Test: Life In the Desert - UPSC MCQ

• Desert is an arid area characterised by extremely high or low temperature and having scarce vegetation.
• The desert can be hot or cold, depending on the temperature.

• Many people around the world have adapted to life in the deserts and they also practice agriculture wherever water is available.

• The Sahara desert is located across Northern Africa and covers approximately 10 percent of the African continent.
• Its borders include the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Red Sea to the east.

The largest is the Sahara Desert, a subtropical desert in northern Africa. 

• The Sahara is a desert found in the African continent and it is also popularly referred to as ‘The greatest desert’.
• It has an area that spans around 9,200,000 square kilometers and it is the largest hot desert in the world behind the Arctic and Antarctica, which are both cold deserts.
• The Sahara covers an area of nearly a third of the African continent and it reaches around 11 countries which includes Egypt, Algeria, Sudan, Chad, Morocco, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Western Sahara, and Tunisia.

Sahara is a vast desert covering large parts of 11 countries which including from East to West:

1. Egypt
2. Sudan
3. Libya
4. Chad
5. Tunisia
6. Algeria
7. Mali
8. Niger
9. Morocco
10. Western Sahara
11. Mauritania and a small part of Eritrea.

The maximum temperature of Sahara during day time is about 50°C and at nights it reaches below 0 degree Celcius.

• Sahara once used to be a lush green plain.
• Sahara desert’s cave paintings show that there used to be rivers with crocodiles.
• Animals like elephants, lions, giraffes, ostriches, sheep, cattle, and goats used to be found in the majority earlier but the climate has changed it to a very hot and dry region.

• ‘Aziziya, sometimes spelled El Azizia, is a small town and it was the capital of the Jafara district in northwestern Libya, 41 kilometres southwest of the capital Tripoli.

• Sahara desert is one of the extremely hot desert.
• Because of rapid change in temperature and lack of water it is unsuitable for some animals like cow.

Therefore, cow is not found in sahara desert. 

Hence, the correct answer is option C.

The Sahara Desert also contains gravel plains and elevated plateaus with bare rocky surfaces. These areas are quite different from the typical sandy desert landscape. The rocky surfaces in some places can rise to heights of more than 2500 meters.
Therefore,Right Answer- Option A

• There are two tribes that are known to the Sahara desert and their names are Tuareg tribe and Bedouin tribe.
• The Tuareg tribe are said to be tall, fair-skinned and Berber-speaking nomadic people.
• The Bedouin tribe men call themselves people of the tent. These people are Arabs that are not known to be very high on the social Hierarchy as their jobs are mainly camel raisers, drivers and nomads.