APHG Unit 1 MCQ Practice Test

Which of the following is the primary assumption of environmental determinism?

• • Human destiny is controlled by the cultural environment.

• • The physical environment has little influence on humans.

• • Humans have complete control over the physical environment

• • Many human adaptations are possible within a specific physical environment.

• • The physical environment controls human culture.

Photo: Census form 2010.

A political polling company wants to use census data to collect information on voters in a city by neighborhood. Based on the types of information collected in the survey form, which of the following could be mapped using census data?

• The number of voting-age residents per household

• The political party affiliation of the average resident

• How residents voted in the last election

• How voters might vote in the next national election

• How voters stand on current issues

Answer explanation

A census collects data on the number of residents per household and the ages of those residents. Those data can be averaged and shown on a per-neighborhood basis.

Which of the following scales of analysis would provide demographic data that could be used to compare one urban neighborhood to other urban neighborhoods across a country?

• State or province

• Metropolitan area or urban region

• County or parish

• City or municipality

• Census tract or enumeration area

Answer explanation

Depending on the country, census tracts and enumeration areas vary in size from 1,000 to 8,000 people in an urban area. Data from this smallest scale of analysis would be best for comparing neighborhoods across a country.

Which of the following describes the perspective of environmental determinism?

• • A twentieth-century idea that human cultures are imprinted on the landscape in different forms of land use and architecture

• • A contemporary ecological view that human activity is affecting the global environment toward a negative outcome

• • A former scientific viewpoint stating that factors within the physical geography of a region shape the local population’s culture and behaviors

• • A theory that humans hold the ability to modify Earth’s physical geography to meet the resource needs of a society

• • A belief system based on an ideology that humans have dominion over Earth and its natural resources

Answer explanation

The environmental determinist perspective held that the physical environment directly shaped local culture and behaviors.

According to the theory of environmental determinism, which of the following areas would have the most productive settlements?

• • Tropical regions

• • Temperate regions

• • Mountainous regions

• • Arctic regions

• • Arid regions

Answer explanation

Temperate regions have mild summers and cold winters, such as most of Europe.

Which of the following terms best describes regions that make up the political geographic divisions within a country?

• • Cultural

• • Perceptual

• • Vernacular

• • Physical

• • Formal

Answer explanation

Political divisions such as states or provinces are types of formal regions.

Photo: TOPOGRAPHIC MAP AND GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS (GIS) MAP IMAGE OF MOUNT SHASTA, IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

The images show a topographic map and a geographic information systems (GIS) representation of Mount Shasta in California. Which of the following statements best explains why these printed images are geometrically distorted representations of Earth’s surface?

• • Some maps do not show the actual coloration of Earth’s surface and vegetation.

• • GIS can only display two-dimensional layers.

• • The planet’s gravitational poles are not located at the poles of Earth’s axis.

• • The three dimensions of Earth’s surface are displayed on a two-dimensional page.

• • Printed maps alter the sense of place that people can have about a location.

Answer explanation

A globe must be projected to become a two-dimensional printed map. These projections alter the geometry of Earth’s surface by flattening elevated features and bending linear features, like latitude and longitude lines, to adapt the curved surface to a two-dimensional geometry. This is why in some world map projections, areas near the poles are disproportionately large or significantly deformed.

Every map projection has some degree of distortion because

• • a curved surface cannot be represented on a flat surface without distortion

• • parallels and meridians never cross at right angles on a globe

• • the grid system is two-dimensional, while the real world is three-dimensional

• • Earth is not a perfect sphere

• • latitude lines are shorter than meridian lines

Which of the following best identifies the scale of analysis for each of the maps shown?

• • Global and regional

• • Regional and urban

• • Continental and country

• • Global and local

• • Country and local

Answer explanation

The first map shows the continent of Europe and the second map shows the country-scale map of the former Yugoslavia.

Why would a town planner use a map at the 1:24,000 scale rather than a map at the 1:250,000 scale?

• • The map at the 1:24,000 scale shows a much larger area.

• • The map at the 1:24,000 scale is easily converted to non-metric measurements.

• • The map at the 1:24,000 scale shows the town close-up in more detail.

• • The map at the 1:250,000 scale shows the town in too much detail.

• • The map at the 1:250,000 scale shows too small of an area to see the whole town.

Answer explanation

The larger the scale of the map, the greater the detail shown. Mathematically the 1:24,000 ratio is a fraction of a number, but it is a larger fraction than the 1:250,000 ratio. Therefore, 1:24,000 ratio is a larger number and at a larger scale than the 1:250,000 map.