Exam Questions and CORRECT Answers
Sources of spatial data - CORRECT ANSWER - remote sensing, drones, GPS,
airborn/shipborne sensors, field and census data
purpose of spatial analysis - CORRECT ANSWER - people and their systems (knowledge
discovery, decision support, communication, entertainment), data representaion and storage (data
representation and storage), maps and data visualistion (cartography), answer spatial questions
(algorithms, statistics, models and simulation)
Map projection - CORRECT ANSWER - mathematical method for taking the curved
surface of the earth and displaying it on something flat, like a computer screen or a piece of
paper
Geographic coordinates - CORRECT ANSWER - Longitude (degrees from 'prime
median', passing through Greenwich, London), Latitude: degrees from equator
Cartesian coordinates - CORRECT ANSWER - X (signed distance from vertical reference
line), Y (signed distance from horizontal reference line)
categories of projections - CORRECT ANSWER - equal area, conformal, equidistant. In
general, we select a projection that minimises the distortion that would impact he analysis or the
interpretation of the map
Equal area - CORRECT ANSWER - preseves area
Conformal - CORRECT ANSWER - preserves shapes
Equidistant - CORRECT ANSWER - preserves distances
, Defining a projection - CORRECT ANSWER - assigning appropriate projection
information to a dataset when the projection information is missing
Reprojecting data - CORRECT ANSWER - transforming geospatial data from one
projection to another
12 basic map elements - CORRECT ANSWER - available on all maps (scale, direction,
legend), sensitive to context (title, projection, cartographer, date of production, lineage), used
selectively for effective communication (neat line, locator map, inset map, index map)
Potential issues with mapping in 3D - CORRECT ANSWER - Visual occlusion, Difficult
to estimate volumes, Mental rotation of complex shapes is extremely hard, Inconsistent scale
Potential benefits from mapping in 3D - CORRECT ANSWER - Engagement tool,
Animations/fly-throughs, Visualise terrain, Terrain maps can include: flood risk, sea-level rise,
land cover
Data classification methods - CORRECT ANSWER - Manual interval, Defined interval,
Equal interval, Quantile (Same number of data in each class), Natural breaks (Look at histogram
and splits data), Geometrical interval (ar^x) (looks at the geometric series)
Modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP) - CORRECT ANSWER - source of statistical bias
when point-based measures of spatial phenomena area aggregated into districts
Ecological fallacy - CORRECT ANSWER - when inferences about the nature of
individuals are deduced from inferences about the group to which those individuals belong
Data capture - CORRECT ANSWER - Collection of geographic information from the real-
world and representing that digitally in a GIS
types of data capture - CORRECT ANSWER - raster, vector, primary, secondary