Geography 2412 Midterm Study Guide and Sample Exam Questions
The exam will cover material from the text, lectures, and recitation exercises. A basic guide to the material appears below. To prepare for the exam, use your lecture notes as the key pointer to more detailed material in the text. Use the posted lecture notes to correlate with your own notes, keeping in mind that they are outlines/notes and not verbatim transcripts of lectures.
The following pointers on what to study also indicate by omission areas
we skipped or downplayed in the textbook, chapters in order of presentation.
Intro lectures: "Ways of Thinking" see lecture notes, material not in text.
Chap 1: all.
Chap. 2: all.
Chap. 3: skip sec. 3.3. Note that the lectures added significantly to the material on human use of the earth. Be sure to know the main human transformations of earth, purposeful and inadvertent—see lecture notes
Chap. 6: all.
Chap.4: All, but focus on energy, carbon and nitrogen cycles (eg., skip oxygen and phosphorus cycle)
Chap. 5: skip marine ecosystems; and be sure to know 5.6, 5.7 and 5.8 in detail
Chap 8: all, with attention to Table 8.2. Know env impacts of ag systems (sec. 8.8) and fixes (sec.8.9).
Chap. 7: We will probably not get to any of this before the midterm. All, with attention to population trends, the demographic transition, migration, and population policy. Do not memorize populations of different countries, but know the basic concepts like the basic global trends over time; measures of pop; factors in growth and change; variations in density patterns; know Phase I, II and III of the demographic transition model.
Also, as you study, pay attention to these figures, all of which have been referenced and/or shown in lecture:
Figures that I’ll mention in the review with which
they should be familiar:
Fig. 1.2
1.9
3.12
4.6
4.9
4.11
5.8
5.15
6.1
6.2
8.4, 5, 6 and 7
Table 8.2
8.12
From Recitation Exercises: don’t forget what you learned about the cornucopian or techno-optimists; about ecological footprint; and the tracing of human transformations thru the earth systems.
These sample questions reflect both the range of material and the types of question on the exam. I’ll try to post am few more before the exam.
Multiple Choice: (correct answers bolded
(1) Human activity, chiefly the creation and application of commercial fertilizers, is one contributor to a increase in storage of nitrogen in:
(a) the atmosphere;
(b) lithosphere (geological deposits);
(c) hydrosphere (surface and ground water);
Match these actions to the list of typical human transformations of ecosystems that BEST represents their effect:
(2) building roads through a forest
(3) transforming a forest into a corn field
(4) introducing a toxic chemical into a food chain
(5) increasing nutrients in a freshwater ecosystem
(6) selecting for growth of certain tree species in a commercial forest
Answers:
(a) fragmentation
(b) substitution
(c) simplification
(d) contamination
(e) fertilization
(7) According to many techno-optimists such as Julian Simon, population growth is
(a) the most effective indicator of environmental degradation available to world leaders.
(b) not necessarily a bad thing as human intellect is the greatest resource on the planet.
(c) not occurring.
(d) hindering global technological advances.
(8) By burning fossil fuels, humans are adding Carbon Dioxide to the atmosphere. The increased carbon dioxide causes many plants to grow larger and thus take in more carbon dioxide. This is _________.
(a) the phosphorus cycle
(b) the nitrogen cycle
(c) a negative feedback
(d) a positive feedback
True or false
(9) Biodiversity is the number of different species in an area.
(10) Unlike the general world trend, human population is declining in what the text authors call "frontier" environments like arid and wet tropical zones.
Answers: