Geography Mixed Quiz: Set 30

The correct answer is C, Mautam. Melocanna baccifera, the muli bamboo, covers large tracts of Mizoram and the neighbouring hills and flowers only once in about half a century, after which the whole stand dies. The flowering produces a flood of protein rich seed, rats multiply on it, and when the seed is finished the swarm moves into the paddy fields and destroys the crop, causing the famine that Mizo tradition calls mautam. Option A, the Chalisa famine, struck northern India in 1783, in the Vikram Samvat year forty, and had nothing to do with bamboo. Option B, Upper Doab, names a region between the Ganga and the Yamuna and not a famine of this kind. Option D, Doji Bara, is the skull famine that hit the Deccan and Hyderabad in the 1790s. Only mautam is tied to the flowering cycle of a bamboo species.

The correct answer is A, Insolation. Insolation is the incoming solar radiation actually received by a unit area of the earth's surface, and how much of it a place receives decides how warm that place becomes. Insolation falls off from the equator towards the poles, because the sun's rays strike at a smaller angle there and travel through a thicker slice of atmosphere, which is why the temperature belts of the world run roughly parallel to the latitudes. Altitude, nearness to the sea, ocean currents and winds change this pattern, but they only modify what insolation has already decided. B is wrong because solar radiation is all the energy the sun sends out, while it is the part received at the surface, insolation, that controls surface temperature. C is wrong because terrestrial radiation is the heat the earth gives back, a result of insolation rather than its cause. D is wrong because distance from the sea is only a local, secondary control. Exam tip: insolation means incoming solar radiation, highest at the equator and least at the poles.

The correct answer is D, cotton. In the colour coding of India's agricultural revolutions the Silver Fibre Revolution stands for cotton, the fibre crop of the black soil regions of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Telangana. The plain Silver Revolution, without the word fibre, refers to eggs and poultry, and the two are deliberately offered together in papers.

Option A is wrong because leather and cocoa belong to the Brown Revolution. Option B is wrong because oilseeds, especially mustard and sunflower, belong to the Yellow Revolution. Option C is wrong because jute has no colour revolution of its own; it is simply called the golden fibre, which makes it a tempting but incorrect choice here. Learning the list, Green for food grains, White for milk, Blue for fish and Pink for prawn, settles this family of questions.

The correct answer is A, B, D and E, that is landslide, tsunami and floods. An earthquake is the shaking of the ground when energy stored along a fault is suddenly released, and that shaking sets off further hazards. On a steep slope the tremor loosens soil and rock and brings down a landslide. Under the sea, a sudden movement of the ocean floor lifts a huge column of water and sends out a tsunami, as in the Indian Ocean in December 2004. Floods follow when the shaking cracks a dam or an embankment, or when a landslide dams a river and the water later bursts through. Option B is wrong because lightning and thundering are weather events born in tall cumulonimbus clouds and have nothing to do with movement inside the earth. Option C is wrong because it keeps only the landslide and leaves out the tsunami. Option D is wrong because it adds floods but still misses the tsunami. Exam tip: earthquake – landslide, tsunami and dam-burst floods; lightning and thunder belong to a thunderstorm.

The correct answer is A, tropical evergreen forests. These forests grow where annual rainfall exceeds 200 centimetres, on the windward western slopes of the Western Ghats, in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, in upper Assam and along the hills of the north-east. Because rain falls through most of the year, the trees have no fixed leaf fall, the canopy stays green and the forest is tall and layered; rosewood, mahogany, ebony, aini, cinchona and rubber are its commercial species. Option B, thorn forests, grows on less than 70 centimetres of rain and carries babool, khair and khejri instead. Option C, alpine vegetation, is found above about 3,000 metres in the Himalaya and consists of silver fir, juniper, birch and rhododendron, and then of grasses. Option D, dry deciduous forest, receives 70 to 100 centimetres and gives tendu, palas, amaltas and bel.

The correct answer is C, because the Suez Canal has no locks at all. It is a sea level canal: the Mediterranean and the Red Sea stand at almost the same height, so ships sail straight through without being raised or lowered. The canal, about 193 km long, was built under Ferdinand de Lesseps and opened in November 1869 across the Isthmus of Suez in Egypt, separating Africa from Asia. Egypt nationalised it in 1956. Options A, B and D all state facts, so none of them is the answer: the canal did open in 1869, it does join the Mediterranean to the Red Sea through the Gulf of Suez, and it did shorten the voyage from Europe to India by thousands of kilometres, ending the long route round the Cape of Good Hope. Exam tip: Suez is a lock free canal; the Panama Canal is the one with locks, because Gatun Lake lies well above sea level.

The correct answer is A, cotton. The pink bollworm is the most damaging pest of the cotton plant. Its larva bores into the boll and feeds on the developing seed and lint, so the damage is hidden until the boll opens, and it has developed resistance to some insect-resistant cotton varieties, which is why it keeps returning to the news.

