Geography Mixed Quiz: Set 32

The correct answer is C, Earth's rotation. The Coriolis effect is an apparent force produced by the rotation of the earth on its axis. It deflects anything moving freely over the surface, such as wind, an ocean current or an aircraft, to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern, a rule named after Ferrel. Its strength is zero at the equator and grows towards the poles, which is why cyclones cannot form within about five degrees of the equator and why the trade winds blow from the north-east rather than straight from the north. Option A is wrong because the pressure gradient force is what sets air in motion from high to low pressure; the two forces together give the geostrophic wind. Option B is wrong because the tilt of the axis causes the seasons and the shifting of the sun. Option D is wrong because the revolution around the sun gives the length of the year. Exam tip: Coriolis comes from rotation, is nil at the equator and highest at the poles.

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 B, Shola. Sholas are small, dense, stunted evergreen forests that survive in the sheltered valleys and folds of the high hills of the Western Ghats above about 1,500 metres, and they alternate with rolling grassland to form the shola grassland mosaic, a habitat of the Nilgiri tahr. Option A, bugyal, is the name given in Uttarakhand to the alpine meadow above the tree line, used as a summer pasture by the Gujjars and the Bhotiyas, and it belongs to the Himalaya, not the peninsula. Option C, terai, is the marshy, spring-fed belt at the foot of the Himalaya, south of the bhabar, once covered with tall grass and dense forest. Option D, bhabar, is the narrow porous belt of pebbles and boulders right at the foot of the Himalaya where the streams disappear underground.

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, a single crop is grown on a large estate for sale. Plantation agriculture is a type of commercial farming in which one crop such as tea, coffee, rubber, sugarcane or banana is grown over a large area with hired labour, capital investment and a processing unit on or near the estate. Good transport is essential because the produce is meant for distant markets.

Option B is wrong because growing many crops on a small plot for the household is intensive subsistence farming. Option C is wrong because burning forest patches and cropping them briefly is shifting cultivation, called jhum or podu. Option D is wrong because raising fodder alone is part of mixed farming and dairying, not a plantation. The marks of a plantation are one crop, a large estate and sale.

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, lignite. The Neyveli field in the Cuddalore region of Tamil Nadu is the country's best known lignite mine, worked by open cast methods, and the thermal stations built beside it burn the lignite where it is dug because this soft brown coal is not worth carrying far.

Option B is wrong because manganese comes mainly from Balaghat in Madhya Pradesh and the Bhandara and Nagpur belt of Maharashtra. Option C is wrong because bauxite is associated with Panchpatmali in the Koraput region of Odisha and the Amarkantak plateau. Option D is wrong because mica belongs to the Koderma and Gaya belt of Jharkhand and Bihar and to Nellore in Andhra Pradesh. Since lignite is found in the far south while most coal lies in the east, Neyveli is asked in nearly every state level paper.

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 D, agglomeration economies. When industries gather at one urban centre, each of them can use the roads, railways, power lines, water supply, banks, insurance offices, skilled workers, component suppliers and repair workshops that the others have brought into being, and the saving in cost that follows from this sharing is called an agglomeration economy. It is the main reason industry forms clusters rather than spreading evenly. Option A is wrong because rural economies is not a term for industrial clustering at all. Option B is wrong because amalgamation means the merger of two firms into one, which is a matter of ownership and not of location. Option C is wrong because urban economies describes the economic life of towns in general, a much wider idea than the specific saving this question asks about.

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, Kandla. Kandla, now named Deendayal Port, stands on the Gulf of Kutch in Gujarat and is a tidal port, which means ships use the rise of the tide in its creek to come in and go out. It was developed after Partition to take the traffic that had gone through Karachi, and it handles crude oil, petroleum products, fertiliser, salt and grain for a hinterland that reaches Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and western Uttar Pradesh. Option A is wrong because Visakhapatnam is a natural and landlocked harbour on the east coast, the deepest port of the country. Option C is wrong because Tuticorin, now V. O. Chidambaranar Port, is an artificial harbour in Tamil Nadu. Option D is wrong because Chennai is an artificial harbour, one of the oldest on the eastern seaboard. Exam tip: Kandla is the tidal port, Visakhapatnam and Mumbai are natural harbours, Chennai and Tuticorin are artificial ones.

The correct answer is C, Hiralal Chaudhuri. Hiralal Chaudhuri is called the father of the Blue Revolution, the sharp rise in India's fish production. Working as a fishery scientist, he achieved induced breeding of carp by hormone injection in 1957, a method that freed fish farmers from depending on wild seed collected from rivers and allowed hatcheries to supply fingerlings in large numbers. Aquaculture grew from there, and India is today among the largest fish producers in the world. Option A is wrong because Verghese Kurien led the White Revolution in milk, building the Amul model and Operation Flood. Option B is wrong because Sam Pitroda is linked with the telecom revolution and the spread of public call offices. Option D is wrong because M.S. Swaminathan is the father of the Green Revolution in wheat and rice. Exam tip: learn the colour revolutions together, Green for food grains, White for milk, Blue for fish, Yellow for oilseeds, Pink for prawns and Golden for horticulture.

