Praxis Social Studies: Geography
Maps, climate, population, culture, and how people use places, for middle and high school geography.
Teacher certification exams are administered by testing organizations. FreeExam is not affiliated with those organizations, and these questions are original practice, not an official test.
Praxis is a trademark of Educational Testing Service. FreeExam is not affiliated with Educational Testing Service, and these questions are original practice, not an official test.
Cedar Bend County Map
The practice map of Cedar Bend County uses a bar scale on which one inch stands for four miles. North is at the top of the sheet. The county seat, Millford, sits where the Ash River enters a lake. A railroad runs east from Millford to the quarry town of Redcut. Contour lines pack tightly on the west slope of Hawk Ridge and spread widely across the lake plain east of Millford.
The legend marks a solid blue line as a stream that flows all year, a dashed blue line as a stream that flows only in wet months, a black square as a town, and a green tint as forest. Hawk Ridge is labeled 1,840 feet. The lake plain is labeled 420 feet. A small inset places the county near 41 degrees north and 88 degrees west. The main map shows no street names.
Cedar Bend County Map
The practice map of Cedar Bend County uses a bar scale on which one inch stands for four miles. North is at the top of the sheet. The county seat, Millford, sits where the Ash River enters a lake. A railroad runs east from Millford to the quarry town of Redcut. Contour lines pack tightly on the west slope of Hawk Ridge and spread widely across the lake plain east of Millford.
The legend marks a solid blue line as a stream that flows all year, a dashed blue line as a stream that flows only in wet months, a black square as a town, and a green tint as forest. Hawk Ridge is labeled 1,840 feet. The lake plain is labeled 420 feet. A small inset places the county near 41 degrees north and 88 degrees west. The main map shows no street names.
Cedar Bend County Map
The practice map of Cedar Bend County uses a bar scale on which one inch stands for four miles. North is at the top of the sheet. The county seat, Millford, sits where the Ash River enters a lake. A railroad runs east from Millford to the quarry town of Redcut. Contour lines pack tightly on the west slope of Hawk Ridge and spread widely across the lake plain east of Millford.
The legend marks a solid blue line as a stream that flows all year, a dashed blue line as a stream that flows only in wet months, a black square as a town, and a green tint as forest. Hawk Ridge is labeled 1,840 feet. The lake plain is labeled 420 feet. A small inset places the county near 41 degrees north and 88 degrees west. The main map shows no street names.
9.The equator is the starting line for which measurement?
10.Two ships share the longitude 74 degrees west. One is at 40 degrees north and the other at 10 degrees north. How do their positions differ?
11.The prime meridian at Greenwich is the starting line for which measurement?
12.Why do clock times generally change by about one hour across 15 degrees of longitude?
Cedar Bend County Map
The practice map of Cedar Bend County uses a bar scale on which one inch stands for four miles. North is at the top of the sheet. The county seat, Millford, sits where the Ash River enters a lake. A railroad runs east from Millford to the quarry town of Redcut. Contour lines pack tightly on the west slope of Hawk Ridge and spread widely across the lake plain east of Millford.
The legend marks a solid blue line as a stream that flows all year, a dashed blue line as a stream that flows only in wet months, a black square as a town, and a green tint as forest. Hawk Ridge is labeled 1,840 feet. The lake plain is labeled 420 feet. A small inset places the county near 41 degrees north and 88 degrees west. The main map shows no street names.
Cedar Bend County Map
The practice map of Cedar Bend County uses a bar scale on which one inch stands for four miles. North is at the top of the sheet. The county seat, Millford, sits where the Ash River enters a lake. A railroad runs east from Millford to the quarry town of Redcut. Contour lines pack tightly on the west slope of Hawk Ridge and spread widely across the lake plain east of Millford.
The legend marks a solid blue line as a stream that flows all year, a dashed blue line as a stream that flows only in wet months, a black square as a town, and a green tint as forest. Hawk Ridge is labeled 1,840 feet. The lake plain is labeled 420 feet. A small inset places the county near 41 degrees north and 88 degrees west. The main map shows no street names.
17.Why does every flat map of the whole Earth distort some property of the globe?
18.A Mercator world map keeps compass courses useful for ocean routes. Which comparison does that same map distort badly?
19.A class wants to compare the land area of two countries. Which map property should the projection protect?
20.A compromise world projection softens both size error and shape error. What does that choice give up?
21.On many rectangular world maps, Greenland looks nearly as large as Africa. What causes that impression?
22.A student must compare the land area of Africa and Greenland. Which map choice serves that task?
