Option C Extreme environments: Characteristics and processes
15 revision questions with answers for Option C Extreme environments: Characteristics and processes, marked SL and HL. Read them here, or play the set as a class game on the projector. Free to host, and students join with a code.
Ratio of precipitation to potential evapotranspiration, used to classify drylands?
- Humidity index
- Moisture deficit
- Aridity indexRight answer
- Water budget
What this set covers
Cold and dry environments are described through their processes and landforms. Aridity index, permafrost, the active layer, hypoxia, plucking, freeze-thaw weathering, solifluction, corries, drumlins, deflation, exfoliation, wadis and barchans all feature.
- Common mix-up
- Students often confuse permafrost and the active layer: permafrost stays frozen for at least two years, while the active layer above it thaws each summer.
- Revision tip
- Sort the landforms into glacial, periglacial and desert, then explain the process behind two of them from memory before checking the answer.
All 15 questions and answers
Ratio of precipitation to potential evapotranspiration, used to classify drylands?
Answer: Aridity index
Ground that stays at or below 0 °C for at least two consecutive years?
Answer: Permafrost
Surface soil above perennially frozen ground that thaws each summer?
Answer: Active layer
Shortage of oxygen in the body's tissues, a risk at high altitude?
Answer: Hypoxia
Glacial erosion where ice freezes onto rock and pulls fragments away?
Answer: Plucking
Water in rock joints expanding by about 9% as ice, repeatedly, until the rock splits?
Answer: Freeze–thaw weathering
Upward bulging of the ground as ice lenses grow beneath the surface?
Answer: Frost heave
Slow downslope flow of saturated active-layer soil over frozen ground?
Answer: Solifluction
Ice-cored hill, up to tens of metres high, in periglacial areas?
Answer: Pingo
Armchair-shaped hollow eroded at the head of a glaciated valley?
Answer: Corrie
Smooth, elongated mound of till, streamlined in the direction of ice flow?
Answer: Drumlin
Wind removing loose, fine particles from a desert surface?
Answer: Deflation
Peeling away of curved outer rock layers, also called onion-skin weathering?
Answer: Exfoliation
Steep-sided, usually dry desert valley that floods after rare storms?
Answer: Wadi
Crescent-shaped sand dune with horns pointing downwind?
Answer: Barchan
Play it as a class game
Play this set opens it in splycr, where you can host it for your class straight away. Hosting needs no account: put the room code on the projector, and students join from a phone with the code and their first name. Each question plays as multiple choice, and the three wrong options were written for that question.