The correct answer is B, 1981. India's annual rate of population growth reached its peak in the two decades from 1961 to 1981 and has fallen in every census decade since 1981, which is why demographers date the turn to that year. The total number of people still rises, because a young age structure keeps the number of births high, but the rate at which it rises has come down; this stage, with death rates already low and birth rates now following them down, is the third stage of the demographic transition. The decade from 1911 to 1921 was the only one of the last century in which the population actually fell, mainly because of the influenza epidemic, so 1921 is called the demographic divide. A is wrong because the decline had begun a full decade before 1991. C is wrong because growth was still rising after 1951. D is wrong because the decade from 1971 to 1981 recorded the highest growth rate of all. Exam tip: 1921 is the demographic divide, growth peaks by 1981 and falls after it.

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, 2, because the first two statements are right and the third is wrong. An anticyclone is a system of high pressure, with the highest pressure at its centre, and the air there sinks from above. As it sinks it is compressed and warms, so clouds cannot form and the weather stays clear, calm and dry; winter fog and summer heat waves both settle in under anticyclones. The winds of an anticyclone diverge, blowing outward from the centre, clockwise in the northern hemisphere and anticlockwise in the southern, so statement three is false: converging winds belong to a cyclone, where air rises and brings cloud and rain. Option A is wrong because two statements, not one, are correct. Option C is wrong because it counts the false third statement as well. Option D is wrong because two statements do hold. Exam tip: anticyclone means high pressure, sinking air, diverging winds and fair weather, the mirror image of a cyclone.

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 A, Tundra. Mosses, lichens and low shrubs make up the tundra, the treeless cover of the lands around the Arctic Ocean and of high mountain slopes above the tree line. Trees cannot grow there because the summer lasts only a few weeks, the ground below stays frozen as permafrost so roots cannot go deep, and icy winds dry out anything that stands tall; plants therefore hug the ground and complete their growth quickly. Reindeer, caribou, musk ox and arctic hare graze on this thin cover. Option B is wrong because coral reefs are built by marine animals and are not a vegetation type. Option C is wrong because mangroves are salt-tolerant tidal forests with stilt and breathing roots, as in the Sundarbans. Option D is wrong because tropical evergreen forests grow where rainfall crosses two hundred centimetres and carry tall, dense broadleaf trees. Exam tip: tundra means mosses, lichens and permafrost, with the coniferous taiga lying just to its south.

The correct answer is A, the Arabian Sea exhibits a high rate of evaporation and a low influx of fresh water. Salinity rises where water leaves as vapour and falls where fresh water is added. The air over the Arabian Sea is dry and hot, evaporation is heavy, rainfall is modest and the only large river reaching it is the Indus, so the salt that stays behind keeps surface salinity around 36 parts per thousand. The Bay of Bengal gets the Ganga, Brahmaputra, Mahanadi, Godavari and Krishna along with very heavy monsoon rain, and all that fresh water dilutes it to about 33 parts per thousand. Option B is wrong because the Arabian Sea is in fact the deeper of the two basins, and depth by itself does not decide salinity. Option C is wrong because the Bay of Bengal is the more enclosed of the two, yet it is the less saline. Option D is wrong because the Arabian Sea receives less rainfall, and rain lowers salinity instead of raising it. Exam tip: evaporation raises salinity; river water and rainfall lower it.

The correct answer is C, Reduction in the vegetation cover to arrest landslide. Cutting the vegetation on a slope makes landslides more likely, not less, so it can never be a mitigation measure. Roots bind the soil and hold a slope together, and the leaf cover breaks the force of falling rain; where the forest is cleared, the loose soil slides down with the first heavy spell. The measures actually used are hazard zonation and mapping, retaining walls and benching of slopes, control of surface and subsurface drainage, afforestation on the slope, and limits on construction and blasting in fragile hill areas. A is wrong because a retaining wall holds the slipping mass in place and is a standard engineering step. B is wrong because hazard mapping marks the vulnerable belts so that building can be kept away from them. D is wrong because leading rainwater and spring flow away removes the water pressure that sets a slide off. Exam tip: afforestation helps and deforestation hurts; in India the Himalayas and the Western Ghats are the most landslide-prone regions.

The correct answer is B, Young folded mountains. Young fold mountains were raised in the Tertiary period, only a few tens of millions of years ago in geological time, so erosion has had little time to wear them down and many of them are still rising as the plates behind them keep pushing. The Himalayas, the Alps, the Andes and the Rockies belong to this class, and the tallest summits on earth, Mount Everest and K2 among them, stand in the Himalaya and the Karakoram. A is wrong because old fold mountains such as the Aravallis, the Appalachians and the Urals were formed far earlier, and long erosion has reduced them to low rounded hills. C is wrong because residual mountains are only the harder remnants left behind after the surrounding rock was stripped away, so they stay low. D is wrong because block mountains, like the Vosges and the Black Forest, are raised by faulting between rift valleys and never reach such heights. Exam tip: the Himalaya is a young fold range and the highest, while the Aravalli is the oldest fold range in India.