World Geography Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Meteorology is the study of the atmosphere's day-to-day behaviour - that is, of the weather - and of the physical processes that produce it.

Climatology deals with the same atmosphere over decades rather than days, and cyclogenesis is one particular process, the formation of a cyclone.

Answer: D

Death Valley in California lies 86 m below sea level, the lowest point in North America. The other options belong to other continents: the Valdes Peninsula is in Argentina, Lake Eyre in Australia and Ellsworth in Antarctica.

Answer: B

Soil fertility is greatest in the slightly acid to neutral range, about pH 6.0 to 7.2. In this band nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and the micronutrients are all reasonably soluble at once, and soil bacteria are most active.

Below about pH 5.5 aluminium and manganese become toxic and phosphorus is locked up; above pH 8 iron, zinc and manganese become unavailable.

Answer: D

The Kalahari is a large semi-desert of southern Africa, covering about 900,000 km² across Botswana, Namibia and South Africa.

Unlike a true desert it carries grass and scrub, since it receives 100 to 500 mm of rain a year, but the sand holds no surface water.

Answer: C

The Pacific Ocean is by far the largest part of the hydrosphere, covering about 165 million km² - roughly a third of the Earth's surface and about half of all ocean water.

The Atlantic covers about 106 million km² and the Indian Ocean about 73 million km², so neither approaches it.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Geomorphology

Geomorphology - the study of landforms and the processes that shape them - belongs to physical geography, which deals with the natural environment. The discipline divides broadly in two. Physical geography covers geomorphology, climatology, hydrology, biogeography, soil geography and oceanography. Human geography covers population, settlement, economic, political, social and cultural geography. The distinction is one of emphasis rather than a hard boundary, and much of the most interesting work sits across it. Environmental geography, hazard studies and the geography of climate change all require both halves: a cyclone is a physical event, but who is exposed to it and who recovers is a human question. Geography is sometimes described as the bridge between the natural and social sciences for precisely this reason, and its two other unifying concerns - spatial distribution and the relationship between people and place - run through both halves.

Answer: B

Short-term variations of the atmosphere, from minutes to months, are weather.

Climate is the average of that weather taken over a long period, conventionally thirty years. Temperature and humidity are individual elements of weather, not the term for the whole.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Mount Everest

Mount Everest, on the Nepal–Tibet border, is the highest point on Earth above sea level, most recently surveyed at 8,848.86 metres in a joint Nepali and Chinese measurement published in 2020. It is called Sagarmatha in Nepal and Chomolungma in Tibet. It was first climbed in 1953 by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. Above about 8,000 metres lies the death zone, where the air holds too little oxygen to sustain human life for long. K2 in the Karakoram is the second highest at 8,611 metres and considerably harder and more dangerous to climb. Kangchenjunga, on the India–Nepal border, is the third and the highest peak within India. Note that highest is not the only superlative available: measured from base to summit Mauna Kea in Hawaii is taller, and measured from the centre of the Earth the equatorial bulge makes Chimborazo in Ecuador the farthest point from it.