Indian Geography Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The Gulf of Kutch is on the coast of Gujarat.

It is an inlet of the Arabian Sea on the western coast of Gujarat, north of the Kathiawar peninsula.

Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka lie further south along the western coast.

The Gulf of Kutch lies between the Kutch region and the Saurashtra (Kathiawar) peninsula, both in Gujarat. Kandla, one of India's major ports, stands on it. Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka have no coast on the gulf.

Answer: A

The movement began in Uttarakhand.

Beej Bachao Andolan was started in the Tehri Garhwal region of what is now Uttarakhand in the 1980s by farmers led by Vijay Jardhari to save traditional seeds.

Rajasthan, Kerala and Mizoram are known for other movements, not for this one.

The movement began in the Jardhar village area of Tehri Garhwal and was led by the farmer and Chipko activist Vijay Jardhari. It aimed at saving traditional crop varieties and promoting mixed farming. It is therefore tied to Uttarakhand and not to the other states.

Answer: A

The red panda, also called the lesser panda, is found in Singalila National Park, in the Darjeeling hills of West Bengal. Nagarhole and Bandipur are southern parks known for tigers and elephants, and Jim Corbett is in Uttarakhand and known for tigers, so none of them is the red panda park. Singalila National Park is in Darjeeling district on the border with Nepal and is known for the red panda at its higher altitudes.

Answer: C

The number of women who die from complications of pregnancy or childbirth in a year per 1,00,000 live births is the Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR). The word 'Maternal' is the standard one. 'Mother Mortality', 'Motherly Mortality' and 'Maturation Mortality' are not the terms used in health statistics, so the third option is correct. The rate is stated per 1,00,000 live births, whereas the infant mortality rate is stated per 1,000 live births, which is a useful way to tell the two apart.

Answer: C

Sukhna Lake is in Chandigarh, the union territory that is also the capital of Punjab and Haryana. Lakshadweep, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh are union territories too, but the lake is not located in any of them. Only Chandigarh is correct. The lake was made in 1958 by damming the Sukhna Choe, a seasonal stream from the Shivalik hills, and it is a well-known landmark of the city.

Answer: C

The order is Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal.

By the Census of 2011, Uttar Pradesh had about 19.98 crore people, Maharashtra about 11.24 crore, Bihar about 10.41 crore and West Bengal about 9.13 crore. These were India's four most populous states, in that order.

Option A puts Maharashtra above Uttar Pradesh and option B puts Bihar first. Option D swaps Bihar and West Bengal; Bihar is denser, but its total population is also larger.

Answer: A

The city that is not a major riverside city is Thiruvananthapuram.

Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala, lies near the Arabian Sea coast and is not built on a major river; only the small Karamana and Killi rivers pass near it.

The others are classic river cities: Vijayawada on the Krishna, Guwahati on the Brahmaputra and Ahmedabad on the Sabarmati.

Answer: A

Madhya Pradesh has a monsoon type climate.

Like most of India, the state has a tropical monsoon climate: a hot summer from March to mid-June, the south-west monsoon bringing most of the year's rain between June and September, and a mild, dry winter. Rainfall is heavier in the east (above 1,500 mm in parts) and lighter in the north-west.

'Dry climate' and 'Hot and Dry climate' describe arid regions such as western Rajasthan, which get little monsoon rain; Madhya Pradesh is not arid. 'Cool climate' fits hill regions, not a central Indian plateau state with hot summers.

Answer: C

The correct code is ii iv i iii: Shahpur with the Tava valley, Mohpani with the Satpura range, Burkuhi with the Pench valley and Hingandevi with the Kanhan valley.

The Satpura Gondwana coalfields of Chhindwara and Betul include the Pench-Kanhan valley field, the Mohpani field and the Tawa valley field. Burkuhi (spelled Borkuhi in some lists) is a Pench valley colliery and Mohpani is a field of the Satpura coalfields, which fixes c = i and b = iv.

That leaves code A, which puts Burkuhi in the Kanhan valley, and codes B and D, which put Mohpani outside the Satpura range, as wrong. I could not find sources for Shahpur and Hingandevi, so those two pairings rest on elimination and on the key.

Answer: D

The State tree of Madhya Pradesh is the banyan, Ficus benghalensis.

The banyan, bargad, is Madhya Pradesh's state tree; it is also India's national tree. It is known for its aerial prop roots, which grow down from the branches and thicken into new trunks so that a single tree can spread over a large area.

Ficus religiosa is the peepal, sacred in Hinduism and Buddhism; Ficus racemosa is the cluster fig (gular); and Ficus carica is the common edible fig. All are figs, which is the trap, but none is the state tree.