Meaning of continents

[Ilia]

English Grammar Tests, Elementary Level

ESL/EFL Test #123 "Real Life: Geography (1)", question 1

There are ......... continents in the world.

(a) six
(b) seven
(c) ten
(d) four

English Grammar Tests, Elementary Level

ESL/EFL Test #123 "Real Life: Geography (1)", answer 1

There are seven continents in the world.

Correct answer: (b) seven
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continents

Ilia

[Mister Micawber]

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Do you have a DICTIONARY?
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Native English teacher at Mister Micawber's

[Planta]

1]Asia, 2]Africa, 3]North America, 4]South America, 5]Antarctica, 6]Europe and 7]Australia
Dearest from English-Test,

This question can actually be tricky and you may get complaints from people who use their local knowledge on Geography (and who really care about scores, anyways...) Beware, as this "local" may be sometimes continent-wide.

On Wikipedia's article about continents, there is an interesting section concerning the different numbers of continents according to different conventions of groupings or subdivisions.
There we learn, for example, that the 7-continent model is the one taught in China and in most English-speaking countries - this website's standard, I presume ;o) - but that the 6-continent combined-Americas one is rather popular (not to mention if one decides to rule out Antarctica)

I for one was educated in Brazil with an 8-continent model (the 7 plus a "Central America"), and couldn't care less about scores, so, this is more of a warning than a complaint ;o)

Inter-continental cheers!
Planta

[Rguerrero]

Hi Planta, thanks for your link.
I'm from Chile and I learnt a continental model with just one America, but normally we understand the 3-Americas concept (Central America: from Panama to Mexico) too.
The model with both North & South America continents is a bit strange for us, similar to both Eastern & Western Asia continents, i.e., very strange!...
A note: We give a poethic name to Australasia: Oceanía.
Any way, until today I thougth that all the people around the world used the same model, so thanks!
Bye

RG

[Maxmax]

In countries of former Soviet Union (Belarus, Russia, Ukraine etc.) it's used six-continents model, where North America and South America are separate continents, but Europe and Asia are one continent - Eurasia. It's natural thing, geographically thinking: continent - is a big separate mass of land surrounded by continental shelf. Neither Europe, nor Asia correspond to this definition.

[Cranberry]

I can't but agree with the last post. In geography continent is a large land mass surrounded by water (They are Australia, Africa, Eurasia, North and South America, and Antarctica). Meanwhile there are 6 parts of the world, which were marked out according to historical, biological, political, demographic conditions. These are Asia, Australia, Africa, Europe, America, and Antarctica (and sometimes the islands of the southern part of the Pacific ocean are combined in a separate part - Oceania.
Due to the differences in countries' educational approaches this question is inappropriate.