Geography Mixed Quiz: Set 33

The correct answer is D, below 70 centimetres. Tropical thorn forest and scrub is the natural vegetation of the semi-arid belt that runs through Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana, south-western Punjab, western Madhya Pradesh and parts of the Deccan interior, where rainfall falls short of 70 centimetres. The plants are widely spaced and stunted, with long tap roots that reach deep moisture, small or waxy leaves that check transpiration and thorns in place of leaves in many species; babool, kikar, khair, khejri, neem, palas and cacti are typical. Option A, above 200 centimetres, gives tropical evergreen forest. Option B, 100 to 200 centimetres, gives moist deciduous forest with teak and sal. Option C, 70 to 100 centimetres, gives dry deciduous forest with tendu and palas, which is the immediate neighbour of the thorn belt and the answer most often confused with it.

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, ICAR, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. It was founded in 1929 as the Imperial Council of Agricultural Research on the recommendation of the Royal Commission on Agriculture, has its headquarters at New Delhi and coordinates research, education and extension through a national network of institutes and agricultural universities.

Option A is wrong because NABARD, set up in 1982, is the apex institution for rural and agricultural credit, not research. Option C is wrong because the Food Corporation of India handles the procurement, storage and distribution of food grains. Option D is wrong because the National Dairy Development Board is concerned with dairy development and ran Operation Flood. Only ICAR is the research and education apex body.

A related fact often asked alongside is that the Indian Agricultural Research Institute at New Delhi, which began at Pusa in Bihar, is the institute that bred many of the high-yielding wheat varieties of the Green Revolution.

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.

The correct answer is B, Chhattisgarh. The Bailadila range in the Dantewada region of southern Chhattisgarh holds high grade haematite, and its ore has long been carried by a dedicated line to the port of Visakhapatnam for export as well as to the steel plants of the region.

Option A is wrong because Odisha's iron ore comes from the Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar belt with mines such as Gurumahisani and Badampahar. Option C is wrong because Karnataka's iron ore is associated with Kudremukh in the Western Ghats and the Bellary Hospet region. Option D is wrong because Jharkhand's mines are Noamundi and Gua in the Singhbhum region. Four state and mine pairs settle most iron ore questions: Bailadila with Chhattisgarh, Noamundi with Jharkhand, Kudremukh with Karnataka and Badampahar with Odisha.

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, an agricultural rural hinterland. An industrial city does not stand alone: the country around it supplies food for its workers, agricultural raw material such as cotton, cane, oilseed and jute for its mills, and labour from the villages, while the city in turn sells manufactured goods and services back to that countryside. The land around a city is rural by definition, and in India it is largely agricultural, so the phrase is agricultural rural hinterland. Option A contradicts itself, since a hinterland cannot be both urban and the countryside surrounding an urban centre. Options C and D are wrong because a coastal or seaport hinterland describes the inland area served by a port, which applies only to coastal cities and not to industrially developed centres generally.

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 D, salinity. An isohaline joins points of equal salinity on a map, and the name comes from the Greek halos, meaning salt. Such lines let geographers show how salty different parts of the ocean are. Average ocean salinity is about 35 parts per thousand, but it varies: enclosed hot seas like the Red Sea cross 40 parts per thousand, while the Baltic Sea falls below 10 because rivers pour fresh water into it. Salinity is highest in the subtropics, where evaporation beats rainfall, and lower near the equator and the poles. Option A is wrong because lines of equal temperature are isotherms. Option B is wrong because lines of equal pressure are isobars, drawn on every weather map. Option C is wrong because lines of equal rainfall are isohyets. Exam tip: learn the set together - isotherm for temperature, isobar for pressure, isohyet for rainfall, isohaline for salinity and isohel for sunshine.

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, temperature is highest at ground level and decreases with increasing altitude. In the troposphere the air is warmed mainly from below: the earth absorbs incoming short-wave insolation and then heats the layer of air touching it by conduction, radiation and convection. So the farther you go from this heat source, the colder the air, and the normal lapse rate is about 6.5 degrees Celsius for every 1,000 metres of ascent. This is why hill stations are cool in summer and high peaks stay under snow even in the tropics. Option B is wrong because that upside-down pattern is a temperature inversion, a local and short-lived reversal seen in valleys on calm clear winter nights, not the normal rate. Option C is wrong because temperature does not stay steady with height; the troposphere cools steadily upward. Option D is wrong because no such initial warming occurs in the normal profile. Exam tip: normal lapse rate is a fall of about 6.5 degrees Celsius per kilometre; the opposite is called an inversion.

