World Geography FALL Semester Review
Factors that Affect ClimateLatitude (low, mid, high regions, tilt, earth/sun relationship)
Elevation (the higher you go, the colder it gets)
Mountain Barriers (Orographic Effect, windward, leeward, rainshadow)
Proximity to Water (Continentality is another name for the rain shadow effect, farther away from water
the more extreme seasonal temperature differences)
Ocean Currents (warm/hot or cold: Examples- cold Peru current; warm North Atlantic Drift)
Storms (common storms that occur in certain areas at certain times of the year)
Atmospheric Pressure (high pressure, or low pressure)
1. The earth has low, mid and high regions of latitude. Label the low, mid and high areas on the
diagram below:
2. Which region has four seasons?
3. Which region has two seasons?
4. Which region is the coldest?
5. What is the main characteristic of a desert?
6. How do mountain barriers, ocean currents and atmospheric pressure cause deserts?
7. Match the following deserts with the appropriate cause as listed in #6:
a. Sonoran desert (California/Arizona)
b. Atacama (Chile, South America)
c. Sahara (Northern Africa)
8. London, England and Calgary, Canada are about the same latitude. What is the difference in the
climate of the two cities? What is the most significant climate factor that explains the difference?
Government Systems:
Democracy
Constitutional Monarchy
9.
Republic
Dictatorship
Theocracy
Absolute Monarch
What type of government systems typically allow multiple political parties,
freedom of speech, and free flow of information?
10. What type of government bases its laws on religious interpretation?
11. What types of government systems are typically authoritarian and strictly control social,
economic, and political aspects of people’s lives allowing for little freedom?
Economic Systems:
Communism……………..Socialism (Mixed Economy)………………Free Enterprise
12. Which type of economic system bases what is produced on what consumers
want (demand)?
13. In which economic systems are decisions strictly controlled by the
government
Map Skills:
14. When reading a map or answering a question about a map, what features of a
map should you analyze before attempting to answer the question?
Population- be able to recognize or define the following terms:
Population density
Population distribution
Population Pyramid
Zero growth
15. Will population ever be evenly distributed across the world? Why or why not?
16. The population density of Canada is 9.27 people per square mile. For the U.S.
it is 76 people per square mile. Canada is only slightly larger in area than the
U.S. Why is Canada so much less densely populated than the United States?
17. What time period did world population growth increase dramatically? What is most likely the
cause of this growth: higher birth rate or lower death rate?
*Especially when asked to compare pyramids, take the time to read all titles and labels.
Sometimes the graphs may be drawn to different scales
18. What part of the pyramid indicates that a population is growing?
19. Which of the countries above has the highest total population? How do you
know?
20. Which of the countries above is most likely the least developed? Why?
Level of Development
-more developed
-newly industrialized
-less developed
Standard of Living
-high
-low
Level of Economic Activity
-Primary (farming, mining)
-Secondary (manufacturing)
-Tertiary (service industry)
-Quaternary (information)
21. Would a country with an infant mortality of 6.4 be more or less developed than a
country with an infant mortality of 64?
22. Would a less developed country be more likely to export raw materials or would
they be more likely to import raw materials?
23. What could you infer about the standard of living in a country with a low life
expectancy?
Other review points…… match these words with the appropriate phrase or question below:
NAFTA
tariff
scarcity/scarce
Interdependence
irrigation
precipitation
Industrialized nation
service-sector
prone to…
Pangaea
relative/absolute location
tectonic processes
weathering and erosion
24. Process that creates mountains. Process that wears down or shapes mountains.
25. Trade agreement that limits tariffs and other trade barriers between U.S.,
Canada and Mexico. What are positive and negative results of this
agreement?
26. Czech Republic and Slovakia used to be one country- Czechoslovakia. The Czech
side had industry and the Slovakia side had agriculture, together they made a
great team. They split peacefully in 1993 after the fall of the Soviet Union.
27. Because of its Caribbean location, Haiti is regularly hit by hurricanes.
28. If there is not enough of something, it is said to be___________.
29. Tertiary economic activity within a country.
30. Supercontinent that is part of the theory of continental drift.
31. Las Vegas has a rapidly growing population despite the lack of rain and water
because of_____________(the ability to move water from where it was to where
it wasn’t).
32. A more developed country.
33. Location using coordinates. Location describing where something is in relation to
something else.
34. A tax on imported or exported goods.
Review M.R.H.E.L.P. (Five themes of Geography)
35. What are the major languages and religions of North America and Latin America?
What historical events have shaped the spatial diffusion of these characteristics?
36. Is the 19th Century the 1800s or the 1900s?
37. What are some technological innovations in transportation and communication in
the 1800s? In the 1900s?
38. What characteristics would define the mid-western United States as a formal or
perceptual region?