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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What were climatic conditions like during the Postglacial Optimum?
(a) Much warmer than they are today.
(b) An Ice Age was going on at the time.
(c) Much colder than they are today.
(d) Similar to today.

2. What did scientists think was happening to the climate in the 1950s, when de Blij was in graduate school?
(a) Global upheaval.
(b) No change in climate.
(c) Global warming.
(d) Global cooling.

3. What did European countries fail to consider when they colonized Africa?
(a) The size of the continent.
(b) The urban populations.
(c) The distance from Europe.
(d) The needs of the indigenous people.

4. Which of the following statements is the best description of Earth's geologic history?
(a) Earth used to have a cold climate and has gotten steadily warmer.
(b) Earth used to have a tropical climate and has gotten steadily more temperate.
(c) Earth is usually warm but has also had some short Ice Ages.
(d) Earth has had several Ice Ages separated by shorter warm periods.

5. Which of the following is one of the characteristics of a nation-state?
(a) A territory that exists within boundaries that can be drawn on a map.
(b) A people who wander from place to place as nomads.
(c) A territory that is governed by several allied governments.
(d) A people who speak the same language but live in different countries.

6. What did Georgetown University decide to do in response to the geographic illiteracy of incoming students?
(a) It required all students to take four years of geography.
(b) It required all students to pass a geography test in order to graduate from Georgetown.
(c) It required all students to take a class called Map of the Modern World.
(d) It required all students to pass a geography test as part of the admissions process.

7. What kind of map does not distort reality?
(a) A globe.
(b) A cynlindrical projection.
(c) A conical projection.
(d) An equal area projection.

8. What does de Blij say that the Snowball Earth theory explains?
(a) It explains Earth's first deep freeze.
(b) It explains why glaciers form during Ice Ages.
(c) It explains the extinction of the dinosaurs.
(d) It explains how Earth's oceans formed.

9. What phase of Earth's geologic history are we in today?
(a) The Pleistocene.
(b) The Eocene.
(c) The Hadean.
(d) The Archean.

10. Which of the following activities requires the skills of a geographer?
(a) Studying the history and current events of a particular country.
(b) Tracking outbreaks of disease and predicting where diseases will spread in the future.
(c) Traveling to a distant place and blogging about the trip in an online journal.
(d) Comparing the structures of government in two different cultures.

11. What human event coincided with the end of the Little Ice Age?
(a) The fall of the Roman Empire.
(b) The French Revolution.
(c) The rise of the Han Dynasty.
(d) The Industrial Revolution.

12. What problem resulted from the drawing of political boundaries in Africa by European powers?
(a) Droughts and epidemics.
(b) Food distribution problems.
(c) The rise of dictatorships.
(d) Cultural and ethnic clashes.

13. In which of the following countries is the population decreasing?
(a) Saudi Arabia.
(b) Mexico.
(c) Russia.
(d) Albania.

14. Which of the following countries has borders that are in dispute?
(a) Tibet.
(b) Mexico.
(c) The United States.
(d) Sweden.

15. Which country does de Blij think that Americans should try to be particularly well-informed about?
(a) Iraq.
(b) China.
(c) Botswana.
(d) Mexico.

Short Answer Questions

1. What profession does de Blij say should include training in cartography?

2. What country has a "one child only" policy for families?

3. How long ago did the most recent global warming trend start?

4. How is topography shown in United States Geological Survey maps?

5. What war does de Blij say could have been better handled if U.S. leaders had had a better grasp of geography?

(see the answer keys)

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