WAEC Geography 2015 past questions and answers

The linear scale shows 1 km as 2 cm on the original map (1:50,000), so 1 cm represents half a kilometre.

Measured in a straight line and compared with the linear scale, Mami to Esho is about 3 km.

BUTO has a court (Ct), a sign of administrative function.

The forest symbols are in the north-west, around Esho.

Ede's houses are strung out in a line along the road: a linear pattern.

The contours are 200, 300 and 400 m, so the interval is 100 m.

The south-east is savanna grassland, suitable for grazing animals.

Only roads are shown linking the settlements.

Following the winding road from Mami to BUTO with a thread and comparing it with the linear scale gives about 9 km.

Venus is the hottest planet because its thick carbon dioxide atmosphere traps heat (greenhouse effect), even though Mercury is nearer the sun.

A lunar eclipse happens when the earth's shadow falls on the moon, with the earth between the sun and the moon.

The upfold (arch) is an anticline; the downfold is a syncline.

SIAL = SIlica + ALumina, the continental crust.

At the equinoxes the sun is overhead at the Equator, so day and night are 12 hours each everywhere.

An eruption throws out gases, lava (molten magma), ash and rock fragments.

Strong destructive waves erode coasts most.

Igneous rocks cool from magma and are made of crystals.

Temperature falls about 6.5°C per 1,000 m: 6 × 6.5 = 39°C, so 20 − 39 = −19°C.

Deserts have strong winds and little vegetation to break them or hold loose material, so wind erodes freely.

Waterfalls form where the steep young river crosses hard rock; the others are lower-course features.

Ash and cinder cones are built from material thrown out by volcanoes.

Loess is fine wind-blown dust deposited far from its source, e.g. in northern China.

The dense central core is called the barysphere.

Minerals are used up once mined; rain, water and oxygen are renewed naturally.

Relief rain forms when moist air is forced to rise over highlands.

A sill is magma that cooled between rock layers; the others come from erosion or deposition.

A barometer measures air pressure.

Weathering breaks rocks down where they lie, without moving them.

Mercury, Venus, Earth, then Mars.

Sedimentary rocks are laid down in layers (strata).

Where warm and cold air masses meet, the warm air rises over the cold: cyclonic (frontal) rain.

These are karst features formed by solution of limestone.

Inselbergs are isolated residual hills left after the land around them was worn down.

The difference is 30°, i.e. 30 × 4 = 120 minutes; Y is west, so its time is 2 hours behind: 2.00 p.m.

Sunshine is never used up, so solar energy is renewable.

Ships and barges can carry very large, heavy loads cheaply.

Population density = people per unit area.

When people leave villages for towns, the villages lose population.

Heavy industries use complex processes and machinery on bulky raw materials; light industries use simpler processes.

Ships carry bulky goods long distances at the lowest cost per tonne.

English-speaking West African countries trade mainly with Britain, the U.S.A. and other industrial countries such as Germany and Japan.

Young people move from villages to towns looking for work.

20,000,000 ÷ 1,000,000 = 20 persons per km².

Tariffs make imports dearer, protecting young local industries from foreign competition.

Member states keep strong ties with their former colonial powers (Britain, France), which weakens trade and cooperation among themselves.

Tsetse flies in the forest spread sleeping sickness (trypanosomiasis) to cattle.

Vegetables and fruits spoil quickly, so they are grown close to the city markets.

(a) (Nigeria to e.g. Britain) Crude oil; cocoa; rubber; palm produce; groundnuts; cotton; hides and skins; tin and columbite; timber; sesame/cashew.
(b) Countries produce similar (primary) goods; poor transport and communication links between countries; different currencies and lack of convertibility; tariffs, border controls and trade restrictions; colonial ties that direct trade to Europe; political instability and border closures; low level of industrialisation; preference for foreign goods; language differences.
(c) Build roads and railways linking member states (e.g. Trans-West African Highway); remove tariffs and trade barriers (ECOWAS trade liberalisation); introduce a common or convertible currency; diversify and industrialise to produce different goods; improve the quality of local goods; political stability and good governance; encourage cross-border investment; ease border formalities.