23.Which statement about globes and flat world maps is sound for a middle school class?
24.A globe is awkward for tracing a long driving route, yet it still has one advantage over a flat world map. What is that advantage?
Planning Note for Lumen
A city planning note for the coastal city of Lumen lists figures for one recent year. The population was 240,000. About 30 percent of workers held jobs at the port, in ship repair, or in fish processing. The average January temperature was 46 degrees Fahrenheit, and the average July temperature was 72 degrees Fahrenheit. Rainfall totaled 38 inches, and the wettest months came in winter.
The note states that 18,000 people moved to Lumen from inland farm counties during the previous ten years, mostly to take port jobs. A highway links the harbor to a grain region 90 miles inland. The harbor occupies a drowned river mouth, and the city has raised levees along its lowest streets.
26.A mountain town is cooler in July than a valley town at the same latitude. What is the main reason?
27.The windward slope of a coastal mountain range is often much wetter than the leeward slope. Why?
28.Which climate pattern supports a tropical rainforest biome?
29.Cold deserts, such as the high interior of Asia, show that a desert is defined mainly by what?
30.A Mediterranean climate has mild, wet winters and hot, dry summers. Which crops fit that pattern?
31.How does tundra vegetation differ from the boreal forest, or taiga, just to its south?
32.A warm ocean current flowing along a coast tends to affect that coast in which way?
Planning Note for Lumen
A city planning note for the coastal city of Lumen lists figures for one recent year. The population was 240,000. About 30 percent of workers held jobs at the port, in ship repair, or in fish processing. The average January temperature was 46 degrees Fahrenheit, and the average July temperature was 72 degrees Fahrenheit. Rainfall totaled 38 inches, and the wettest months came in winter.
The note states that 18,000 people moved to Lumen from inland farm counties during the previous ten years, mostly to take port jobs. A highway links the harbor to a grain region 90 miles inland. The harbor occupies a drowned river mouth, and the city has raised levees along its lowest streets.
Planning Note for Lumen
A city planning note for the coastal city of Lumen lists figures for one recent year. The population was 240,000. About 30 percent of workers held jobs at the port, in ship repair, or in fish processing. The average January temperature was 46 degrees Fahrenheit, and the average July temperature was 72 degrees Fahrenheit. Rainfall totaled 38 inches, and the wettest months came in winter.
The note states that 18,000 people moved to Lumen from inland farm counties during the previous ten years, mostly to take port jobs. A highway links the harbor to a grain region 90 miles inland. The harbor occupies a drowned river mouth, and the city has raised levees along its lowest streets.
Planning Note for Lumen
A city planning note for the coastal city of Lumen lists figures for one recent year. The population was 240,000. About 30 percent of workers held jobs at the port, in ship repair, or in fish processing. The average January temperature was 46 degrees Fahrenheit, and the average July temperature was 72 degrees Fahrenheit. Rainfall totaled 38 inches, and the wettest months came in winter.
The note states that 18,000 people moved to Lumen from inland farm counties during the previous ten years, mostly to take port jobs. A highway links the harbor to a grain region 90 miles inland. The harbor occupies a drowned river mouth, and the city has raised levees along its lowest streets.
41.What does cultural diffusion mean?
42.Which example is a cultural landscape?
43.A cultural hearth is a region best known for what?
44.A faith spreads from port to port along a sea trade route and takes root in those cities. Which process is that?
45.Which item is a cultural trait rather than a physical feature of a place?
46.Why do geographers group languages into families?
47.Popular culture often spreads across countries faster than older local customs. What is the main reason today?
48.When a minority community gradually adopts the language and public customs of the larger society around it, geographers call that what?
49.What is the main aim of subsistence farming?
50.Plantation agriculture in the tropics is usually organized around which goal?
51.Which pairing fits Mediterranean agriculture?
52.The Green Revolution raised grain harvests in many countries mainly by spreading what?
53.Extensive commercial grain farming, with much land and relatively little labor on each acre, is most typical of which setting?
54.Why do farmers who practice shifting cultivation leave a plot after a few years?
55.In the von Thunen model, why does dairy farming tend to locate closer to the market than wheat farming?
56.Long-term irrigation in a dry valley can raise yields and also create which environmental problem?
57.Which job is a primary economic activity?
58.A coastal city that smelts imported ore and ships metal goods is doing which kind of economic work?
59.Which resource is nonrenewable on a human time scale?
60.How do quaternary activities, such as research and software design, differ from work on a factory floor?
