Lesson Y8-U02-L10

Y8-U02-L10 Coastal Fieldwork Enquiry: Investigating a Beach Quiz: KS3 Geography, Unit 8

20 questions

Written by Revision Ninja · Last reviewed 11 October 2026

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Lesson Y8-U02-L10, Coastal Fieldwork Enquiry: Investigating a Beach: 20 multiple choice questions for the KS3 Geography (National Curriculum), Unit 8: Year 8: Coasts: A Changing Landscape, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. What is a geographical enquiry?

    • A planned investigation that answers a question using evidence
    • A map showing the height of the land, with contour lines drawn across it
    • A list of facts copied from a textbook, with no new evidence gathered
    • A guess about a place made without any data, based only on a hunch

  2. What is the first stage of a geographical enquiry?

    • Collecting the data on the beach
    • Writing the conclusion
    • Evaluating how reliable the enquiry was
    • Asking a geographical question

  3. What is primary data?

    • Data that is always written as words
    • Data that only a scientist is allowed to collect
    • Data copied from someone else's report
    • Data you collect yourself, first-hand, on the beach

  4. What is quantitative data?

    • Data written as opinions, such as 'the pebbles look big'
    • Data describing the mood of people on the beach
    • Data showing where each pebble lies on a map
    • Data written as numbers, such as pebble size in millimetres

  5. What is a sample in fieldwork?

    • A small group measured to stand for the whole beach
    • A map that shows the whole beach at once
    • The biggest pebbles picked out for measuring
    • A list of every pebble on the beach

  6. How do you work out the mean of a set of readings?

    • Find the most common reading in the set, the one that appears most often
    • Add the readings together and divide by how many readings there are
    • Multiply the readings together and then take the square root of the total
    • Subtract the smallest reading from the largest, to find the spread of the set

  7. On a bar graph, what goes up the side (the y-axis)?

    • The date when the fieldwork took place
    • The name of the geographer who took the readings
    • The measured value and its unit
    • The place or spot being measured

  8. Which method is used to measure beach steepness?

    • Timing the tide with a stopwatch
    • Counting the number of people on the beach
    • Weighing the sand in a bag
    • Measuring the angle in degrees

  9. What is a suitable method for measuring pebble size?

    • Timing how long the tide takes to turn
    • Counting the number of people on the beach
    • Measuring with a ruler in millimetres
    • Asking a passer-by for their opinion

  10. Four pebbles measure 12, 18, 22 and 28 mm. What is the mean size?

    • 80 mm
    • 22 mm
    • 18 mm
    • 20 mm

  11. Three pebbles measure 9, 15 and 30 mm. What is the mean size?

    • 18 mm
    • 15 mm
    • 19 mm
    • 54 mm

  12. A pupil picks only the biggest pebbles to measure. What is the problem?

    • Nothing, because the biggest pebbles are always the most typical
    • The sample is biased, so it does not represent the whole beach
    • The pebbles are too big to fit in a collecting bag
    • The sample is too small to be measured with a ruler

  13. Pebble sizes at three spots are 42 mm at the top, 28 mm in the middle and 16 mm at the bottom. What pattern is shown?

    • Pebbles get smaller from the top of the beach to the bottom
    • The middle spot has the biggest pebbles on the beach
    • Pebble size stays the same at every spot
    • Pebbles get bigger from the top of the beach to the bottom

  14. Why would a bar graph be used to compare the mean pebble sizes at three spots?

    • Bars show the direction of the wave at each spot, from the sea to the land
    • Bars show the exact shape of each pebble at each spot, measured by hand
    • Bars record the names of the geographers who measured the pebbles on site
    • Taller bars show bigger values, so the pattern is easy to see at a glance

  15. Which question about Chesil Beach can be answered with fieldwork data?

    • Why do so many people visit Chesil Beach on holiday each summer season?
    • Do the pebbles get smaller from the top of the beach to the bottom?
    • Which pebble on Chesil Beach looks the nicest to a visitor on holiday?
    • What is the best colour for a beach towel to bring to Chesil Beach?

  16. A pupil measures 10 pebbles with a total length of 250 mm. What is the mean size?

    • 10 mm
    • 25 mm
    • 240 mm
    • 250 mm

  17. Why is measuring at three spots stronger evidence than measuring at only one spot?

    • Three spots mean measuring three times as many pebbles of the same type on one beach
    • Three spots show whether the pattern holds across the beach, so one unusual spot cannot mislead
    • Three spots remove the need for any sampling method at all, since each is complete
    • Three spots always give identical numbers, so one spot would be enough to decide

  18. Evaluate one problem that could make beach data less reliable.

    • Measuring on a different day or at a different tide could change the results, so conditions should be similar
    • Ruler measurements are always correct, so nothing can go wrong with the readings taken on the day
    • Using a ruler means the data cannot be quantitative, so the results count for nothing overall
    • A bar graph always shows false results, because the bars exaggerate every single difference

  19. Why might a single reading be misleading?

    • A single reading always equals the mean of the whole beach
    • A single reading cannot be written as a number
    • One reading may be unusual, so it does not represent the whole beach
    • A single reading is the same as a sample of ten pebbles

  20. Can the conclusion of a fieldwork enquiry be trusted?

    • Always, because a bar graph proves the answer, so the enquiry needs nothing more
    • Always, because any data collected at the beach is correct, whatever the method used
    • Never, because beaches cannot be studied with data, so no conclusion can be drawn
    • Only if the method was fair and the sample was large enough to represent the beach

All KS3 Geography quizzes