UPSC 2015 Geography PYQs with Answers

Kalamkari is a traditional hand-painted or block-printed cotton textile art of South India, especially Andhra Pradesh/Telangana traditions.

With pure hydrogen, a fuel cell produces electricity with heat and water as by-products. Fuel cells can power small devices as well as buildings, and they produce DC electricity, not AC directly.

Indian Railways bio-toilets use anaerobic bacteria, not fungal inoculum. The decomposition products include gases such as methane/carbon dioxide and treated effluent, not only ammonia and water vapour.

Under the NPT, the recognized nuclear-weapon states are the US, Russia, UK, France and China. Among the listed countries, only China and France qualify; India, Israel and Pakistan are not recognized NPT nuclear-weapon states.

Real GDP growth did not steadily increase throughout the previous decade; it fluctuated. Nominal GDP at market prices in rupees generally increased over the decade, so only statement 2 is correct.

The description of clear mornings, daily convectional cloud build-up and short heavy thunderstorms is typical of the equatorial climate.

Jordan has no coastline on the Mediterranean Sea; Syria, Lebanon and Israel do.

The Forest Carbon Partnership Facility is a global partnership supporting countries in REDD+ readiness and implementation with financial and technical assistance. It is not a general research-grant scheme for universities and scientists.

IndARC is India's underwater moored observatory deployed in the Arctic region to study oceanographic and climate processes.

Tropical wet evergreen forests occur in the humid regions of Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram. Himachal Pradesh is predominantly temperate/subtropical Himalayan, not tropical wet evergreen.

Tides result from the gravitational pull of the Moon and Sun along with the centrifugal effect of the Earth-Moon system, so all three factors are involved.

IOR-ARC/IORA was established in 1997 for regional cooperation across several economic and developmental areas. It was not a very recent piracy/oil-spill response and is not only a maritime-security alliance.

Westerlies are winds of the mid-latitudes in both hemispheres, not as worded between 30°N and 60°S. Western disturbances bringing winter rain to north-west India are embedded in the westerlies, so only statement 2 is correct.

AIBP was launched to accelerate completion of major and medium irrigation projects, not to provide loan assistance to poor farmers. Command Area Development Programme began in 1974-75 to improve irrigation water-use efficiency and field-level development.

Indian steel production depends significantly on imported coking coal, a key raw material for blast-furnace steelmaking.

India is a member of the East Asia Summit. It is not a member of APEC or ASEAN.

Namdapha National Park in Arunachal Pradesh spans a wide altitudinal range, giving it climates and vegetation from tropical/subtropical to temperate and alpine/arctic-like zones.

The Green Climate Fund assists developing countries with climate-change mitigation and adaptation. It was established under the UNFCCC framework, not jointly under UNEP, OECD, ADB and the World Bank.

Rio+20 was the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in 2012, twenty years after the 1992 Earth Summit.

Indravati and Pranahita are major tributaries of the Godavari. Vamsadhara and Pennar are separate east-flowing peninsular rivers.

The Golan Heights are in the Middle East, linked especially to Syria and Israel.

NFC is a short-range contactless technology using electromagnetic radio fields and can use encryption. It is meant for very close distances, generally centimetres, not devices a metre apart.

Agreement on Agriculture, SPS Agreement and Peace Clause are all terms associated with WTO negotiations and rules.

Agricultural markets in India are primarily regulated by State Agricultural Produce Market Committee Acts.

Nanotechnology enables targeted drug delivery through nanoscale carriers and can support gene therapy through delivery systems for genetic material. Both statements are correct.

Fly ash is used in bricks and can partially replace Portland cement in concrete. It is not composed only of silicon dioxide and calcium oxide and may contain trace toxic elements.

NIF is an autonomous body under the Department of Science and Technology. It promotes grassroots innovations and traditional knowledge, not advanced institutional research collaborations as described in statement 2.

Arunachal Pradesh is India's easternmost State and Gujarat is the westernmost State.

Tropical cyclones rarely form in the South Atlantic and south-eastern Pacific because the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone is generally absent or weak there, limiting the convergence and vorticity needed for cyclone genesis.