Geography Mixed Quiz: Set 11

The correct answer is B, 181. There are 90 parallels in the northern hemisphere, 90 in the southern hemisphere and the equator itself, which belongs to neither, making 181 in all. Note that the poles are points rather than circles, although they are counted as the ninetieth parallel in each hemisphere.

Option A, 180, is what you get by forgetting the equator, and it is the commonest mistake in this question. Option C, 360, is the number of meridians at one degree intervals, 180 to the east and 180 to the west of the Prime Meridian, and option D, 361, mixes the two counts together. Keep the pair straight: 181 parallels and 360 meridians. The reason for the difference is that a meridian runs only from pole to pole and its opposite half is counted separately, while a parallel is a complete circle on its own.

The correct answer is A, Two. Because of the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun, together with the centrifugal effect of the earth's rotation, most coasts see the sea rise and fall twice in a day. The moon's pull raises a bulge of water on the side of the earth facing it and another on the opposite side, and as the earth turns a place passes through both bulges in about twenty-four hours. These are called semi-diurnal tides, and successive high tides come about twelve hours and twenty-five minutes apart. Option B is wrong because no shore gets three tidal cycles in a day. Option C is wrong because four counts the individual tides — two high and two low — while the rise-and-fall cycle itself happens twice. Option D is wrong because a single daily high and low, called a diurnal tide, occurs only on a few coasts such as parts of the Gulf of Mexico. Exam tip: spring tides come at full moon and new moon when sun and moon pull in line, and neap tides at the quarters.

The correct answer is B, the Lehmann discontinuity. It marks the change from the molten outer core to the solid inner core, and is named after Inge Lehmann, who deduced from the behaviour of earthquake waves that the innermost part of the planet is solid.

Option A, the Repetti discontinuity, lies far above it, between the upper and the lower mantle. Option C, the Moho or Mohorovicic discontinuity, is the crust and mantle boundary and is the shallowest of the named surfaces after the Conrad. Option D, the Conrad discontinuity, lies within the crust itself, dividing its upper and lower parts. Candidates lose this mark by learning only two names, so list all five from the surface downward: Conrad, Moho, Repetti, Gutenberg and Lehmann, and attach one depth to the list, the 2,900 kilometres of the Gutenberg surface, since that figure anchors every other layer in the diagram.

The correct answer is D, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal. According to Census 2011, these were India's four most populous states in exactly this order. Uttar Pradesh had about 19.98 crore people, which was 16.5 per cent of India's total population of about 121 crore. Maharashtra came second with about 11.24 crore, Bihar third with about 10.41 crore and West Bengal fourth with about 9.13 crore. The ranking by density is different: Bihar was the most densely populated state, with 1,106 persons per square kilometre, followed by West Bengal. The least populous state was Sikkim, with about 6.1 lakh people. Option A is wrong because it puts Bihar above Maharashtra. Option B is wrong because it puts West Bengal in second place, when it was fourth. Option C is wrong because it puts West Bengal above Bihar. Exam tip: Census 2011 top four by population are UP, Maharashtra, Bihar and West Bengal; by density, Bihar comes first.

The correct answer is C, Hindan. The Hindan rises in the Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh, flows south past Ghaziabad and joins the Yamuna near Greater Noida, on its left bank. The Yamuna is the longest tributary of the Ganga; it rises at the Yamunotri glacier and meets the Ganga at Prayagraj. Its left-bank tributaries, such as the Hindan, the Rind and the Sengar, come from the plains between the Yamuna and the Ganga. Its right-bank tributaries come from the south, from the Malwa plateau and Bundelkhand. Option A is wrong because the Chambal, which flows through the ravines of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, joins the Yamuna from the right. Option B is wrong because the Ken, which flows through Panna in Madhya Pradesh, is a right-bank tributary. Option D is wrong because the Betwa, rising near Bhopal, also joins the Yamuna from the right, near Hamirpur. Exam tip: Yamuna right bank: Chambal, Sind, Betwa, Ken; left bank: Hindan, Rind, Sengar.

