Name: _________________________
June Proficiency Exam Study Guide
7th Grade Honors Science
Proficiency Exam Dates: Wed 6/10 & Thurs 6/11
Chapter 14: Earth’s Changing Surface
 Lesson 1 Plate Tectonics (pages 500 - 506)
 Lesson 2 Earthquakes and Volcanoes (pages 508 - 516)
 Lesson 3 Weathering, Erosion, and Deposition (pages 518 - 525)
1. What are the two types of weathering? Define each and give an
example.
Physical weathering: process of breaking rocks without changing its
composition. Example: Frost Wedging (freezing and thawing)
Chemical Weathering: process of changing the composition of rocks by
exposure to water and the atmosphere. Examples: acid rain, rusting,
gases in the atmosphere
2. What happens when sediment is eroded by water, ice, and wind slows
down or stops moving?
The sediment is deposited to a new location
3. What are the components of soil? How long does it take to form?
Weathered rock, mineral material, organic matter, air, water; hundreds to
thousands of years
4. How do scientists learn about all of the layers of the geosphere?
They analyze seismic waves from earthquakes
5. What does the hypothesis of continental drift state?
Continents have slowly moved to their current locations
6. What evidence did Wegener use to try to prove his continental drift
hypothesis?
Fossil Evidence: tropical plant fossils found in Antarctica
Geological Evidence: matching rock structures
7. Why was Wegener’s hypothesis rejected? What concept eventually led
to the approval of the Theory of Plate Tectonics?
Wegener’s hypothesis was rejected because he could not provide a
reason as to how the continents move. His hypothesis was finally
approved after the concept of sea-floor spreading was discovered.
8. What does the Theory of Plate Tectonics state? States that Earth’s crust is
broken into rigid plates that move slowly over Earth’s surface.
9. What is a caldera?
After an eruption, the top of a volcano collapses down
10. Complete the table below
Movement of Plates
Convergent
Divergent
Transform
plates move towards each
other
plates move away from
each other
plates slide past each other
Landforms/Events
Volcanoes
Volcanoes
earthquakes
11. What force drives plate tectonics?
Convection currents in the mantle
12. What is a volcano?
Forms a mountain when layers of lava and volcanic ash erupt and build
up
Chapter 6: The Environment and Change Over Time
 Lesson 1 Fossil Evidence of Evolution (pages 192-200)
13. What is relative-age dating?
A rock is either older or younger than rocks nearby. Scientists determine
the relative order in which rock layers were deposited.
14. What is absolute-age dating?
More precise than relative-age dating; scientists use radioactive decay,
a natural clocklike process in rocks to learn its age in year.
15. What type of rock do fossils form in?
Sedimentary rock
16. What are fossils?
Preserved remains of traces of living things
17. List the correct order of the divisions of the geologic time scale from
largest to smallest.
Eons-Eras-Periods
18. Give an example from each way that fossils can form.
Fossil
Definition
Example
Minerals in the water replace
Mineralization the organism’s original material
petrified wood
and harden into a rock
A fossil forms when a dead
organism is compressed over
time and pressure drives off the outline of a fern found
Carbonization
organism’s liquids and gases,
in a rock
only the carbon outline or film
remains.
Mold: impression of an organism
impression of a shell in
Molds and
in a rock
mud that has
Casts
Cast: fossil copy of an organism
hardened
in a rock
Preserved evidence of the
Trace Fossils
foot print
activity of an organism
Original tissue of organisms are
Original
buried in the absence of oxygen baby mammoth found
Material
for long periods of time become
in a glacier
fossilized
19. What is biological evolution?
The change over time in populations of related organisms
Weather and Climate
Weather and Climate slides (pages 570 -683 as a reference)
20. What is the Coriolis Effect ?
change that Earth’s rotation causes in the motion of objects and that
explain how winds curve
21. What are the layers of the atmosphere? List important facts about each
layer. Be sure to include information about changes in temperature and
pressure!!
Troposphere: surface-weather
Stratosphere: ozone layer, airplane fly
Mesosphere: meteors
Thermosphere: satellites
Ionosphere: Auroras
Exosphere: space-no definite end
22. How are layers of the atmosphere distinguished? Composition,
temperature, and altitude
23. What are doldrums? Calm, windless areas
24. What is the relationship between the amount of molecules in the
atmosphere and altitude?
The higher in altitude you go, the lesser the number of air molecules there
are in the atmosphere
25. What causes global winds?
Unequal heating of Earth’s atmosphere
26. What is a front?
the boundary where two different air masses meet
27. What is the difference between weather and climate? Give an example
of each.
Weather is the atmospheric conditions, along with short-term changes, of
a certain place at a certain time. Example: its raining and cold outside, it
snowed 20 inches last night. Climate is the long-term average weather
conditions that occur in a particular region. Example: It snows about 20
inches a year in this area
28. List five pieces of evidence of climate change.
 Increase in temperatures
 Melting ice caps
 Rising sea levels
 Decrease in the amount of glaciers
 Decrease in the amount of snow cover
 Increase in humidity