Geography Mixed Quiz: Set 42

The correct answer is B, Odisha. The Tropic of Cancer crosses India through eight States, namely Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura and Mizoram, and Odisha is not one of them because it lies to the south of the line. Option A is wrong because Jharkhand lies on the line and is part of the list. Option C is wrong because Tripura is on the line, which is why its climate is reckoned as tropical in the fullest sense. Option D is wrong because Chhattisgarh is also crossed by the line in its northern part. A simple way to recall the eight is to move from west to east: Gujarat and Rajasthan, then Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, then Jharkhand and West Bengal, and finally Tripura and Mizoram.

The correct answer is D, 2.4%. India covers about 32.87 lakh square kilometres, which is roughly 2.4 per cent of the world's total land area.

That small share supports about 17 to 18 per cent of the world's people, and this gap between land and population is what the question is really testing. By area India is the seventh largest country in the world, after Russia, Canada, the United States, China, Brazil and Australia. Its mainland runs from about 8 degrees 4 minutes North to 37 degrees 6 minutes North, and from 68 degrees 7 minutes East to 97 degrees 25 minutes East, giving a north to south length of about 3,214 km and an east to west width of about 2,933 km.

A is wrong: 2.8 per cent is higher than India's actual share. B is wrong: 3.9 per cent overstates that share by more than half. C is wrong: 4.2 per cent is nearly double the correct figure.

Exam tip: India has 2.4 per cent of the world's land area and about 17 per cent of its population, and is the seventh largest country.

The correct answer is C, 2000. In that year the International Hydrographic Organization recognised the waters surrounding Antarctica, broadly south of sixty degrees south latitude, as the fifth ocean of the world, which is why older textbooks speak of four oceans and newer ones of five. Option A is wrong because 1982 is the year of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, an agreement about maritime zones rather than about naming an ocean. Option B is wrong because 1992 is remembered for the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro. Option D is wrong because no ocean was recognised in 2010. The Southern Ocean carries the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, the only current that flows right around the globe, and it is the stormiest stretch of water on earth.

The correct answer is A, Tube well. Tube wells irrigate the largest share of the net irrigated area of Rajasthan, and groundwater drawn through tube wells and wells together waters the greater part of the state's fields. The reason is the climate: rainfall is low and uncertain over most of the state and perennial rivers are few, so a farmer who wants a second crop has to pump water. This heavy drawing of groundwater has pushed many blocks of Rajasthan into the over-exploited category, which is why drip and sprinkler irrigation are pressed in the state. B is wrong because ponds and tanks serve only small pockets, mostly in the south and south-east. C is wrong because open wells, once the mainstay, now water a much smaller area than tube wells. D is wrong because canals, led by the Indira Gandhi Canal, come second and are limited to the north-west and the Chambal command. Exam tip: in Rajasthan groundwater leads, tube wells first and canals second.

The correct answer is D, Assam. India shares its boundary with Myanmar through four States, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram, and Assam is not among them, because it is shut off from Myanmar by Nagaland and Manipur. Option A is wrong because Nagaland has a long eastern border with Myanmar. Option B is wrong because Manipur borders Myanmar on its east and south, with Moreh as the main trade point. Option C is wrong because Mizoram touches Myanmar on its east and south. Assam is the State that shares boundaries with the largest number of Indian States in the region, which is probably why it is placed in such questions. Remember the four as the letters A, N, M and M. A second point worth holding is that the Moreh and Zokhawthar crossings on this boundary are the recognised trade points, and the Indo-Myanmar boundary runs along hill ranges rather than a river.

The correct answer is D, Minicoy. Minicoy is the southernmost island of the Lakshadweep group, and it lies well apart from the rest of the archipelago.

Lakshadweep is a union territory of 36 islands, of which about ten are inhabited, with Kavaratti as its capital. The group falls into three parts: the Amindivi islands in the north, the Laccadive islands in the middle and Minicoy in the south. Minicoy is cut off from the other islands by the Nine Degree Channel and from the Maldives by the Eight Degree Channel. Its people speak Mahl, written in the Thaana script, which sets the island apart from the Malayalam speaking islands to its north.

A is wrong: Bitra is the smallest inhabited island and lies in the north of the group. B is wrong: Kavaratti is the capital and sits in the middle of the chain. C is wrong: Amini is one of the northern Amindivi islands.

Exam tip: Minicoy is the southernmost island; the Nine Degree Channel separates it from the other Lakshadweep islands and the Eight Degree Channel separates it from the Maldives.

