🧭 Chart Your Course: Mastering Bearings & Scale Drawings!

Bearings and scale drawings are vital in navigation, map-reading, and real-world planning. **Understanding how to describe direction accurately and represent large distances on paper** equips you with skills tested in O Level exams and used by engineers, pilots, and architects.

Core Concepts: Bearings & Scales

A bearing is a three-figure angle measured clockwise from the north line, e.g.

035^\circ

. A scale drawing shrinks real-world distances by a constant factor so they fit on paper. **Always write bearings with three digits** and **keep the same units when applying a scale**.

Bearings range from $000^\circ$ (North) to $359^\circ$ .
Common map scales include $1\!:\!50\,000$ (1 cm represents 50 000 cm = 500 m).

Worked Example: Ship to Lighthouse

Problem: A ship S is 12 km from a lighthouse L on a bearing of

060^\circ

. Draw a scale diagram using a scale of

1\!:\!200\,000

and find the ship’s coordinates on your diagram.

Step 1:
$\text{Map distance} = \frac{\text{actual distance}}{\text{scale}} = \frac{12\,\text{km}}{200\,000} = 0.06\,\text{km} = 6\,\text{cm}$
Step 2: From point L, draw a ray $060^\circ$ clockwise from north and mark 6 cm along it to locate S.

Practice drawing neat, labelled diagrams and checking that your bearings have three digits. **Consistent practice will boost accuracy and exam confidence**—so grab a protractor and ruler, and start plotting!