Geography 201 – Introduction to Geography
Exam 2 Study Guide
The eventual test will be made up of 70-80 PowerPoint identification, multiple choice, true/false,
matching, and map questions. Not all of the questions below will end up on the final version of
the exam and some new ones might be added.
Power Point Identification
 Match the images on the PowerPoint slides to the qualities of carbon dioxide and ozone – good
and bad – that they represent.
 Match the atmospheric conditions portrayed on the PowerPoint slides to the type of breeze or
wind they generate.
 Match the symbols and diagrams/images on the PowerPoint slides to their corresponding
weather front type.
 Match the images on the PowerPoint slides to their corresponding tropical and arid biomes.
 Match the images on the PowerPoint slides to their corresponding temperate and arctic
biomes.
Multiple Choice, True/False, Matching And Map Section
 Are seasons in the Southern Hemisphere the reverse of those in the Northern Hemisphere?
 The most common non-variant gas in the atmosphere is ________.
 ________ in the upper atmosphere scatters, reflects, and absorbs most of the ultraviolet light
that reaches the earth's atmosphere, protecting life on the surface of the planet from that
harmful form of radiation.
 Does the Greenhouse Effect work by trapping short-wave radiation emitted by the earth?
 The largest "hole" in the ozone layer can be found over ________.
 Did the "Roaring Forties" – strong and unpredictable winds in the southern hemisphere –
pushed sailing vessels like the H.M.S. Bounty to record times as they sailed westward around
the tip of South America from the Atlantic to the Pacific?
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 Use the following diagram of pressure belts to match them with their appropriate names.
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Doldrums
Horse Latitudes
Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ)
Polar Front
Polar High
Subtropical High
 Does the Coriolis Force cause the deflection of winds and water to the left of the intended
path of travel in the Northern Hemisphere?
 Does air circulate clockwise around high pressure systems and counterclockwise around low
pressure systems?
 Does air sink at low pressure systems and rises at high pressure systems?
 As air cools, does it increases its ability to hold water vapor?
 Precipitation at the ITCZ in the tropics and in mid-latitudes during the summer is caused
primarily by ________ uplift.
 Because of orographic precipitation patterns, is Seattle (in the western part of Washington ) at
least twice as wet as Spokane (in the eastern part of the state).
 Use the following diagram to answer questions about orographic precipitation patterns in the
northwestern United States.
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Driest location
Leeward side of the mountain
Wet side of the mountain
Where chinook winds flow down the mountainside
Where the rainshadow influence is strongest
Windward side of the mountain
 The coldest air that reaches North America is continental arctic air from Asia and is often
referred to as ________ in television weather forecasts.
 The Jet Stream - a rapidly moving river of air found at an altitude of 20,000-30,000 feet was discovered during ________.
 The Jet Stream is found along the ________, where arctic and subtropical air masses collide.
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 Are cirrus clouds composed of ice crystals?
 Match the air masses and winds below with their corresponding effects or influences on
human activity.
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Brings stagnant maritime tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico to Virginia during
the summer
Continental polar air from Canada
Maritime polar air that causes damaging beach erosion in Virginia and North
Carolina
Winds that carried the Vikings from Scandinavia to Iceland, Greenland, and North
America
Winds that facilitated the Atlantic slave trade between West Africa and North
America
 The apparent blue color of the Blue Ridge Mountains is caused by ________ at ground level.
 Which of the following activities is supported by consumers in the United States and
encourages the greatest destruction of rainforests in Central and South America?
 Are rainforests such incredibly rich environments that, when cleared, their soils make
productive and long-lasting farmland?
 Use the map of Africa below to match the four environmental zones with their corresponding
locations on the African continent [refer to your global climatic regions/biomes map].
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Desert
Mediterranean
Savanna
Tropical rainforest
 The last large herds of wild animals in Africa live in the ________ there.
 Do savanna climates have wet winters and dry summers, while Mediterranean climates have
dry winters and wet summers?
 Are fires rare and unnatural events in Mediterranean environments?
 Which one of the following represents a necessary rather than a wasteful use of water in the
deserts of Arizona?
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 Mediterranean climates go through dry periods when they are dominated by
 Has human activity had no adverse effect on the ozone layer?
 Hurricanes that strike the southeastern United States originate as tropical waves in
 An El Niño is a disruption in weather patterns triggered by a cyclical warming of waters in the
________.
 Use the map of the Atlantic Ocean below to identify the types of ocean currents found there.
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Cold current
Warm current
 Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) cause ________.
 McDonald’s discontinued the use of ________ because it is a major source of man-made
chlorofluorocabons.
 Is Mars cold in part because it has too much carbon dioxide in its atmosphere and Venus hot
in part because it has too little carbon dioxide in its atmophere?