The correct answer is B, Africa. Africa is the only continent through which all four of these lines pass: the Equator crosses its middle, the Tropic of Cancer runs across the Sahara, the Tropic of Capricorn crosses its southern part, and the Prime Meridian passes through its western bulge near Accra. Option A is wrong because the Tropic of Capricorn lies entirely south of Asia and the Prime Meridian does not touch it. Option C is wrong because South America is crossed by the Equator and the Tropic of Capricorn but not by the Tropic of Cancer or the Prime Meridian. Option D is wrong because Australia is crossed only by the Tropic of Capricorn, since it lies wholly in the Southern Hemisphere. This single fact makes Africa the most symmetrical of the continents about the Equator.

The correct answer is B, Black. On Survey of India topographical sheets, railway lines, telegraph and telephone lines, settlement names and boundaries are printed in black, so black is the colour of such man-made linear features.

These sheets follow a fixed colour code, which lets a reader tell features apart at a glance: metalled roads and grid lines appear in red, contours in brown, rivers, canals and tanks in blue, open scrub, grass and cultivated land in yellow, and woodland in green.

Option A, yellow, stands for cultivated land and open fields, not railways. Option C, blue, is kept for water features. Option D, red, is used for roads, grid lines and some settlement symbols.

Exam tip: black for railways and telephone lines, blue for water, green for forest, brown for contours, yellow for cultivated land.

The correct answer is C, Gujarat. Gujarat has the longest coastline of any Indian State, because its shore runs along the Gulf of Kachchh, the Saurashtra peninsula and the Gulf of Khambhat, which gives it a deeply indented outline and many ports, including Kandla and Mundra. Option A is wrong because Tamil Nadu, although it has a long eastern shore from Pulicat to Kanniyakumari, comes after Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. Option B is wrong because Andhra Pradesh has the second longest coastline among the States. Option D is wrong because Maharashtra, with the Konkan coast and the port of Mumbai, is shorter still. Among the Union territories the Andaman and Nicobar Islands have a longer coastline than any mainland State, which is a separate fact papers sometimes test.

The correct answer is C, seafloor spreading. New oceanic crust is made at mid-ocean ridges, where magma rises, cools and is pushed outwards on both sides, and that process is called seafloor spreading.

Harry Hess set out the idea in the 1960s. Along a ridge such as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge two plates move apart, basaltic lava fills the gap and hardens into fresh crust, so the rock grows older as you move away from the ridge on either side. The matching magnetic stripes on the two sides of a ridge are the proof of this. The crust destroyed in subduction zones balances the crust created here, which is why the earth does not grow larger.

A is wrong: subduction destroys crust by pushing one plate under another. B is wrong: an earthquake only releases strain that has built up. D is wrong: convection in the mantle drives plate movement but does not itself make crust.

Exam tip: ridges build crust and trenches consume it, so spreading and subduction keep the earth's surface area constant.

The correct answer is B, Asia and North America. The Bering Strait lies between the eastern tip of Siberia and the western tip of Alaska and joins the Pacific Ocean with the Arctic Ocean; during the ice ages a land bridge across it is believed to have carried the first human migrations into the Americas. Option A is wrong because Europe and Africa are separated by the Strait of Gibraltar, which joins the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. Option C is wrong because Asia and Africa meet at the Isthmus of Suez and are divided by the Bab-el-Mandeb and the Red Sea. Option D is wrong because North and South America are joined by the Isthmus of Panama, cut by the Panama Canal, not separated by a natural strait. Learn these four pairs together, as papers set them against one another.

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 B, India and China. The McMahon Line was drawn at the Simla Convention of 1914 and is the boundary India recognises with China in the eastern sector, running along the crest of the hills north of Arunachal Pradesh. China does not accept it, which is the root of the dispute in that sector. Option A is wrong because the India and Pakistan boundary is the Radcliffe Line, with the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. Option C is wrong because the India and Nepal boundary is an old treaty boundary with no such name, though the Sugauli Treaty of 1816 fixed much of it. Option D is wrong because the Pakistan and Afghanistan boundary is the Durand Line of 1893. Learn the four lines together, since papers mix them in one question.

The correct answer is C, eye. The calm centre of a cyclone is called the eye of the storm, a roughly circular area twenty to fifty kilometres across where the air sinks, the winds are light and the sky can even be clear.

Around the eye stands the eye wall, a ring of tall clouds where the wind is strongest and the rain heaviest, so fierce weather returns soon after the deceptive calm passes over a place. A cyclone forms over warm tropical seas when moist air rises, condenses and releases heat, and it weakens quickly after landfall because its supply of moisture is cut off.

