Geography · Unit 10
Rocks, Soils and Weathering
What the ground is made of
Three rock types, one cycle, and a set of processes slowly turning any of them into any other. The rock cycle is one of the few genuinely closed loops in geography and repays learning as a loop rather than as a list.
The unit covers igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rock and how each forms, weathering and erosion as distinct processes, how soil develops, and the rocks people quarry and build with.
This unit breaks down into 20 short steps and 120 questions, starting at difficulty 1 and building to 3. Below you can see exactly what it covers, how the path is structured, and worked examples with explanations.
- Steps
- 20
- Questions
- 120
- Difficulty
- 1-3
What this unit covers
- Types of Rock
- Rocks We Use
- Soils
- The Rock Cycle
- Weathering and Erosion
Where this fits
Follows Volcanoes and Earthquakes. Feeds into Mountains and Landforms and into the soil content in Natural Resources.
Where people slip
Weathering breaks rock down in place; erosion moves the pieces. Almost every question that seems to be about one is testing whether you can tell it from the other.
How the unit is structured
Rocks, Soils and Weathering runs as 20 short steps that unlock in order. 15 are practice rounds and 5 are challenge rounds that pull together everything before them. Questions start at difficulty 1 and climb to 3 as you progress.
Challenge rounds
Example questions
30 real questions from this unit, with the answer and the reason behind it, grouped by what they practise. There are 120 in the unit altogether.
Rocks We Use
- Multiple choiceLevel 1
1. Which rock is dug up and burned as a fuel for energy?
- Coalcorrect
- Marble
- Slate
- Granite
Coal is a black sedimentary rock formed from ancient plants and burned as a fossil fuel.
- Build the sentenceLevel 2
2. Build the sentence about groundwater.
Answer: Rain soaks into permeable rock to form groundwater
Rainwater soaks down into permeable rock and is stored underground as groundwater within aquifers.
- Choose all that applyLevel 2
3. Which of these are common environmental problems caused by quarrying? Select all that apply.
- Dust and noise pollutioncorrect
- Loss of wildlife habitatcorrect
- Heavy lorry traffic on local roadscorrect
- An increase in local rainfall
Quarries create dust, noise, heavy traffic and habitat loss; they do not increase the rainfall.
- Fact or fibLevel 2
4. When a quarry closes, it can be restored - for example by flooding it to make a lake, landscaping it as a nature reserve, or filling it as a landfill site.
Answer: True
Old quarries are often reclaimed for recreation, wildlife or waste disposal once extraction has finished.
- Fill the blankLevel 2
5. Rocks that contain enough useful metal to be worth mining are called ____.
- orescorrect
- fossils
- soils
- gems
An ore is a rock rich enough in a metal to be worth extracting, such as iron ore.
- Match the pairsLevel 2
6. Match each rock or mineral to how people use it.
Answer: Slate = Roof tiles; Coal = Fuel for energy; Limestone = Making cement; Iron ore = Making steel
Different rocks and minerals are used for roofing, fuel, cement and making metals.
Soils
- Choose all that applyLevel 1
7. What is soil made of? Choose all that apply.
- Minerals from broken rockcorrect
- Humus from dead plants and animalscorrect
- Watercorrect
- Aircorrect
- Plastic
Soil is a mixture of mineral grains from broken rock, humus, water and air.
- Fill the blankLevel 1
8. The dark, rotted remains of plants and animals in soil are called ____.
- humuscorrect
- lava
- sediment
- marble
Humus is decayed organic matter that makes soil dark and full of nutrients.
- Fact or fibLevel 2
9. Soil can fully form in just a few days.
Answer: False
Soil forms very slowly, often taking hundreds or even thousands of years.
- Multiple choiceLevel 2
10. Loam is a soil that is good for growing plants. It is a mix of sand, silt and what?
- Claycorrect
- Coal
- Salt
- Gold
Loam blends sand, silt and clay, giving it good drainage and plenty of nutrients.
- Sort into groupsLevel 2
11. Sort each soil by how it usually handles water.
Answer: Sandy soil = Free-draining; Chalky soil = Free-draining; Clay soil = Water-retaining; Peaty soil = Water-retaining
Coarse sandy and chalky soils drain freely, while fine clay and organic peaty soils hold on to water.
- Put in orderLevel 3
12. Order the soil horizons from the surface downwards.
Answer: O horizon (organic litter) -> A horizon (topsoil) -> B horizon (subsoil) -> C horizon (weathered parent rock)
A soil profile runs from the organic O horizon at the top, through topsoil (A) and subsoil (B), down to the weathered parent rock (C).
The Rock Cycle
- Build the sentenceLevel 1
13. Build a true sentence about the rock cycle.
Answer: Magma cools to form igneous rock
When magma cools it forms igneous rock.
- Fill the blankLevel 1
14. Small loose pieces of broken rock that pile up in layers are called ____.
- sedimentcorrect
- lava
- humus
- ore
Sediment is broken rock and mineral pieces that can later cement together into sedimentary rock.
- Multiple choiceLevel 1
15. What forms when magma or lava cools and hardens?
- Igneous rockcorrect
- Sedimentary rock
- Soil
- Fossils
When molten magma or lava cools down it hardens into igneous rock.
- Fact or fibLevel 2
16. When a rock is heated enough to melt, it becomes magma, which can later cool into new igneous rock.
Answer: True
Melting turns rock into magma; when that magma cools and crystallises it forms new igneous rock, continuing the rock cycle.
