With the advancement of curriculum reform and college entrance examination reform, secondary school geography teaching and academic quality assessment increasingly emphasize the use of complex contexts. Students face certain cognitive challenges when solving problems in complex contexts. Based on cognitive load theory, this study systematically analyzes the sources of cognitive load at various stages of the problem-solving process in complex geographical contexts and designs a measurement scale. The study explores strategies for optimizing cognitive load from three aspects: learning before problemsolving, strategy application during problem-solving, and refl ection on the problem-solving process. This study provides a reference for secondary school geography teaching and academic quality assessment.