The mountain · Humanities ridge · camp 3 of 4
Geography
Geography: maps and scale, physical processes, population and settlement, resources and the environment, at local and global scale.
Walk to this camp
Three questions light the next lantern. Nothing to install, no sign-up.
Eight rungs, one trail
Every camp on the mountain has the same eight rungs: the eight altitudes Alpenrise measures, read back in the words of your own school system. Rung 1 is the bottom of secondary school; rung 8 is beyond the final exam.
| Rung | New Zealand | United Kingdom | Cambridge | IB |
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| R1Explorer | Year 7 | Year 7 | Stage 7 | MYP 1 |
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| R2Pathfinder | Year 8 | Year 8 | Stage 8 | MYP 2 |
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| R3Voyager | Year 9 | Year 9 | Stage 9 | MYP 3 |
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| R4Navigator | Year 10 | Year 10 · GCSE yr 1 | IGCSE Yr 1 | MYP 4 |
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| R5Pioneer | Year 11 | Year 11 · GCSE | IGCSE Yr 2 | MYP 5 |
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| R6Summit | Year 12 | Year 12 · AS | AS Level | DP 1 |
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| R7Apex | Year 13 | Year 13 · A Level | A Level | DP 2 |
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| R8Beyond | NZ Scholarship | beyond A Level | STEP prep | DP HL+ |
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One question from each rung
The mountain draws three questions per rung from the same slice as the free placement. Here is one from each rung of Geography, shown without its answer.
- Rung 1 · Explorer · Year 7You are facing East. You turn 90° anticlockwise. Which direction are you now facing?North-west · South · North · East
- Rung 2 · Pathfinder · Year 8On a topographic map, what do contour lines join together?Points that are the same height above sea level · Points that get the same amount of rainfall each year · Points with the same type of soil · Points where the same crops are grown
- Rung 3 · Voyager · Year 9A tramper is walking on a bearing of 080°. She turns 100° clockwise. What is her new bearing (as a three-figure bearing)?180 · 340 · 080 · 000
- Rung 4 · Navigator · Year 10A map has a scale of 1:20,000. A rectangular block of forest measures 8 cm by 5 cm on the map. What is its real area, in hectares? (1 hectare = 10,000 m²)
- Rung 5 · Pioneer · Year 11Which of these is most likely to PULL people towards a new place to live?political freedom and the right to vote · severe poverty with little chance of it improving · a major earthquake that destroyed many homes · political persecution of a particular group
- Rung 6 · Summit · Year 12Kōtare Downs's population (in thousands) is: 0–14 years: 30, 15–64 years (working age): 100, 65+ years: 20. What is Kōtare Downs's dependency ratio — the number of dependants (under 15 and over 64) per 100 people of working age?
- Rung 7 · Apex · Year 13How would a geographer classify geothermal energy — the heat that keeps flowing up from deep inside the Earth?A renewable resource — it is naturally replenished quickly enough that using it does not run it down · A non-renewable resource — Earth holds only a fixed stock, and once it is used up it cannot be replaced on a human timescale · A renewable resource that can be exhausted by overuse — it regenerates naturally, but only if it is not harvested faster than it can recover · It can be captured just in places that get heavy snowfall
- Rung 8 · Beyond · NZ ScholarshipMelting Arctic sea ice exposes darker ocean water where white ice used to reflect sunlight back to space. Why does this tend to speed up further warming in the region?Darker water absorbs more of the Sun's energy than reflective ice did, warming the area further and melting more ice — a feedback loop · Darker water reflects more sunlight than ice, so the region cools faster than before · Sea ice melting has no effect on how much sunlight the ocean absorbs · The extra open water immediately refreezes into thicker ice than before
The other camps