (Awaso), manganese (Nsuta), diamonds (Akwatia). Sierra Leone: diamonds (Kono), iron ore (Marampa).
• Misunderstands farming systems
  Shifting cultivation/bush fallow: subsistence, hoe and cutlass, moving plots as soils tire. Plantation: large-scale cash crops, capital-intensive.
• 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.
• Settlement pattern errors
  Nucleated: clustered (defence, water point). Dispersed: scattered farmsteads. Linear: along roads, rivers or coasts. Site = actual land; situation = relation to surroundings.
• Trade and ECOWAS geography errors
  ECOWAS aims: free movement of people, goods, services; customs union. Problems: poor transport links, similar exports, language barriers, political instability.
• 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.
• Confuses wind-formed and other desert landforms
  Wind erosion (abrasion is strongest within about 1 m of the ground): mushroom rocks, zeugen (horizontal hard over soft rock), yardangs (vertical bands parallel to the wind), deflation hollows. Wind deposition: barchan (crescent, horns downwind), seif (long ridge parallel to the wind). Water in deserts: wadi (dry channel), playa (dry lake bed), bajada (merged alluvial fans), oasis (groundwater at surface).
• Climate classification errors
  Equatorial: hot, rain all year, small range. Tropical continental (savanna): wet summer, dry winter. Hot desert: very low rain, large daily range. Mediterranean: hot dry summers, mild wet winters (west coasts 30–40°). Monsoon: seasonal reversal of winds, very heavy summer rain.
• Confuses ocean currents and their effects
  Cold currents (Canary, Benguela, Humboldt/Peru, Labrador) cool coasts and contribute to coastal deserts (Namib, Atacama) and fog. Warm currents (Gulf Stream/North Atlantic Drift, Guinea, Kuroshio) warm coasts. Mixing of warm and cold water favours plankton and fishing grounds.
• Chooses a true but irrelevant statement
  Test each option against the exact term or feature in the stem.
• Confuses climatic types/features
  Equatorial: rain all year, small annual temperature range. Savanna: distinct wet and dry seasons. Hot desert: very low rainfall, high diurnal range.
• Confuses vegetation belts and their characteristics
  Rain forest: evergreen, layered, buttress roots, hardwoods. Savanna: tall grass with scattered trees, deciduous in dry season. Mangrove: stilt/aerial roots on tidal coasts. Coniferous (taiga): needle leaves, softwood. Mediterranean: evergreen with waxy/thick leaves. Tundra: mosses, lichens.
• Over-generalises a pattern
  Geographic patterns have exceptions; be wary of always/never/all.
• 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.