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, Uruguay. The Tropic of Capricorn runs at about 23.5 degrees south and misses Uruguay, which lies further south between roughly 30 and 35 degrees. In South America the line crosses Chile, Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil; going east it passes through Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar and Australia, in all ten countries. It marks the farthest point south at which the Sun is overhead, which happens on 22 December, the summer solstice of the southern hemisphere. Option A is wrong because the line crosses northern Chile near the Atacama desert. Option B is wrong because it passes through Brazil just north of Sao Paulo, and the city sits almost on it. Option C is wrong because it runs across Paraguay, cutting the country into a northern tropical part and a southern temperate part. Exam tip: the Tropic of Cancer crosses eight states of India, while the Tropic of Capricorn passes through no part of India at all.

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, inter cropping. In intercropping two or more crops are grown together on the same field at the same time, but sown in a definite pattern of rows, such as a few rows of soyabean between rows of maize, or bajra with lobia. The crops chosen have different nutrient needs and different rooting depths, so they use the soil, sunlight and water better, pests spread more slowly, and if one crop fails the farmer still has the other. It differs from mixed cropping, where the seeds of two crops are simply mixed and broadcast with no row pattern. Option A is wrong because crop rotation means growing different crops one after another on the same field in successive seasons, to restore fertility. Option C is wrong because alternate cropping is not the name for sowing two crops side by side in the same season. Option D is wrong because kharif names a season, the monsoon crop sown in June and July, not a method of cropping. Exam tip: mixed cropping has no rows, intercropping has definite rows, rotation is one crop after another.

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 B, magnetite. Magnetite is the finest quality of iron ore, black in colour, with excellent magnetic properties, which is why it is valued in the electrical industry as well as in steel making. Kudremukh in Karnataka is the deposit most often named with it.

Option A is wrong because haematite, red in colour, has a lower iron content than magnetite even though it is the ore most used by industry and makes up the bulk of Indian production. Option C is wrong because limonite is a poor ore with iron in a hydrated form. Option D is wrong because siderite is an iron carbonate ore of low grade, worked only where better ore is absent. The trap here is haematite, because candidates remember that it is the most used and mark it as the richest; the richest is magnetite.

The correct answer is C, the erstwhile Soviet Union. Of the three integrated plants taken up in the Second Five Year Plan, Bhilai in what is now Chhattisgarh was built with Soviet help, and the later plant at Bokaro in Jharkhand came up with Soviet help as well, so the two Soviet plants are Bhilai and Bokaro. Option A is wrong because German collaboration built Rourkela in Odisha, the plant most often confused with Bhilai in this question. Option B is wrong because British collaboration built Durgapur in West Bengal. Option D is wrong because no integrated public sector steel plant of that period was built with Japanese help; Japan's role in Indian industry came later and mainly through the automobile sector. Remember the trio as Rourkela with Germany, Durgapur with Britain and Bhilai with the Soviet Union.

The correct answer is B, Halocline. The halocline is the layer in a vertical section of the ocean in which salinity changes sharply with depth; the name comes from the Greek halos, meaning salt. It usually lies within the upper few hundred metres, between the well mixed surface water and the far more uniform deep water, and it is sharpest where fresh water from rivers, heavy rain or melting ice floats above saltier water, as in the Bay of Bengal and the polar seas. Option A is wrong because the thermocline is the layer where temperature falls quickly with depth. Option C is wrong because the photic or euphotic zone is the sunlit upper layer in which photosynthesis is possible, which is a matter of light and not of salt. Option D is wrong because the pycnocline is the layer of rapid change in density, which results from the temperature and salinity changes together. Exam tip: thermo for heat, halo for salt and pycno for density.

The correct answer is A, A snow covered mountain. Albedo is the share of incoming sunlight a surface reflects back, and fresh snow reflects the most of any natural surface on land. Clean new snow has an albedo of about 80 to 90 per cent, which is why snowfields stay cold and why sunlight on them hurts the eyes. The colour and roughness of a surface decide its albedo: pale, smooth surfaces throw light back, while dark, rough ones soak it up. This matters for climate because melting snow and ice expose darker ground, which absorbs more heat and speeds up further melting. Option B is wrong because bare rock reflects only about 10 to 25 per cent. Option C is wrong because dry sand reflects roughly 25 to 40 per cent, high but well below snow. Option D is wrong because a mangrove forest has the lowest albedo here, around 10 to 15 per cent, as its dark canopy traps light. Exam tip: snow highest, forest and ocean lowest, earth's average albedo about 30 per cent.