Geography Mixed Quiz: Set 48

The correct answer is B, Selvas. Selvas is the name given to the equatorial rainforest of the Amazon basin, a multi storeyed evergreen forest of hardwoods such as mahogany, ebony and rosewood, with so many species mixed together that commercial logging of a single kind is difficult. Option A, Taiga, is wrong because the taiga is the coniferous softwood forest of the cold northern latitudes of Eurasia and North America. Option C, Steppes, is wrong because the steppes are the temperate grasslands of Eurasia, not forest at all. Option D, Campos, is wrong because the Campos is the tropical grassland of the Brazilian highlands, which lies in the same country but outside the equatorial basin. Keep the three Amazonian words apart: Selvas is the forest, Campos the grassland and the Llanos the grassland of the Orinoco.

The correct answer is B, the Ganga, Bhagirathi and Hooghly. National Waterway 1 runs 1,620 km from Haldia in West Bengal to Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh, through West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, and was the first waterway to be declared national, in 1986. Option A is wrong because the Brahmaputra from Dhubri to Sadiya is National Waterway 2, declared in 1988. Option C is wrong because stretches of the Godavari and the Krishna, together with the Kakinada and Puducherry canals, make up National Waterway 4. Option D is wrong because the Narmada is a separate and much later declared waterway, numbered 73, and the Tapi is not among the older waterways at all. NW-1 is also the waterway on which the Jal Marg Vikas Project is being carried out.

The correct answer is B, new moon and full moon. On these days the sun, the moon and the earth lie in a straight line, a position called syzygy, so the pulls of the sun and the moon act together and the tidal range is at its greatest; spring tides therefore occur twice in a lunar month and have nothing to do with the spring season. Option A is wrong because the first and third quarters give neap tides, when the sun and the moon pull at right angles to each other and partly cancel out, producing the smallest range of the month. Options C and D are wrong because they take only half of the correct answer; the alignment is equally effective whether the moon is between the earth and the sun or on the far side of the earth.

The correct answer is D, Polar type. Koeppen grouped climates by temperature and rainfall and gave each group a capital letter, and E stands for the polar group, where the mean temperature of the warmest month stays below 10 degrees Celsius. In India this type is met only in the high Himalaya, in Ladakh and the upper reaches of Jammu and Kashmir, where snow lies for much of the year and the vegetation is tundra-like. Option A is wrong because tropical savannah is Aw in the scheme and covers most of the peninsular interior. Option B is wrong because the hot desert of western Rajasthan is marked BWhw. Option C is wrong because monsoon with a dry summer is As, the climate of the Coromandel coast of Tamil Nadu, which gets most of its rain from the retreating monsoon. Exam tip: Koeppen's first letters are A tropical, B dry, C warm temperate, D cold snow forest and E polar.

The correct answer is B, 1986. The Authority came into being in 1986 under the Inland Waterways Authority of India Act, 1985, and its headquarters is at Noida in Uttar Pradesh. It develops and maintains the national waterways through dredging, terminals and navigation aids and works under the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways. Option A is wrong and belongs to no event in this chapter. Option C is wrong because 1993 is the year National Waterway 3, the West Coast Canal in Kerala, was declared. Option D is wrong because 2016 is the year of the National Waterways Act, which declared 111 waterways as national waterways. The commonest trap in this question is to answer 1985, the year of the Act, instead of 1986, the year the Authority was constituted.

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 B, the Bay of Fundy, between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in Canada, where the funnel shape of the bay and the length of the inlet make the incoming tide pile up to a range of the order of fifteen to sixteen metres. Option A, the Gulf of Kutch, is wrong as a world answer, although it does have one of the highest ranges in India along with the Gulf of Khambhat, which is why tidal power has long been proposed there. Option C, the Strait of Gibraltar, is wrong because the Mediterranean beyond it is almost tideless, its narrow entrance letting in very little tidal water. Option D, the Gulf of Mexico, is wrong because it has an unusually small range and chiefly diurnal tides.

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 C, one hundred and eleven. The National Waterways Act, 2016 brought together in one statute the five waterways already declared between 1986 and 2008 and added many more, making 111 in all, spread over rivers, canals, creeks, estuaries and backwaters in most states of the country. Option A is wrong because five was the number before the Act, declared one at a time by separate laws. Option B is a made-up figure and does not correspond to any stage of the declaration. Option D is wrong and is the kind of near miss that catches candidates who remember only that the number is above a hundred. Remember that declaration by Parliament is only the first step; a waterway carries cargo only after dredging, terminals and navigation aids are in place.

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 B, 35 ppt and sodium chloride. Salinity is expressed in parts per thousand, so 35 ppt means 35 grams of dissolved salt in a kilogram of sea water. Of that dissolved matter sodium chloride, common salt, forms roughly 77 per cent, magnesium chloride about 11 per cent, and the sulphates of magnesium, calcium and potassium most of the remainder. Option A is wrong on both counts, since 24 ppt is far below the ocean average and magnesium chloride is only the second largest component. Option C is wrong because about 41 ppt is the salinity of the Red Sea, the most saline of the open seas, and not the ocean average. Option D names the right figure but the wrong salt, since calcium sulphate is a minor constituent.

