Class XII – Geography Sample Paper – 1

Ans. (c) Ganga

Ans. (b) The part in the mountains

Ans. (d)

Ans. (a) Mumbai, New Delhi, Allahabad, Kolkata

Ans. (a) Amazon

Ans. (b) Manganese

Ans. (c) (ii), (iv), (iii), (i)

Ans. (d) Both assertion and reason are incorrect

Ans. (a) Radical School

Ans. (a) Military geography

Ans. (c)

Ans. (b) Patrick Geddes

Ans. (b) Only reason is correct

Ans. (c) Both the statements are correct and statement II correctly explains statement I

Ans. (b) Skilling youth

Ans. (d) All of the above

Ans. (c) Fighting practice

Ans. The lack of navigable waters and development of other means of transport is resulted in decrease in waterway transport.

Ans. We can improve waterway navigability through desiltation by dredging, stabilizing water banks and raising water level by damming.

Ans. The navigable length of Volga waterway for transport is 11,200 km.

Ans. The period from 1901 – 1921 is referred to as a period of stagnant or stationary phase of growth of India’s population.

Following causes are responsible for stagnant growth

– High birth rate and high death rate resulted into stationary growth.

– Due to lack of medical, health and sanitation facilities, death rate was high.

– The improper public distribution resulted into hunger and famine.

– Low level of economic development and occurrence of First World War was also responsible for decrease in population growth.

– Illiteracy, lack of family planning and lack of social awareness, etc. were the factors for stagnant growth rate in India.

Ans. In 100 years, population grow from 1 billion to 2 billion.

Ans. Better medical facilities, rise in industrial production and mechanization of agriculture are major reasons for the reduction in the time of population doubling.

Ans. Between the year 1830 to 1930, it took maximum time in doubling of the population from 1 billion to 2 billion.

Ans. The Human Poverty Index is used by UNDP to measure the limitations in human development. It is related to the Human Development Index. This index is an indication of the poverty in a community of a country. It is a non-income measure and was first reported as a part of the Human Deprivation Report, 1997.

The HPI concentrates on the deprivation of three essential elements in human lives-longevity of life, knowledge and a decent standard of living.

To show the limitations in human development in any region, the following four indicators are used.

i) Probability of not surviving till age of 40.

ii) The literacy rate.

iii) Number of people who do not have access to clean water.

iv) Number of children who are underweight.

Ans. Quaternary activities as new category of activities which has come into use only recently. Along with the tertiary sector it has replaced most of the primary and secondary employment as the basis for economic growth.

Over half of all workers in developed economies are in the ‘knowledge sector’ and there has been a very high growth in demand for and consumption of information based services in such professions as mutual fund managers, software developers, statisticians etc. Personnel working in office buildings, elementary schools and university classroom, hospitals and doctors’ offices, theatres, accounting and brokerage firms all belong to this category of services. They are not tied to resources, affected by the environment, or necessarily localised by market. In this way, modern economic development in the world is mainly the result of the development of quaternary services.

Ans. Service sector is significant for modern economic development for the following reasons.

(i)  Facilitates Flow of Money: Service sector facilitates the flow of money in an economy. International trade also helps in Bow of foreign currency.

(ii) Contributes to GDP: In developed countries, a large proportion of GDP is contributed by service sector, as it is a major sector of the economy in these countries.

(iii) Provides Employment: Apart from generating revenue, service sector also provides employment to people.

Between 45 and 76 per cent of the population in developed countries is engaged in service sector.

(iv) Growth of Towns Growth of se1vices contributes to the growth of existing centres and emergence of new centres. For instance, new forms of trade which include money exchange at international level has produced many centres and institutions, such as trading centres or collection and distribution points.

Ans. Recycle or reuse of water is simple and best way to conserve fresh water and make it available to all.

Lesser quality water and reclaimed waste water can be used for cooling by the industries. It can be used for firefighting to reduce their water cost.

In urban areas, water after bathing and washing utensils and vehicles can be used for gardening. It would conserve better quality water for drinking purposes. Recycling of water has immense potential of water conservation. However, there is enormous scope for replenishing water through recycling.

