HPPSC HPAS Prelims Paper 1 Mock Test - 5 - HPPSC HPAS (Himachal Pardesh) MCQ

• A Sutra in Panini’s Ashtadhyayi refers to the worshippers of Vasudeva (Krishna).

• The Chhandogya Upanishad also speaks of Krishna, the son of Devaki, a pupil of the sage Ghora Angirasa, who was a sun-worshipping priest.

• A large number of people worshipped Vasudeva Krishna exclusively as their personal God and they were at first known as Bhagavatas.

• The Vasudeva-Bhagavata cult grew steadily, absorbing within its fold other Vedic and Brahminic divinities, like Vishnu (primarily an aspect of the Sun) and Narayana (a cosmic God).

• From the late Gupta period the name mostly used to designate this Bhakti cult was Vaishnava, indicating the predominance of the Vedic Vishnu element in it with emphasis on the doctrine of incarnations (Avataras).

Statement 1 is incorrect. The caves of Bhimbetka were discovered in 1957–58 by eminent archaeologist V. S. Wakankar. The first discovery of rock paintings, not Bhimbetka caves, was made in India in 1867–68 by an archaeologist, Archibold Carlleyle, twelve years before the discovery of Altamira in Spain. Cockburn, Anderson, Mitra and Ghosh were the early archaeologists who discovered a large number of sites in the Indian subcontinent.

Statement 2 is incorrect. The rock art of Bhimbetka has been classified into various groups on the bases of style, technique and superimposition. The drawings and paintings can be categorised into seven historical periods. Period I, Upper Palaeolithic; Period II, Mesolithic; and Period III, Chalcolithic. After Period III there are four successive periods. In India the earliest paintings have been reported from the Upper Palaeolithic times.

Statement 3 is correct. The themes of paintings found here are of great variety, ranging from mundane events of daily life in those times to sacred and royal images. These include hunting, dancing, Music, horse and elephant riders, animal fighting, honey collection, decoration of bodies, and other household scenes. About Bhimbetka Caves: The largest and most spectacular rock-shelter is located in the Vindhya hills at Bhimbetka in Madhya Pradesh. Bhimbetka is located 45 kilometres south of Bhopal, in an area of ten square kilometres, having about eight hundred rock shelters, five hundred of which bear paintings.

Explanation:

1. The Brahmo Sabha was indeed formed with the purpose of purifying Hinduism and preaching theism. Raja Ram Mohan Roy, the founder of the Brahmo Sabha, sought to reform Hinduism by removing practices like idolatry, caste system, and sati. He believed in monotheism and wanted to promote a rational understanding of religion.

2. Tarachand Chakravarti was the first secretary of the Brahmo Sabha. He was a close associate of Raja Ram Mohan Roy and played a crucial role in the early development of the organization.

3. The Brahmo Sabha was opposed to idolatry, as Raja Ram Mohan Roy believed that worshiping idols was a corrupt practice that had no basis in the original Hindu scriptures. He advocated for a more spiritual and rational understanding of religion.

4. The statement that the new society was to be based on the Vedas only is incorrect. Raja Ram Mohan Roy believed in the essential unity of all religions and did not want to restrict the Brahmo Sabha to a single religious scripture. He encouraged the study of various religious texts and promoted religious tolerance and understanding. In fact, the Brahmo Samaj, which evolved from the Brahmo Sabha, considered the Upanishads, Vedas, and other religious texts as important sources of spiritual knowledge, but not as infallible authorities.

Statement 2 is incorrect. The rules made for the Buddhist sangha were written down in a book called the Vinaya Pitaka. According to the rules written in the Vinaya Pitaka, all men, women and children could join the sangha.

However, children had to take the permission of their parents and slaves of their masters. Those who worked for the king had to take his permission and debtors that of creditors. Women had to take their husbands’ permission.

• Rise of Social Classes: Income from trade, war booty, and agricultural produce enabled the king to maintain groups of professional warriors and also to pay the bards and priests who were largely brahmanas.
• The Brahmanas first appear in the Tamil land in the Sangam age. An ideal king was one who never hurt the Brahmanas. Many Brahmanas functioned as poets, and in this role they were generously rewarded by the king. Karikala is said to have given one poet 1,600,000 gold pieces, but this seems to be an exaggeration.
• Besides gold, the poets or bards also received cash, land, chariots, horses, and even elephants. The Tamil brahmanas partook of meat and wine. The Kshatriyas and vaishyas appear as regular varnas in the Sangam texts. The warrior class was an important element in the polity and society.
• The captains of the army were invested with the title of enadi at a formal ceremony. However, we have no clear idea about the vaishyas. Civil and military offices were held under both the Cholas and Pandyas by vellalas or rich peasants. Hence statement 1 is correct.
• The ruling class was called arasar, and its members had marriage relations with the vellalas, who formed the fourth caste. They held the bulk of the land and thus constituted the cultivating class, divided into the rich and the poor. The rich did not plough the land themselves but employed labourers to undertake this.
• Agricultural operations were generally the task of members of the lowest class (kadaisiyar), whose status appears to have differed little from that of slaves. Some artisans were not differentiated from agricultural labourers. The pariyars were agricultural labourers who also worked with animal skins and used them as mats. Hence statement 2 is correct.
• Several outcastes and forest tribes suffered from extreme poverty and lived from hand to mouth.
• We notice sharp social inequalities in the Sangam age. The rich lived in houses of brick and mortar, and the poor in huts and humbler dwellings. Hence statement 3 is correct.
• In the cities, rich merchants lived in the upper storey of their houses. It is not however clear whether rites and religion were used to maintain social inequalities. We notice the emergence of the Brahmanas and the ruling caste, but the acute caste distinctions of later times did not exist in the early Sangam age.

