--- title: Olympiad: maps, directions and clocks ★★★ — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Olympiad: maps, directions and clocks ★★★», a lesson of the geography course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: This olympiad lesson mixes the first lessons of the course - scale, compass points, latitude and longitude, and time zones - i --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/63-olympiad-maps-directions-and-clocks/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Geography](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/) / Olympiad: maps, directions and clocks… # Olympiad: maps, directions and clocks ★★★ Lesson 63 of the geography course of Mova's primary school: 18 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/geography/63-olympiad-maps-directions-and-clocks/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/63-olympiad-maps-directions-and-clocks/0/) — This olympiad lesson mixes the first lessons of the course - scale, compass points, latitude and longitude, and time zones - into puzzles where one careful step after another cracks each one. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/63-olympiad-maps-directions-and-clocks/1/) — Direction puzzles are about turns: a right turn is a quarter turn clockwise, so if you face north and turn right twice you face south, and turning right four times brings you back where you began. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/63-olympiad-maps-directions-and-clocks/2/) — Some puzzles hide a trap in the place: at the North Pole every way you can walk is south, so a house there could have all four walls facing south, and the bear at the window would be a white polar bear. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/63-olympiad-maps-directions-and-clocks/3/) — Clock puzzles need two steps: first add the hours you travelled on your own clock, then change to the clock of the place you land in; mixing up the order is the classic mistake. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/63-olympiad-maps-directions-and-clocks/4/) — Picture your mate from Leeds moaning "Tokyo's like a million hours ahead, innit": the million is just a way of saying "a lot", and in winter the real gap is 9 hours, which you can work out without panic. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/63-olympiad-maps-directions-and-clocks/5/) — A right turn is a quarter turn clockwise: facing north, one right turn faces you east, two face you south and three face you west. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/63-olympiad-maps-directions-and-clocks/6/) — At the North Pole every direction is south, and at the South Pole every direction is north. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/63-olympiad-maps-directions-and-clocks/7/) — In Britain and other lands north of the Tropic of Cancer, the Sun at midday is due south, so your midday shadow points north; in Sydney and other lands south of the Tropic of Capricorn it is the other way round. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/63-olympiad-maps-directions-and-clocks/8/) — On a 1:50,000 map 2 cm stands for 1 km, and on a 1:25,000 map 4 cm stands for 1 km, so the same walk looks twice as long on the 1:25,000 map. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/63-olympiad-maps-directions-and-clocks/9/) — On a grid reference the eastings (along the bottom) come before the northings (up the side), remembered as "along the corridor, then up the stairs". - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/63-olympiad-maps-directions-and-clocks/10/) — One degree of latitude is about 111 km, so going 2 degrees straight north is a journey of about 222 km. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/63-olympiad-maps-directions-and-clocks/11/) — The Earth turns 15 degrees of longitude every hour, so two places 45 degrees apart see local noon 3 hours apart, and the place further east sees it first. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/63-olympiad-maps-directions-and-clocks/12/) — In winter the UK uses GMT, equal to UTC; then New York is 5 hours behind London, Los Angeles 8 hours behind, Beijing 8 hours ahead, Tokyo 9 hours ahead and India 5 and a half hours ahead. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/63-olympiad-maps-directions-and-clocks/13/) — Japan, China and India do not change their clocks in summer, so when the UK moves to British Summer Time the gap to Tokyo shrinks from 9 hours to 8. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/63-olympiad-maps-directions-and-clocks/14/) — Crossing the International Date Line westwards you jump forward one calendar day, and crossing it eastwards you go back one day. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/63-olympiad-maps-directions-and-clocks/15/) — The equator, the Tropic of Cancer, the Tropic of Capricorn and the Arctic Circle are lines of latitude, while the prime meridian at Greenwich and the 180 degree line are lines of longitude. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/63-olympiad-maps-directions-and-clocks/16/) — In the northern hemisphere the Pole Star stands about as many degrees above the horizon as your latitude, and at the equator it sits right on the horizon. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/63-olympiad-maps-directions-and-clocks/17/) — Eratosthenes measured the Earth around 240 BC, Mercator published his world map in 1569, Harrison's H4 watch was tested at sea in 1761, and the Greenwich prime meridian was agreed in 1884. - ← previous: [The River Thames and the Sea Rat's voyage: from Constantinople to the English Channel](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/62-the-river-thames-and-the-sea-rat-s-voyage-from-constantinople-to-the-english-channel/) - next →: [Olympiad: which country am I? ★★★](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/64-olympiad-which-country-am-i/) - ↑ back to [Geography](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/)