Ans. The National Water Policy, 2002 stimulates water allocation priorities in the following order – drinking water, irrigation, hydro-power, navigation, industrial and other uses. The policy gives progressive new approaches to water management. Its key features are

i) Irrigation and multipurpose projects should include drinking component, wherever there is no source of drinking water.

ii) Providing drinking water to humans and animals should be the first priority.

iii) Measures should be taken to limit and regulate the exploitation of groundwater.

iv) Both surface and groundwater should be regularly monitored for quality. Programmes should be undertaken to improve water quality.

v) Efficiency of utilisation of water in all the uses should be improved.

vi) People should be made aware of water as a scarce resource.

vii) Consciousness should be promoted for conservation through education, regulation, incentives and disincentives.

Ans. Conventional sources of energy are being used since a long time. These resources cannot be renewed or replenished. They are exhaustible in nature. For example, all fossil fuels like coal, petroleum and natural gas. They play a major role in fulfilling the energy requirements around the world.

Conservation of minerals resources is essential for development of India because of the following reasons

i) In India, mineral resources are unevenly distributed throughout the country, if these resources get extinct, then it will be a huge challenge to fulfil domestic requirement.

ii) Its conservation is important as large number of industries are dependent completely on mineral resources.

iii) If mineral resources are not conserved, then we have to import them from other countries which will put huge economical pressure.

iv) The formation of minerals takes number of years. Moreover, they are finite and non-renewable. Once finished, they take millions of years for their replenishment.

v) Every country has a moral responsibility to conserve resources for the future generation, so that, they can also use them for their development.

Hence, efficient and judicious of minerals is demand of time, if we want ensure development of India.

Ans. Use of plastic bags is harmful for environmental degradation in the following ways

i) The major impact of plastic bags on the environment is that it takes many years to decompose.

ii) Waste from plastic bags poses serious environmental danger to human and animal health. If plastic bags are not properly disposed of, they can impact the environment by causing littering and storm water drain blockages.

iii) Animals often confuse the plastic bags for food and consume them, therefore blocking their digestive processes.

iv) Plastic buried deep in landfills can drain harmful chemicals that spread into ground water.

v) If plastic bags are burned, they release a toxic substance into the air causing ambient air pollution.

Ans. The iron and steel industry is one of the most complex and capital-intensive industries and is largely concentrated in the advanced countries of North America, Europe and Asia. In 1970’s Japan, USA and Western Europe were accounting for 2/3^rd global production of iron and steel. However, the developing nations such as China, India, Brazil and South Korea gradually became ‘important steel producers.

The global distribution of iron and steel industry is

i) In USA, most of the production comes from the North Appalachian region (Pittsburgh), Great Lake region (Chicago-Gary, Erie, Cleveland, Lorain, Buffalo and Duluth) and the Atlantic Coast (Sparrows Point and Morrisville). The industry has also moved towards the Southern State of Alabama.

ii) In Europe, UK, Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Russia are the leading producers. The important steel centres are Scun Thorpe, Port Talbot, Birmingham and Sheffield in the U.K., Duisburg, Dortmund, Dusseldorf and Essen in Germany; Le Creusot and St. Ettienne in France; and Moscow, St. Petersburgh, Lipetsk, Tula, in Russia and Krivoi Rog, and Donetsk in Ukraine.

iii)  In Asia, the important centres include Nagasaki and Tokyo-Yokohama in Japan; Shanghai, Tienstin and Wuhan in China; and Jamshedpur, Kulti-Burnpur, Durgapur, Rourkela, Bhilai, Bokaro, Salem, Visakhapatnam and Bhadravati in India.

Ans. Subsistence agriculture is the type of agriculture in which the producer or farming region consumes all the products that have been grown locally. It is of two types i.e., primitive subsistence agriculture, practiced by tribes and intensive subsistence agriculture.

