HTHT Minor, Geographic Information Systems

Final Exam — SHORT SAMPLE

Version 1
2021-11-10

Instructions
The exam has two sections: one for multiple choice, with 35 questions each worth 2 points, and one for short
answer, with 2 questions each worth 15 points. The total number of available points is 100. Exam grades will
be determined by taking the score out of 100 and dividing by 10, for a value out of ten.
Indicate your answer to each multiple choice question by clearly writing the letter representing your choice
in the left margin. Write and/or draw your answers to the short answer questions in the space provided on
the page below the question.

Multiple Choice
1. Performing an intersection operation between a point-feature layer and a polygon-feature layer will
result in a layer that contains...
(a) lines.
(b) points.
(c) points and polygons.
(d) polygons.
2. Sliver polygons at common boundaries in vector data may be a result of...
(a) digitizing errors.
(b) polygons that were digitized at different scales and resolutions.
(c) both a) and b)
(d) disorientation caused by having watched too many YouTube videos about puppies and kittens.

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3. Why did the GIS select the route along the dotted line below?

(a) It has the lowest average edge traversal cost.

(b) It has the lowest cumulative edge traversal cost.
(c) It has the shortest graph note-to-node distance.
(d) It’s the most geometrically direct.
4. In raster data, cell size is a measure of...
(a) thematic resolution.
(b) spatial resolution.
(c) digital resolution.
(d) temporal resolution.
5. Which of the following statements about DBMS is false?
(a) They can create new databases.
(b) They can perform queries of data.
(c) They cannot update databases.
(d) They can delete records.

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6. There are only two paths to C from E in this graph.

(a) True.
(b) False.
7. Referring to the shaded (non-white) areas in the figure below, the three examples of vector overlay
analysis operations shown are, left to right...

(a) union, intersection, dissolve.

(b) intersection, union, dissolve.
(c) intersection, dissolve, union.
(d) difference, dissolve, union.
8. Accuracy and precision describe the and of data, respectively.
(a) correctness, resolution.
(b) dependability, correctness.
(c) repeatability, correctness.
9. Which of the following statements describes a topological relationship?
(a) Polygon A is larger than polygon B.
(b) All the points lie east of the river.
(c) Jackson Road crosses Ibanez Street.
(d) Knoxville and Nashville are about 180 miles apart.

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10. Which interpolation method is illustrated above?
(a) Inverse Distance Weighting.
(b) Nearest Neighbor.
(c) Natural Neighbor.
(d) Bilinear.
11. Imagine you run a snow removal company in a city that gets a lot of winter snow. The cost of removing
one square unit of snow goes up with both the depth of the snow and the slope of the underlying land.
Given two rasters of equal pixel resolution, one for slope and another for depth, which would be the
most informative way, using map algebra, to produce a map of relative cost of snow removal?
(a) depth × slope.
(b) depth + slope.
(c) depth ÷ slope.
(d) slope ÷ depth.
12. In order to join the two tables below, the primary key (left table) and foreign key (right table) we should
use would be, in order...

(a) OBJECTID and OBJECTID

(b) landuse_co and OBJECTID
(c) OBJECTID and tract
(d) landuse_co and code

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13. In the figure below, the left and right models of latitude are, respectively...

(a) geocentric, geodetic.

(b) geodetic, geocentric.
14. Which kind of map is best for showing counts of electric vehicles registered in each province?
(a) A choropleth.
(b) A proportional symbol map.
(c) An isopleth.
(d) A dot density map.

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Short Answer
1. Imagine you are working as a cartographer with a team clearing land mines (i.e., hidden explosives
buried in the ground that kill unsuspecting people walking over them) from past war zones. Each day
you are given point locations of detected mines, as well as measures of how large they are, which in
turn determines how large a radius of danger each mine is associated with in the event of detonation,
and which of three different techniques are best used to clear the mine (disassembly, diffusion, or det-
onation).
(a) What geospatial analysis technique(s) would you employ to generate your maps?
(b) What sorts of symbols would you use to illustrate the pieces of information you have about size
and clearing technique for each mine on the same map? Justify your choices.

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