GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
Department of History
History of China II 中國歷史  [下 ]  (HIST 123-01)
Preparing for the Spring Map Quiz
updated: 25 Jan 2013

In studying for the spring semester's map quiz, keep at hand at least three things:

  1.  The hand-out labeled "China's Provinces, Regions, and Cities";
  2. A blank map of China, showing the contemporary provincial boundaries, to be used for practice (available on Blackboard, under Course Documents | Maps); and
  3. References: class texts, hand-outs, materials posted on Blackboard, or anything else you can get your hands on. For data such as province and city locations, Wikipedia and GoogleEarth may be considered as reliable.
You are responsible for being able to locate everything listed on the  hand-out: provinces, autonomous regions, capital cities, and other important cities as listed. The most effective strategy might be to learn the provinces first. Once you have done that, learn which cities are located in which provinces. (In grading the quiz, you get partial credit for picking a city in the correct province, even if it's the wrong city.)

On the day of the map quiz (indicated in your syllabus), you will be given a map similar to the blank available on Blackboard. It will have the boundaries of provinces, regions,  and independent municipalities marked, and cities will be indicated by a dot. Each province and city will have a number associated with it.

You will also be given a list of thirty place-names, cited exactly(1) as printed on the initial hand-out, each followed by a blank. Do this for all thirty, even though  can get a 100 by answering only twenty-five correctly.  Next, go through your list of answers and mark the five least secure answers with a question-mark.  An incorrect "secure" response can be partly compensated for by a correct "insecure" response. And, those who get all 30 correct will earn a score of 101.

The main purpose of this exercise is to make sure that you have an active familiarity with the geography of China. Therefore, any student ending up with a grade lower than a certain minimum (announced after the quiz has been corrected) is urged to schedule a make-up quiz. Students can take the make-up as many times as necessary, until the end of reading period. Your retake grade will be multiplied by that announced minimum, taken as a percentage; i.e.,, with an announced minimum of 88, a 100 on the retake gets you a final score of 88, while 88 on the retake gets you a 77.

1That is, the name will be given in the Pinyin transliteration spelling, followed by any alternate spellings (e.g., Wade-Giles or 19th century Post Office) . The test will also show Chinese characters, but you will not get the identifying descriptions of cities or the association of capitals with their provinces.