Search Previous Year Questions

The correct answer is Bhils.

Key Points

• India has the largest concentration of tribal people anywhere in the world except perhaps in Africa.
• The tribals are children of nature and their lifestyle is conditioned by the Eco-system.
• India, with a variety of ecosystems, presents a varied tribal population throughout its length and breadth.

Additional Information 

• The Major Tribe
• There are 533 tribes (with many overlapping types in more than one State) as per notified Schedule under Article 342 of the Constitution of India in different States and Union Territories of the country with the largest number of 62 being in the State of Orissa.
• Some of the major tribes of different States are

• Among the notified tribes, some groups are still at the most primitive stage.
• They continue to live in isolated areas and practice either primitive agriculture or no agricultural practice and most of them are still in the food-gathering stage with an almost stagnating population.
• Such groups (75 Nos.) are named Primitive Tribal Groups (PTGs). Asked in UPSC Prelims exams.
• They are spread over 17 states and one Union Territory.

The correct answer is Norwester - Haryana.

• Some Famous Local Storms of Hot Weather Season
• ​Mango Shower
• Towards the end of summer, there are pre-monsoon showers which are common phenomena in Kerala and coastal areas of Karnataka.
• Locally, they are known as mango showers since they help in the early ripening of mangoes.
• Blossom Shower
• With this shower, coffee flowers blossom in Kerala and nearby areas.
• Nor Westers
• These are dreaded evening thunderstorms in Bengal and Assam. Hence, option 4 is not correct.
• Their notorious nature can be understood from the local nomenclature of ‘Kalbaisakhi’, a calamity of the month of Baisakh.
• These showers are useful for tea, jute, and rice cultivation.
• In Assam, these storms are known as “Bardoisila”.
• Loo
• Hot, dry, and oppressing winds blowing in the Northern plains from Punjab to Bihar with higher intensity between Delhi and Patna.

Additional Information

• Local Winds 
• ​Differences in the heating and cooling of earth surfaces and the cycles that develop daily or annually can create several common, local, or regional winds.

The correct answer is Option 2.

• TYPES OF VEGETATION​
• ​Tropical Evergreen Forests
• ​These forests are restricted to heavy rainfall areas of the Western Ghats and the island groups of Lakshadweep, Andaman, and Nicobar, upper parts of Assam, and Tamil Nadu coast.
• They are at their best in areas having more than 200 cm of rainfall with a short dry season.
• The trees reach great heights up to 60 meters or even above.
• There is no definite time for trees to shed their leaves.
• As such, these forests appear green all year-round.
• Tropical Deciduous Forests
• ​These are the most widespread forests of India.
• They are also called the monsoon forests and spread over the region receiving rainfall between 200 cm and 70 cm.
• Trees of this forest type shed their leaves for about six to eight weeks in dry summer.
• On the basis of the availability of water, these forests are further divided into moist and dry deciduous.
• Moist deciduous
• These are found in areas receiving rainfall between 200 and 100 cm.
• These forests exist, therefore, mostly in the eastern part of the country — northeastern states, along the foothills of the Himalayas, Jharkhand, West Odisha, and Chhattisgarh, and on the eastern slopes of the Western Ghats.
• Teak is the most dominant species in this forest.
• Bamboos, sal, shisham, sandalwood, Khair, Kusum, Arjun, and mulberry are other commercially important species.
• The dry deciduous forests
• They are found in areas having rainfall between 100 cm and 70 cm.
• These forests are found in the rainier parts of the Peninsular plateau and the plains of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
• There are open stretches, in which teak, sal, peepal, and neem grow.
• In these forests, the common animals found are lions, tigers, pigs, deer, and elephants.
• A huge variety of birds, lizards, snakes, and tortoises are also found here.

Additional Information

• Natural Vegetation

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The correct answer is Point Calimere - Kerala.

Key Points

• Point Calimere is in Tamil Nadu. Hence, option 4 is not correct.

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• Bay

• I​​t is a body of water partly surrounded by land.

• A bay is usually smaller and less enclosed than a gulf.

• The mouth of the bay, where meets the ocean or lake, is typically wider than that of a gulf.

• Bays form in many ways. Plate tectonics, the process of continents drifting together and rifting apart, causes the formation of many large bays.

• Creek 

• A narrow area of water that flows into the land from the sea, a lake, etc.

• Mal Bank

• The Malacca Banks are sandbanks (shoals) below the sea surface, in the Gulf of Khambhat in Gujarat, India.

• They lie to the west and southwest of the port of Surat and are a system of four irregular ridges running roughly from north to south parallel with the entrance channels to the Gulf.​

The correct answer is Option 2.