Option B is wrong because silk is produced by the silkworm, which is reared rather than protected from pests of this kind, and the word bollworm itself points to a boll, a cotton structure. Option C is wrong because the main pests of mustard are the aphid and the sawfly. Option D is wrong because apple orchards suffer from the codling moth and the woolly aphid. Only cotton forms bolls, so only cotton can host a bollworm.

The correct answer is C, Europe. The Orient Express ran from Paris in France to Istanbul in Turkey, crossing Strasbourg, Munich, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade and Sofia, so almost the whole of its roughly 3,000 km line lay inside Europe. Only the last stretch at Istanbul touches the edge of Asia, which is why the route is counted as a European trans-continental railway. It began in 1883 and carried cheese, wine, silk and passengers across the continent, and school geography lists it beside the Trans-Siberian, the Canadian Pacific and the Australian Trans-Continental lines. Option A is wrong because the long Asian trans-continental line is the Trans-Siberian Railway from Moscow to Vladivostok. Option B is wrong because the Canadian Pacific and the Union Pacific are the North American lines. Option D is wrong because South America's famous route is the Trans-Andean line linking Buenos Aires with Valparaiso. Exam tip: Orient Express Paris–Istanbul, Europe; Trans-Siberian Moscow–Vladivostok, the longest in the world.

The correct answer is A, Sundari. The sundari, whose botanical name is Heritiera fomes, is the dominant mangrove of the Ganga and Brahmaputra delta and gives the Sundarbans its name; its timber is hard and was long used for boats and posts. The Sundarbans is the largest single block of mangrove forest in the world, is shared between India and Bangladesh and is the best known home of the Royal Bengal tiger. Option B, sal, is a tree of moist deciduous forest in the Chhotanagpur plateau, the Terai and central India, and cannot grow in saline tidal mud. Option C, keora, is genuinely a mangrove associate of the same delta, but the forest is not named after it. Option D, screw pine, grows on sandy coasts and in swampy ground but is a shrub-like plant of the littoral fringe rather than the defining tree of the Sundarbans.

The correct answer is C, 1 and 2 only. Statement 3 is wrong because the Kaleshwaram project is built on the Godavari, not the Krishna. The scheme takes its name from Kaleshwaram in Telangana, near the point where the Pranhita joins the Godavari, and it was inaugurated in June 2019, which makes statement 1 correct. It is described as the world's largest multi-stage, multi-purpose lift irrigation project, so statement 2 is correct: water is raised through a long chain of pump houses, barrages, tunnels, canals and reservoirs to fields that lie far above the river, and it is meant to serve lakhs of hectares in north Telangana as well as drinking water and industry. Option A is wrong and option D is wrong because both accept statement 3 and its Krishna River claim. Option B is wrong because it leaves out the correct statement 2. Exam tip: Kaleshwaram is on the Godavari in Telangana, while Polavaram is on the Godavari in Andhra Pradesh.

The correct answer is B, black soil. Black soil, also called regur or black cotton soil, covers much of the Deccan plateau and is formed from the weathering of lava. It holds moisture for long periods, develops deep cracks in the dry season that help aeration, and is rich in calcium carbonate, magnesium and potash, all of which suit a crop needing about 210 frost-free days.

Option A is wrong because laterite soil is leached and low in fertility, suited to cashew, tea and coffee after heavy manuring. Option C is wrong because red soil, formed from crystalline rock, is poor in nitrogen and humus and is used mainly for millets and pulses. Option D is wrong because peaty soil forms in waterlogged areas such as the Kerala backwaters and is used for rice, not cotton.

The correct answer is D, Sheet erosion. Sheet erosion peels a thin, even film of topsoil off a whole slope, leaving no channel or scar behind, so a farmer may not notice it for years while fertility quietly drains away. It begins with raindrops splashing the bare surface loose, after which a shallow sheet of run-off carries the finest and most fertile particles off the field. The only hints are a paler soil colour, exposed pebbles and roots standing above the ground. A is wrong because gully erosion cuts deep, wide channels that nobody can miss and that often put land out of cultivation. B is wrong because stream bank erosion eats sideways into a river bank and shows up as caving earth. C is wrong because rill erosion carves small finger-like grooves that are shallow but still plainly visible. Exam tip: order them by how easily they are seen — sheet, then rill, then gully.

The correct answer is B, mangrove or tidal forests. Mangroves grow in the salty, waterlogged mud of deltas and creeks, where the soil holds almost no oxygen, so the roots send up narrow pegs called pneumatophores above the mud surface to breathe, and many species also stand on arching stilt roots for support in the soft ground. Such forests line the deltas of the Ganga, Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna and Kaveri and act as the coast's first defence against cyclonic surge. Option A, alpine forests, grows on cold, well drained mountain slopes and needs no such adaptation. Option C, thorn forests, faces the opposite problem of too little water and adapts with long tap roots, small waxy leaves and thick bark. Option D, montane temperate forests of oak, pine and deodar, grows on hill slopes where drainage is free and oxygen in the soil is plentiful.

