Geography Quiz: World Climatic Regions and Grasslands

The correct answer is A, Argentina. The Pampas are the temperate grasslands of the lower Parana and Plata basin, spread mainly over Argentina and extending into Uruguay. Short nutritious grass and a deep fertile soil made them a great wheat and cattle land, and the herdsman of the Pampas is called a gaucho. Option B, Brazil, is wrong because the grassland of the Brazilian highlands is the Campos, which is tropical and taller. Option C, Chile, is wrong because Chile is a long, narrow country of the western margin whose landscapes are the Atacama desert in the north, a Mediterranean belt in the middle and cold forests in the south, not a grassland. Option D, Ecuador, is wrong because it straddles the equator and carries equatorial forest and high Andean paramo, not temperate grass. Remember the pair of South America, with Pampas in Argentina and Campos in Brazil.

The correct answer is D, because the tundra is not a temperate region at all. It is the polar belt beyond about 70 degrees latitude, where the warmest month stays below 10 degrees Celsius and the subsoil remains frozen as permafrost, so Koppen codes it ET in his polar E group. Option A is correct and therefore not the answer, since dwarf shrubs, stunted birch and willow do grow in the brief summer. Option B is correct as well, because mosses and lichens are the typical tundra plants and the reindeer feeds on them. Option C is correct too, as the short growing season, the frozen subsoil and the thin soil keep growth low and treeless. The statement in D confuses the tundra with the temperate deciduous forests of the middle latitudes, which is the trap the paper setter wanted.

The correct answer is C, Asia. The Gobi lies in central Asia, across southern Mongolia and northern China, and it is a cold mid latitude desert: it is dry not because of the trade winds but because it is far from the sea and the Himalayan and other ranges cut off the monsoon, and its winters are bitterly cold. Option A, Europe, is wrong because Europe has no true desert; its driest lands are the steppes near the Caspian. Option B, North America, is wrong because the deserts there are the Sonoran, Mojave, Chihuahuan and the Great Basin. Option D, Africa, is wrong because the African deserts are the Sahara in the north and the Kalahari and Namib in the south. Pair the cold deserts in your memory: Gobi in Asia, Patagonia in South America and Turkestan in central Asia.

The correct answer is B, only 2 pairs. North America and Prairie is right, as the prairies are the temperate grasslands of the United States and Canada and the granary of the world. Central Asia and Steppe is right as well, since the steppes run from Ukraine and Russia across Kazakhstan into Mongolia. The other two pairs have been swapped: the grassland of South Africa is the Veld, and the grassland of Australia is the Downs, so South Africa and Down is wrong and Australia and Veld is wrong. Only two pairs are therefore correct. Options A and C give the wrong count, and option D is wrong because two pairs are interchanged. This swap of Veld and Downs is the single commonest trap in questions on world grasslands, so fix it as Veld for Africa and Downs for Australia.

The correct answer is C, Bugyal. Bugyal is the local name in Uttarakhand for the alpine meadows that lie above the tree line in the Greater Himalayas, used by shepherds for summer grazing; in Kashmir the same meadows are called marg, which gives the names Gulmarg and Sonmarg. Option A, Bhabar, is wrong because the bhabar is the narrow belt of coarse pebbles at the foot of the Shiwaliks where the streams disappear underground. Option B, Maru, is wrong because maru means desert and Marusthali is the name of the Thar. Option D is wrong because green meadows is only a translation and not the term geography uses. Note the pair the paper setter wants: bugyal in Uttarakhand and marg in Kashmir, both alpine meadows and not grasslands of the plains.

The correct answer is B, Af. In Koppen scheme the capital A stands for the tropical group, in which the coldest month is still above 18 degrees Celsius, and the small f stands for rain in every month of the year, so Af is the equatorial or tropical rainforest climate of the Amazon, the Congo and Indonesia. Option A, Aw, is wrong because w marks a dry winter, which gives the savanna or Sudan type climate. Option C, Cs, is wrong because C is the warm temperate group and s marks a dry summer, so Cs is the Mediterranean climate. Option D, ET, is wrong because E is the polar group and T stands for tundra, the treeless belt whose warmest month stays below 10 degrees Celsius. Learn the letters as groups first and the small rainfall letters second.

The correct answer is C, the Mediterranean region. It lies on the western margins of continents between about 30 and 45 degrees latitude, and the wind belts shift with the sun: in winter the rain bearing westerlies move towards the equator and reach it, while in summer the dry descending air of the subtropical high sits over it. The result is a wet winter and a dry summer, a combination found nowhere else, and it suits citrus, olive and grape. Option A is wrong because the equatorial belt gets convectional rain in every month. Option B is wrong because the monsoon lands get their rain in summer, from the sea bound south west winds. Option D is wrong because the savanna also gets summer rain, when the equatorial low pressure belt moves over it, and has a dry winter.

The correct answer is B, tropical grasslands. The Llanos are the grasslands of the Orinoco basin in Venezuela and Colombia and the Campos those of the Brazilian highlands, and both lie in the savanna belt, where a hot wet season alternates with a sharply dry one and the grass grows tall and coarse with scattered thorny trees. Option A is wrong because the temperate grasslands of South America are the Pampas of Argentina, with short nutritious grass. Option C is wrong because coniferous forest is the taiga of the cold northern latitudes, far from these basins. Option D is wrong because Mediterranean scrub grows in the dry summer belts of the western margins, such as central Chile, and consists of hard leaved evergreen shrubs. Group the tropical grasslands as Savanna in Africa, Llanos in Venezuela and Campos in Brazil.

The correct answer is C, Velds and South Africa. The Velds are the temperate grasslands of the high plateau of South Africa, where maize and cattle farming and the gold mining of the Witwatersrand go together. Option A is wrong because the Pustaz is the grassland of Hungary, in the middle Danube basin. Option B is wrong because Canterbury is the grassland of the South Island of New Zealand, famous for sheep. Option D is wrong on both counts, because the Downs are the grasslands of Australia, especially the Murray Darling basin, and the grassland of Argentina is the Pampas. The question works entirely on swapped pairs, so memorise the list as one chain: Prairies in North America, Pampas in Argentina, Velds in South Africa, Downs in Australia, Steppes in Eurasia, Pustaz in Hungary and Canterbury in New Zealand.

The correct answer is B. The taiga is the belt of coniferous softwood forest between about 50 and 70 degrees latitude, and in the southern hemisphere that belt is almost entirely ocean: only the narrow tail of South America and a few islands reach it, which is far too little land for a continuous forest belt. Option A is wrong because the south is not too warm; the latitude is cool enough, there is simply no land there. Option C is wrong because conifers do grow in the south, in the mountains of Chile, New Zealand and Australia, only not as a vast belt. Option D is wrong because the southern hemisphere has great ranges such as the Andes and the Drakensberg; mountains are not the reason. This asymmetry of land and water is also why the south has a smaller annual range of temperature.

The correct answer is B. Hot deserts lie on the western margins of continents roughly between 20 and 30 degrees north and south, under the descending dry air of the subtropical high pressure belt. The trade winds there blow from the land to the sea, so they carry no moisture inland, and cold currents such as the Canary, Benguela and Peru currents chill the air over the coast and stop it from rising, which is why fog is common but rain is not. Option A is wrong because the eastern margins in low latitudes get heavy rain from the trade winds and the monsoon. Option C is wrong because the dry lands of the high interiors, such as the Gobi, are cold deserts and lie well below 60 degrees. Option D is wrong because the polar belts are cold deserts of ice, not hot deserts.

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.