The Ghatampur Thermal Power Project is located at

The correct answer is B, Khadar. Khadar is the new alluvium of the flood plains, lying low along the rivers and renewed by a fresh layer of silt almost every year. It is the most fertile land of the Ganga plain and carries the heaviest cropping, though it is also the land that floods.

Option A, bhangar, is the older alluvium of the uplands above the flood level, higher, less fertile and often holding lime nodules called kankar. Option C, bhur, names the sandy ridges and windblown sand of the upper Doab, poor in moisture and useful mainly for coarse crops. Option D, usar, also called reh, is the saline and alkaline land of the middle plain, where salts have risen to the surface and little will grow without treatment. The four terms, khadar, bhangar, bhur and usar, are matched with their descriptions in nearly every state paper.

The correct answer is D, the coastal plain. Uttar Pradesh is landlocked, so it can have no coastal plain at all. The state is divided into three physical regions only: the Bhabhar and Terai belt in the north, the Ganga plain in the middle and the southern plateau and hills beyond the Yamuna.

Option A, the Bhabhar and Terai belt, is the narrow strip at the foot of the Shivalik hills, porous gravel above and marsh below. Option B, the Ganga plain, is the largest division and covers about three-quarters of the state, read as the upper Doab, the middle plain of Awadh and the lower plain of Purvanchal. Option C, the southern plateau and hills, covers the Bundelkhand upland of granite and gneiss and the Vindhyan plateau of Mirzapur and Sonbhadra. Keep the count at three, and remember that the state has neither a coast nor a true mountain division, the Himalayan districts having gone to Uttarakhand in 2000.

The correct answer is C, Bundelkhand. These districts, with Jalaun, Hamirpur and Chitrakoot, form the Bundelkhand upland in the south-west of the state. It is built of ancient granite and gneiss, has thin soil and bare hillocks, is drained by the Betwa and the Ken, and is the most drought-prone part of Uttar Pradesh.

Option A, Rohilkhand, is the north-western part of the Ganga plain around Bareilly, Moradabad and Shahjahanpur, and lies on alluvium, not hard rock. Option B, Awadh, is the middle plain around Lucknow, Ayodhya and Sitapur. Option D, Purvanchal, is the eastern or lower plain around Varanasi, Gorakhpur and Azamgarh, which merges into Bihar. The division that matters for physical geography is simple: Bundelkhand and the Vindhyan tract of Mirzapur and Sonbhadra are plateau, while Rohilkhand, Awadh and Purvanchal are all parts of the Ganga plain.

The correct answer is B, Gomti. The Gomti rises at Madho Tanda in Pilibhit district, flows past Lucknow and Jaunpur and joins the Ganga in Ghazipur district, so its whole course lies inside Uttar Pradesh. That makes it the longest river wholly within the state, and it is also the river on which the state capital stands.

Option A, the Ghaghara, is the longest river in the state measured by the length of its course inside Uttar Pradesh, but it rises in Nepal and so does not lie wholly within the state; the distinction between these two superlatives is exactly what the question tests. Option C, the Ramganga, rises in the Kumaon hills of Uttarakhand. Option D, the Rapti, also rises in Nepal and joins the Ghaghara near Barhaj. Learn the pair: Ghaghara longest in the state, Gomti longest entirely within it.

The correct answer is B, 9 November 2000. The hill districts of Uttar Pradesh were constituted as the state of Uttaranchal on 9 November 2000 under the Uttar Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2000, and the state was renamed Uttarakhand in 2007. With that separation Uttar Pradesh lost its Himalayan division and its boundary with China, and was left with the three physical divisions described in this chapter.

Option A, 1 November 2000, is the date Chhattisgarh was carved out of Madhya Pradesh. Option C, 15 November 2000, is the date Jharkhand was separated from Bihar. All three states were created in the same month, and papers test whether a candidate can keep the dates apart. Option D, 2 October 2000, is not the date of any state's creation and is offered only because the date is familiar. Learn the sequence Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand in that order.