175 THINGS TO KNOW FOR THE 2014 MIDTERM
1. What is an observation?
2. What is an inference? How is it different from an observation?
3. What is the formula for density? Formula for volume? Mass? Density units?
4. What makes something dense?
5. What is the formula for percent deviation (also called percent error)?
6. What is the formula for rate of change?
7. What are the major steps in the scientific method?
8. What is a hypothesis?
9. What does a good conclusion do?
10. What are latitude lines? What do they measure? What is the reference line for
latitude? Where is it located? What is the highest latitude on earth and where on earth is
that?
11. Draw the earth and draw latitude lines on it.
12. What are longitude lines? What do they measure? What is the reference line for
longitude? Where is it located? What is the highest longitude on earth and where on earth
is it?
13. Draw the earth and draw longitude lines on it.
14. How are the latitude lines drawn differently than the longitude lines?
15. What is another name for “parallels”?
16. What is another name for “meridians”?
17. What is the Prime Meridian?
18. What is the International Date Line?
19. What is Polaris?
20. How can you use Polaris to find your latitude?
21. What is Solar Noon? Where is the sun at Solar Noon?
22. What is Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)?
23. How can you find your longitude at sea using time?
24. How fast does the earth rotate in degrees per hour?
25. How many time zones are there on earth?
26. How wide (in degrees) is each time zone?
27. How many time zones are there in the continental USA? Name them.
28. If it is 6 pm in NY, what time is it in CA?
29. If it is noon in Greenwich and 2 pm where you are, what is your longitude?
30. If you see Polaris on the horizon, what is your latitude?
31. What is the true shape of the Earth?
32. What evidence is there for the shape of the earth?
33. What is a field? What is a field value?
34. What is an isoline?
35. What is the formula for gradient?
36. What is another name for gradient? (hint: begins with s….)
37. What is a contour line?
38. What is a contour interval?
39. How can you determine the contour interval by looking at a map?
40. What are the field values on a topographic map?
41. What does a hilltop look like on a topographic map? Draw one. How do you find
the highest possible elevation of a hilltop on a topo map if there is no benchmark?
42. What is a hachure and what does it indicate on a topographic map?
43. What is the Rule of V’s?
44. What is the elevation of sea level?
45. How do you draw a topographic profile?
46. What is a mineral? What is not a mineral?
47. What determines all of a mineral’s physical properties?
48. What is a silica tetrahedron? Draw one.
49. Is color a reliable way to indentify a mineral? Explain.
50. What is streak?
51. What is luster?
52. What are the 2 kinds of luster and which one is more common?
53. What is the difference between cleavage and fracture?
54. What are the 3 most common elements in the earth’s crust?
55. What class of minerals contains oxygen and silicon?
56. What mineral is magnetic?
57. What is the Moh’s scale?
58. What mineral is the hardest?
59. What mineral is softer than you fingernail?
60. What mineral reacts with hydrochloric acid by fizzing?
61. Describe the internal arrangement of atoms in a very dense mineral.
62. How is a rock different from a mineral?
63. What are rocks made of?
64. What is an igneous rock?
65. How can you tell if an igneous rock is extrusive? Intrusive?
66. How can you tell if an igneous rock cooled quickly? Cooled slowly?
67. Do igneous rocks cool fast or slowly deep underground? At the surface?
68. What is “texture” in an igneous rock? Name the different igneous textures.
69. What is the difference between lava and magma?
70. What does plutonic mean?
71. What does felsic mean? Name a felsic igneous rock.
72. What does mafic mean? Name a mafic igneous rock.
73. What are sedimentary rocks made of?
74. What is compaction? Cementation? How are these important for sedimentary rocks?
75. What does “organic” mean in a sedimentary rock?
76. What is a fossil and what is the only type of rocks fossils are found in? Why ?
77. What is layering and how does it happen?
78. What is the grain size of sand? Clay? Silt?
79. What is a chemical precipitate? Give an example.
80. How does an evaporate form? Give an example of one.
81a. What is limestone made of and how does it form?
81b. What are metamorphic rocks and how do they form?
82. What is the difference between contact metamorphism and regional metamorphism?
83. What is foliation? Why does it occur?
84. What is banding?
85. What is the parent rock of slate? Of gneiss? Of marble? Of quartzite? Of phyllite?
86. Name a non-foliated metamorphic rock.
87. What is the rock cycle?
88. What is uplift? Weathering? Erosion?
89. How can you tell by looking at a rock that it is Igneous? Metamorphic?
Sedimentary?
