The Earth, globes and maps
Class 6 Social Science · Geography · 30 questions with answers
Class 6 Geography introduces the grid on a globe and the two motions of the Earth. The commonest error is not confusion about the facts but mixing up rotation and revolution, which have completely different consequences.
- Tells latitude from longitude and says what each measures
- Distinguishes rotation from revolution by what each causes
- Reads the four elements a map needs to be usable
Exercise 1 of 3 · 11 questions
Latitude or longitude? Write which, and what it measures.
Write the answer · Warm-up
Here’s one done for you
Lines running east to west → latitude. A useful memory hook: lines of latitude lie flat like the rungs of a ladder, and 'lat' sounds like 'flat'. Longitude lines are the long ones running pole to pole. Children mix these up constantly, and this one hook usually settles it for good.
- 1)Lines running east to west, parallel to each other
- 2)Lines running from pole to pole
- 3)The Equator
- 4)The Prime Meridian
- 5)The Tropic of Cancer
- 6)The Tropic of Capricorn
- 7)The Arctic Circle
- 8)The line at 180 degrees, opposite the Prime Meridian
- 9)The lines used to work out time zones
- 10)The North Pole, at 90 degrees
- 11)The line that divides the Northern and Southern Hemispheres
Answers
- 1) Latitude - it measures distance north or south of the Equator.
- 2) Longitude - it measures distance east or west of the Prime Meridian.
- 3) Latitude - it is the 0 degree line of latitude.
- 4) Longitude - it is the 0 degree line of longitude.
- 5) Latitude - it is 23.5 degrees north of the Equator.
- 6) Latitude - it is 23.5 degrees south of the Equator.
- 7) Latitude - it is 66.5 degrees north of the Equator.
- 8) Longitude - it is the meridian on the far side of the Earth from the Prime Meridian.
- 9) Longitude - time zones are worked out from lines of longitude.
- 10) Latitude - it is the highest latitude north.
- 11) Latitude - that line is the Equator.
Exercise 2 of 3 · 10 questions
Rotation or revolution? Name it and say what it causes.
Write the answer · Guided
Here’s one done for you
Day and night → rotation. The Earth turns, so the side facing the Sun has day. Seasons are revolution plus the tilt - and the tilt is the part children leave out, without which revolution alone would not produce seasons at all. That omission is the most common lost mark in the chapter.
- 1)The Earth spins on its axis once in 24 hours.
- 2)The Earth moves around the Sun once in 365 and a quarter days.
- 3)Day and night
- 4)The seasons
- 5)A leap year every four years
- 6)Sunrise happening earlier in the east of India than in the west
- 7)Longer days in summer than in winter
- 8)The midnight sun in the far north
- 9)The time difference between India and the United Kingdom
- 10)Why the Sun appears to move across the sky during a day
Answers
- 1) Rotation.
- 2) Revolution.
- 3) Rotation - the side facing the Sun has day, the other has night.
- 4) Revolution, together with the tilt of the Earth's axis.
- 5) Revolution - the extra quarter day each year adds up to one day every four years.
- 6) Rotation - the eastern part turns into the sunlight first.
- 7) Revolution together with the tilt - that hemisphere leans towards the Sun in summer.
- 8) Revolution together with the tilt - the far north stays tilted towards the Sun through its summer.
- 9) Rotation - different longitudes face the Sun at different moments.
- 10) Rotation - the Earth turns, so the Sun only appears to move.
Exercise 3 of 3 · 9 questions
Answer in one sentence.
Write the answer · Practice
Here’s one done for you
Why does a map need a scale? → because it tells you what a distance on the map means on the ground. Notice the answer says what the scale is for, not what it is. 'Because it shows the scale' repeats the question - and this pattern of restating rather than explaining is the single most common error in the whole subject.
- 1)Why does a map need a scale?
- 2)Why does a map need a direction arrow?
- 3)Why are symbols used on a map instead of pictures?
- 4)Give one thing a globe shows better than a map.
- 5)Why is a physical map coloured differently from a political map?
- 6)Why is north usually placed at the top of a map?
- 7)Why can a map of a city show more detail than a map of India on the same sheet?
- 8)What is a sketch map, and when is one useful?
- 9)Why do two maps of the same country sometimes look different in shape?
Answers
- 1) Because it tells you what a distance on the map means as a real distance on the ground.
- 2) Because without it you cannot tell which way is north, so you cannot use the map to find anything.
- 3) Because symbols take up little space and mean the same thing on every map, so any reader can understand them.
- 4) A globe shows the true shape and size of the continents, because a flat map always distorts them.
- 5) Because a physical map uses colour to show height and landforms, while a political map uses it to separate countries or states.
- 6) Because mapmakers agreed on it, so that anyone picking up a map can read it the same way without being told.
- 7) Because the city map covers a much smaller area at a larger scale, so there is room to show streets and buildings.
- 8) A rough map drawn without a scale, useful for showing someone the way when exact distances do not matter.
- 9) Because a flat map has to stretch a curved surface somewhere, and different maps choose to stretch different parts.
While your child works
- 'Lat sounds like flat' fixes the latitude-longitude confusion better than any diagram, and it lasts.
- Seasons need revolution AND the tilt. A child who writes only revolution has given half the answer.
- An answer that repeats the question earns nothing. 'Because it shows the scale' is not an explanation of why a scale is needed.