Option A, arm, is not a term used for any part of a cyclone. Option B, heart, is not the scientific name for the centre. Option D, head, is also not a cyclone term.

Exam tip: the eye is calm, the eye wall carries the strongest winds.

The correct answer is C, Sargasso Sea. It lies in the North Atlantic and is bounded not by land but by four ocean currents, among them the Gulf Stream, which circle its calm, weed-filled waters; the floating sargassum seaweed gives it its name. Option A is wrong because the Dead Sea is a salt lake between Israel and Jordan, famous as the lowest exposed land on earth and for water so saline that bathers float. Option B is wrong because the Caspian Sea is the largest inland water body in the world and is enclosed by the coasts of five countries. Option D is wrong because the Aral Sea in Central Asia is a shrinking inland lake, a standard example of human-induced environmental damage. The distinguishing idea here is that a coastline means land, and only the Sargasso Sea has none.

The correct answer is A, Fold Mountain. The Himalayas are young fold mountains, formed when the sediments of the Tethys Sea were squeezed and folded as the Indian plate collided with the Eurasian plate.

Because that collision still continues, the range is rising even now and the whole belt stays earthquake prone. The Alps, the Rockies and the Andes belong to the same class, and like them the Himalayas run in parallel ranges — the Himadri, the Himachal and the Shiwaliks.

Option B, plateau mountain, is not a standard category; plateaus such as the Deccan are flat uplands, not folded ranges. Option C, fault-block mountain, forms when land between two faults is lifted or its sides sink, as in the Satpura and Vindhya blocks. Option D, dome mountain, forms when magma pushes the rock above it upward without erupting.

Exam tip: Himalayas, Alps, Andes and Rockies are young fold mountains; Satpura is a block mountain.

The correct answer is B, Uttar Pradesh. Uttar Pradesh touches eight States, namely Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar, and in addition the Union territory of Delhi, which is the largest number for any State. Option A is wrong because Madhya Pradesh, though central, touches five States and is the usual second guess. Option C is wrong because Assam touches seven States and is the answer when a question is restricted to the north-east; this closeness is exactly why it is offered here. Option D is wrong because Maharashtra touches six States and one Union territory. When a question asks about the Union territory with the most State neighbours instead, the answer changes, so read the stem carefully. Another useful pair is that Sikkim and Goa border the fewest States, and Andhra Pradesh and Telangana now border each other where a single State once stood.

The correct answer is B, Antarctica. Its thick ice sheet lifts its average elevation above that of every other continent, and it has no permanent population, only the changing crews of research stations maintained under the Antarctic Treaty system; it is also the coldest, driest and windiest continent and counts as the largest cold desert. Option A is wrong because Asia, although it holds the highest mountains and the Tibetan plateau, is also the most populous continent, so its average elevation is pulled down by vast plains. Option C is wrong because South America has the Andes but also the Amazon basin and a large settled population. Option D is wrong because Europe is the second smallest continent and largely low-lying, which is why it is called a peninsula of peninsulas.

The correct answer is C, Arunachal Pradesh. Itanagar, named after the Ita fort in the area, became the capital when Arunachal Pradesh was a Union territory and continued as the capital after it became a State in 1987. Option A is wrong because the capital of Mizoram is Aizawl. Option B is wrong because the capital of Manipur is Imphal, known for its Kangla fort and the women market called Ima Keithel. Option D is wrong because the capital of Nagaland is Kohima, the site of a decisive battle of the Second World War. A quick drill for the north-east is to say the pairs aloud: Itanagar, Dispur, Imphal, Shillong, Aizawl, Kohima, Agartala and Gangtok. Arunachal Pradesh is also called the land of the rising sun and was known as the North East Frontier Agency before 1972, a fact set beside its capital in many papers.

The correct answer is B, Alfred Wegener and Pangaea. The German meteorologist Alfred Wegener put forward the continental drift theory in 1912, holding that all continents once formed a single supercontinent called Pangaea, surrounded by a single ocean called Panthalassa, which later split into Laurasia in the north and Gondwana in the south. Option A is wrong because Harry Hess proposed sea floor spreading in the twentieth century, and Panthalassa is the ocean, not the landmass. Option C is wrong because Gondwana was only the southern half of Pangaea, containing present-day South America, Africa, India, Australia and Antarctica. Option D is wrong because Arthur Holmes is associated with the idea of convection currents in the mantle as the driving force, and Laurasia was the northern half. Keep the four names in their correct slots, since every wrong option here is a real term from the same theory.