Geography Mixed Quiz: Set 57

The correct answer is C, Bangladesh, with a boundary of about 4,096 kilometres, the longest India has with any country; it runs along West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram. Option A is wrong because the border with China, about 3,488 kilometres, is the second longest and is the one most often marked by students who confuse length with importance in the news. Option B is wrong because the Pakistan border measures about 3,323 kilometres and comes third. Option D is wrong because the Nepal border, about 1,751 kilometres, is well behind the first three. A related fact is asked in the same breath: among Indian states, West Bengal has the longest international border, and most of it faces Bangladesh. The Bangladesh frontier is also the most densely settled of India's borders, running through fields and villages rather than mountains, which is why fencing and enclave settlement have been such long-running issues on it.

The correct answer is A, 1 only. In January the northern oceans are warmer than the frozen continents, so isotherms bend north over the sea and south over the land; the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Drift are warm currents, not cold ones.

Isotherms are lines joining places of equal temperature. In the northern hemisphere winter, land loses heat quickly and becomes very cold, while the ocean keeps its warmth. A given temperature is therefore found further north over the ocean and further south over the continents such as Siberia, which makes the lines bend. Statement 2 is wrong: the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic Drift carry warm tropical water into the North Atlantic, making it warmer, and that warmth is why the isotherms bend sharply north there, keeping ports of north-west Europe ice-free.

B is wrong because statement 2 calls warm currents cold.

C is wrong because statement 2 is false.

D is wrong because statement 1 is a correct inference.

Exam tip: January isotherms bend poleward over oceans and equatorward over land; Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Drift are warm currents.

The correct answer is A, Asia and North America. The Bering Strait lies between the Chukchi peninsula of Russia and the Seward peninsula of Alaska, joining the Arctic Ocean to the Bering Sea, and the International Date Line passes through it; in the ice ages a land bridge here allowed people and animals to cross into America. B is wrong because Europe and Africa are separated by the Strait of Gibraltar, between Spain and Morocco. C is wrong because Asia and Europe meet on land along the Urals and are divided at sea by the Bosporus and the Dardanelles in Turkey. D is wrong because South America is separated from Antarctica by the Drake Passage, the stormy stretch of water south of Cape Horn. Remember also that the strait is only about 82 kilometres wide and that Russia and the United States face each other across it at the Diomede Islands, where the date line makes one island a day ahead of the other.

The correct answer is C, Statement I is true but Statement II is false. Plantations do lie mostly in the humid tropics, but the soils there are generally poor, not highly fertile.

Plantation farming grows a single cash crop such as tea, coffee, rubber, sugarcane, cocoa, banana or oil palm on large estates with heavy capital and hired labour. It spread in the humid tropics of Asia, Africa and Latin America, largely under colonial rule, because these crops need high temperatures and heavy rain throughout the year. The same heavy rain leaches nutrients out of the soil, leaving laterite and other weathered red soils that are low in humus and plant food; the lush forest survives by quickly recycling nutrients from fallen leaves.

A is wrong: Statement II is false, so it cannot explain Statement I.

B is wrong: it treats the false Statement II as true.

D is wrong: Statement I is true and Statement II is false, the reverse of this option.

Exam tip: humid tropics have lush forest but leached, infertile laterite soil; plantations need the climate, not rich soil.

The correct answer is B, Afghanistan, with which India's land boundary is only about 106 kilometres long, lying in the part of the former state of Jammu and Kashmir that is under Pakistan's control, near the Wakhan Corridor. Option A is wrong because the Bhutan border, about 699 kilometres, is the shortest among the borders India actually administers and is therefore the favourite distractor in this question. Option C is wrong because the Myanmar border runs about 1,643 kilometres along Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram. Option D is wrong because the Nepal border is about 1,751 kilometres. Read the question carefully: if it asks for the shortest border India guards on the ground, the expected answer is Bhutan. The Afghan stretch matters for one more reason: it exists only because the Durand Line of 1893 pushed the Wakhan Corridor between British India and Russian Central Asia, and India does not control that stretch today.

