Geography Mixed Quiz: Set 7

The correct answer is A, 1.3 seconds. The Moon is on average about 384,400 kilometres from the Earth. Light covers about three lakh kilometres in a second, so it crosses that distance in a little over a second. This is the standard figure asked in one-line questions about the Moon, along with its distance.

Option B, eight minutes and twenty seconds, is the time sunlight takes to reach us, and the two figures are deliberately placed together in such questions. Option C, 27.3 days, is the period the Moon takes both to rotate once on its axis and to revolve once around the Earth; because the two are equal, the same face of the Moon is always turned towards us. Option D is far too long and matches nothing in the Earth and Moon system.

The correct answer is B, Stalagmite. A stalagmite is a column of calcium carbonate that rises from the floor of a limestone cave. Rainwater with dissolved carbon dioxide slowly dissolves limestone and carries it as calcium bicarbonate. When this water drips inside a cave, carbon dioxide escapes and a thin layer of calcium carbonate is left behind, drop after drop, for thousands of years. The drop that hangs from the roof builds a stalactite, and the water that falls on the floor builds a stalagmite below it; when the two meet they form a pillar. Such cave landforms are part of karst topography, seen in India in the Borra Caves of Andhra Pradesh and the caves of Meghalaya. A is wrong because hatectite is not a standard cave term. C is wrong because a stalactite hangs down from the roof, the opposite of what the question describes. D is wrong because dripstone is the general name for all such drip deposits, stalactites and stalagmites alike, not the upward form alone. Exam tip: stalaCtite hangs from the Ceiling, stalaGmite rises from the Ground.

The correct answer is C, southern. Indira Point, the southernmost point of India, lies at the southern tip of Great Nicobar Island in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It is at about 6°45' North latitude. Its old name was Pygmalion Point, and it was renamed in 1985 in memory of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The southernmost point of mainland India is Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, at about 8°4' N. The Six Degree Channel, south of Great Nicobar, separates India from Sumatra in Indonesia. A is wrong because the northern tip of Great Nicobar faces Little Nicobar, the next island in the chain. B is wrong because the eastern coast runs along the side of the island and does not reach its southern end. D is wrong because the western coast also runs along the side of the island, not at its southern end. Exam tip: India's extreme points: south = Indira Point, mainland south = Kanyakumari, east = Kibithu (Arunachal Pradesh), west = Guhar Moti (Kutch, Gujarat).

The correct answer is D, Zoji La. Zoji La is the pass on the Srinagar–Leh highway (NH 1) that joins the Kashmir valley with Dras and Ladakh. It sits at about 3,528 metres in the Great Himalayan range and stays snowbound for months every winter, which is why the Zojila tunnel is being built to keep Ladakh connected all year. Kargil and Dras lie just beyond it, so the pass mattered a great deal during the 1999 Kargil conflict. A is wrong because Nathu La is in Sikkim on the border with Tibet (China) and is used for the Kailash Mansarovar route and border trade. B is wrong because Bara-lacha La is in Himachal Pradesh on the Manali–Leh road, not the Srinagar road. C is wrong because Jelep La is also a Sikkim–Tibet pass, close to Nathu La. Exam tip: Srinagar–Leh means Zoji La; Manali–Leh means Rohtang and Bara-lacha La; Sikkim means Nathu La and Jelep La.

The correct answer is A, Central Highlands. The Narmada divides the Peninsular plateau into two parts: the Central Highlands to its north and the Deccan Plateau to its south. The Central Highlands cover a major area of the Malwa plateau, with the Aravalli range to the north-west and the Vindhya range along the south. Rivers here, such as the Chambal, Sind, Betwa and Ken, flow from south-west to north-east, which shows the slope of the land. The eastward extensions of the Central Highlands are called Bundelkhand and Baghelkhand, and the Chotanagpur plateau lies further east. Option B is wrong because the Western Ghats mark the western edge of the Deccan Plateau, along the Arabian Sea coast. Option C is wrong because the Eastern Ghats form the broken eastern edge of the Deccan Plateau. Option D is wrong because the Deccan Plateau is the triangular landmass that lies south of the Narmada. Exam tip: north of the Narmada lie the Central Highlands; south of it lies the Deccan Plateau.

