World Geography Questions and Answers

Answer: C

Coconut is a plantation crop. Plantation crops are perennials grown on large estates for a market, usually for export, and needing years between planting and first yield.

Cotton, sugarcane and rice are field crops, sown and harvested within a single season.

Answer: A

The north-east Atlantic is the world's largest fish-exporting region, its cold, shallow continental shelves and the meeting of warm and cold currents supporting exceptionally rich fishing grounds off Norway, Iceland and the British Isles.

Answer: B

West Bengal is the leading paper-producing state in India, its mills concentrated along the Hooghly where coal, water and transport all came together.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Iran

Iran forms the entire northern and eastern shore of the Persian Gulf. The other littoral states are Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. The Gulf is shallow, warm and highly saline, and it holds a large share of the world’s proven oil and gas reserves, which makes it among the most strategically watched bodies of water anywhere. Its only outlet is the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which a fifth of the world’s traded oil passes and which is barely 33 km wide at its narrowest. Egypt borders the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, Turkey the Mediterranean, Aegean and Black Seas, and Israel the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Aqaba. India has deep economic ties to the region, importing much of its crude from it and having several million citizens working there.

Answer: C

A wind that reverses its direction with the seasons is a monsoon. The word comes from the Arabic mausim, season.

In summer the land heats faster than the sea, drawing moist air inland and bringing rain; in winter the flow reverses, blowing dry air out from the cooled interior.

Answer: A

About 97% of all the water in the hydrosphere is in the oceans and seas. Of the small remainder, most is locked in glaciers and ice sheets, leaving under 1% as accessible fresh water.

Answer: A

Mackerel, tuna, herring and anchovy are pelagic fish: they live and feed in the open water column, near the surface, rather than on the bottom.

They are usually fast swimmers that move in large shoals, which is why they are caught with drift and purse-seine nets.

Answer: B

South America is given here as about 8.9 per cent of the world's area, covering roughly 17.8 million km².

That places it fourth among the continents, behind Asia, Africa and North America.

Answer: A

The low-latitude or tropical zone is the belt lying between the Tropic of Cancer (23½° N) and the Tropic of Capricorn (23½° S). It is the only part of the Earth where the Sun can be directly overhead.

The middle latitudes lie between 23½° and 66½° in each hemisphere, and the high latitudes beyond the polar circles.

Answer: B

Correct answer: The Atlantic and the Pacific

The Panama Canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama to join the Atlantic and the Pacific, saving ships the long and dangerous voyage around Cape Horn - a saving of some 13,000 km on a New York to San Francisco passage. Unlike the Suez Canal it is not at sea level. The land rises well above the oceans, so ships are lifted about 26 metres through a series of locks to Gatun Lake, carried across, and lowered again. Each transit uses a vast quantity of fresh water from the lake, which is why droughts in Panama restrict traffic. A French attempt under Ferdinand de Lesseps failed in the 1880s at enormous cost in lives, chiefly to yellow fever and malaria. The United States completed it in 1914 and transferred it to Panama in 1999. Because of the isthmus’s shape the canal runs roughly northwest to southeast, so a ship heading for the Pacific actually travels eastward.