If you've ever attempted geography practice tests, you're likely familiar with the format of these assignments. Failing to grasp the material often leads to errors or misconceptions when drawing geography charts. To assist students in tackling geography practice tests or even official exams, the following guidance will demonstrate how to draw geography charts effectively.
How to Draw Geography Charts
1. Various Types of Pie Charts
Identifying Signs:
- Typically, when tasked with drawing a pie chart, the requirement is to describe the structure, components, and proportions of units within a whole. Pie charts are charts with few slices but numerous components within them.
Steps to Draw a Pie Chart:
Step 1: When dealing with Geography charts represented by circle graphs, users must first process the data and convert it to percentages to standardize units and calculate the most accurate proportions.
Step 2: Determine the position and radius of the circle graph you need to draw. It's crucial to note that its size must fit the paper size you're working with. For a circle graph with a proportion of 100% corresponding to 360 degrees, each 1% is equivalent to 3.6 degrees.
Step 3: Complete the parameters of the map, selecting symbols for representation that are as easily understandable as possible.
Various Types of Circular Charts:
- Firstly, there's the single pie chart, which means there's only one pie chart. With this type, we can easily identify it by the straightforward order from largest to smallest. It's entirely up to your preference.
- Secondly, there are various pie chart types with differing sizes. With this type, it's not difficult, but the drawer should first note the most common feature of the circles, whether the overall trend is increasing or decreasing.
After evaluating the first aspect, we proceed to assess similar factors for the remaining charts. If the charts display the same units, drawing is simpler, but if they differ, annotating each type by year can be time-consuming.
2. Various Types of Area Charts
Identifying Signs:
Many students often confuse area charts with pie charts. However, understanding the concepts reveals that area charts are a type of chart with 'many years, few components'. It's completely opposite to pie charts and furthermore, this type of chart usually consists of rectangles or squares, divided into different areas.
Steps to Draw Area Charts:
Step 1: Remember that area charts are in the form of squares or rectangles, with their components divided into multiple areas that stack on top of each other. Each area represents a specific object, which is why this chart has few areas but many years.
Step 2: Its time milestones are similar to the chart types we often encounter, with the year milestones divided on both sides. The height of the chart represents the chart's unit, while the horizontal axis follows the years.
The most challenging aspect of drawing this type of chart is its proportion, as the size difference between large and small areas depends on the index it's representing.
Step 3: To complete the chart, simply record the corresponding data at the position displayed on each area.
Common Types of Area Charts:
There are 2 common types of area charts you may encounter: stacked area charts and area charts starting from the coordinate origin. Both of these charts are stacked charts, meaning they have a backbone with values stacked on top of each other, varying in size depending on the predetermined unit in the assignment.
3. Various Types of Bar Charts
Identifying Signs:
This type of chart is used to illustrate differences in the scale or volume of one or more geographical entities and is used to compare the relative magnitudes between quantities. Examples include charts showing the area of a certain region or charts comparing the production output of some localities or the population of those localities.
How to Draw Bar Charts:
Step 1: Firstly, we need to choose the appropriate scale to draw this Geography bar chart, then draw a perpendicular axis with the vertical axis representing the units of quantities and the horizontal axis representing the years of the objects.
Step 2: Calculate the height of each bar to the correct scale, then depict it on the paper. To complete the map, you need to record the corresponding data as well as the next bars to draw symbols on the bars.
Common Types of Bar Charts:
There are four types of bar charts that we may encounter during the task: single bar charts, stacked bar charts, clustered bar charts, and horizontal bar charts. Typically, the bars only differ in height, while their widths must be equal.
Bar charts display the height of the bars corresponding to the assigned data values.
4. Types of Line Charts
Identifying Line Charts:
- This type of chart is commonly used to depict changes in geographical quantities when there are many years and continuous changes. It effectively represents the growth rate of one or more geographical quantities, whether they share the same unit or not.
How to Draw Line Charts:
Step 1: To draw a line chart, you need to plot a perpendicular coordinate axis (the vertical axis represents the magnitude of objects such as the number of people, production, percentage ratios, etc., while the horizontal axis represents time).
Step 2: Determine the appropriate scale on both axes based on the data provided in the assignment and the established scale for calculation and evaluation of coordinate points. When marking the years on the horizontal axis, pay attention to the standard scale and ensure the first year is correctly positioned on the vertical axis.
Step 3: Fill in the remaining parameters and symbols to complete the Geography chart.
Types of Line Charts:
There are 2 types of line charts: those with one or more lines drawn according to absolute values and those with one or more drawn according to relative values. As mentioned above, line charts with relative values represent continuous growth, indicating the growth rate, while those with absolute values have precise statistical numbers according to yearly data.
Here are the basic instructions on how to draw Geography charts that students need to pay attention to for preparing for the real exam. For those who have a computer at home, you can use Excel to practice drawing Geography charts and enhance your knowledge through Excel's support tools. If you have time, refer to drawing bar charts in Excel, as this is a basic type of exercise, but the way to draw bar charts in Excel will help viewers accurately visualize the type of chart they need for their work.