The correct answer is B, Meghalaya. Shillong is the capital of Meghalaya, the hill state whose name means abode of the clouds. Meghalaya was carved out of Assam and became a full state on 21 January 1972, the same day as Manipur and Tripura. Before that, Shillong had been the capital of undivided Assam, and its pine hills and cool weather earned it the name Scotland of the East. The state is home to the Khasi, Garo and Jaintia hills, and Mawsynram and Cherrapunji (Sohra) in the Khasi hills are among the wettest places on Earth. A is wrong because the capital of Tripura is Agartala. C is wrong because the capital of Nagaland is Kohima. D is wrong because Assam moved its capital from Shillong to Dispur, in Guwahati, after Meghalaya was formed. Exam tip: Shillong = Meghalaya, Kohima = Nagaland, Agartala = Tripura, Dispur = Assam, Imphal = Manipur, Aizawl = Mizoram, Itanagar = Arunachal Pradesh.

The correct answer is C, about 111 kilometres. The circumference of the earth along a meridian is close to 40,000 kilometres, and dividing that by 360 degrees gives roughly 111 kilometres for one degree of latitude. Because the angle is measured at the centre of the earth, this figure holds almost everywhere from the equator to the poles.

Option A, 51 kilometres, and option B, 88 kilometres, are distances between meridians at high latitudes, since meridians draw closer together as they approach the poles; at the equator the gap between two meridians is also about 111 kilometres, and it falls to zero at the poles. Option D, 150 kilometres, has no basis. A useful related figure is that one minute of latitude equals one nautical mile, that is 1,852 metres, which is why sailors measure distance in nautical miles.

The correct answer is D, Bolivia. A landlocked country has no coastline on an open sea or ocean. South America has only two such countries, Bolivia and Paraguay. Bolivia once had a Pacific coast, but it lost that coastal province to Chile in the War of the Pacific (1879–1884) and has been landlocked ever since. It still keeps a navy, which patrols Lake Titicaca, the lake it shares with Peru and one of the highest navigable lakes in the world. La Paz is the seat of government, while Sucre is the constitutional capital. Option A is wrong because Uruguay lies on the Atlantic coast, and its capital Montevideo stands on the Rio de la Plata estuary. Option B is wrong because Suriname has an Atlantic coastline in the north of the continent, with Paramaribo as its port capital. Option C is wrong because Peru has a long Pacific coast, with Lima and the port of Callao. Exam tip: South America’s two landlocked countries are Bolivia and Paraguay.

The correct answer is A, an intrusive igneous rock. Granite forms when magma cools slowly deep below the surface, which gives the crystals time to grow, so the rock is coarse and speckled. Such rocks are also called plutonic, and granite is the classic example used in textbooks.

Option B, extrusive igneous rock, describes lava that cools quickly on the surface, giving fine-grained rocks such as basalt and the frothy pumice that floats on water. Option C, chemically formed sedimentary rock, covers rock salt and gypsum, deposited when mineral-rich water evaporates. Option D, foliated metamorphic rock, covers banded rocks such as gneiss and schist; gneiss is in fact what granite becomes after metamorphism. So one rock name can move between families, and the process named in the question decides the answer.

The correct answer is A, North Sea. Both rivers flow north-west across the plains of Europe and end in the North Sea. The Rhine rises in the Swiss Alps, forms part of the borders of Switzerland, Germany and France, flows through Germany and enters the sea through the Netherlands, where Rotterdam, Europe's busiest port, stands at its mouth. The Elbe rises in the Czech Republic, flows through Germany past Dresden and reaches the North Sea below Hamburg, another major port. Because of these river ports, the North Sea coast is one of the busiest shipping zones in the world. Option B is wrong because the Mediterranean receives rivers such as the Rhone, the Ebro and the Nile. Option C is wrong because the Adriatic, an arm of the Mediterranean between Italy and the Balkans, receives the Po. Option D is wrong because the Black Sea receives the Danube, the Dnieper and the Dniester. Exam tip: Rhine and Elbe to the North Sea; Danube to the Black Sea; Rhone to the Mediterranean; Po to the Adriatic.

