Counting an Archipelago: teacher key

Japan, grade 12 edition, written for 12th grade and up. The islands, the shaking ground, the seasons and the long history of Japan, told with the dates and the numbers.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. About how many islands did the 2023 count give for Japan?
   • 6,852
   • 14,125 (answer)
   • 111
2. What starts a tsunami?
   • A typhoon
   • A rainy season
   • A big undersea earthquake that moves the sea floor (answer)
3. Why can places farther from a quake's start get more warning time?
   • The slower, stronger S-wave arrives later there (answer)
   • Quakes stop at the coast
   • The ground is flatter
4. What did Kyoto's old cherry-blossom records let researchers do?
   • Count the trees
   • Measure rainfall in winter
   • Reconstruct March temperatures from long ago (answer)
5. What are katakana taken from?
   • Whole kanji in cursive
   • Parts of more complex kanji (answer)
   • Latin letters
6. Who is designated Prime Minister?
   • A member of the Diet, by a resolution of the Diet (answer)
   • Whoever the Emperor picks
   • The oldest voter

Words

• monsoon: seasonal wind
• tsunami: sea wave
• shogun: military ruler
• katakana: Japanese script
• Diet: Japan's parliament