Name a real European country and real exports.

(a)(i) Death rate: the number of deaths per 1,000 people in a year.
(ii) Population explosion: a very rapid increase in population caused by a high birth rate and a falling death rate.
(b) Health care: more hospitals, vaccination and drugs lower deaths; diseases such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, cholera raise deaths; food supply and nutrition (famine raises deaths); water supply and sanitation; level of education and income; wars and conflicts; natural disasters (drought, floods); age structure of the population; accidents.
(c) Pressure on social amenities (schools, hospitals, water); unemployment; housing shortage and slums; food shortage; crime; environmental degradation; more labour and larger markets (positive).

Explain each factor: say how it raises or lowers deaths.

(a) Raw materials; market; power supply; labour (skilled and unskilled); capital; transport and communication; water supply; government policy and incentives; land/site; political stability; security; industrial inertia and existing industries.
(b) Employment; higher incomes and standard of living; use of local raw materials; foreign exchange earned or saved; diversification of the economy; development of infrastructure; growth of towns; acquisition of technology and skills; revenue for government; reduced dependence on imports.

Five distinct points in each part.

(a) Map: in July the ITCZ lies far north, near the northern border of Nigeria (about latitude 20°N, north of Nigeria or across its far north); the south-west (Tropical Maritime) winds cover almost the whole country south of it, shown by arrows from the Atlantic; the north-east (Tropical Continental) winds lie north of the ITCZ; three towns in the SW-wind zone, e.g. Lagos, Ibadan, Enugu, Port Harcourt, Kano.
(b) Tropical maritime air mass (south-west winds) blows over the country; heavy rainfall, decreasing from south to north; high relative humidity; cloudy skies; slightly lower temperatures than in the dry season; thunderstorms and line squalls at its start and end; longer in the south (up to 8-9 months) than the north (3-4 months); little August break in the south-west.
(c) Cocoa, cotton, groundnuts, rubber, oil palm, soya beans, ginger, sesame.

Put the July ITCZ well to the north.

(a) Inadequate capital and credit for farmers; poor (crude) farming tools and low mechanisation; poor rural roads and storage, so crops rot; land tenure system and fragmented holdings; pests and diseases; soil infertility and erosion; unreliable rainfall, floods and drought; rural-urban migration of youths; poor pricing and marketing; low use of fertilisers and improved seeds; insecurity (farmer-herder conflict).
(b) Give farmers loans and grants (agricultural banks); supply tractors and modern tools; build rural roads, storage and processing facilities; reform land tenure (Land Use Act, consolidation); provide pesticides and veterinary services; use fertilisers and crop rotation; irrigation; provide rural amenities to keep youths; guaranteed prices and marketing boards; extension services and research.

Match each solution to a problem.

(a) Map: mangrove swamp along the coast and the Niger Delta (e.g. Rivers, Bayelsa, Lagos lagoons); rain forest belt inland in the south (Ondo, Edo, Cross River, Ogun); Guinea savanna across the middle belt (Kwara, Niger, Benue, Plateau, FCT); Sudan savanna in the north (Kano, Katsina, Sokoto, Zamfara).
(b) Mahogany, iroko, obeche, sapele, walnut, abura, afara, camwood, oil palm.
(c) Timber for building, furniture and export (foreign exchange); raw materials for industries (sawmills, plywood, paper, match); employment for lumbermen, carpenters and traders; food, fruits and bush meat; herbs for medicine; fuel wood and charcoal; tourism (forest reserves, parks); protects soil from erosion and supports rainfall.

Explain each contribution, not just list it.