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, Spain and Morocco. The Strait of Gibraltar is the narrow entrance to the Mediterranean from the Atlantic Ocean, with the Rock of Gibraltar on the European side and Jebel Musa on the African side; the two headlands were known to the ancients as the Pillars of Hercules. A is wrong because Italy and Tunisia face each other across the Strait of Sicily, a much wider stretch of the Mediterranean. C is wrong because France and England are separated by the Strait of Dover, also called Pas de Calais, the narrowest part of the English Channel. D is wrong because Greece and Turkey face each other across the Aegean Sea and its many islands, while the straits of Turkey, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, lie wholly within Turkey.

The correct answer is B, dry point settlements. Where water is abundant and flooding is a danger, people avoid the low wet land and build on the levee, the terrace or any patch of higher dry ground, and such a site is called a dry point. A, wet point settlements, is the exact opposite and is wrong here: in a dry region people cluster around the single dependable source of water, a well, a tank or a spring, and that site is the wet point. C, linear settlements, is wrong because that term describes the shape of a settlement strung along a road, a canal or a river bank, not the reason for its site. D, planned settlements, is wrong because those are laid out by government for canal colonists, refugees or industrial workers, and their site is chosen administratively rather than by the water table.

The correct answer is B, India and Pakistan. The line was drawn in 1947 by Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who chaired the boundary commissions that divided Punjab and Bengal, so the same line also forms the India-Bangladesh boundary, Bangladesh having been East Pakistan until 1971. Option A is wrong because the India-China boundary in the east is the McMahon Line of 1914, and the working line today is the Line of Actual Control. Option C is wrong because the India-Myanmar boundary carries no such famous name. Option D is wrong because the Pakistan-Afghanistan boundary is the Durand Line of 1893, named after Sir Mortimer Durand. In Jammu and Kashmir the India-Pakistan line is called the Line of Control, a name it took after the Simla Agreement of 1972.

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 A, the Gulf of Aden. Bab-el-Mandeb, the Gate of Tears, lies between Yemen on the Asian side and Djibouti and Eritrea on the African side, and it is the southern doorway of the Red Sea, opening into the Gulf of Aden and then the Arabian Sea; every ship using the Suez Canal on the India-Europe route passes through it. B is wrong because the Persian Gulf is entered from the Gulf of Oman through the Strait of Hormuz. C is wrong because the Gulf of Aqaba is one of the two northern arms of the Red Sea itself, leading to Jordan and Israel, and is not reached through Bab-el-Mandeb. D is wrong because the Red Sea is joined to the Mediterranean at its northern end by the Suez Canal, a man-made waterway and not a strait.

The correct answer is B, Asia. Asia supplies more than half of the world's tin, because the great tin belt of South East Asia runs through Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, and China is the largest single producer.

Tin is obtained mostly from the ore cassiterite, often by dredging and washing alluvial gravels, and it is used in tin plating, solder and bronze. Indonesia's Bangka and Belitung islands and China's Yunnan and Guangxi provinces are the best known fields.

Option A, Europe, has only small production, chiefly from Cornwall in England, which matters historically rather than today. Option C, North Africa, is a region and not a continent, and it has no important tin mines. Option D, Africa as a whole, produces tin in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria and Rwanda, but far less than Asia.

Exam tip: Asia leads in tin — China, Indonesia and Myanmar; the ore is cassiterite.

The correct answer is C, India and China, in the eastern sector along Arunachal Pradesh. The line was drawn at the Simla Convention of 1914 by Sir Henry McMahon, then the Foreign Secretary of British India, in an agreement with Tibet; China has never accepted it, which is the root of the dispute in that sector. Option A is wrong because the India-Nepal boundary was fixed by the Treaty of Sugauli of 1816 and is an open border today. Option B is wrong because the India-Bhutan boundary has no such named line and has been settled peacefully over decades. Option D is wrong because the India-Bangladesh boundary descends from the Radcliffe Line of 1947 and was finally settled by the Land Boundary Agreement ratified in 2015.

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, Little Andaman and Car Nicobar. The Ten Degree Channel takes its name from the parallel of ten degrees north that runs along it, and it divides the Andaman group of islands from the Nicobar group, lying between Little Andaman in the north and Car Nicobar in the south. A is wrong because South Andaman and Little Andaman are separated by the Duncan Passage, a narrower gap within the Andaman group. C is wrong because Minicoy is separated from the Maldives by the Eight Degree Channel, and from the rest of Lakshadweep by the Nine Degree Channel. D is wrong because Great Nicobar is separated from Sumatra in Indonesia by the Great Channel, the stretch of water that makes Indonesia India's nearest maritime neighbour in the south-east.