The correct answer is B, 6:30 in the morning. Indian Standard Time is the local time of 82 degrees 30 minutes east. Multiplying 82.5 degrees by four minutes gives 330 minutes, that is five hours and thirty minutes, and since India lies east of Greenwich its clock is ahead by that much. Subtracting five and a half hours from 12 noon leaves 6:30 am.

Option A, 5:30 am, would follow from an offset of six and a half hours, which belongs to no Indian meridian. Options C and D place Greenwich ahead of India, reversing the rule that places to the east see the sun first and therefore run ahead. The direction is the part most often lost in the exam hall, so fix it with a simple sentence: east is ahead, west is behind. The same calculation in reverse tells you that noon at Greenwich is 5:30 in the evening in India.

The correct answer is A, Canada and the United States of America. Their boundary, about 8,891 km long including the Alaska section, is the longest border between any two countries. It has two parts: about 6,400 km along the southern edge of Canada, much of it along the 49th parallel west of the Great Lakes and through the lakes themselves, and about 2,475 km between Alaska and Canada's Yukon and British Columbia. It is often called the world's longest undefended border and is looked after by the International Boundary Commission. Option D is wrong, though close: the Kazakhstan–Russia border, about 7,600 km, is the longest continuous land border. Option B is wrong because the Chile–Argentina border along the Andes, about 5,300 km, comes third. Option C is wrong because the China–India border is about 3,488 km. Exam tip: Canada–USA is the longest overall, Kazakhstan–Russia the longest continuous land border; India's longest border is with Bangladesh, 4,096 km.

The correct answer is B, the shadow zone. The core bends P waves sharply and stops S waves altogether, so a belt of the Earth surface receives neither type of wave from a given earthquake. Beyond about 105 degrees no S waves arrive at all, and the belt between roughly 105 and 145 degrees receives no P waves either.

Option A, the focus or hypocentre, is the point inside the Earth where the rupture begins, with the epicentre lying vertically above it on the surface. Option C, the Benioff zone, is the inclined belt of earthquakes along a subducting plate, a term from plate tectonics. Option D, a fault zone, is the fractured belt along which rocks slip, the setting of an earthquake rather than a record of one. This question is asked almost every year, so the two angle figures are worth memorising exactly.

The correct answer is D, 1, 2 and 3. All three statements are true. Statement 1: the size of an eruption is rated on the Volcanic Explosivity Index, a scale from 0 to 8 based on the volume of material thrown out and the height of the eruption column; each step up means roughly ten times more material. Statement 2: Iceland sits on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge where two plates move apart, and the Philippines lies on the Pacific Ring of Fire, so both were built by volcanic activity. Statement 3: volcanic ash and lava weather into deep, mineral-rich soils, which is why Java in Indonesia supports dense farming and the Deccan's black soil, formed from basalt lava, grows cotton so well. A is wrong, because it leaves out statement 3, which is true. B is wrong, because it drops statement 1, and the index is the standard measure. C is wrong, because it drops statement 2, though both Iceland and the Philippines are volcanic. Exam tip: VEI runs from 0 to 8; Iceland sits on a ridge, the Philippines on the Ring of Fire; basalt gives black soil.

The correct answer is B. Every meridian runs from the North Pole to the South Pole, so all meridians are semicircles of the same length and all of them converge at the two poles. That is exactly what distinguishes them from parallels.

