Well i dont want to play the smart guy, but i think you are doing something wrong.
What kind of flight are you doing, IFR , VFR, are you using a flight plan?
If not you are flying into control tower airports or simple airports?
When you contact an airport with control tower what he tells you, is which runway and kind of landing pattern in use.Lets supose you are coming from the west and the airport is using rwy 27 left pattern, if you come from the right he will only clear you to land when you are 45 deg. letf or right fom the end rwy. So you need to know where you are. If you are using a regular airport , maybe not the case, bcoz you say they cleared you to land, you need to report your position. IN a IFR flight plan they will vector you to the rwy even if you are using ILS.
I hope it helped i never saw ATC mess up like that.Try to use the map to see where you are, and your heading indicator to see position of the runway
Cheers
