Name:____________________
Class:____________________
Date:____________________
Earth Science Midterm Review Guide
Directions: Please review all old quizzes and tests. Also, review old review guides, note
packets, notes, and labs. Below you will find general guidelines about what to study. There
will be 81 scantron (multiple-choice) questions, ten matching, a tool chart, and six short answer
questions. Review guide is front and back!
Nature of Science
Difference between qualitative and quantitative data, scientific theory and scientific law,
observation and inference, and accuracy and precision.
Units of measurement (metric units and how to convert them), scientific tools, and general
scientific vocabulary (like hypothesis and variable)
Graphing (including terms used in graphing like mean, median, mode, and range)
Scientific Tools and how they are used (scientific tool sheet)
Difference between mass and weight
Water Quality
General water quality terms.
Main terms describing the different aspects of waterways (watershed, sinkhole, tributary,
alluvial fan, meander, oxbow lake)
Sinkholes/Karst
Difference between point and non-point pollution.
Runoff
Turbidity and how velocity affects sediment and deposition.
Name and explain the parameters tested at Lake Hall for World Monitoring Day.
Weathering and Erosion/Rock Cycle/Type of Rocks
Three main types of rocks and how they are formed.
Layers of the Earth
The rock cycle and how it functions.
Convection, conduction, and radiation
Differences between weathering, erosion, and deposition.
How sedimentary rocks, metamorphic rocks, and igneous rocks are formed.
Fossils/Law of Superposition
The law of superposition and how it works.
Why is the fossil record important?
What is an index fossil?
What fossils tell us about past environments?
Age/Dating of rocks
Plate Tectonics, Earthquakes, and Volcanoes
The three main types of plate boundaries (transform, convergent, and divergent) and what
occurs at each type of boundary.
The differences between continental and oceanic plates.
The Theory of Plate Tectonics
Continental Drift
Ways of measuring earthquakes and where they occur.
Pangaea/Pangaea Ultima (how/why did/will they form)