Geography Mixed Quiz: Set 34

The correct answer is A, Uttar Pradesh. Uttar Pradesh grows more wheat than any other state, because the fertile alluvial soil of the Ganga plain, canal and tubewell irrigation and a cool winter together suit the crop. Wheat is India's chief rabi crop: it is sown between October and December and harvested in March and April, and it needs a cool growing season with a warm, dry spell for ripening. Uttar Pradesh is followed by Madhya Pradesh and Punjab in total output, while Punjab and Haryana lead in yield per hectare because their irrigation is assured. B is wrong because Punjab, though the backbone of the central grain pool, has a far smaller cropped area than Uttar Pradesh. C is wrong because Haryana is a small state and its total output stays well below both. D is wrong because Madhya Pradesh has climbed to second place but still trails Uttar Pradesh. Exam tip: Uttar Pradesh leads in total wheat production, Punjab in productivity per hectare.

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 A, Odisha. The Panchpatmali plateau in the Koraput region of Odisha carries thick beds of bauxite, the ore from which aluminium is obtained, and the refinery and smelter complexes of the region were built to use it.

Option B is wrong because Gujarat's bauxite occurs in patches along the Saurashtra coast but not at this deposit. Option C is wrong because Maharashtra has bauxite in the Kolhapur and Ratnagiri districts of the Konkan side, again not here. Option D is wrong because Jharkhand's bauxite lies on the Lohardaga and Ranchi plateau, and although the state is a bauxite producer, Panchpatmali is not in it. The names to hold together are Panchpatmali and Koraput in Odisha, and the Amarkantak plateau on the Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh border.

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, Odisha. Rourkela stands in the Sundargarh district of Odisha, on the Brahmani river, and was built in the Second Five Year Plan with German collaboration; it drew iron ore from the Odisha deposits, coal from the Jharia belt and limestone from Purnapani. Option A is wrong because Jharkhand has Jamshedpur, which is a private plant of 1907, and Bokaro, a public sector plant built with Soviet help. Option C is wrong because Chhattisgarh has Bhilai, also Soviet-aided, which is the plant most often interchanged with Rourkela in examination questions. Option D is wrong because West Bengal has Durgapur, built with British collaboration, along with the older Burnpur works of the Indian Iron and Steel Company. All four states lie in or beside the same mineral belt, which is what makes the question worth asking.

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 A, copper. The Khetri belt in the Jhunjhunu region of Rajasthan is one of India's main copper mining areas, the other being Malanjkhand in Madhya Pradesh, with Singhbhum in Jharkhand as the third. Copper is valued for its ductility and its ability to conduct electricity, so it goes into wires, cables and alloys.

Option B is wrong because India's gold mines are Kolar and Hutti in Karnataka, with Ramagiri in Andhra Pradesh. Option C is wrong because Rajasthan is not an iron ore state of any importance; iron ore belongs to the eastern and southern plateaus. Option D is wrong because Rajasthan has lignite in small quantity but no coalfield of the Gondwana kind. Rajasthan's mineral wealth is non ferrous and non metallic, so pair it with copper, zinc, lead, gypsum and marble.

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, Sakchi, now Jamshedpur. The Tata Iron and Steel Company set up its works there in 1907, choosing the site because iron ore, coal, manganese and limestone all lay within a short distance in the Chota Nagpur region, water was available from the Subarnarekha and Kharkai rivers, and the railway ran to the port of Kolkata. Option A is wrong because the Visvesvaraya Iron and Steel Works at Bhadravati in Karnataka came later and is known for using hydel power instead of coking coal. Option B is wrong because the Indian Iron and Steel Company's plant at Burnpur in West Bengal also belongs to a later stage. Option D is wrong because Durgapur is a public sector plant of the Second Five Year Plan, built with British collaboration after independence.

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 A, mica. The Koderma and Gaya belt, spread over Jharkhand and Bihar, is the richest mica producing area of India, and Nellore in Andhra Pradesh and the Ajmer region of Rajasthan follow it. Mica splits into thin sheets, resists heat and does not conduct electricity, so it is used in electrical and electronic goods.

Option B is wrong because chromite in India is associated overwhelmingly with the Sukinda valley of Odisha. Option C is wrong because gypsum comes from Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu and is used in cement and plaster. Option D is wrong because asbestos is mined in small quantities in Rajasthan, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Since mica has a property based question as well as a place based one, remember both the Koderma belt and the reason it is used in electrical goods.