(a) Totals: 2005 = 235; 2006 = 205; 2007 = 211. Draw one bar per year with heights to a scale (e.g. 1 cm = 20 farmers), each divided into cassava, maize, rice and yam in the same order, with cumulative values (2005: 50, 110, 155, 235; 2006: 40, 102, 157, 205; 2007: 48, 106, 176, 211); equal bar widths and gaps, shading key, title and labelled axes.
(b) 45 + 55 + 70 = 170 farmers.
(c) A simple bar graph shows only one value (the total) per bar, while a divided bar graph splits each bar into components showing how the total is made up.

Keep the order of the crops the same in every bar.

(a)(i) Rotation: the spinning of the earth on its axis from west to east, once in 24 hours.
(ii) Revolution: the movement of the earth round the sun in its elliptical orbit, once in about 365¼ days.
(iii) Equinox: the time (about 21 March and 23 September) when the sun is overhead at the Equator and day and night are equal everywhere.
(b) Seasons; varying lengths of day and night through the year; apparent movement of the overhead sun between the tropics; changing altitude of the midday sun; leap year every four years; perihelion and aphelion; the equinoxes and solstices.

Three effects of revolution, not of rotation.

(a) V-shaped valley; gorge; waterfall; rapids; potholes; interlocking spurs.
(b) Characteristics: crescent (horse-shoe) shaped lake; found on the floodplain in the lower course; cut off from the main river; shallow and often becomes a swamp as it silts up.
Formation: the river forms large meanders; erosion on the outer (concave) bank and deposition on the inner (convex) bank make the meander loop bigger and the neck narrower; during a flood the river cuts through the narrow neck and takes the shorter straight course; deposition seals off the ends of the old loop, leaving an ox-bow lake. Diagrams: meander with narrow neck; river breaking through; ox-bow lake left beside the new channel.

Draw the stages in order.

(a) Fold mountains; block mountains; volcanic mountains; residual mountains.
(b) Sources of rivers and water for HEP and irrigation; minerals; tourism and recreation (cool climate, scenery); relief rainfall on windward slopes; forests and timber; grazing land; defence/security; natural boundaries.
(c) Barriers to transport and communication; steep slopes and thin soils limit farming; soil erosion and landslides; volcanic eruptions and earthquakes; rain shadow areas are dry; sparse population.

Give examples of mountains where you can.

(a) Climate is the average weather conditions of a place over a long period (about 30-35 years).
(b) Torrid zone: between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, hot all year with the overhead sun; temperate zones: between the tropics and the Arctic/Antarctic Circles, with warm summers and cool winters; frigid zones: from the Arctic and Antarctic Circles to the poles, cold all year.
(c) Based on measurable data (temperature and rainfall) that are widely available; uses simple letter codes; relates climate to natural vegetation; can be applied to any place in the world; has clear, precise boundaries between types; can be modified (sub-types).

Name each Greek zone with its latitudes.

(a) Natural or man-made events that cause serious danger to life, property and the environment.
(b) Floods; drought; desertification; soil erosion; earthquakes; volcanic eruptions; landslides; pollution; bush fires; storms.
(c) Afforestation and shelter belts; control of overgrazing; control of bush burning; reduced cutting of trees for fuel, using alternative energy; irrigation; sand-dune fixation; public education; laws against deforestation; proper farming methods (fallowing, mulching); international cooperation (Great Green Wall).

Explain how each method stops the desert advancing.

(a) Cliff; wave-cut platform; cave; arch; stack; stump; geo; blow hole.
(b) Characteristics: gently sloping accumulation of sand, shingle or pebbles between high and low water marks; coarse material at the back (landward) and fine near the sea; may have ridges (berms) and ripple marks; found in bays.
Formation: constructive waves with strong swash and weak backwash carry sand and pebbles up the shore and leave them; longshore drift moves material along the coast; deposition is greatest in sheltered bays; material comes from erosion of cliffs and from rivers. Diagram: cross-section of a beach showing swash, backwash and sorted materials.

Explain swash and backwash.