 When walking across hot coals – which release greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere – do you
want the coals to be flaming hot?
 Can we say with scientific certainty that human activity is causing global warming?
 Do hot air balloon races begin in the afternoon in order to take advantage of relative
differences between the outside air and the hot air inside the balloon?
 Dry ice fog was created for cheesy 80s rock videos by pouring water over frozen ________.
 Because of decreasing atmospheric pressure at altitude, lapse rate means air cools about
________ degrees Fahrenheit for every 1,000 feet in elevation/altitude.
 Would the atmosphere be the least dense at the surface of the Dead Sea?
 At the beach, does the sea breeze come at night and the land breeze during the day?
 Does the sea breeze at Virginia’s coast penetrate deep inland?
 Does the wet monsoon come in summer and the dry monsoon come in winter?
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 Is it cloudy and snowy most of the time at the South Pole?
 The Sargasso Sea is kept in place because it is under ________ conditions.
 Match wind belts with their appropriate positions on a diagram of pressure and wind belts.
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Northeast Trade Winds
Polar Easterlies
Southeast Trade Wind
Westerlies
 What tropical plant was the crew of the HMS Bounty trying to transplant from the South
Pacific to the Caribbean?
 L’Anse aux Meadows is the farthest western settlement of the Vikings that we have found.
Which country is it in?
 Of the four European caoial cities below, which one has the least variation between its summer
and winter temperatures?
 “General Winter” is the term used in ________ for describing the effects of a continental
winter on invading armies.
 Because of the Gulf Stream, is the water off Virginia Beach warmer than the water off Cape
Hatteras?
 Which of the following big fish would be least likely to be found off the coast of Virginia?
 Because of prevailing ocean currents, is the water off the coast of California warmer than ther
water off Virginia’s coast?
 Which one of the following was not given as a reason for the increase in Great White shark
attacks off the coast of California?
 Do plants in equatorial rainforests tend to deciduous while in monsoon rainforests they tend
to be evergreen?
 Are equatorial rainforests wet because of orographic rainfall patterns while monsoon
rainforests are wet because of the influence of the ITCZ?
 In which layer of the rainforest would you be most likely to find brightly colored animals?
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 Does the irony of the Ben & Jerry’s Rainforest Crunch story derive from the fact that
equatorial rainforests do not have the variety of nuts necessary to supply such a venture?
 What is the novel technique used to get teak out of the hills of Southeast Asian forests?
 What element is left behind in tropical rainforest soils by leaching that gives it its distinctive
red color?
 Does McDonald’s use rainforest beef in its hamburgers?
 What prevents us from using Africa’s vast savannas for commercial cattle ranching?
 Is the Sonoran Desert a rainshadow desert while the Mohave Desert is a subtropical high
desert?
 Does the presence of the saguaro cactus tell you you are in the Mohave Desert, while the
presence of the Joshua tree tells you you are in the Sonoran Desert?
 Which desert’s name literally translates as “You go in but you don’t come out”?
 In what form does moisture typically arrive in a cold current desert?
 Do prairies consist of tall grasses while steppes consist of short grasses?
 The Hungarian grasslands are known as ________.
 Whose invention of the self-scouring steel plow in 1837 opened up the American prairies to
farming?
 Were the most devastating drought years in the Great Plains in the 1930s and 1950s, while in
the Sahel they were in the 1970s and 1980s?
 Of the following, which problem in the Sahel is least attributable to the cycles of drought
found there?
 The movement of wheat farming into what would become the Dust Bowl was stimulated by
high wheat prices during which war?
 Into which state did most “Okies” seek to migrate during the Depression?
 What is the name used in California and northwestern Mexico for the combination of plants
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in the Mediterranean biome there?
 Mediterranean climates are found on the southwest sides of continents at about ________
dgrees north and south.
 Terra cotta roof tiles and stucco walls are building techniques that originated in the ________
Mediterranean climate region and still are the best defence against fire there.
 Do very few measures need to be taken to accommodate the heavy rains that come between
January and March?
 “Temperate rainforests” are found in which biome?
 Because of the relatively heavy amounts of precipitation found in them, which climatic region
is directly associated with the build-up of glaciers necessary to create fjords?
 Match the Western Hemisphere ecosystems below with their corresponding location on a map.
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Atacama Desert
Llanos
Mohave/Nevadan Desert
Patagonian Desert
Sonoran Desert
 The Pacific Northwest of the United States has a ________ climate.
 Of the following, which climatic region is not found in the Southern Hemisphere?
 Hadley Cells are strong circulation patterns in the atmosphere between the equator and the
tropics that generate winds known as the ________.
 Are the North and South Poles two of the driest deserts on earth?
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