• Cape Leeuwin
• Cape Leeuwin is located in Western Australia. It is the most south-westerly mainland point of the Australian continent, in the state of Western Australia. The cape is in the Augusta-Margaret River local government area, and is the point where the Indian Ocean and Southern Ocean meet
• Ozark Plateau
• ​It​ is a physiographic region in the U.S. states of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and the extreme southeastern corner of Kansas.
• Katanga Plateau
• It is a farming and ranching region in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• Located in the southeastern Katanga Province, it is 1220 m (4,000 ft) above sea level and is rich in copper and uranium deposits.
• The altitude makes it cooler than the surrounding area, with a mean annual temperature of 19-20° C.
• It is the source of the Lufira River, which becomes the Lualaba River.
• Lake Tshangalele is an artificial lake created by a dam on the Lufira and is an important ecological site on the plateau.
• Kamchatka Peninsula
• ​It is a 1,250-kilometre-long peninsula in the Russian Far East.
• The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and western coastlines, respectively.
• The Kamchatka peninsula contains the volcanoes of Kamchatka, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The correct answer is Option 4.

Key Points

The Carajas Mine

• It is the largest iron ore mine in the world.
• It is located in the Carajás Mountains of Northern Brazil.
• The mine is operated as an open-pit mine and is estimated to contain roughly 7.2 billion metric tonnes of iron ore, plus gold, manganese, bauxite, copper, and nickel.
• The mine is largely powered by hydroelectric power from the Tucuruí Dam.

 Kalgoorlie mine

• ​It is also known as the Fimiston Open Pit, colloquially known as the Super Pit, which was Australia's largest open-cut gold mine until 2016 when it was surpassed by the Newmont Boddington gold mine also in Western Australia.
• The Super Pit is located off the Goldfields Highway on the southeast edge of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.
• The gold mining area of Kalgoorlie-Boulder-Fimiston has long been called the Golden Mile because of the geographical concentration of rich mines in that area.

Salobo mine

• It is the largest copper deposit ever discovered in Brazil.
• It is the open pit mine.
• Salobo is an iron-oxide copper-gold (IOCG) deposit located along the southern margin of the Amazon Basin, within the Carajás Mining District, in south-eastern Para, Brazil.
• The mineralization at the Salobo deposit is found hosted in metamorphosed rocks.

Haerwusu mine 

• With estimated recoverable coal reserves of more than 1.7 billion tonnes, the Haerwusu Coal Mine is located in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China.
• Production from the mine was started in October 2008 and is also a major open-cast coal mine in China.

The correct answer is Bay of Fundy.

Key Points

• Bay of Fundy
• The highest tides in the world occur in the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, Canada.
• The tidal bulge is 15 - 16 m.
• Because there are two high tides and two low tides every day (roughly a 24 hour period), then a tide must come in within about a six-hour period.
• As a rough estimate, the tide rises about 240 cm an hour (1,440 cm divided by 6 hours).

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• Tides
• ​The periodical rise and fall of the sea level, once or twice a day, mainly due to the attraction of the sun and the moon, is called a tide.
• The movement of water caused by meteorological effects (winds and atmospheric pressure changes) are called surges.
• Surges are not regular like tides.
• The moon’s gravitational pull to a great extent and to a lesser extent the sun’s gravitational pull, are the major causes for the occurrence of tides.
• Another factor is centrifugal force, which is the force that acts to counter balance gravity.
• Together, the gravitational pull and the centrifugal force are responsible for creating the two major tidal bulges on the earth.
• The centrifugal force is the apparent force that is felt by an object moving in a curved path that acts outwardly away from the center of rotation
• Relation between gravitational forces and tides

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Additional Information 

• Importance of Tides
• ​Since tides are caused by the earth-moon-sun positions which are known accurately, the tides can be predicted well in advance.
• This helps the navigators and fishermen plan their activities.
• Tidal flows are of great importance in navigation.
• Tidal heights are very important, especially harbors near rivers and within estuaries having shallow ‘bars’ at the entrance, which prevent ships and boats from entering into the harbor.
• Tides are also helpful in desilting the sediments and in removing polluted water from river estuaries.
• Tides are used to generate electrical power (in Canada, France, Russia, and China).
• A 3 MW tidal power project at Durgaduani in Sunderbans of West Bengal is under way.

The correct answer is Option 4.

