Mapwork · Easified

Mapwork

Grade 11 mapwork adds the side view and the line of sight to the map you already know how to read.

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Grade 11 · Geography · Mapwork

Geography examines physical and human processes, with map skills in both papers.

The papers
Paper 1 is climate and weather, and geomorphology, with geographical skills. Paper 2 is rural and urban settlement, and the economic geography of South Africa, with geographical skills. Each paper is 150 marks.
Map work
Direction, scale, gradient, cross-section and a calculation from the map must show the formula and the substitution. A place you cannot point to on the extract is a guess.
How a marker reads it
A common mix-up is to leave centimetres and metres mixed in one gradient, or to claim two points are visible because no building is drawn between them.

Paragraph questions want causes and effects in sequence. Naming a term without saying how it changes the landscape or the settlement is only the first mark.

Diagram

Worked theory

Worked theory. Two towers on a 1:50 000 sheet, with a ridge between them. The map distance is 4 cm, which is 2 km on the ground. The ridge is higher than both towers. The line of sight hits the ridge, so the towers cannot see each other, even though both are “on the map”. A cross-section makes that obvious in side view. If you forget to convert 4 cm with the scale, the gradient comes out as a cliff or as a pancake. The drawing is the test of whether the numbers mean a real hill.

More worked examples

Can the two beacons see each other?
Beacon A is at 1 240 m. Beacon B is at 1 180 m. A spot height between them reads 1 310 m. The line of sight from A to B hits that ridge, so they are not intervisible. The map distance is 3 cm on a 1:50 000 sheet, which is 1.5 km, or 1 500 m. The drop from A to B is 60 m. Gradient is 60 / 1 500 = 1 in 25, if you remember to convert centimetres before you divide. Leave them as 3 cm and the gradient is nonsense.
A square of map is a square kilometre
On a 1:50 000 sheet, 2 cm on the map is 1 km on the ground, because 2 times 50 000 cm is 1 km. A square 2 cm by 2 cm is therefore 1 km by 1 km, which is 1 km squared, not 4 km squared and not 2 cm squared. Count four such squares in a plantation and the area is 4 km squared. Leaving the lengths in centimetres and then squaring them is how a wood the size of a field becomes a dot, or a province.

In ordinary words

A cross-section is the side view along a line you choose on the contour map. You transfer each contour height onto a graph and join the heights. Gradient is the steepness: vertical difference divided by horizontal distance. Intervisibility asks whether one point can see another. If a hill rises above the straight line of sight, the view is blocked. Vertical exaggeration on the cross-section makes slopes look steeper than they are, so you say what exaggeration you used.

In South Africa

Any South African topographic sheet with a koppie between two farms is the exercise.

Part 1 / 4

What it is

Grade 11 mapwork adds the side view and the line of sight to the map you already know how to read.

More worked examples

Board walkthroughs on this topic. Open one, copy the working, then try the next.

Example 1 / 20

Calculate vertical exaggeration: horizontal scale 1 : 50 000; vertical scale 1 : 2 500.

How we got there

Read this like a teacher at the board. We go slowly, name every number, and say why we take each step.

Explain in another language · 11

1. What is the question asking?

Read the question twice. Circle the unknown. Underline every number and unit. The paper is asking: Calculate vertical exaggeration: horizontal scale 1 : 50 000; vertical scale 1 : 2 500.

In other words — as if you have never seen this before

If you have never seen this before: VE = HSVS (denominators). We will name a method in words, write the formula with no numbers, then substitute one line at a time.

2. What do we already know?

HS and VS.

3. Which method — and why this one?

VE=HSVS (denominators).

4. Step-by-step working

01 / 07
Step A — Read the question twice
Slow down. Circle the word that names the unknown. Underline every number and its unit. Do not grab a formula yet — first decide what the paper is actually asking.
Why this step: If you can say the method in a sentence, you will pick the right formula. First-timers skip this and grab the first equation they remember.
02 / 07
Step B — Write the given in a column
HS and VS.
Why this step: A column with units stops you mixing cm with m, or minutes with seconds. Markers can also see you started correctly.
03 / 07
Step C — Name the method in words
VE=HSVS (denominators).
Why this step: If you can say the method in a sentence, you will pick the right formula. First-timers skip this and grab the first equation they remember.
04 / 07
Divide
50 0002 500=20.
Why this step: We only do one job per line so a marker can follow the marks — and so you can find a slip without starting over.
05 / 07
Step G — Sense-check the size
Ask: is this the kind of number a Grade 10–12 paper would want? A speed of 3 000 ms for a learner walking, or a probability bigger than 1, means a unit or algebra slip. Estimate first: round the numbers and do the sum in your head.
Why this step: Markers write ‘unrealistic’ in the margin when the method is right but the size is wild. A 10-second head check often finds a missing 10² or a unit that never changed.
06 / 07
Step F — Box the answer with its unit
VE=20 times.
Why this step: A number without a unit is half a mark on a Physics paper, and a marker can miss a Maths answer that is buried in working.
07 / 07
Step H — What the marker is looking for
On an NSC memo you usually earn: (1) a method mark for naming the right formula or idea in words, (2) an accuracy mark for substituting the given numbers with units, (3) an accuracy mark for the boxed answer with its unit. Write those three lines even if you are unsure of the arithmetic — blank pages score zero.
Why this step: First-timers chase the final number and leave the method blank. The memo still pays out for the idea and the substitution even when the last line is wrong.

5. The answer

VE=20 times.

Copy onto your answer sheet — in this order

Answer: VE=20 times.

6. Check it like a marker

Makes slopes look steeper.

7. A trap first-timers fall into

First-timers often grab the first formula they remember, mix units (cm with m, minutes with seconds), or drop a minus sign. Write the formula in words first: “this equals that, because…”

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