The correct answer is A, Red Sindhi. Red Sindhi is an indigenous Indian dairy breed of cattle, while the other three are Indian dog breeds.

Red Sindhi cattle take their name from the Sindh region and are reddish-brown, hardy and able to bear heat, which is why they have been used to improve milk yield in many tropical countries. Sahiwal, Gir, Tharparkar and Deoni are the other well-known indigenous milch breeds, while Amritmahal, Hallikar and Kangayam are draught breeds. Under the Rashtriya Gokul Mission the government works to conserve and develop such native breeds.

B is wrong: Chippiparai is a sight hound dog breed of Tamil Nadu. C is wrong: Kanni is also a dog breed from southern Tamil Nadu. D is wrong: Kombai is a Tamil Nadu hunting dog breed, not cattle.

Exam tip: Indigenous milch cattle - Red Sindhi, Sahiwal, Gir, Tharparkar, Deoni; Chippiparai, Kanni and Kombai are dog breeds.

The correct answer is B, the Palk Strait and the Gulf of Mannar, the shallow waters between Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka, with the chain of sandbanks called Adam's Bridge or Rama Setu running between Rameswaram and Talaimannar. Option A is wrong because the Ten Degree Channel separates the Andaman group from the Nicobar group. Option C is wrong because the Eight Degree Channel separates the Minicoy island of Lakshadweep from the Maldives, and the Nine Degree Channel separates Minicoy from the rest of Lakshadweep. Option D is wrong because the Duncan Passage lies between South Andaman and Little Andaman. These water bodies are asked as a set almost every year, so learn the four channels together with the islands they separate. Kachchatheevu, the small island in the Palk Strait, and the fishing rights around it are the practical reason these waters keep returning to the news.

The correct answer is C, Madagascar. The Mozambique Channel is the stretch of the Indian Ocean between Mozambique on the African mainland and the island of Madagascar, and at roughly 1,600 kilometres in length it is counted as the longest channel in the world; the Comoros lie at its northern mouth. A is wrong because Mauritius lies well to the east of Madagascar in the open Indian Ocean and has no channel named after it. B is wrong because Sri Lanka is separated from India by the Palk Strait and the Gulf of Mannar, thousands of kilometres from Africa. D is wrong because the Seychelles is a scattered group of islands north-east of Madagascar, again in open ocean rather than in a narrow channel. Examiners also pair the channel with the Comoros and with the Mozambique Current that flows through it, so the name should bring to mind Africa on one side and Madagascar on the other.

The correct answer is B, the Andaman and the Nicobar groups, which lie on either side of the Ten Degree Channel in the Bay of Bengal, the name coming from the ten degree north parallel along which it runs. Option A is wrong because Lakshadweep and the Maldives are separated by the Eight Degree Channel. Option C is wrong because Minicoy is separated from the rest of Lakshadweep by the Nine Degree Channel. Option D is wrong because Great Nicobar is separated from Sumatra in Indonesia by the Great Channel, and Indira Point on Great Nicobar is the southernmost point of India. Remember also the Coco Channel, which separates the northern Andamans from the Coco Islands of Myanmar. The parallels give the names, so the order from north to south is easy to fix: Ten Degree between Andaman and Nicobar, Nine Degree at Minicoy and Eight Degree below it towards the Maldives.

The correct answer is B, the Gulf of Mexico. Enclosed by the United States, Mexico and the island of Cuba, the Gulf of Mexico is the largest gulf on earth, and it is the nursery of the hurricanes that strike the American coast as well as the home of the warm Gulf Stream. A is wrong because the Persian Gulf, though the most important for oil, is far smaller and shallower, and is counted among the shallow marginal seas. C is wrong because the Gulf of Guinea, off the coast of West Africa, is famous chiefly for lying where the Equator crosses the Prime Meridian. D is wrong because the Gulf of Carpentaria is a shallow sea indenting the northern coast of Australia and is much smaller than the Gulf of Mexico.