Geography Mixed Quiz: Set 51

The correct answer is B, the Bhagirathi. The Tehri dam stands on the Bhagirathi in Tehri Garhwal district of Uttarakhand, close to the confluence with the Bhilangna, and at about 260 metres it is the tallest dam in India. It supplies power, irrigation and drinking water to Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, and the submergence of the old town of Tehri made it the subject of a long protest movement. Option A is wrong because the Alaknanda carries projects such as Vishnuprayag and Srinagar, and joins the Bhagirathi at Devprayag to form the Ganga. Option C is wrong because the Mandakini is a smaller tributary joining the Alaknanda at Rudraprayag. Option D is wrong because the Yamuna carries the Lakhwar and Dakpathar projects in the same state.

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 A, South Andaman and Little Andaman. The Duncan Passage is the stretch of sea that separates Little Andaman from South Andaman, that is from the southern end of Great Andaman. Option B is wrong because Car Nicobar and Little Nicobar lie within the Nicobar group and the water between them carries no such famous name in the examination syllabus. Option C is wrong for the same reason; Great Nicobar is separated from Indonesia, not from Little Nicobar, by a named channel, the Great or Six Degree Channel. Option D is wrong because the water between North Andaman and the Coco Islands, which belong to Myanmar, is the Coco Channel. Learn the sequence from north to south: Coco Channel, Duncan Passage, Ten Degree Channel, Great Channel.

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, Himachal Pradesh. The Rohtang Pass lies on the Pir Panjal range in Himachal Pradesh and connects the Kullu valley with the Lahaul and Spiti district. Because the pass is closed by snow for several months each year, the Atal Tunnel, about nine kilometres long, was built beneath it and opened in October 2020 to keep Lahaul connected through the winter on the Manali to Leh route. Option A is wrong because the important passes of Uttarakhand are Mana, Niti and Lipulekh, all routes towards Tibet. Option C is wrong because Sikkim has Nathu La and Jelep La, which cross into the Chumbi valley. Option D is wrong because Arunachal Pradesh has Se La, Bomdi La, Diphu and Pangsau passes. A useful memory hook is that Rohtang and Banihal both cross the Pir Panjal and both now have tunnels under them.

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 D, Tharu. The Tharu are the most widely distributed Scheduled Tribe of Uttar Pradesh, living along the Terai belt that runs below the Himalaya through Lakhimpur Kheri, Bahraich, Balrampur, Shrawasti, Siddharthnagar, Maharajganj and the neighbouring districts, so they appear in more districts of the state than any other notified tribe. They are also found across the border in Uttarakhand and in Nepal's Terai. A, Agariya, is a small iron-smelting community concentrated in the Sonbhadra and Mirzapur belt of south-eastern Uttar Pradesh. B, Chera or Chero, is likewise confined to the Vindhyan districts of Sonbhadra and Mirzapur. C, Gond, is numerous in central India but in Uttar Pradesh it is limited to a handful of southern districts bordering Madhya Pradesh. All three therefore occupy narrower pockets than the Tharu.

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 A, the Rihand dam. The Rihand dam, in Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh, is built on the Rihand, a tributary of the Son, and the reservoir it created, Govind Ballabh Pant Sagar, is the largest artificial lake in India measured by volume of water stored. The reservoir and the coalfields around it support a cluster of thermal power stations. Option B is wrong because the Bhakra dam on the Sutlej impounds Govind Sagar, a name candidates confuse with Govind Ballabh Pant Sagar, and that confusion is the point of the question. Option C is wrong because the Bansagar dam on the Son in Madhya Pradesh is a separate project shared with Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Option D is wrong because the Matatila dam lies on the Betwa.

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 C, Shompen. The Shompen live in the interior of Great Nicobar and, with the Nicobarese, are of Mongoloid stock; both belong to the Nicobar group. Option A is wrong because the Jarawa live in the western parts of South and Middle Andaman and are of Negrito stock. Option B is wrong because the Onge are a Negrito community of Little Andaman, which is part of the Andaman group even though it lies south of the Duncan Passage. Option D is wrong because the Sentinelese live on North Sentinel Island in the Andaman group and are the most isolated of the six communities. The division to remember is simple: Great Andamanese, Onge, Jarawa and Sentinelese in the Andamans, Nicobarese and Shompen in the Nicobars.

The correct answer is A, Endogenic Forces. Mountains are built by endogenic forces, the forces that act from inside the earth and raise, bend or break the crust. They draw their energy from the earth’s internal heat and from the movement of the plates. Slow or diastrophic movements fold and lift rock over millions of years and give rise to fold mountains such as the Himalayas, the Alps and the Andes, while sudden movements appear as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, which build volcanic mountains. Endogenic forces are therefore called constructive, because they create relief on the surface. B is wrong because exogenic forces such as running water, wind, waves and glaciers act on the surface and wear mountains down instead of raising them. C is wrong because gravity only helps loose material move downhill, as in landslides. D is wrong because the earth’s magnetic field records plate movement but does not lift land. Exam tip: endogenic forces build through diastrophism and volcanism, exogenic forces destroy through weathering and erosion.

