Time to be spent on EOY and tips for each section

MCQ (8 minutes)

Read the questions carefully. Highlight/Underline key words that might help you find the correct answer. E.g “not”, “most”, “least”

Take note of words that are in bold/italic/underlined.

Always choose the BEST answer that is available. Many answers in MCQ can be correct, but always choose the BEST.

Mapwork (7 minutes)

Remember the skills learnt for topography:

1) Always read the legend first, look at what each symbol signifies or represents.

2) Read the title of the topography map. (Which sometimes can give you the clue on what the map is about)

3) Identify the north arrow.

4) Identify the physical features: E.g. Relief, water bodies, and vegetation.

Relief-determine the highest height of the place with the trigo station (A triangle with a dot in the middle)

Contours-look at how each contour is spaced apart: Nearer to each other means steep gradient, further from each other means gentle gradient.

Water bodies: Rivers, lakes, ponds, seas, look for floodplains, dams, irrigation canals or any water body related feature that can be found near or at the water body.

5) Identify the human features: Settlements, railways, roads, electrical lines, factories, industries, school, place of worship.

Settlement pattern: dispersed, linear, nucleated (Know the characteristics and remember to use EVIDENCE from the map if questions about settlement patterns are asked.

6) Four-grid reference, e.g. 0623, Six-grid reference, e.g. 062234. Always read the easting (x-axis) first, then the northing, y-axis. Always read the left hand bottom corner of the box of where the feature is located.

Normal Mapwork:

Got to know the continents, oceans, prominent countries and places learnt. Any map that can be found in the textbook can be tested

Basic Techniques (8 mins)

Always STUDY and ANALYZE at the photograph or graphical representations (pie chart, table, x-y graph etc) carefully and in detail. Spend at least 1 minute on this.

Photograph: Key words that you should use when describing a photograph or identifying features found on a photograph.

Foreground, middleground, background.

Left, right, top, bottom

North, south, east, west.

ALWAYS USE EVIDENCE SEEN FROM THE PHOTOGRAPH OR PICTURE TO SUPPORT YOUR ANSWER (for both basic technique questions and structured)

e.g from what year to what year, how much have increased, decreased, stayed constant, fluctuating, started, ended etc. Whenever, there are numericals, please use them.

Gradient of slope-best to use if there are no numerical to help support how much something have changed. But if there is numerical data, it is better to use the number data that you can analyze and interpret with to support your answer.

Structured (52 minutes, one question, approximately 13 minutes)

Always elaborate, your answers with explanation /or with examples.

Follow the sequence below when answering structured questions, especially when the question is of a 3 marks or above kind of weightage.

1) Topical sentence

2) Explanation/Elaboration

3) Example