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 B, Bombay. The first successful cotton textile mill began work there in 1854, and the city had every advantage the industry needed: cotton from the black soil of the Deccan, a port through which machinery arrived, capital from its merchants, a humid climate that suited spinning, and workers from the surrounding districts. Option A is wrong because Ahmedabad's mills came a little later, though the city grew into such a centre that it is called the Manchester of India. Option C is wrong because Coimbatore's rise belongs to the twentieth century, when hydel power from the Western Ghats made it the Manchester of South India. Option D is wrong because Kanpur developed as a cotton, woollen and leather centre of northern India, but not as the site of the first mill.

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, Digboi in Assam. Oil was struck at Digboi in the upper Assam valley in the nineteenth century, the first successful well in India, and the refinery built beside it is the oldest working refinery in the country. Naharkatiya and Moran are the other Assam fields.

Option B is wrong because Ankleshwar in Gujarat, with Kalol and the Cambay basin, was developed in the nineteen sixties, long after Digboi. Option C is wrong because Mumbai High, the largest offshore field, was discovered in 1974 and is far younger, though it accounts for a large share of production. Option D is wrong because Barauni in Bihar has a refinery but no oilfield; refineries and fields are different things, and this is the trap in the question. Remember Digboi for the oldest and Mumbai High for the offshore field of 1974.

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 C, West Bengal. Rishra stands on the Hugli near Kolkata, and the mill set up there in 1855 began an industry that is still packed into a narrow belt along that river. The reasons are geographical: raw jute grows in the delta, the river gives cheap water transport and the soft water needed for processing, coal comes from Raniganj and Jharia, and Kolkata provides the port, the banks and the insurance offices. Option A is wrong because Bihar supplied labour to these mills but not the first mill. Option B is wrong because Odisha has no such concentration of jute manufacture. Option D is wrong because Assam grows jute in quantity yet the manufacturing stayed downstream in Bengal, which is exactly the distinction between the growing area and the industrial belt that examiners test.

The correct answer is A, uranium. Jaduguda in the Singhbhum region of Jharkhand is the oldest uranium mine in India, and the ore from it feeds the plants that make fuel for the country's pressurised heavy water reactors. Tummalapalle in Andhra Pradesh is the other name to remember for uranium.

Option B is wrong because manganese comes from Balaghat in Madhya Pradesh and the Bhandara and Nagpur belt in Maharashtra. Option C is wrong because bauxite is mined on the Lohardaga plateau in Jharkhand and at Panchpatmali in Odisha, not at Jaduguda. Option D is wrong because lead, with zinc, is mined at Zawar and Rampura Agucha in Rajasthan. Uranium and thorium questions go together: uranium with Jaduguda and Tummalapalle, and thorium with the monazite sands of the Kerala coast.

The correct answer is B, Coimbatore. The city has a very large number of cotton textile mills and hosiery units, helped by cotton grown nearby, the hydel power of the Western Ghats and a long tradition of engineering workshops that make textile machinery, and so it is called the Manchester of South India, as Ahmedabad is the Manchester of India. Option A is wrong because Chennai is called the Detroit of India for its automobile industry. Option C is wrong because Madurai is known as the temple city and for its handloom weaving rather than for mill industry on this scale. Option D is wrong because Bengaluru is the Silicon Valley of India, a name earned by information technology, and also has aircraft, machine tool and electronics units in the public sector.

The correct answer is A, Tarapur in Maharashtra. The Tarapur station on the Konkan coast north of Mumbai was the first nuclear power station to generate electricity in India, and it remains a working station. Its early reactors were of the boiling water type, unlike the pressurised heavy water reactors built later.

Option B is wrong because Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu came afterwards and is known for the fast breeder programme. Option C is wrong because Rawatbhata in Rajasthan, on the Chambal near Kota, was the second station and the first with heavy water reactors. Option D is wrong because Narora in Uttar Pradesh, on the Ganga, belongs to the nineteen nineties. The stations and their states are a standard match the following: Tarapur with Maharashtra, Kakrapar with Gujarat, Kaiga with Karnataka and Kudankulam with Tamil Nadu.