The correct answer is B, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The Palakkad Gap, also called the Palghat Gap, is about thirty kilometres wide and lies between the Nilgiris to its north and the Anaimalai hills to its south. It carries the main rail and road links between Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu and Palakkad in Kerala, and it also lets the south-west monsoon and strong summer winds blow inland, which is why the Coimbatore side lies in a rain shadow and supports large wind farms. Option A is wrong because the Karnataka and Goa border crossing of the Ghats is served by passes such as the Anmod and Chorla ghats, not the Palakkad Gap. Option C is wrong because the Maharashtra and Karnataka section of the Ghats has no gap of this size. Option D is wrong because the Kerala and Karnataka link runs through the Wayanad or Thamarassery ghat section.

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 C, Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups. These are communities within the Scheduled Tribes that are the least developed on four counts: a pre-agricultural level of technology, a stagnant or declining population, extremely low literacy and a subsistence economy. Seventy-five such groups have been identified, spread over 18 states and the Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Odisha has the largest number with thirteen. They were called Primitive Tribal Groups until the name was changed in 2006 because the older word was considered derogatory. A and B are wrong because the first word is Particularly, not Periodic; nothing about the category is periodic. B and D are also wrong because the second word is Vulnerable, which is the whole point of the classification, not Various.

The correct answer is C, Thar Desert. A desert shows the largest difference between day and night temperature, called the diurnal range, because dry sand heats up quickly in the day and the cloudless, moisture-free air lets that heat escape just as quickly after sunset. Water vapour and clouds work like a blanket over the ground; where they are absent, as in western Rajasthan, summer days can touch 50 degrees Celsius while the night turns cold, and the daily range often crosses 20 degrees. Option A is wrong because Chilika Lake is a coastal lagoon, and the large water body with the sea breeze keeps its temperature even through the day. Option B is wrong because the Andaman and Nicobar Islands have a humid maritime climate with a very small daily range. Option D is wrong because Mount Everest is extreme in its low temperature, not in its day and night swing. Exam tip: dry air and clear skies give a high diurnal range; humidity and water bodies cut it down.

The correct answer is B, the Narmada, shared by Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan. The Sardar Sarovar dam stands on the Narmada in Narmada district of Gujarat, and the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal, whose award came in 1979, divided the water among these four states and fixed the dam's height. The project is also the one against which the Narmada Bachao Andolan campaigned on displacement and rehabilitation. Option A is wrong because the Tapi carries the Ukai and Kakrapar projects of Gujarat. Option C is wrong because the Mahi carries the Mahi Bajaj Sagar project of Rajasthan and the Kadana dam of Gujarat. Option D is wrong because the Chambal valley project, with Gandhi Sagar, Rana Pratap Sagar and Jawahar Sagar, is shared by Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan alone.

The correct answer is B, Majuli. Majuli lies in the Brahmaputra in Assam, is the largest river island of India, and is the historic centre of the Vaishnavite satras founded in the tradition of Srimanta Sankardeva; it has also been constituted as a district of Assam. Option A is wrong because Sagar Island lies in the Hooghly mouth in West Bengal and is a deltaic island famous for the Gangasagar Mela, not a river island of this size. Option C is wrong because Divar is a small island in the Mandovi in Goa. Option D is wrong because Srirangapatna is an island town in the Kaveri in Karnataka, associated with Tipu Sultan and with the Ranganathittu bird sanctuary nearby, but it is far smaller than Majuli.

The correct answer is A, Sikkim. Nathu La lies on the Sikkim border and crosses into the Chumbi valley of Tibet; it was an important wool and trade route, was closed after the 1962 conflict and was reopened for border trade in 2006. Jelep La, also in Sikkim, is the second route into the same Chumbi valley. Option B is wrong because Himachal Pradesh has Rohtang, Baralacha La, Kunzum La and Shipki La, the last being its designated border trade point. Option C is wrong because Uttarakhand has Mana, Niti and Lipulekh, the last being the Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage route. Option D is wrong because Arunachal Pradesh has Se La and Bomdi La on the Tawang route and Diphu Pass at the India, China and Myanmar tri-junction. Remembering that both Sikkim passes end in La and lead to the Chumbi valley makes this pair easy.

The correct answer is C, 2024. The Pradhan Mantri Janjatiya Unnat Gram Abhiyan was announced in the Union Budget of 2024-25 and approved by the Union Cabinet in 2024 as a mission to saturate tribal-majority villages and aspirational blocks with basic facilities such as housing, roads, water, electricity, health and education, working through the convergence of many existing central schemes. A, 2022, and D, 2023, come before the mission existed; 2023 is the year of the separate PM-JANMAN mission for Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group habitations, which is the usual trap in this question. B, 2025, is later than the approval. Candidates should fix the pair in memory: PM-JANMAN in 2023 for PVTG habitations, and the Janjatiya Unnat Gram Abhiyan in 2024 for tribal-majority villages. Note also that the mission is run by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs in convergence with other ministries, so a question may ask for the nodal ministry instead of the year.