Map Reading and Interpretation Questions and Answers

Answer: C

The first two are correct. The third ignores the difference between magnetic and grid north, which must be applied before a field bearing means anything on the sheet. Plotting a raw compass reading puts the line several degrees out.

Answer: D

Scale settles what could possibly be shown, and the date settles how far the content can be trusted today. Both of those bear on every later reading, whereas the publisher and the printing are usually incidental to what can be concluded.

Answer: A

Correct answer: True

Interpretation is inference from incomplete evidence, so two readers may weigh the same features differently and reach different conclusions, each properly argued from what the sheet shows. What distinguishes a good interpretation is not certainty but that every part of it is grounded in something on the map.

Answer: B

Correct answer: its position relative to the wider region

Site is the ground the settlement stands on - a river terrace, a hilltop, a spring line - and explains why it began there. Situation is its position in relation to the region: at a crossing, at the head of a valley, on a route between two centres, and it explains why it grew or did not.

Answer: C

Situation describes the wider network, so convergence of routes is exactly what it captures. Drainage, defence and building material are all qualities of the site itself, which the question has already described as poor.