Geography 176B Midterm Test

8 February 2005

Answer all questions, mark your answers on these sheets

1. Which of the following is characteristic of versions of ARC/INFO prior to 8?

a. All commands typed on the command line

b. User required to enter correctly spelled commands

c. User required to memorize command syntax, or consult documentation

d. All of the above

2. Which of the following is characteristic of digital representation and not analog representation?

a. The use of a coding scheme

b. The use of a binary alphabet of two characters

c. The use error-checking to confirm correct transmission

d. All of the above

3. How many significant digits are stored in double-precision real (or floating point)?

a. 5

b. 8

c. 10

d. 18

4. What does BLOB stand for?

a. binary large object

b. binary level of bits

c. best local option breakfast

d. best linear ontology (B)

5. The measurement of longitude has been standardized ever since the adoption of the Greenwich Meridian, and latitude was standardized long before that. What issue still leads to confusion in the definitions of latitude and longitude?

a. Persistent use of other prime meridians in some countries

b. The use of daylight saving time in some areas

c. The use of different mathematical approximations to the shape of the Earth (datums)

d. The existence of numerous map projections

6. Which of the following would be most problematic in a discrete object conceptualization?

a. Bison in Yellowstone National Park

b. Clouds in the sky

c. Vehicles on US 101

d. Houses in Hope Ranch

7. Which of the following methods of representing a field formed the basis for the original coverage model?

a. Sampling over a regular grid

b. Sampling at irregularly spaced points

c. Digitized contours

d. Non-overlapping polygons that collectively exhaust the space

8. Which ESRI product enables map servers?

a. ArcMap

b. ArcIMS

c. ArcSDE

d. ArcCatalog

9. A relational join is:

a. An operation for merging two tables in the relational model

b. An association in the object-oriented model

c. A common key connecting the records in two tables

d. A common boundary between two areas in a coverage

10. Arcs were used as the basic elements in the coverage model:

a. To avoid digitizing boundaries between areas twice

b. To save storage space

c. To allow topology (adjacency relationships between areas, connectivity between nodes) to be stored as attributes of arcs

d. All of the above

11. The boundaries of the four states NM, AZ, UT, and CO form five nodes, one of which is the famous “four corners” where all of them join. How many arcs are there?

a. 2

b. 4

c. 6

d. 8

12. In the original hybrid coverage model, where were the coordinates of the arcs stored?

a. In a relational-model table

b. In the INFO relational database management system

c. In a separate .ARC file that was not part of the relational model or database management system

d. They were not stored

13. Which of the following would be most difficult to represent in a coverage model?

a. Map showing overlapping easements affecting property

b. Map showing property boundaries

c. Map showing classified land uses

d. Map of counties

14. A new polygon is generated that is wholly contained within an existing polygon’s boundary. The area of the new polygon is 10 hectares, the area of the containing polygon is 100 hectares. What is the area of the existing polygon after the new polygon has been created?

a. 90 in both the shapefile and coverage models

b. 100 in both the shapefile and coverage models

c. 90 in the shapefile model and 100 in the coverage model

d. 100 in the shapefile model and 90 in the coverage model

15. In a shapefile, each point or vertex of a polyline may have how many associated values?

a. 2

b. 3

c. 4

d. 5

16. Which of the following attributes of a census tract is spatially extensive?

a. Area

b. Population density

c. Average income

d. Percent married

17. What merge rule (rule for determining attributes when two areas are combined) would you use for spatially extensive attributes?

a. Add them

b. Subtract them

c. Multiply them

d. Divide them

18. Which symbol is used for an association in UML?

a. An open triangle

b. An open diamond

c. A closed diamond

d. A line with numbers at each end indicating multiplicity

19. What is an association class?

a. A class that is associated with another class

b. A class defining the attributes of pairs of objects linked by an association

c. A class that has no instances

d. The methods associated with a class

20. In ESRI’s implementation of UML and object-oriented modeling an object and a feature are distinguished in what way?

a. Features have locations (geometry) and objects do not

b. Objects have locations (geometry) and features do not

c. Features inherit from objects

d. Objects inherit from features

21. What is the multiplicity of the relationship between telephone area code and county?

a. 1:1

b. 1:n

c. m:n

d. None of the above

22. The urban parts of TIGER were created from 1:24,000 mapping, and the rural parts from 1:100,000 mapping. What is the positional accuracy of TIGER?

a. 12m urban and 50m rural

b. 50m urban and 12m rural

c. 24m urban and 100m rural

d. 100m urban and 24m rural

23. Identification of the coordinates of a street address is known as:

a. Geocoding

b. Georeferencing

c. Geolocating

d. All of the above

24. The Geographic Names Information System links:

a. Placenames to attributes

b. Placenames to coordinates

c. Street addresses to attributes

d. Street addresses to coordinates

25. Township 4 North would be approximately how far north of the relevant PLSS baseline?

a. 21 miles

b. 61 miles

d. 101 miles

e. 141 miles

26. Approximately what area is covered by a quarter section of the PLSS?

a. 1/16 square mile (40 acres)

b. ¼ square mile (160 acres)

c. 1 square mile (640 acres)

d. 9 square miles (5760 acres)

27. What UTM zone would have 3 degrees East as its central meridian?

a. 1

b. 31

c. 51

d. 71

28. What is the scale at the central meridian of a UTM zone?

a. 0.9996

b. 1.0000

c. 1.0003

d. 1.0007

29. Distance between two points in the plane is calculated using a formula based on a famous theorem of:

a. Archimedes

b. Gauss

c. Euler

d. Pythagoras

30. What kind of bias is almost always present in the measurement of length in GIS?

a. none

b. underestimate

c. overestimate

d. sometimes (b), sometimes (c)