Geography Mixed Quiz: Set 9

The correct answer is C, Ceres. Ceres is the only dwarf planet that orbits inside the main asteroid belt, the ring of rocky bodies between Mars and Jupiter. Giuseppe Piazzi spotted it in 1801 and it was first called a planet, then an asteroid, and since the International Astronomical Union's definition of 2006, a dwarf planet — the smallest of them. With a diameter of about 940 km it holds roughly a quarter of the mass of the whole belt, and NASA's Dawn spacecraft orbited it in 2015 and found bright salt deposits. Option A is wrong because Eris is a scattered-disc body far beyond Neptune, and its discovery forced the 2006 redefinition. Option B is wrong because Makemake orbits in the Kuiper belt. Option D is wrong because Haumea, with its stretched shape and a thin ring, is also a Kuiper belt object. Exam tip: of the five recognised dwarf planets — Ceres, Pluto, Eris, Makemake and Haumea — only Ceres lies inside the asteroid belt.

The correct answer is C, Kolkata. Kolkata is the only major port of India built on a river, the Hooghly, about 200 km upstream from the sea. It became a Port Trust in 1870 and since 2020 has been named the Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port. It works as a twin system: the Kolkata Dock System handles smaller ships, while the Haldia Dock Complex, nearer the sea, takes larger ones. Silt carried by the river keeps the channel shallow, so constant dredging is needed, and the Farakka Barrage was built partly to push more Ganga water into the Hooghly to flush it. Option A is wrong because Mormugao is a natural harbour at the mouth of the Zuari in Goa, known for iron ore exports. Option B is wrong because Deendayal, earlier called Kandla, is a tidal port on the Gulf of Kutch in Gujarat. Option D is wrong because Paradip is a deep-water sea port on the Odisha coast. Exam tip: the only riverine major port is Kolkata on the Hooghly, with Haldia as its deep-water dock.

The correct answer is B, 82 degrees 30 minutes east. This meridian passes near Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh and runs roughly through the middle of the country, so it was adopted as the standard meridian of India. Its local time, which is five hours and thirty minutes ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, is kept as Indian Standard Time everywhere from Gujarat to Arunachal Pradesh.

Option A, 75 degrees east, passes through the western part of the country and is often offered because it sounds like a round figure. Option C, 88 degrees 30 minutes east, lies close to Kolkata, which once kept its own local time before standardisation. Option D, 90 degrees east, is the standard meridian used by Bangladesh, six hours ahead of Greenwich. The half hour in the Indian offset comes directly from the thirty minutes in the chosen meridian, since half a degree equals two minutes of time.

The correct answer is C, 1971 and 1981 respectively. A ‘million city’ is a city or urban agglomeration with a population of ten lakh or more. Kanpur, the leather and textile centre on the Ganga once called the ‘Manchester of the East’, crossed this mark in the 1971 Census and became the first million city of Uttar Pradesh. Lucknow, the state capital, followed ten years later in the 1981 Census. The order is worth noting: in those decades the mills and factories drew workers from the countryside, so the industrial city grew faster than the capital. In later censuses more cities of the state, such as Agra, Varanasi, Meerut and Ghaziabad, crossed the mark too. Option A is wrong because in 1951 and 1961 neither city had yet reached ten lakh. Option B is wrong because Kanpur reached the mark in 1971, not 1961, and Lucknow only in 1981. Option D is wrong because both years are ten years too late. Exam tip: Kanpur first (1971), Lucknow next (1981): the mill town crossed ten lakh before the capital.

The correct answer is B, the Mohorovicic discontinuity. Named after the Croatian seismologist who noticed that earthquake waves suddenly speed up at a certain depth, it marks the base of the crust and the top of the mantle, and is commonly shortened to the Moho.

Option A, the Conrad discontinuity, lies inside the crust itself, between its lighter upper part and its denser lower part. Option C, the Gutenberg discontinuity, lies much deeper, at about 2,900 kilometres, and separates the mantle from the outer core; it is the usual distractor in this question. Option D, the Lehmann discontinuity, separates the liquid outer core from the solid inner core and is named after the Danish seismologist who identified the inner core. Revise the four names in order of depth, from Conrad to Lehmann, and the matching questions become easy marks.

