Summer vacation is the busiest season for New Oriental teachers. Many of my colleagues choose to take a trip after a summer vacation. This year, I’m thinking of going to Egypt. So I bought a map of Egypt from the almighty Taobao to plan my trip. I’d like to consider myself a pro inusing maps for I am, as mentioned before, ex-military. Today I’ll tell you howto make full use a MAP.
1. Paper Map vs.Electronic Map
Things I like about a paper map
Reliable
Electronic maps might sometimes become useless due to low electricity, weak signal, technic errors, andphysical damages; or simply because of being stolen. On the contrary, a paper map can never go wrong, and no one would bother to steal it. The only reasonable concern is about physical damages, which can be easily solved by coating your map with adhesive tapes. Such treatment would not only strength the map makingit highly durable, but also waterproof it.
Customizable
Your own handwritings are much more recognizable (one of the obvious reason is that they are usually bigger in size) to yourself than standard printed alphabets on the map. You can mark the checkpoints, destinations and highlight the routes on the mapwith your favorite colors so that it is much easier for you to locate and to target.
Collectable
One of my friends have travelled almost all over China, as well as many exotic destinations. He now possesses a huge collection of maps of the places he has travelled to. It’s a unique way to memorize the trips and the joy.
Advantages of electronic maps
Up-to–date
I have installed 3 electronic maps on my mobile phone. Every so often they send me notices reminding me of available new updates. Some of the updates are about the applications themselves, others are just new data. Paper maps, however, are published once ayear (or a few years). What is a park on the map might has already been replacedby a shopping mall.
User-friendly
It’s much easier to use electronic maps than to use paper ones. Simply keying in your destination, you can then leave it to your mobile device. Not only does the map automatically plan and design the route for you and show it on the screen, but also it instructs you step by step with voice messages to make sure you arrive at your destination. What’s more, it tells you the distance from your current positionto the place you wish to go to and the estimated time and costs depending on different means of transportation to your preference.
2. How to use a map
Electronic map
Launch the map application, slide on the GPS function so that the map can locate your current position. Then key in your destination and choose a way of transportation.
If you choose to walk, the map would plan and showa route on the screen along with a red dot representing you. Simply follow the instructions!
For a bus tour, the map would provide youa list of all available buses nearby.
And if you wish to take taxi, the map would tell you the distance, the estimated time and cost. It might activate another app on your device to help you call a cab.
Paper map
Usually I use a paper map whenI travel to a new place. I would buy a map a week or two prior to the trip and start to do preps on it.
Initially, I’d manually update the map with a marker if necessary. How? Google it!
Coming up, I’d locate and highlight some important checkpointson the map: A) KFCs and McDonalds—to answer nature calls; B) Hospitals—especiallywhen travelling to a place where the local climate or eating habits are verydifferent from my home city; C) Police stations—just in case you need a shelter(but under some circumstances you should try to stay away from it).
The next thing I’d pinpoint the hotel I’ll stay at and the places I’d like to visit and then highlight the route on the map.
Moving on, I’d cut out the area which covers all the checkpoints and destinations from the map and leave alone theuseless part. And if it is still large, I’ll divide it into pieces.
The last thing to do is to waterproof it with adhesive tapes as I mentioned above.
MAP is a new topic to IELTS SPEAKING exam, so there are only few questions being reported by candidates so far. But what I wrote above should be enough for you to handle most of the possible questions under this topic. Good luck!