Option A describes parallels, not meridians: parallels are full circles that never meet. Option C is wrong in both directions, since meridians are equal in length and it is the distance between them, not the meridians themselves, that changes; the gap is widest at the equator at about 111 kilometres and falls to zero at the poles. Option D is a near miss that examiners like: a single meridian is only half a circle, and it is a meridian taken together with its opposite meridian that forms a complete great circle. The equator, by contrast, is a great circle on its own.

The correct answer is B, North Atlantic Ocean. The Sargasso Sea lies in the middle of the North Atlantic and is the only sea in the world with no coastline. Instead of land, it is bounded by four ocean currents that circle clockwise around it: the Gulf Stream on the west, the North Atlantic Current on the north, the Canary Current on the east and the North Atlantic Equatorial Current on the south. Because it sits in the calm centre of this gyre, its water is warm, clear and very salty. It is named after sargassum, a brown seaweed that floats on its surface in huge mats, and it is the breeding ground of the American and European eels. Option A is wrong because the Arctic Ocean lies around the North Pole, far from this sea. Option C is wrong because the Sargasso Sea is north of the equator, not in the South Atlantic. Option D is wrong because the Indian Ocean is on the other side of Africa. Exam tip: Sargasso Sea means North Atlantic, no coastline, walled by currents, named after floating seaweed.

The correct answer is B, the asthenosphere. It lies in the upper mantle just below the rigid outer shell, is weak and partly molten, and is the main source of the magma that reaches the surface through volcanoes; the plates slide over it.

Option A, the lithosphere, is that rigid outer shell itself, made of the crust plus the solid uppermost mantle, and it is what the plates are made of rather than what they move on. Option C, the barysphere, is an older term for the heavy central part of the Earth, that is the core. Option D, the biosphere, is the zone of life where land, water and air meet, and has nothing to do with the interior. The pair lithosphere and asthenosphere is the trap here, so fix the idea that the rigid one rides on the weak one.

The correct answer is B, Mirzapur, in Uttar Pradesh. The meridian of 82 degrees 30 minutes east passes near this town, and its local time is kept as Indian Standard Time across the whole country.

Option A, Nagpur, is often chosen because the city is known as being near the geographical centre of the country, but the standard meridian does not run through it. Option C, Jabalpur, and option D, Kanpur, are other central Indian towns offered to confuse the candidate. The meridian was chosen because it runs through the middle of the country in terms of longitude, so that the difference between the clock and the sun stays within roughly an hour at either end, even though India spans nearly 30 degrees of longitude from the Rann of Kachchh in the west to Arunachal Pradesh in the east.

The correct answer is A, graphite. Coal is a sedimentary rock formed from buried plant matter, and prolonged heat and pressure drive off its volatile content and rearrange the carbon, first into harder anthracite and finally into graphite, a metamorphic rock of nearly pure carbon.

Option B, slate, is the metamorphic form of shale or clay, not of coal. Option C, quartzite, comes from sandstone and is among the hardest common rocks. Option D, gneiss, comes from granite and shows alternate light and dark bands. Note also that graphite and diamond are both carbon, which is why this question sometimes appears in general science as an example of allotropes. The list of parent and product pairs is short, so learning it once settles several questions across subjects.

The correct answer is B, Bhopal. Bhopal stands at about 23.3° North, so of the four cities it lies nearest to the 24° parallel. Bhopal is the capital of Madhya Pradesh, and the Tropic of Cancer, at 23½° North, runs across the state just to the north of the city, which is why this belt of latitude is linked with Bhopal in examinations. A is wrong because Patna, the capital of Bihar, lies near 25.6° North, more than one and a half degrees away. C is wrong because Raipur, the capital of Chhattisgarh, lies near 21.2° North, almost three degrees to the south. D is wrong because Dispur, the capital of Assam, lies near 26.1° North and is the farthest of the four from the given latitude. One degree of latitude is about 111 km on the ground, so these differences are large. Exam tip: the Tropic of Cancer crosses eight states — Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura and Mizoram.