The correct answer is C, West Champaran. Piedmont swamp soil is found only in the north-western part of West Champaran, at the foot of the Someshwar hills. Piedmont means 'at the foot of the mountain': streams coming down the hills slow down on the flat land below, and the ground stays wet and marshy, which gives this soil its name. The same corner of the district holds Valmiki National Park and Someshwar fort, the highest point in Bihar. Just to the east, a strip of Terai soil runs along the Nepal border, while most of the Bihar plain is covered by alluvial soil laid down by the Ganga and its tributaries. Option A is wrong because Madhubani, in the Mithila plain, has alluvial soil with a Terai strip in the north. Option B is wrong because Bhagalpur, on the Ganga in east Bihar, has alluvial soil. Option D is wrong because this soil occurs in only one district. Exam tip: piedmont swamp soil means West Champaran, below the Someshwar hills.

The correct answer is D, Jhelum. The Kishanganga rises near Gurez in the Kashmir valley, flows north-west through Bandipora, crosses the Line of Control, where it is called the Neelum, and joins the Jhelum at Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. It is the largest tributary of the Jhelum, which itself rises at the Verinag spring and flows through Srinagar and the Wular lake. India's 330 MW Kishanganga hydroelectric project in Bandipora district, opened in 2018, led to a dispute with Pakistan under the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960, which is why this river appears in exams. A is wrong because the Chenab is formed by the Chandra and Bhaga at Tandi in Himachal Pradesh and does not receive the Kishanganga. B is wrong because the Sutlej rises near Rakshastal in Tibet and is fed by the Beas, not the Kishanganga. C is wrong because the Ravi rises in the Kullu hills near the Rohtang Pass. Exam tip: the Kishanganga (Neelum) meets the Jhelum at Muzaffarabad; the Jhelum rises at Verinag; the Indus Waters Treaty was signed in 1960.

The correct answer is C, Neither I nor II. Both pairs are reversed: in Punjab rice is a commercial crop, while in Odisha it is a subsistence crop. The same crop can be commercial in one state and subsistence in another; it depends on why the farmer grows it. A subsistence crop feeds the farmer's own family, and a commercial crop is grown mainly for sale. Punjab and Haryana farmers do not eat much rice, yet they grow it on irrigated land with high-yielding seeds and sell almost all of it to the government at the minimum support price. In Odisha, West Bengal and Assam rice is the staple food, grown mostly on small rain-fed plots for the family's own kitchen. A is wrong because Punjab rice is sold, not eaten at home, so it is commercial. B is wrong because Odisha rice is largely eaten by the growers, so it is subsistence. D fails because neither pair is correct. Exam tip: NCERT line to remember, rice is commercial in Punjab and Haryana but subsistence in Odisha.

The correct answer is B, Wular Lake. NCERT's geography textbook describes Wular Lake in Jammu and Kashmir as a lake formed as a result of tectonic activity, that is, by movements of the Earth's crust. It lies in the Kashmir Valley in Bandipora district, and the Jhelum river flows into it and out of it, so the lake soaks up the river's floodwater. Wular is the largest freshwater lake in India and has been a Ramsar wetland since 1990. Its area changes a lot with the seasons, roughly from 30 to 260 square kilometres. Option A is wrong because Chilika in Odisha is a lagoon, a coastal lake cut off from the sea by a sand bar. Option C is wrong because Kolleru in Andhra Pradesh is a shallow lake lying between the deltas of the Godavari and the Krishna. Option D is wrong because Sambhar in Rajasthan is an inland salt lake of the dry region, fed by seasonal streams and known for salt production. Exam tip: Wular = largest freshwater lake and tectonic; Chilika = largest lagoon; Sambhar = largest inland salt lake.

The correct answer is C, iii iv i ii. Kalahandi in Odisha is known for the large bauxite deposits of the Eastern Ghats; Zawar near Udaipur in Rajasthan is India’s best-known zinc and lead mine, worked since ancient times; Kolar in Karnataka is famous for the Kolar Gold Fields, among the deepest gold mines in the world until they closed in 2001; and Mosabani in the Singhbhum copper belt of Jharkhand is a major copper mining centre. Paper setters like to pair each mineral with one famous place, so learning one landmark site per mineral pays off quickly. Option A is wrong because it gives gold to Kalahandi and bauxite to Kolar. Option B is wrong because it also gives Kalahandi gold instead of bauxite and Kolar bauxite instead of gold. Option D is wrong because it pairs Zawar with copper and Kolar with zinc and lead. Exam tip: Kalahandi bauxite, Zawar zinc and lead, Kolar gold, Mosabani copper.

