Work through these eight original questions in order. Cover each answer, write your own, then open the answer to compare.
All data and scenes are invented for practice. The skills come from graphs and photographic interpretation.
Part A: choosing and reading graphs
Question 1. Name the best graph to show monthly rainfall in one town across one year.
Answer
A bar graph, because each month is a separate amount. A line graph is also accepted for temperature, but rainfall is usually drawn as bars.
Question 2. A table gives the share of a district’s workers in farming (30%), factories (45%) and services (25%). Name the graph and state the total of the three shares.
Answer
A pie chart. The shares add up to 100% (30 + 45 + 25), so the slices form one whole.
Question 3. A student wants to show whether hours of sunshine and crop yield rise together in ten farms. Which graph, and why?
Answer
A scatter graph. Each farm gives one pair of values, and the pattern of the points shows whether the two variables move together.
Question 4. A combined graph has rainfall bars on the left axis (0 to 400 mm) and temperature as a line on the right axis (20 to 32 °C). The line point for April lies halfway up its scale. State the temperature.
Answer
Halfway between 20 and 32 is 26, so the temperature is 26 °C. The value comes from the right axis, which belongs to the line.
Question 5. The same graph shows bars at 100 mm in June and 300 mm in November. Describe the change and calculate it.
Answer
Rainfall rises from 100 mm in June to 300 mm in November, an increase of 200 mm. That is three times the June value.
Part B: interpreting photographs
Question 6. An original photograph shows a paved car park, a row of shop lots and a signboard in two languages. Write two observations and one inference.
Answer
Observations: a paved car park is in front of the shops, and the signboard uses two languages.
Inference: the shops serve local customers who travel by car, because a large car park is provided.
Question 7. A student writes that the photographed village “has no school or clinic”. The photograph shows only houses and a footpath. Explain the error.
Answer
The photograph does not show a school or clinic, but absence from the frame does not mean absence from the village. The claim is speculation. The student should write only that none is visible in this view.
Question 8. An original aerial photograph shows a river bend with farmland on both banks. State one conclusion and one limit caused by framing or scale.
Answer
Conclusion: the land beside the river is used for farming, shown by the regular field patterns.
Limit: the frame covers only part of the river, so it cannot show land use further upstream or downstream, and with no scale bar the field sizes cannot be stated.
If you got these wrong
Questions 1 to 3 point back to choosing a graph type that fits the question. Questions 4 and 5 are covered in reading a combined graph.
For questions 6 to 8, revisit visible evidence versus speculation and framing and scale limits.
To go through your answers with a teacher, see online one-to-one Geography tuition.