The correct answer is A, 82° 30′ E longitude. India keeps one standard time for the whole country, Indian Standard Time, based on the 82° 30′ E meridian, which passes near Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh. Since the Earth turns one degree every 4 minutes, 82.5 degrees gives 330 minutes, so IST is 5 hours 30 minutes ahead of Greenwich Mean Time. The meridian was chosen because it runs roughly through the middle of India’s east-west spread of about 30 degrees of longitude, from about 68° 7′ E in Gujarat to 97° 25′ E in Arunachal Pradesh. That spread makes the sun rise nearly two hours earlier in Arunachal than in Gujarat. The line passes through five states: Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. Option B is wrong because 83° 30′ E is one degree too far east. Option C is wrong because 82° E is half a degree short of the standard meridian. Option D is wrong because 82° 50′ E is not the chosen line either. Exam tip: 82° 30′ E × 4 minutes = 5 hours 30 minutes ahead of GMT.

The correct answer is C, 14°N. In the summer months the tropical easterly jet stream blows over peninsular India at about 14°N, some 15 km above the ground, and it moves from east to west. It appears only after the subtropical westerly jet has withdrawn north of the Himalayas and the upper air circulation over India has reversed, and it helps the south-west monsoon burst and keep going; it is strongest over the southern peninsula and the Arabian Sea. Option A is wrong because 24°N crosses central India, well north of the jet's summer core. Option B is wrong because 30°N is roughly where the subtropical westerly jet sits over the northern plains in winter, not where the easterly jet blows. Option D is wrong because 28°N is near the latitude of Delhi, again a winter westerly position. Exam tip: in winter the subtropical westerly jet lies at about 25°N to 30°N south of the Himalayas, and in summer the tropical easterly jet lies at about 14°N over the peninsula.

The correct answer is B, Geology. Geology is the science of the solid Earth: the rocks it is made of, how it formed and changed over time, and the minerals, coal, oil and gas found inside it. The word comes from the Greek geo (earth) and logos (study). A geologist reads rock layers to date events, studies earthquakes and volcanoes, and maps where iron ore, coal or petroleum lie. In India this work is done by the Geological Survey of India, founded in 1851 at Kolkata, one of the oldest such bodies in the world. A is wrong because geophysics uses physics, such as gravity, magnetism and seismic waves, to probe the Earth's interior; it is a branch within the earth sciences, not the broad study asked here. C is wrong because geography studies the Earth's surface, its climate, people and places, not the rocks and resources beneath. D is wrong because geometry is the mathematics of shapes, lines and angles and has nothing to do with the Earth. Exam tip: geo-logy = rocks and resources, geo-graphy = surface and people, geo-physics = physics of the interior.

The correct answer is B, West Bengal and Assam. Nor'westers are violent pre-monsoon thunderstorms that strike eastern India, especially West Bengal and Assam, in the afternoons and evenings of April and May. They form when hot dry air from the Chotanagpur plateau meets moist air drawn in from the Bay of Bengal; the towering clouds bring squally winds, lightning and short but heavy showers. In West Bengal they are called Kalbaisakhi, the calamity of the month of Baisakh, and in Assam they are known as Bardoli Chheerha, where they help the tea crop. A is wrong because Kerala and Karnataka get the pre-monsoon mango showers, which ripen mangoes and help coffee. C is wrong because Gujarat and Maharashtra lie in the west and get no Nor'westers. D is wrong because Rajasthan and Punjab instead feel the hot dry summer wind called loo. Exam tip: Kalbaisakhi - Bengal; Bardoli Chheerha - Assam; mango showers - Kerala and Karnataka; loo - north-west India.

The correct answer is D, (a) and (b). Mount Kilimanjaro and Fujiyama were both built up by volcanic eruptions, while the Alps were formed by folding. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania is the highest mountain in Africa, and Fujiyama, or Mount Fuji, is the highest mountain in Japan. Both are cone-shaped mountains made of layers of lava and ash piled up over many eruptions. The Alps in Europe are young fold mountains, raised when the African plate pushed against the Eurasian plate and the rock layers crumpled, much like the Himalayas. A is wrong because it includes the Alps, which are fold mountains. B is wrong for the same reason, even though Fujiyama is volcanic. C is wrong because the Alps alone are not volcanic, and this option leaves out both of the real volcanic mountains. Exam tip: volcanic, Kilimanjaro and Fujiyama; fold, Himalayas, Alps and Andes; block, the Vosges and the Black Forest along the Rhine valley.