• Ocean currents
• Ocean currents are like rivers flowing in oceans.
• They represent a regular volume of water in a definite path and direction.
• Ocean currents are influenced by two types of forces namely :
• Primary forces that initiate the movement of water;
• Secondary forces that influence the currents to flow​
• The primary forces that influence the currents are
• Heating by solar energy 
• Heating by solar energy causes the water to expand.
• That is why near the equator the ocean water is about 8 cm higher in level than in the middle latitudes.
• This causes a very slight gradient and water tends to flow down the slope.
• Wind
• Wind blowing on the surface of the ocean pushes the water to move.
• Friction between the wind and the water surface affects the movement of the water body in its course.
• Gravity
• Gravity tends to pull the water down the pile and create gradient variation.
• Coriolis force
• The Coriolis force intervenes and causes the water to move to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere.
• These large accumulations of water and the flow around them are called Gyres.
• These produce large circular currents in all the ocean basins.
• Major currents in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans

Key Points

• Effects of Ocean Currents
• ​Ocean currents have a number of direct and indirect influences on human activities.
• West coasts of the continents in tropical and subtropical latitudes (except close to the equator) are bordered by cool waters.
• Their average temperatures are relatively low with narrow diurnal and annual ranges.
• There is fog, but generally, the areas are arid.
• West coasts of the continents in the middle and higher latitudes are bordered by warm waters which cause a distinct marine climate.
• They are characterized by cool summers and relatively mild winters with a narrow annual range of temperatures.
• Warm currents flow parallel to the east coasts of the continents in tropical and subtropical latitudes.
• This results in warm and rainy climates.
• These areas lie in the western margins of the subtropical anti-cyclones.
• The mixing of warm and cold currents helps to replenish the oxygen and favor the growth of planktons, the primary food for the fish population.
• The best fishing grounds of the world exist mainly in these mixing zones.

The question has been cancelled by ​Revised Answer Key for H.P.A.S.(Pre) Examination-2018.

The correct answer is Negro.

• Mahi river
• ​The Mahi is a river in western India.
• It rises in Madhya Pradesh and, after flowing through the Vagad region of Rajasthan, enters Gujarat and flows into the Arabian Sea.
• It is one of the relatively few west-flowing rivers in India, alongside the endorheic Luni River, the Sabarmati River, the Tapti River, and the Narmada River.
• It is the only river in India that cuts the Tropic of Cancer twice.
• Negro river
• ​The Rio Negro is the largest left tributary of the Amazon River (accounting for about 14% of the water in the Amazon basin).
• It is the largest blackwater river in the world.
• It is also one of the world's ten largest rivers by average discharge.
• Negro river does not cross the equator, tropic of cancer and tropic of Capricorn.
• Limpopo river
• ​The Limpopo River rises in South Africa and flows generally eastwards through Mozambique to the Indian Ocean.
• The river is approximately 1,750 kilometers long, with a drainage basin of 415,000 square kilometers (160,200 sq mi) in size.
• The Limpopo is the second largest river in Africa that drains to the Indian Ocean, after the Zambezi River.
• The Limpopo River in Africa crosses the Tropic of Capricorn twice.
• Zaire river
• ​The Congo River formerly also known as the Zaire River, is the second-longest river in Africa, shorter only than the Nile, as well as the second-largest river in the world by discharge volume, following only the Amazon.
• It is also the world's deepest recorded river, with measured depths in excess of 220 m (720 ft).
• The Congo-Lualaba-Chambeshi River system has an overall length of 4,700 km, which makes it the world's ninth-longest river.
• It is the only major river to cross the equator twice.

The correct answer is option 3.

Key Points

• Sunda Strait

• It connects the Java Sea to the Indian Ocean.

• It is the strait between the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra.

• Isthmus and Strait

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Additional Information

• Major Straits of the World
• Palk Strait - Palk Bay & Bay of Bengal
• Malacca Strait - Andaman Sea & South China Sea
• Gibraltar Strait - Mediterranean Sea & Atlantic Ocean
• Yucatan Strait - Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea
• Otranto Strait - Adriatic Sea & Ionian Sea
• Mesina Strait - Mediterranean Sea
• Bab-el-Mandeb Strait - Red Sea & Gulf of Aden
• Cook Strait - South Pacific Ocean
• Mozambique Strait - Indian Ocean
• North Channel - Irish Sea & Atlantic Ocean
• Taurus Strait - Arafura Sea & Gulf of Papua
• Bass Strait - Tasman Sea & South Sea
• Bering Strait - Bering Sea & Chuksi Sea
• Bonne-Fasio Strait - Mediterranean Sea
• Dardenleez Strait - Marmara Sea and Agean Sea ​
• Davis Strait - Baffin Bay & Atlantic Ocean
• Hudson strait - Gulf of Hudson & Atlantic Ocean