The correct answer is B, Puducherry with its units at Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe, and Yanam. Puducherry is the only Union Territory spread over both coasts of India. Puducherry and Karaikal lie on the east coast within Tamil Nadu, Yanam lies on the east coast in Andhra Pradesh, and Mahe lies on the west (Malabar) coast within Kerala. All four were French settlements; they came to India in 1954 and formally became part of India in 1962. Option A is wrong because the Andaman and Nicobar Islands lie only in the Bay of Bengal, on the eastern side. Option C is wrong because Lakshadweep lies only in the Arabian Sea, off the Kerala coast. Option D is wrong because Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu lie only on the western side, near Gujarat and Maharashtra. Exam tip: Puducherry has four districts in three states: Puducherry and Karaikal (Tamil Nadu), Yanam (Andhra Pradesh) and Mahe (Kerala).

The correct answer is B, 2 and 6. The Tropic of Cancer crosses eight Indian states, and only two of them touch the sea. Running at about 23.5 degrees north, it passes from west to east through Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura and Mizoram. Gujarat and West Bengal have coastlines, while the other six are landlocked. The line divides India into two nearly equal halves, with the northern part in the temperate zone and the southern part in the tropical zone. A is wrong, because two coastal states, not one, lie on the line, and the total is eight. C is wrong, because 2 and 5 makes only seven states and misses one of the six landlocked ones. D is wrong, because no third coastal state such as Odisha lies on the Tropic; Odisha lies south of it. Exam tip: Tropic of Cancer, eight states from Gujarat to Mizoram; the coastal pair is Gujarat and West Bengal.

The correct answer is C, Panama Canal. The Panama Canal cuts across the narrow Isthmus of Panama in Central America and joins the Atlantic Ocean, through the Caribbean Sea, with the Pacific Ocean. It was opened in 1914 by the United States and is about 82 km long. Because the land in between is higher than the sea, ships are raised and lowered by locks that use water from the man-made Gatun Lake. The canal saves ships the long voyage around Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America. The USA handed the canal over to Panama on 31 December 1999. A is wrong because the Kiel Canal in Germany joins the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. B is wrong because the Suez Canal in Egypt, opened in 1869, joins the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. D is wrong because the White Sea Canal in Russia links the White Sea with the Baltic Sea. Exam tip: Suez 1869 (Mediterranean to Red Sea, no locks), Panama 1914 (Atlantic to Pacific, with locks), Kiel (North Sea to Baltic Sea).

The correct answer is D, metamorphic. Quartzite is formed when sandstone, a sedimentary rock, is changed by great heat and pressure deep inside the earth. The quartz grains of the sandstone recrystallise and fuse, so quartzite becomes one of the hardest and most weather-resistant rocks, which is why the ridges of the Aravalli range and the Delhi Ridge, made largely of quartzite, have survived for hundreds of millions of years. Such change of an existing rock without melting is called metamorphism. A is wrong because igneous rocks such as granite and basalt form from cooled magma or lava, not from an older rock under pressure. B is wrong because basalt is itself a specific igneous rock, not a class of rock. C is wrong because sedimentary is the parent type; sandstone is sedimentary, but once transformed it is no longer classed that way. Exam tip: sandstone becomes quartzite, limestone becomes marble, shale becomes slate, granite becomes gneiss.

The correct answer is A, A-ii, B-iii, C-iv, D-i. The Gobi is a cold desert of Asia spread over Mongolia and northern China, and it is famous for its dinosaur fossils. Patagonia lies in southern Argentina in South America; it is a rain-shadow desert, dry because the Andes block the moist westerly winds coming from the Pacific. The Great Victoria Desert is the largest desert of Australia, stretching across Western Australia and South Australia. The Kalahari covers most of Botswana and parts of Namibia and South Africa, in southern Africa. Paper setters like Patagonia because it lies on the eastern side of its continent, while most hot deserts lie on the western margins, next to cold ocean currents. Option B is wrong because it puts the Gobi in Australia and Patagonia in Asia. Option C is wrong because it places Patagonia in southern Africa and the Victoria Desert in South America. Option D is wrong because it gives every desert the wrong continent. Exam tip: Gobi–Asia, Patagonia–South America, Great Victoria–Australia, Kalahari–southern Africa.