The correct answer is A, Only 1. Statement 1 is correct: the Ramganga rises in the Garhwal hills of Uttarakhand, flows through Corbett National Park, where the Kalagarh dam stands on it, then passes through Moradabad and Bareilly districts and joins the Ganga on its left bank near Kannauj. Statement 2 is wrong: the Betwa, the ancient Vetravati, rises in the Vindhyan region of Madhya Pradesh, flows past Orchha and through the Jhansi area of Bundelkhand, and joins the Yamuna near Hamirpur in Uttar Pradesh, not near Prayagraj. At Prayagraj it is the Yamuna itself that meets the Ganga, at the Sangam. Option B is wrong because statement 2 puts the Betwa’s confluence in the wrong place. Option C is wrong because it accepts the wrong statement and rejects the right one. Option D is wrong because statement 1 is correct. Exam tip: Ramganga into the Ganga at Kannauj, Betwa into the Yamuna at Hamirpur, Yamuna into the Ganga at Prayagraj.

The correct answer is D, Nitrogen and Oxygen. Together these two gases make up about 99 percent of the air around the Earth. Nitrogen alone is about 78 percent of the atmosphere and oxygen about 21 percent. The remaining 1 percent is mostly argon, with very small amounts of carbon dioxide, helium, ozone, hydrogen and water vapour. NCERT's Class 7 geography book puts it in one line: nitrogen and oxygen are the two gases that make up the bulk of the atmosphere. Plants need nitrogen to grow, and all living things need oxygen to breathe. A is wrong because ozone and helium are found only in tiny amounts, though ozone shields us from ultraviolet rays. B is wrong because hydrogen, unlike nitrogen, is present only in traces in the air. C is wrong because carbon dioxide is a very small share of the air, even though it traps heat and matters for climate. Exam tip: nitrogen about 78 percent, oxygen about 21 percent, argon about 0.93 percent.

The correct answer is A, Two. Because of the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun, together with the centrifugal effect of the earth's rotation, most coasts see the sea rise and fall twice in a day. The moon's pull raises a bulge of water on the side of the earth facing it and another on the opposite side, and as the earth turns a place passes through both bulges in about twenty-four hours. These are called semi-diurnal tides, and successive high tides come about twelve hours and twenty-five minutes apart. Option B is wrong because no shore gets three tidal cycles in a day. Option C is wrong because four counts the individual tides — two high and two low — while the rise-and-fall cycle itself happens twice. Option D is wrong because a single daily high and low, called a diurnal tide, occurs only on a few coasts such as parts of the Gulf of Mexico. Exam tip: spring tides come at full moon and new moon when sun and moon pull in line, and neap tides at the quarters.

The correct answer is C, a seasonal shift in wind direction that brings heavy summer rain and dry winters. That is exactly what the Indian monsoon is. The word monsoon comes from the Arabic mausim, meaning season, and describes winds that reverse direction with the season. From June to September the south-west monsoon blows from sea to land and gives India about three-quarters of its yearly rain. From October the winds reverse, the north-east monsoon blows from land to sea, and most of the country stays dry; only Tamil Nadu gets its main rain in this retreating season. A is wrong because summer is the wet season, not the dry one. B is wrong because a monsoon is a change in wind direction, not a sudden change in temperature. D is wrong because summer rain is heavy, not moderate, and winter is dry rather than completely rainless. Exam tip: monsoon = seasonal wind reversal; south-west June to September wet, north-east October to December dry except Tamil Nadu.

The correct answer is B, four minutes. The earth completes one rotation of 360 degrees in 24 hours, that is 1,440 minutes, and dividing 1,440 by 360 gives four minutes for every degree of longitude.

Option C, fifteen minutes, reverses the relationship that candidates most often remember, which is that the earth turns fifteen degrees in one hour; fifteen is the number of degrees, not of minutes. Option D, one hour, is the time for fifteen degrees, not for one. Option A, one minute, would mean a full rotation in six hours, which is plainly wrong. Every numerical question in this chapter rests on this single conversion, so keep both forms ready: one degree equals four minutes, and fifteen degrees equal one hour. The half degree that appears in Indian Standard Time therefore accounts for exactly two minutes.