Intensive subsistence agriculture is mainly found in the densely populated regions of monsoon area. It is of two types.

i) Intensive subsistence agriculture dominated by wet paddy. The characteristics of this type of agriculture are:

– In this type of agriculture paddy crop (rice) is grown.

– Landholdings are small due to high density of population.

– Farmers work with the help of family labour and the use of machines is very less.

– The yield per unit area is high but labour productivity is low.

ii) Intensive subsistence agriculture dominated by crops other than paddy. The characteristics of this type of agriculture are

• Here crops such as wheat, soyabean, barley and sorghum are grown.
• It is practiced in Northern China, Manchuria, North Korea and North Japan.
• In Indian plains wheat is most prominent in the Western region whereas millets are grown in dry parts of India.
• In this type of agriculture, irrigation is often used.

Ans. Gathering and hunting are well known earliest economic activities. Important characteristics of hunting and gathering practiced in the world are

i) Gathering is practiced in regions having harsh climatic conditions by primitive societies who extract both plants as well animals for their needs.

ii) It requires a small amount of capital investment and a very low level of technology. The yield per person is also low and very little or even no surplus is produced.

iii) These activities are prominent in high latitude zones which includes Northern Canada, Northern Eurasia and South Chile. Some areas are also prominent in low latitude zones such as Amazon Basin, tropical African region, Australia and interior parts of South East Asia.

iv) The early man used stones tools or twigs to hunt animals. But now due to illegal hunting (poaching), many species have become endangered so hunting activity has become very limited.

v) In gathering, the gatherers also collect valuable plants such as leaves, barks of trees and medicinal plants and after simple processing, they sell the products in the market.

vi) Gathering activity now produces diverse range of products such as beverages, drugs, cosmetics, fibres, thatch, fabrics, oil, rubber, gum-resins, etc.

Ans. ‘Sea ports’ are Gateways of International Trade, means that it is not possible to think of international Trade without the use of ports. They play a very significant role in carrying the cargo and facilitating the trade.

Steps taken by India for development of ports are as follows

i) The ports in India have been in use since ancient times. They were developed when the British colonized India. The British used the ports as suction points by extracting resources from their hinterlands.

ii) Extension of railways towards the interior resulted in linking of local markets to regional markets and regional to national markets. The ports linked national markets to the international markets.

iii) This trend continued till 1947. It was expected that after independence, there will be rapid development of ports. But the partition snatched away Karachi port that went to Pakistan and Chittagong port that went to East Pakistan (Bangladesh). Despite these setbacks, Indian ports continued to grow after Independence.

iv) To compensate for the loss, many new ports were developed. These included Kandla on the West and Diamond Harbour, near Kolkata on the river Hughli in the East.

v) Now, Indian ports are handling large volume of domestic as well as international trade. These are equipped with modern facilities.

vi) Earlier the development of ports was the responsibility of government agencies. But now private entrepreneurs have been invited to modernize these ports as there is increase in functions of these port and they have to be brought at par with the international ports.

vii) The capacity of ports has also increased from 20 million tonnes of cargo in 1951 to more than 837 million tonnes in 2016.

Ans. Some of the important Indian ports along with their features are discussed below

Kandla Port

i) This port is situated at the head of Gulf of Kuchchh in Gujarat state.

ii) The main purpose of this port is to fulfil the needs of Western and North-Western parts of the country and also to ease the pressure at Mumbai port.

Mumbai Port

i) This port is a natural harbor and the biggest port of India. This port was developed by the British. The port is located closer to the general routes from the countries of Middle East, Mediterranean countries, North Africa, North America and Europe where most of the country’s overseas trade is carried out.

ii) This port is 20 km long and 6-10 km wide with 54 berths and has the country’s largest oil terminal.

iii) The main hinterlands of this port are Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and parts of Rajasthan.

Marmagao Port

i) This is a natural harbor in Goa which is located at the entrance of the Zuari estuary. Its importance increased after its remodeling in 1961 to handle iron ore exports to Japan.

ii) Its hinterland extended with the construction of Konkan railway. Karnataka, Goa, Southern Maharashtra, are its hinterlands.

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