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Required materials: You will require a pencil, ruler, protractor, calculator and string. No borrowing of equipment will be permitted.

The following is a re-ordered list from the assessment notification from Rod.

Direction related concepts:

Direction (NESW – trick what direction is A from B – ie get start point right)
Aspect of a slope (compass direction in which the slope is running down. Aspect is the direction you run when you run down the hill! Easy.)
Bearings (North is 0 degrees, clockwise around. Be careful if it is >180 degrees)
Latitude (horizontal lines on the map, parrallels)
Longitude (vertical lines on the map, meridians)

Mapping observations

Scale (1:100,000 is a smaller scale than 1:10. Just think of them as fractions: 1/100,000 is a smaller number than 1/10 and is therefore a smaller scale)
Grid references (these are 6 numbers from bottom left. Area refs are 4 numbers (Easy way to remember: A (for area) is before G (for grid) in the alphabet, so Area is the one with only 4 not 6 numbers – ie it is smaller)
Gradient (1:run/rise, ensure in same unit. Trick is to make sure units the same, and express as 1:x).
Local relief (max height difference over interval. Trick, give the unit for the measurement, ie 7 m)
Reading a map key (scale, landforms etc)
Map features: Identifying types of map features including landforms (hills, river, where a cliff is (which is where contour lines join))

Mapping calculations

VE: Vertical Exaggeration (vert scale/horiz scale, ie 1cm:40m / 1cm:1,000m) trick: make sure scales are expressed same units ie cm/m etc. VE is a number, and has no units.
Cross Sections: Constructing Cross Sections (line between two points, scrap paper, mark, be careful of contour loops, mark high and low and ends, slide up and down and mark, smooth lines between points)
Area: Calculating Area (small squares 100m x 100m and count how many >50% full)
Density: Determining the density of a specific feature in a map (count how many and be careful of scale, ie 5/sq km)

Calculating Distance/Time: calculate minutes per km, then multiple by km to travel. Typically given a distance and time, and another distance.

Weather

Seasons (ie hotter in summer etc)
Wind speed and direction (speed is marked with the barbs on the tail, and is classified by where it comes from – ie a southerly blows from the south. Wind speed higher where isobars are close together on a weather map.)
Wind direction (anticlockwise around highs, clockwise around lows, unless marked. ie follows the line of the isobar)
Weather forecasting (everything moves east at 1,000 per day (a qtr of Australia/day).
Rain: caused by lows, cold fronts and orographic rain
Highs: stable, no cloud, no rain
Lows: unstable, rain, cloud