Mahawat, the light winter rainfall of Uttar Pradesh, is caused by western disturbances and is most useful for

The correct answer is B, the Bay of Bengal branch of the south-west monsoon. This branch strikes the Ganga delta, is turned west by the Himalaya and moves up the Ganga plain, so it reaches eastern Uttar Pradesh about the middle of June and then travels on to the west, which is why the east of the state gets both earlier and heavier rain. Option A, the Arabian Sea branch, waters the west coast, Gujarat and the Deccan and reaches only the extreme west of Uttar Pradesh in a weakened form. Option C, the retreating or north-east monsoon, brings rain to Tamil Nadu and coastal Andhra Pradesh in October and November and has almost no effect here. Option D, western disturbances, do give the state a little winter rain, called mahawat, but that is a small fraction of the annual total, not the main source.

The correct answer is A, from south-east towards north-west. The monsoon current enters from the Bay of Bengal in the south-east and loses moisture as it travels up the plain, so the eastern districts and the Terai of Gorakhpur, Bahraich and Lakhimpur Kheri are the wettest, while Mathura, Agra and the Bundelkhand districts of Jhansi, Jalaun and Banda are the driest and are liable to drought. Option B reverses the gradient and would make the dry west the wettest part, which is not the case. Option C is wrong because the fall is not from north to south; indeed the northern foothill belt is wet. Option D is wrong because the state shows a wide range of rainfall from east to west. Keep in mind the second half of the picture: the wet eastern Terai also suffers floods from the Ghaghara, Rapti and Gandak.

The correct answer is B, the loo. It is a hot, dry and dusty wind that blows from the west over the northern plains in the afternoons of May and early June, pushing the temperature past forty-five degrees Celsius in Agra, Jhansi and Banda and causing heat stroke, and it stops only when the monsoon arrives. Option A, mahawat, is the opposite season: it is the light winter rain brought by western disturbances, which helps the rabi crop. Option C, pala, is the frost of January that can damage potato, mustard and gram. Option D, Kal Baisakhi, is the violent evening thunderstorm of West Bengal and the eastern states in April, the same family of storms that is called Norwester, and it is not a feature of Uttar Pradesh. Learn the three local words loo, mahawat and pala together, because the question usually mixes them.

The correct answer is B, bhangar. Bhangar is the old alluvium of the higher ground away from the present river channels; it is darker, more clayey and dotted with the lime concretions called kankar, and it is not renewed by fresh silt. Option A, khadar, is the opposite: the new alluvium of the flood plain, lighter in colour and texture, renewed by silt at every flood and therefore more fertile, and known locally as kachhar. Option C, bhabar, is the narrow pebbly and porous belt along the Himalayan foothills in which streams disappear underground. Option D, bhur, is the sandy wind-blown soil of the upper Ganga-Yamuna doab. The khadar and bhangar pair is reversed by candidates more often than any other in this chapter, so fix it by the words new and old.

The correct answer is A, gypsum. Usar, also called reh, is the saline and alkaline soil of districts such as Raebareli, Unnao, Hardoi, Kanpur and Aligarh, where sodium salts gather on the surface; gypsum, which is calcium sulphate, replaces the sodium on the clay particles with calcium, the sodium is then washed away by drainage, and the land becomes fit for crops, with dhaincha sown as a green manure. Option B, lime, is used for the opposite problem, that is acidic soil, as in the laterite tracts of the Western Ghats or the north-east. Option C, urea, is a nitrogen fertiliser that adds a nutrient but does nothing about alkalinity. Option D, rock phosphate, supplies phosphorus. Remember the simple rule: gypsum for alkaline usar, lime for acid soil.