The correct answer is D, Brazil – Campos. Campos are the tropical grasslands of the Brazilian Highlands, so this is the only pair in the list that names a tropical grassland. Grasslands are grouped by the climate in which they grow. Tropical grasslands lie near the equator, have a hot climate with a clear wet and dry season, and carry tall coarse grass with scattered trees: the Savanna of Africa, the Llanos of Venezuela and the Campos of Brazil. Temperate grasslands lie in the middle latitudes, have cold winters and shorter grass, and are the world's great wheat and cattle lands. A is wrong because the Steppe of Central Asia is a temperate grassland. B is wrong because the Veld of South Africa is also temperate, spread over a high plateau. C is wrong because the Pampas of Argentina is the temperate grassland famous for wheat farming and cattle ranching. Every pair here names its region correctly; only Campos is tropical. Exam tip: tropical – Savanna, Llanos, Campos; temperate – Steppe, Prairies, Pampas, Veld, Downs.

The correct answer is B, Andhra Pradesh. Podu is the local name for slash and burn or shifting cultivation in Andhra Pradesh, where a patch of forest is cleared, burnt and cropped for a few years and then left to recover while the cultivator moves to a fresh patch. The practice survives among tribal communities on the hill slopes of the Eastern Ghats.

Option A is wrong because the same practice is called kumari in Kerala. Option C is wrong because in Madhya Pradesh it is called bewar, dahiya, penda or beera depending on the district. Option D is wrong because in Assam and the rest of the North East it is called jhum, which is the name most often asked, and is the reason the other names are offered as distractors in questions of this kind.

The correct answer is D, Zoji La. Zoji La, usually written Zojila, is the pass on the Srinagar–Kargil–Leh highway at about 3,528 metres in the Zanskar range, and it is the only road link between the Kashmir valley and Ladakh. Heavy snow shuts it for much of winter, which is why the Zojila tunnel is being built to keep the route open all year. Option A is wrong because Nathu La lies in Sikkim on the old trade route to Tibet. Option B is wrong because Bara-lacha-La is in Himachal Pradesh on the Manali–Leh road, which reaches Ladakh from the other side. Option C is wrong because Jelep La is also in Sikkim and leads to the Chumbi valley. Exam tip: Srinagar to Leh is Zojila; Manali to Leh crosses Rohtang, Baralacha La, Lachung La and Tanglang La.

The correct answer is B, temperature and moisture conditions. Harry Champion and S. K. Seth revised the earlier survey of Indian forest types in 1968 and grouped the forests into major groups such as moist tropical, dry tropical, montane subtropical, montane temperate, sub-alpine and alpine, each divided further into types, using the climatic controls of rainfall, humidity and temperature. Option A is wrong because soil influences vegetation but is not the basis of this scheme, although saline and waterlogged soils do produce the separate littoral and swamp group. Option C describes the administrative classification into reserved, protected and unclassed forests, which is a different scheme used for management. Option D, ownership, is again an administrative matter and largely overlaps with the unclassed category rather than with any botanical grouping.

The correct answer is C, jute. Jute is called the golden fibre because of its shining golden brown colour and the high export value it once commanded. It is a kharif crop grown on the well-drained alluvial soil of flood plains that is renewed every year, needs high temperature during growth, and is used for gunny bags, mats, ropes, yarn and carpets. West Bengal is the leading producer, followed by Bihar and Assam.

Option A is wrong because cotton is the white fibre of the black soil region and is linked with the Silver Fibre Revolution. Option B is wrong because silk is an animal fibre obtained from the cocoon of the silkworm, not a field crop. Option D is wrong because hemp, though a bast fibre like jute, is a minor crop in India and carries no such title.

The correct answer is C, 33 per cent. The National Forest Policy of 1952 fixed the goal of keeping about one-third of the total land area of the country under forest, with a larger share in the hills and mountains, where slopes need tree cover to hold the soil, and a smaller share in the plains. The policy of 1988 reaffirmed that target and shifted the emphasis from revenue to ecological balance and to meeting the needs of forest dwellers. Option A, 20 per cent, and option B, 25 per cent, are figures sometimes quoted for the plains alone, and examiners offer them precisely to catch a candidate who remembers only a part of the policy. Option D, 40 per cent, corresponds to no national target and is a plain distractor. The Forest Survey of India measures progress towards the goal in its biennial report.

The correct answer is B, the White Revolution. Operation Flood was the dairy development programme of the National Dairy Development Board that linked village milk producers' cooperatives to city markets and made India the largest milk producer in the world. Verghese Kurien, who built the Amul model at Anand in Gujarat, is called the father of the White Revolution in India.

Option A is wrong because the Yellow Revolution refers to the rise in oilseed production, especially mustard and sunflower. Option C is wrong because the Blue Revolution refers to fisheries and aquaculture. Option D is wrong because the Golden Revolution refers to horticulture, including fruits, vegetables and honey. Milk belongs only to the White Revolution, and Operation Flood is its programme name.

Remember also that Operation Flood ran in three phases from 1970 and was funded partly by the sale of donated milk powder and butter oil, and that the Anand pattern of a three-tier cooperative structure was copied across the country.