Lesson Y9-U04-L08

Glacial Deposition and the Lake District Quiz: KS3 Geography, Unit 16

20 questions

Written by Revision Ninja · Last reviewed 11 October 2026

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Lesson Y9-U04-L08, Glacial Deposition and the Lake District: 20 multiple choice questions for the KS3 Geography (National Curriculum), Unit 16: Year 9: Dynamic Landscapes: Tectonics and Ice, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. What is glacial deposition?

    • When a glacier picks up rock and carries it along.
    • When wind blows dust from a desert onto a field.
    • When a glacier melts and drops the rock and soil it was carrying.
    • When a river cuts a deep valley through a mountain, carrying its load down to the sea below.

  2. What usually triggers a glacier to start depositing its load?

    • Heavy rain that washes the rock away.
    • Melting, as the ice loses the energy to carry its load.
    • Freezing, as the ice grows thicker and heavier.
    • Strong winds that blow the glacier upwards.

  3. What is till?

    • Fine dust blown onto the land by the wind.
    • Sorted gravel laid down in layers by a river as it slows across a wide, flat floodplain.
    • An unsorted mix of clay, sand and boulders dropped directly by ice.
    • Hard, solid rock that has never been moved since it first formed deep inside the crust.

  4. Why is till described as unsorted?

    • Till is unsorted because it is always found underwater.
    • Ice sorts material so carefully that nothing is ever mixed, which is why rivers and glaciers look so alike.
    • Till is always made of a single rock type.
    • Ice drops all sizes together; it does not sort material by size like a river.

  5. What is a moraine?

    • A hollow high on a mountain where ice first gathers.
    • A flat plain of sand deposited by the sea.
    • A ridge or mound of till left along or at the end of a glacier.
    • A smooth, egg-shaped hill of rock moulded by a river.

  6. What is an erratic?

    • A large rock carried by ice and left far from where it formed.
    • A ridge of sorted gravel on a flat river plain, built up over many years by flood water.
    • A small pebble that rolls down a river channel and is later dropped on a sandy beach.
    • A hollow that fills with water after a flood.

  7. What is a drumlin?

    • A smooth, egg-shaped hill of till moulded under a moving glacier.
    • A deep hollow high on a mountain, shaped by rivers that fell from the summit in winter.
    • A lake lying in a long valley floor.
    • A sharp ridge of rock formed by plucking, which is left standing after the ice has melted away.

  8. How does a drumlin show the direction the ice was moving?

    • Its shape shows the direction of the Sun's path across the sky.
    • Its steep, blunt end faces the direction the ice came from.
    • Its top is always pointed away from the ice.
    • Its flat end always points towards the nearest sea.

  9. What does an erratic's rock type tell geographers?

    • It shows how old the glacier was in years, measured from the ice cores taken from the valley floor.
    • It shows which river carried the boulder.
    • It points back to the source of the rock, showing the path the ice took.
    • It shows how much rain fell on the valley each year during the whole period of the ice sheet.

  10. Which clue best shows that a jumbled deposit was dropped by ice rather than a river?

    • Pebbles neatly sorted from big to small in layers.
    • Rounded stones spread along a sea beach.
    • Clay, sand and boulders mixed together, unsorted.
    • Fine sand settled into flat layers on a floodplain.

  11. Which region of England was shaped by Ice Age glaciers and has deep lakes in U-shaped valleys?

    • The South Downs.
    • The Lake District.
    • The Norfolk Broads.
    • The Fens.

  12. Which landform is a terminal moraine?

    • A river meander cut off from the main channel.
    • A deep hollow carved by plucking high on a mountain, where snow gathered and then melted away.
    • A stack of rock standing alone in the sea, left behind after the waves wore away the cliff.
    • A ridge of till built across a valley where the glacier snout stayed still.

  13. A low ridge of unsorted material crosses a flat valley floor near a lake. What is it most likely to be?

    • A coral reef in the valley, which grew slowly in the warm shallow water of the lake.
    • A moraine, dropped by the ice at its furthest point.
    • A waterfall that has run dry, leaving a bare rock step in the valley wall.
    • A sand dune built by the wind, drifting slowly across the valley floor each year.

  14. A lone granite boulder sits in a field where the local rock is limestone. What is it, and why is it there?

    • A boulder dropped by a river in the middle of the field.
    • A boulder that grew in place from the limestone over millions of years, so it matches the bedrock.
    • A lump of volcanic rock thrown from a nearby crater during an eruption long before the ice came.
    • An erratic, carried by ice from distant granite hills and dropped on limestone.

  15. Which evidence would best show that the Lake District valley floors were once covered by thick ice?

    • Many small stones on a sea beach, rounded smooth by the waves over thousands of years.
    • Deposited till, erratics and moraine ridges across the valley floor.
    • Thick layers of sorted gravel from river floods, which settled in neat bands across the valley floor.
    • Sand dunes blown inland from the coast.

  16. A pupil says 'the ice melted, so the moraine was eroded'. What is the best correction?

    • Melting removed all rock from the valley and left nothing behind.
    • Melting carved the moraine into a corrie on the mountain.
    • Melting caused deposition: the ice dropped its load and built the moraine.
    • Melting turned the moraine into a river of mud.

  17. Why does a warming climate lead to glacial deposition?

    • The snout melts back faster than ice arrives, so the ice drops its load.
    • Warming stops the ice from moving at all, so nothing is carried.
    • Warmer air freezes the rock solid so it cannot be moved.
    • Warm air makes ice thicker, so it carries more load.

  18. Which pair of landforms are both produced by glacial deposition?

    • Moraine and erratic.
    • Delta and spit.
    • Meander and oxbow lake.
    • Corrie and arete.

  19. Which judgement best evaluates deposition against erosion in shaping today's Lake District?

    • Only deposition matters, because erosion never changes any valley, even one carved by moving ice.
    • Neither matters, since the Lake District was never touched by ice.
    • Both shaped it: erosion carved the valleys, and deposition left the moraines, erratics and drumlins.
    • Only erosion matters, because deposition leaves no evidence at all once the ice has melted away completely.

  20. Why are erratics useful but not perfect evidence of past ice?

    • They point to ice paths, but one boulder can move in other ways, so several lines of evidence are needed.
    • They show only the age of the Sun, not the age of any ice, which is why they tell us nothing at all.
    • They are perfect proof of every glacier's exact speed and depth, so no other evidence is ever needed.
    • They are useless because all boulders are always carried by rivers.

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