World Geography Questions and Answers

Answer: D

All the listed factors underlie biodiversity loss. Poverty and unsustainable development push people to clear habitat for immediate survival; macroeconomic policies such as subsidies make destructive land use profitable; and international trade moves the demand for timber, minerals and cash crops to where the biodiversity is.

These are the causes behind the immediate cause, habitat loss, so the combined choice is correct.

Answer: C

Correct answer: The Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef off Queensland, Australia, is by a wide margin the largest coral reef system in the world: about 2,300 km long, made up of some 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands, and covering roughly 344,000 square kilometres. It is a barrier reef, separated from the shore by a lagoon, as distinct from a fringing reef attached to the coast or an atoll ringing a submerged volcano. Charles Darwin worked out the relationship between the three, proposing that a fringing reef becomes a barrier reef and then an atoll as the island beneath it subsides. It supports thousands of species of fish, molluscs and corals, and has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1981. Repeated mass bleaching events since 2016, driven by marine heatwaves, have caused severe coral loss. The Belize Barrier Reef is the largest in the Atlantic and the second largest overall.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Charged particles from the Sun interacting with gases in the upper atmosphere

Auroras occur when charged particles carried by the solar wind are funnelled by the Earth’s magnetic field towards the poles and collide with atoms in the upper atmosphere, exciting them so that they emit light as they return to their normal state. The colour identifies the gas and the altitude: oxygen gives the common green at around 100 to 300 km and a rarer red higher up, while nitrogen gives blue and purple. The magnetic field is what confines the display to two rings around the geomagnetic poles - the aurora borealis in the north and the aurora australis in the south, which often mirror each other almost exactly. Activity follows the eleven-year solar cycle, and a strong geomagnetic storm can push the aurora to much lower latitudes. The same storms can disrupt satellites, radio communication and power grids.

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.