Method. Take the weather box from the same newspaper at the same time every day for fourteen days — the same source each day, so the readings are comparable. Copy out the five elements of weather the chapter has just taught you, because those are what the report actually prints.
| Column to keep | What to write in it |
|---|---|
| Date | Day 1 to Day 14 |
| Maximum and minimum temperature (°C) | Both numbers — the difference between them is the day's range |
| Humidity (%) | Usually given for morning and evening |
| Rainfall (mm) | Write 0 on a dry day, not a blank — a zero is a reading too |
| Wind | Direction it blows from, and speed in km/hr |
| Sky condition | Clear, partly cloudy, overcast, foggy |
What a good answer must contain. The table alone is not the answer — the observations you draw from it are. Look for, and write down:
- The highest and lowest maximum temperature of the fortnight, and the difference between them.
- Whether temperature fell on the days it rained — the chapter says rain lowers the temperature of a place, so this is a claim you can test yourself.
- Whether high humidity went with cloudy or rainy days, and low humidity with clear ones.
- Whether the sky was cloudy and wet when pressure was low and clear and sunny when it was high — again, the chapter's own claim on page 45.
- Whether the wind blew from roughly the same direction for most days. A steady direction over a fortnight is a hint of the season's prevailing wind.
Sample answer: 'Over the fourteen days the maximum temperature ranged from 31°C to 38°C, a spread of 7°C. It rained on three days — Days 4, 5 and 11. On each of those days the maximum was 3 to 4°C lower than on the day before, and the morning humidity rose above 80%, while on the clear days it stayed near 55%. The sky was overcast on all three rainy days and clear on the eight hottest days. The wind blew from the south-west on eleven of the fourteen days. Conclusion: weather changed a great deal from day to day, exactly as the chapter says, but the changes were not random — temperature, humidity, cloud and rain moved together, and the steady south-westerly wind showed that the whole fortnight belonged to one season.'