61.A country exports grain and imports oil. Which geographic idea does that trade pattern illustrate?
62.Which condition is a site factor for locating a factory?
63.Situation, as geographers use it for an industrial city, refers mainly to what?
64.Which resource can renew if the harvest is replaced by new growth?
65.What makes a city a primate city?
66.Which features usually mark a central business district?
Planning Note for Lumen
A city planning note for the coastal city of Lumen lists figures for one recent year. The population was 240,000. About 30 percent of workers held jobs at the port, in ship repair, or in fish processing. The average January temperature was 46 degrees Fahrenheit, and the average July temperature was 72 degrees Fahrenheit. Rainfall totaled 38 inches, and the wettest months came in winter.
The note states that 18,000 people moved to Lumen from inland farm counties during the previous ten years, mostly to take port jobs. A highway links the harbor to a grain region 90 miles inland. The harbor occupies a drowned river mouth, and the city has raised levees along its lowest streets.
68.Which pattern is urban sprawl?
69.Geographers usually call a city a megacity when its population passes which size?
70.Edge cities tend to grow in which setting?
71.Under the rank-size idea, about how large is a country's second city compared with its largest city?
72.Gentrification in an older neighborhood usually brings which pair of changes?
73.The Interior Plains of the United States are best known for which land use?
74.The Appalachians are best described as which kind of landform region?
75.Why is the Pacific Northwest of the United States so wet on its western slopes?
76.Which challenge most shapes settlement and farming in the United States Southwest?
77.Why did a line of eastern cities grow along the Fall Line?
78.The Great Lakes region became a center of steel and heavy industry partly because it combined which advantages?
79.Which economic pattern fits the Gulf Coastal Plain?
80.The Intermountain West, between the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada, is largely which kind of landscape?
81.The Sahel is the belt in Africa where which two environments meet?
82.How do monsoon winds shape farming in much of South Asia?
83.The Andes shape settlement in western South America mainly by creating what?
84.Why are winters in western Europe milder than winters at similar latitudes in inland Canada?
85.The Ring of Fire is a belt of volcanoes and earthquakes around which ocean?
86.Across much of North Africa and Southwest Asia, which resource limit most shapes where people live?
87.Island Southeast Asia is geographically important for which combination?
88.Why is most of Siberia sparsely populated?
89.At a divergent plate boundary, what do the plates do?
90.A mid-ocean ridge, with new seafloor on both sides, is evidence of which process?
91.Subduction of one plate beneath another happens mainly at which boundary?
92.The Himalaya rose mainly because of which plate collision?
93.At a transform boundary such as the San Andreas system, how do the plates move?
94.Where do the deepest ocean trenches form?
95.A chain of explosive volcanoes on land often stands on the overriding plate above which feature?
96.The East African rift valleys suggest that the continental crust there is doing what?
97.What is desertification?
98.A large dam on a major river changes the valley in which lasting way?
99.Clearing forest on a steep tropical slope raises which hazard for the land below?
Planning Note for Lumen
A city planning note for the coastal city of Lumen lists figures for one recent year. The population was 240,000. About 30 percent of workers held jobs at the port, in ship repair, or in fish processing. The average January temperature was 46 degrees Fahrenheit, and the average July temperature was 72 degrees Fahrenheit. Rainfall totaled 38 inches, and the wettest months came in winter.
The note states that 18,000 people moved to Lumen from inland farm counties during the previous ten years, mostly to take port jobs. A highway links the harbor to a grain region 90 miles inland. The harbor occupies a drowned river mouth, and the city has raised levees along its lowest streets.
101.Carrying capacity of a region means what?
102.Pumping groundwater faster than it is recharged in a farming district tends to cause what?
103.Why is the center of a large city often warmer at night than the countryside around it?
104.A fishery is being used sustainably when the yearly catch stays within which limit?
105.A choropleth map shows a statistic by doing what?
Cedar Bend County Map
The practice map of Cedar Bend County uses a bar scale on which one inch stands for four miles. North is at the top of the sheet. The county seat, Millford, sits where the Ash River enters a lake. A railroad runs east from Millford to the quarry town of Redcut. Contour lines pack tightly on the west slope of Hawk Ridge and spread widely across the lake plain east of Millford.
The legend marks a solid blue line as a stream that flows all year, a dashed blue line as a stream that flows only in wet months, a black square as a town, and a green tint as forest. Hawk Ridge is labeled 1,840 feet. The lake plain is labeled 420 feet. A small inset places the county near 41 degrees north and 88 degrees west. The main map shows no street names.