Cds Geography Questions Pdf
Nella Mcnairy
I started my search by delving into several years of chronological curriculum programmes in order to get an idea of which books were used on a regular basis. As I read through the instructions, the use of maps in particular caught my attention. The Ambleside Geography Readers were mentioned every term for each form along with references to questions about maps. This led me to reading the preface in those books and scanning the table of contents to see what material was covered in a term based on the page numbers assigned in the programmes. I was familiar with Book I (Elementary Geography) by this time, but I had never taken a closer look at the successive books in the series. To my surprise Books II through V were nothing like the first one. Both the content and questions in these other books were very different.
As for the scope and sequence for my own family I am currently filling in holes with my middle and high school students. Fortunately I have the luxury of more time with my younger children so I am following a similar sequence as the PNEU with them: (1) starting Book I alongside stories of children from other countries, (2) continuing Book I with a brief introduction to the United States, followed by studying each of the continents, (3) North America and an in-depth look at each of the states, (4) Europe, and (5) remaining continents one-by-one.
Through these map questions the students were directed to notice and measure the length and breadth of various continents or countries. In addition, older students were asked to compare these measurements to where other cities, countries, and continents lay.
As I became aware of how valuable these questions were, I decided to make use of them. Unfortunately, Miss Mason did not provide the answers in her books so I began the process of studying the atlas in order to compile them for myself. We are providing a link here to all the map questions contained in Book II along with their corresponding answers.
I realized it was possible to modify these questions or create my own by following the format used in the Ambleside books. Combing through Book IV, I discovered, hidden on page 53 after the questions on the map of France, this note about varying the questions:
Book III covered the counties of England and was scheduled over all three years of Form II. I was surprised at the length of time the PUS spent studying the counties of England and the number of detailed questions for a country that is only the size of the state of Louisiana. Here is a sample of the questions on the shires of Cambridge and Huntingdon:
I noticed there was a certain amount of historical element to the map questions. While it was obviously important to learn the places and contemporary names on the current map, it was also desirous for the students to have an overlay within their mental map pictures of historical places and events as well. Two examples of such questions are:
What did a lesson look like using the map questions? How did the map questions fit into the whole geography scheme laid out in each programme? How did all the elements work together? Where in the time table did each of these lessons occur?
Another element I noticed was the progression through the forms, from learning what a map is and how to read it, to studying maps and answering questions about them, to summarizing readings by making maps from memory. I am still learning how to implement everything, but the following resources have been very helpful to me in understanding the practical implementation:
My personal process for preparing map questions to be used in our home schoolroom might be different from what someone else chooses to do, but I thought it would be helpful to share it in case you decide to use the list of questions and answers from Book II we are providing here. It is very likely you will want to make some modifications and additions to this list. My process is as follows:
It was immediately obvious that revisions would be needed to the Geography Reader maps for my purpose. Some of the most significant changes have occurred in Europe and Africa. Empires split into separate countries. The breakup of the Soviet Union and political unrest in Eastern Europe completely altered boundaries in that part of the world. Mason mentioned that a great part of the interior of Africa was yet unknown at that time (Mason, 1882). And only 39 states had been officially admitted to the union of the United States at the time of the first printing of the Readers.
Another element of my updates has been name changes. Charlotte Mason tended to use English versions of names, whether it be names of composers or names of places. Locations in current atlases adhere closer to native spellings so I have modified them to match our maps. Changes to Chinese place names were a little more complicated. At first, I assumed the actual names had changed. But after more research I realized just the English versions of the names had changed. The Chinese names, represented by characters instead of letters when written, might be pronounced differently depending on language and local dialect. The pinyin system, now the current standard, is modeled after the Mandarin pronunciation. The names which Mason used in her books rely on romanization of regional pronunciations before pinyin was established. Based on advice from a contact living in China I decided to use the pinyin spellings. Although, for the most part, I have kept both names when referring to larger or more historically significant cities.
Even now it can be challenging to keep up with political changes on the map. While proofing the answers for Book II we discovered Macedonia had officially changed its name to North Macedonia in 2019, which is not reflected in my most recent atlas. Simply pointing out a change like this to your student can suffice, but it might be more beneficial to use it to lead into a discussion on the reason(s) for the change.
The PNEU exam questions are a helpful tool because they give us some concept of the type of work and knowledge recall expected from students in different forms at the end of a term. Here are some examples with their corresponding page assignments from the geography readers:
A few years ago, I made the decision to make a concerted effort to incorporate map questions into our schooling. As my understanding of the method has grown, we have made changes in how we carry this out, but this is our current process for geography lessons using map questions:
Rachel North has transcribed Book III (The Counties of England) and it is available at Charlotte Mason Beehive ( -now-the-counties-of-england-by-c-m-mason/). A print version of Book II is available at Living Book Press.
Psychology, sociology, anthropology, and epidemiology are a testament to this. The -ologies were helpful; they set the stage, so to speak, providing a viewpoint that sent my career path towards inquiry. Truthfully, long before academia, I had many questions about the world and our modern Western social system, specifically where the system may have blocks, inefficiencies, and even gaps that could otherwise prevent sickness and low quality of life for so many.
Because I had more questions than answers, I knew that school was the place I needed to head, so off to college, I went. Although it seems like an obvious step from high school for many of you, I started this journey as a dropout, then a teen mom, so college was off my radar.
I was a hard worker, though, and the longer I worked, first in the service industry and then in social services, I kept accumulating more questions about our world and the state of our systems. In college, surrounded by the -ologies, I began understanding the pattern dynamics emerging from my ad-hoc queries, leading to a core set of questions that could only be answered spatially.
This one GIS course, along with my love of research and data exploration, allowed me to get my first paid student job on a GIS participatory research team for the Agricultural Workers Health Initiative (AWHI),. Check out more info here in the Resilient Communitie.... I was able to work side by side with excellent cartographers and help lead the qualitative portions of this initiative. We traveled throughout the agricultural lands of California, gathering stories of pesticide exposure in migrant communities to conduct participatory GIS. This was an immediate success and led to publications and presentations to inform decision-makers of opportunities for real change and to provide a precedent for using GIS to tell a community story and improve lives.
A few years later, I entered graduate school and continued as a Research Assistant, still exploring my top 5 spatial questions to the -ologies. I was the only person in the public health program with any experience in GIS. Yes, I still had only taken one class. But what I learned in that class, coupled with applied expertise and how to use location intelligence to communicate toward effective change, was still
very applicable.
My graduate department chair asked me to create a map of food deserts in Washington, D.C., for a peer-reviewed paper she would submit. With my participatory GIS background and statistical knowledge, I could quickly link data and ground truth findings to ensure the story was accurate. We found that while many areas were deemed as having food in grocery stores, those stores carried no fresh food, only processed junk food.
Understanding your community and data are paramount to telling an accurate visual story; it is our responsibility as researchers and map makers. We were able to publish our work in a peer-reviewed journal. This article is still used in literature reviews as a precedent for mapping food insecurities and telling the story of the current food deserts within urban areas.
My previous experience in GIS, though minimal, left an impression and led to a paid graduate practicum experience with the State of Kentucky. I was the only applicant with any GIS experience, and while it had been some time since I had used GIS, I got the gig. (This is a reminder to brush up on those GIS skills.)
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