90. How does coal form?
91. What is a clast? What does clastic mean?
92. What is a bioclastic rock?
93. What is a renewable natural resource? Give examples.
94. What makes a natural resource non renewable? Give an example of one.
95. What are fossil fuels? Name them.
96. What is global warming? What is causing it?
97. What is the greenhouse effect? Name a greenhouse gas.
98. What are some of the environmental issues associated with mining?
99. What is the crust? Lithosphere? Asthenosphere? Mantle? Core?
100. What is special about the outer core?
101. What are the 3 types of seismic waves? Which one travels through solids but not
liquids? Which one travels fastest? Which one causes the most damage?
102. What is an earthquake?
103. What is a normal fault? Thrust fault? Transform fault? How are faults related to
earthquakes?
104. What is the epicenter? How is it different from the focus?
105. What does the Richter scale measure?
106. What does the Mercalli scale measure?
107. What is a seismograph?
108. What is travel time? Origin time? Lag time? Arrival time?
109. If you know the lag time between a P and S wave, what can you determine about
the earthquake?
110. How many seismic stations do you need to find the epicenter of a quake?
111. Describe how to find the distance to the epicenter if you know the s-wave travel
time?
112. Describe how to find the p wave travel time if you know the distance to the
epicenter?
113. Describe how to find the distance to the epicenter if you know the p and s wave
arrival times.
114. Describe how to find the origin time of the earthquake if you know the p wave
arrival time and its travel time.
115. What is the theory of Continental Drift? Who was the first person to develop this
theory?
116. What is the evidence for continental drift?
117. Where do most earthquakes and volcanoes occur?
118. What are tectonic plates?
119. What is the theory of plate tectonics?
120. What causes the plates to move?
121. What is a divergent plate boundary? What landforms do we find there? Name one
such boundary.
122. What is sea floor spreading?
123. What is a transform plate boundary? Name one.
124. What is a convergent plate boundary? Name the three possible types.
125. What is a subduction zone and at what type of boundary are they found?
126. What is a deep sea trench? Where are they found?
127. What is a volcanic island arc? Where are they found?
128. At what type of plate boundary do we find volcanoes on land?
129. What is a mid ocean ridge?
130. What is a Hot Spot? Name one.
131. What rock is most continental crust made of? Oceanic Crust? Which one is less
dense?
132. When was the Precambrian time ?
133 . What early life form is responsible for creating our oxygen rich atmosphere?
134. What was different about life in the Cambrian as compared to earlier life?
135. What is an orogeny?
136. How did the Adirondacks form?
137. What life forms lived in the Ordovician Period?
138. When was the Silurian Period?
139. What is the NY State Fossil?
140. What is an Index Fossil and why are they useful?
141. How did the Taconic Mountains form?
142. What is a passive margin?
143. What is the latitude and longitude of Red Hook?
144. How many minutes are in a degree of latitude or longitude?
145. What was the Acadian Orogeny?
146. Are the Catskills real mountains? If not, what are they?
147. How did the Catskills form?
148. What is a tsunami?
149. What can you do before, during, and after an earthquake to keep safe?
150. If all sedimentary rocks start out in horizontal layers, what causes some sedimentary
rocks to be folded, faulted or vertical?
151. What is Foucault’s pendulum? What does it prove?
152. What is the Coriolis Effect? What causes it?
153. What it the autumnal equinox? When does it happen?
154. How many hour of daylight are there on the autumnal equinox?
155. In what compass direction does the sun rise on the equinox? Set?
156. Where is the sun directly overhead (vertical ray) on the equinox?
157. What is formula for calculating the altitude of the sun at noon on the equinox?
158. What and when is the winter solstice?
159. On the winter solstice in Red Hook, in what direction does the sun rise? Set?
160. On the winter solstice, where is the sun directly overhead (vertical ray) at noon?
161. On the winter solstice, where is there 24 hours of darkness? 24 hours of daylight?
162. On the winter solstice, where is it summer?
163. What is relative age dating?
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What is absolute age dating?
What is the Principle of Uniformitarianism?
What is the Law of Superposition?
What is an Unconformity?
What is the half-life of a radioactive element?
What are the two characteristics of a good Index Fossil?
What is the Law of Cross-cutting ?
How does contact metamorphism help determine the relative age of an igneous
intrusion?
How old is the Earth?
What are the three major geologic Eras called?
What caused the extinction of the dinosaurs?
What was the early earth and its atmosphere like?