The correct answer is D, flow channel. In a flow channel the water runs from the canal head down to the fields purely under gravity, because the bed of the canal is laid at a slope and the source lies higher than the land it serves. Canals are therefore taken off a river or a reservoir at a point high enough for the water to move on its own, and flow irrigation is cheaper to run than any system that needs machinery. Option A is wrong because a lift channel carries water that has to be raised by pumps, the source lying below the land to be watered. Option B is wrong because the command area is the stretch of land a canal is able to irrigate, not a channel at all. Option C is wrong because warabandi is the roster that fixes each farmer's turn and time for drawing water, a method of sharing rather than a type of channel. Exam tip: flow irrigation works by gravity, lift irrigation needs pumps.

The correct answer is C, Kerala. National Waterway 3 runs 205 km from Kollam to Kottapuram along the West Coast Canal and includes the Champakara and Udyogmandal canals, which serve the industrial belt near Kochi. Declared in 1993, it was the first national waterway to be given navigation aids for use by day and by night, and it runs through the Kerala backwaters that also carry heavy tourist traffic. Option A is wrong, though Goa does have two waterways, NW-68 on the Mandovi and NW-111 on the Zuari, used for moving ore. Option B is wrong because Karnataka's waterways are smaller and were declared only under the 2016 Act. Option D is wrong because Maharashtra has NW-10 on the Amba and other short waterways, not the West Coast Canal.

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, Lake Van in Turkey, which records a salinity of about 330 parts per thousand, the highest figure given in standard textbooks. Option A, the Dead Sea, is wrong although it is the most famous example, with a salinity of about 238 ppt, which is why bathers float in it so easily. Option B, the Great Salt Lake of Utah, is wrong because its salinity is about 220 ppt. Option D, the Red Sea, is wrong because its 41 ppt is high only by the standard of open seas. All four are saline for the same reason: they are enclosed or nearly enclosed basins in hot or dry regions, where evaporation removes water and leaves the salt behind while little fresh water flows in.

The correct answer is C, Jaisalmer. A khadin is a long earthen embankment built across the lower end of a sloping field, so that rainwater running off the higher rocky ground collects behind it. The water soaks into the soil during the monsoon, and in winter crops such as wheat and gram are grown on the moist bed without any further irrigation, while wells below the bund also get recharged. The system is credited to the Paliwal Brahmins of Jaisalmer, who developed it around the 15th century, and it suits the district's stony, sloping land and very low rainfall. It is one of the best examples of runoff farming in the Thar. Option A is wrong because Nagaur is not the home of the khadin system. Option B is wrong because Bikaner is known for other rainwater structures, such as the kund and the kui. Option D is wrong because Pali, on the eastern side of the Luni basin, is not where khadins developed. Exam tip: khadin, Paliwal Brahmins, Jaisalmer; kund and tanka store rainwater; kui taps seepage water.

The correct answer is C, National Waterway 16. The Barak between Lakhipur and Bhanga, about 121 km, serves the Barak valley of southern Assam, and through Karimganj it joins the protocol route across Bangladesh, which makes it the lifeline of a region cut off from the rest of Assam by hills. Option A is wrong because National Waterway 2 is the Brahmaputra from Dhubri to Sadiya, in the other valley of the same state. Option B is wrong because the Barak stretch had earlier been declared as National Waterway 6 under a separate law, but after the 2016 Act the Barak waterway is listed as NW-16, which is the number asked for today. Option D is wrong because National Waterway 110 is the Yamuna from Delhi to Prayagraj.

The correct answer is B, guyots. A seamount is an isolated volcanic peak rising from the deep sea floor without reaching the surface; where such a peak once stood at sea level and had its top worn flat by waves before subsiding, it is called a guyot. Option A, atolls, is wrong because an atoll is a ring or horseshoe of coral enclosing a lagoon, built by coral polyps over a subsiding island. Option C, banks, is wrong because a bank is a flat-topped elevation on the continental shelf, shallow enough to be a great fishing ground, the Grand Banks off Newfoundland being the classic example. Option D, shoals, is wrong because a shoal is a detached elevation shallow enough to be a danger to shipping. The names are a favourite matching exercise in examinations.

The correct answer is B, the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, under which the Inland Waterways Authority of India functions. Shipping and navigation on inland waterways declared by Parliament to be national waterways is a Union List subject, which is why a central Act is needed to declare each waterway. Option A is wrong because the Ministry of Jal Shakti handles water resources, river development, irrigation and drinking water, not navigation. Option C is wrong because road transport and highways is a separate ministry, although multi-modal terminals link waterways to highways. Option D is wrong because the environment ministry only grants clearances for dredging and terminal construction. Candidates often answer Jal Shakti because the subject involves rivers, and that is the trap. Remember the chain: the Union List entry, then the ministry, then the Authority created by the 1985 Act, which is the order in which this topic is set.

The correct answer is B. The tide generating force of a body is not simply its gravitational pull but the difference in that pull across the earth, and that difference falls off as the cube of the distance rather than the square. The sun is enormously more massive than the moon, but it is about four hundred times farther away, and the cube of that distance outweighs the mass, so the moon's tide generating force is roughly twice the sun's. Option A is wrong because the moon is vastly less massive than the sun. Option C is wrong because the direction of the moon's revolution lengthens the tidal day to about 24 hours and 52 minutes but does not decide the strength of the force. Option D is wrong because an atmosphere has nothing to do with gravitation.