The correct answer is D, 1, 2 and 3. All three statements are true. Statement 1: the size of an eruption is rated on the Volcanic Explosivity Index, a scale from 0 to 8 based on the volume of material thrown out and the height of the eruption column; each step up means roughly ten times more material. Statement 2: Iceland sits on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge where two plates move apart, and the Philippines lies on the Pacific Ring of Fire, so both were built by volcanic activity. Statement 3: volcanic ash and lava weather into deep, mineral-rich soils, which is why Java in Indonesia supports dense farming and the Deccan's black soil, formed from basalt lava, grows cotton so well. A is wrong, because it leaves out statement 3, which is true. B is wrong, because it drops statement 1, and the index is the standard measure. C is wrong, because it drops statement 2, though both Iceland and the Philippines are volcanic. Exam tip: VEI runs from 0 to 8; Iceland sits on a ridge, the Philippines on the Ring of Fire; basalt gives black soil.

The correct answer is C, Gorges. In its upper course a river flows fast down steep slopes, so it cuts downward into the rock more than it spreads sideways. This vertical erosion makes deep, narrow valleys with steep sides: V-shaped valleys and, where the rock is hard, gorges. Waterfalls and rapids also belong to this young stage of a river. A famous example is the Indus gorge in the Himalayas, and the Narmada flows through a marble gorge at Bhedaghat near Jabalpur. A is wrong because oxbow lakes form in the lower course, when a loop of a meander is cut off from the main channel. B is wrong because meanders, the wide loops of a river, form in the middle and lower course, where the land is gentle and the river swings sideways. D is wrong because floodplains form in the lower course, where the river spreads out and leaves silt during floods. Exam tip: upper course, V-shaped valley, gorge and waterfall; lower course, meander, oxbow lake, floodplain and delta.

The correct answer is C, 2006. In that year the International Astronomical Union adopted a formal definition of a planet: a body that orbits the Sun, is massive enough for its own gravity to pull it into a nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit. Pluto, discovered in 1930, satisfies the first two conditions but shares its region with many other bodies of the Kuiper belt, so it was moved to the new class of dwarf planets.

Options A, B and D name years in which no such decision was taken. Since 2006 the solar system has been described as having eight planets, and questions that ask for the number of planets expect the answer eight. Remember also that Ceres, the largest body of the asteroid belt, is counted among the dwarf planets under the same definition.

The correct answer is D, Madhya Pradesh. The Son rises at Amarkantak on the Maikal hills in Anuppur district of Madhya Pradesh, the same plateau from which the Narmada starts in the opposite direction. It flows north and then east for about 780 km through Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and joins the Ganga near Maner, a little west of Patna. It is the largest right-bank (southern) tributary of the Ganga; its own tributaries include the Rihand and the North Koel, and the Bansagar dam in Madhya Pradesh and the Rihand dam in Uttar Pradesh stand on this system. The famous Koilwar rail-road bridge in Bihar crosses the Son. A is wrong because West Bengal is where the Ganga ends its Indian course, not where the Son begins. B is wrong because Uttar Pradesh only lies on the Son's middle course. C is wrong because Assam belongs to the Brahmaputra basin. Exam tip: Amarkantak sends the Narmada west and the Son north-east; the Son meets the Ganga near Patna.

The correct answer is A, Canada and the United States of America. Their boundary, about 8,891 km long including the Alaska section, is the longest border between any two countries. It has two parts: about 6,400 km along the southern edge of Canada, much of it along the 49th parallel west of the Great Lakes and through the lakes themselves, and about 2,475 km between Alaska and Canada's Yukon and British Columbia. It is often called the world's longest undefended border and is looked after by the International Boundary Commission. Option D is wrong, though close: the Kazakhstan–Russia border, about 7,600 km, is the longest continuous land border. Option B is wrong because the Chile–Argentina border along the Andes, about 5,300 km, comes third. Option C is wrong because the China–India border is about 3,488 km. Exam tip: Canada–USA is the longest overall, Kazakhstan–Russia the longest continuous land border; India's longest border is with Bangladesh, 4,096 km.