The correct answer is B, North Atlantic Ocean. The Sargasso Sea lies in the middle of the North Atlantic and is the only sea in the world with no coastline. Instead of land, it is bounded by four ocean currents that circle clockwise around it: the Gulf Stream on the west, the North Atlantic Current on the north, the Canary Current on the east and the North Atlantic Equatorial Current on the south. Because it sits in the calm centre of this gyre, its water is warm, clear and very salty. It is named after sargassum, a brown seaweed that floats on its surface in huge mats, and it is the breeding ground of the American and European eels. Option A is wrong because the Arctic Ocean lies around the North Pole, far from this sea. Option C is wrong because the Sargasso Sea is north of the equator, not in the South Atlantic. Option D is wrong because the Indian Ocean is on the other side of Africa. Exam tip: Sargasso Sea means North Atlantic, no coastline, walled by currents, named after floating seaweed.

The correct answer is B, secondary or S waves. They are transverse waves, in which particles vibrate at right angles to the direction of travel, and such motion cannot be sustained in a fluid, so S waves die out at the outer core. Their absence beyond about 105 degrees from an epicentre is the main evidence that the outer core is liquid.

Option A, P waves, are longitudinal, the fastest of all and the first to reach a seismograph, and they travel through solids, liquids and gases alike. Option C, L waves, are surface waves that arrive last but shake buildings the most and are responsible for the greatest damage in an earthquake. Option D is wrong because only one of the three is stopped by liquid. The property, the order of arrival and the destructive power of each wave are the three points papers combine here.

The correct answer is C, Hemant. In the traditional Indian reckoning the year is divided into six seasons of two months each, and Hemant, the pre-winter, falls in the months of Agrahayana and Pausha — that is, November and December. Taken in order from spring the six are Vasant (March-April), Grishma (May-June), Varsha (July-August), Sharad (September-October), Hemant (November-December) and Shishir (January-February). Each is tied to the Hindu lunar months rather than to fixed dates. Option A is wrong because Sharad, the autumn, comes in September and October, when the monsoon withdraws. Option B is wrong because Shishir, the winter proper, falls in January and February and is the coldest stretch of the year. Option D is wrong because Vasant is the spring of March and April, the season of Holi and of the rabi harvest. Exam tip: learn the six in order from Vasant — Vasant, Grishma, Varsha, Sharad, Hemant, Shishir — and note that Hemant sits between Sharad and Shishir.

The correct answer is C, A-4, B-3, C-2, D-1. The Sutlej feeds the Indus, the Kosi the Ganga, the Teesta the Brahmaputra and the Chambal the Yamuna. The Sutlej rises near Rakas Tal close to Mansarovar in Tibet, enters India at Shipki La and is the easternmost of the five Punjab rivers of the Indus system; the Bhakra dam stands on it. The Kosi, called the "Sorrow of Bihar" for its floods and shifting course, joins the Ganga near Kursela in Bihar. The Teesta, the lifeline of Sikkim, crosses north Bengal into Bangladesh and meets the Brahmaputra there. The Chambal rises near Mhow in Madhya Pradesh, carves the famous ravines and joins the Yamuna in Etawah district of Uttar Pradesh. Option A is wrong because it links the Sutlej with the Yamuna and the Chambal with the Indus. Option B is wrong because it also pairs the Kosi with the Brahmaputra and the Teesta with the Ganga. Option D is wrong because it swaps the Kosi and the Teesta. Exam tip: Sutlej-Indus, Kosi-Ganga, Teesta-Brahmaputra, Chambal-Yamuna.

The correct answer is C, Odisha. The Tropic of Cancer passes through eight states, namely Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura and Mizoram. Odisha lies to the south of that line and is therefore wholly within the tropical belt.

Option A, Jharkhand, and option B, Chhattisgarh, both lie on the line in central and eastern India, and option D, Tripura, is one of the two north-eastern states it crosses, the other being Mizoram. Examiners set this question in both directions, sometimes asking which state the line passes through and sometimes which it does not, and the usual wrong options are Odisha and Bihar, both of which lie just outside it. A simple way to hold the list is to run from west to east: Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura, Mizoram.