- Guess the numberLevel 2
17. About how old is the Earth, in millions of years?
Answer: 4600 million years
Radiometric dating of the oldest rocks and meteorites gives an Earth age of about 4,600 million years (4.6 billion).
- Put in orderLevel 2
18. Put these steps of the rock cycle in order, starting with molten rock.
Answer: Magma cools and hardens into igneous rock -> Weathering breaks the rock into sediment -> Layers of sediment are pressed into sedimentary rock -> Heat and pressure form metamorphic rock -> The rock melts back into magma
In the rock cycle, rock is made, broken down, buried, changed and melted again in a repeating loop.
Types of Rock
- Fact or fibLevel 1
19. Fossils are most often found in sedimentary rock.
Answer: True
Fossils usually form in sedimentary rock, where remains are buried in soft layers that slowly harden.
- Multiple choiceLevel 1
20. What are the three main types of rock?
- Igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic
- Hot, warm and cold
- Solid, liquid and gas
- Sand, clay and mud
The three main rock groups are igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic.
- Fill the blankLevel 2
21. ____ rocks, such as marble and slate, form when existing rocks are changed by heat and pressure.
- Metamorphiccorrect
- Igneous
- Sedimentary
- Volcanic
Metamorphic rocks form when heat and pressure change other rocks without fully melting them.
- Guess the numberLevel 2
22. How many sides does a typical basalt column at the Giant's Causeway have?
Answer: 6 sides
Most of the cooling-contraction columns are hexagonal, with six sides.
- Odd one outLevel 2
23. Three of these are sedimentary rocks. Which is the odd one out?
- Granitecorrect
- Limestone
- Sandstone
- Chalk
Limestone, sandstone and chalk are sedimentary rocks, but granite is igneous.
- Match the pairsLevel 3
24. Match each metamorphic rock to the rock it formed from.
Answer: Marble = Limestone; Slate = Shale; Quartzite = Sandstone; Gneiss = Granite
Heat and pressure change limestone into marble, shale into slate, sandstone into quartzite, and granite into gneiss.
Weathering and Erosion
- Fact or fibLevel 1
25. Erosion is when broken rock and soil are moved away by water, wind or ice.
Answer: True
Erosion is the transport of weathered material by water, wind, ice or gravity.
- Choose all that applyLevel 2
26. Which of these can erode (carry away) broken rock? Choose all that apply.
- Riverscorrect
- Windcorrect
- Glacierscorrect
- Sunlight
Moving water, wind and ice are all agents of erosion that transport worn rock to new places.
- Fill the blankLevel 2
27. When water freezes in cracks, expands and slowly breaks the rock, it is called ____ weathering.
- freeze-thawcorrect
- chemical
- biological
- coastal
Freeze-thaw is physical weathering, where freezing water widens cracks until pieces of rock break off.
- Multiple choiceLevel 2
28. What is the difference between weathering and erosion?
- Weathering breaks rock apart where it is; erosion carries the pieces awaycorrect
- They mean exactly the same thing
- Weathering only happens to soil, not rock
- Erosion builds brand new mountains from magma
Weathering breaks rock apart where it sits, while erosion carries the broken pieces away.
- Guess the numberLevel 3
29. By about what percentage does water expand in volume when it freezes, helping to shatter rock?
Answer: 9 percent
Water expands by roughly 9 percent as it freezes, and this expansion inside cracks drives freeze-thaw weathering.
- Match the pairsLevel 3
30. Match each weathering process to what it does.
Answer: Freeze-thaw = Water freezes and expands in cracks; Carbonation = Weak acid dissolves limestone; Oxidation = Iron reacts with oxygen and rusts; Biological = Roots and organisms break the rock
Freeze-thaw is physical, carbonation and oxidation are chemical, and root action is biological weathering.
Where these questions come from. Each unit starts as a plan of the concepts it should cover and the difficulty it should span. Questions are written against that plan with AI assistance, then checked by a validator that rejects anything without a single defensible answer, an explanation, or plausible wrong options. How we write questions sets out the whole process, and corrections are fixed in the bank and reach the site and the app the same day.
How you practise
This unit mixes 17 different question formats, so you are recalling and applying rather than recognising the same layout every time.
- Build the sentence
- Choose all that apply
- Fact or fib
- Fill the blank
- Guess the number
- Listen and choose
- Match the pairs
- Multiple choice
- Odd one out
- Picture question
- Put in order
- Sequence recall
- Sort into groups
- Spell it
- Tap the pairs
- True or false
- Type the answer
Practise Rocks, Soils and Weathering
120 questions across 20 steps. Start with step one and crawl at your own pace.
Play this unitRead about Rocks, Soils and Weathering
Explainers from our blog on what this unit covers. Each one ends with real questions from the bank.
- How the Rock Cycle Changes Earth's MaterialsThe rock cycle connects igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks through melting, cooling, weathering, burial and heat. Any rock type can change when conditions around it change.August 8, 2026 · 5 min read
- How Waterfalls Form: Erosion, Rock Layers, and RetreatLearn how waterfalls form when rivers cross resistant and softer rock, how erosion creates a plunge pool, and why waterfalls often retreat upstream.August 13, 2026 · 5 min read
More units in Geography
- Our PlanetThe Earth, continents and oceans
- Continents and OceansThe seven continents and five oceans
- Map SkillsReading and using maps
- Rivers and WaterRivers, the water cycle and flooding
- Mountains and LandformsHow the land is shaped
- Volcanoes and EarthquakesPlate tectonics and natural hazards
- Weather and ClimateThe atmosphere, weather and climate
- Climate Zones and BiomesEcosystems around the world