• Matki is performed by the women of Malwa region on the occasions of wedding and other festivities. It is mainly performed solo, while balancing a number of earthen pots on the head. Hence statement 1 is incorrect.
• Paika is a martial folk dance performed in the southern parts of Odisha. Paika is a form of long spear. The dancers are armed with wooden spears and shields, and show off their skills and agility in infantry like formations. It has a martial art character. The word Paika signifies battle. Hence Statement 2 is correct.
• Gaur Maria is an important ritualistic dance form of the Bison Horn Maria tribes who live in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh. The dance imitates the movements of a bison and is performed in group by both men and women. Hence Statement 3 is correct.
• Paika is a martial folk dance performed in the southern parts of Odisha. Paika is a form of long spear. The dancers are armed with wooden spears and shields, and show off their skills and agility in infantry like formations. It has a martial art character. The word Paika signifies battle.

• Mauryan Empire consisted of various political formations and ecological zones like forest peoples and nomads, chieftaincies and oligarchies like the gana–sangha confederacies of chiefs. It contained smaller kingdoms with a range of administrative structures not necessarily similar to that in Magadha. Different parts of the Empire, like the core, the metropolis and the peripheries, were administered differently. Thus, there was no uniform method of administration in the whole of the Mauryan Empire. So, Statement 1 is not correct.
• The organization of the Mauryan empire was in line with the extensive bureaucracy described by Kautilya in the Arthashastra: a sophisticated civil service governed everything from municipal hygiene to international trade. The expansion and defense of the Empire were made possible by what appears to have been the largest standing army of its time. According to Megasthenes, the possessed wielded a military of 600,000 infantry, 30,000 cavalry, and 9,000 war elephants. A vast espionage system collected intelligence for both internal and external security purposes. Having renounced offensive warfare and expansionism, Ashoka maintained this large army to protect the Empire and instill stability and peace across West and South Asia. So, Statement 2 is correct.
• The Empire was divided into four provinces, with the royal capital at Pataliputra. From Ashokan edicts, the names of the four provincial capitals are Tosali (in the East), Ujjain (in the west), Suvarnagiri (in the south), and Taxila (in the north). The head of the provincial administration was the Kumara (royal prince), who governed the provinces as the king’s representative. Mahamatyas and the council of ministers assisted the Kumara. So, Statement 3 is correct.

• Vajrapani, or Sakra, has a twofold role. In the Hinayana texts, he is an attendant of Buddha; in the Mahayana iconography, he is a Dhyani Bodhisattva and an emanation of Akshobhya, with his Sakti being Lochana. With his thunderbolt, he appears as a constant attendant of Buddha to crust every enemy. Vajrapani is contemplated to manifest all the powers of Buddha and the power of all five tathagatas, namely Vairocana, Akshobhya, Amitabha, Ratnasambhava and Amoghasiddhi. So, Option (a) is correct.
• Manjusri, one of the most important Bodhisattvas of the Mahayana pantheon, bears a sword for destroying ignorance and holds the Prajnaparamita book that symbolizes transcendental knowledge. Manjusri is best known for his wisdom and intellect, and he frequently occurs in the Dunhuang Art. So, Option (b) is correct.
• The origin of the Samantabhadra cult is not known. The Chinese pilgrims visiting various Buddhist countries seldom mention him. He became prominent in the fifth century after translating the Cheng F-Hua-Ching (Dharmaraksha’s version of the Lotus). In iconography, he wears not only a crown but is also dressed up in princely attire. In Japan, he is known as Fu-gen. He is a very popular figure in Chinese and Japanese art. Samantabhadra, a bodhisattva in Mahayana Buddhism associated with practice and meditation. So, Option (c) is correct.
• Vasudhara is a Sanskrit word that means the stream of gems. The Buddhist deity, Vasudhara, is a female bodhisattva of wealth, prosperity, and abundance. She has strong followers among the Buddhist Newars of Kathmandu valley. Sometimes she is related to the Hindu goddess Lakshmi. So, Option (d) is not correct.

• Qutub-ud-din completed the construction of Minar: This statement is incorrect. Qutub-ud-din Aibak began the construction of the Qutub Minar, but it was completed by his successor, Iltutmish.

• Red sandstone  are used in its construction: This statement is correct. The Qutub Minar is primarily made of red sandstone.

• It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site: This statement is correct. The Qutub Minar was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993.

Statement 1 is incorrect. The manuscripts dealt with all kinds of subjects like religious beliefs and practices, lives of kings, medicine and science, epics, poems, plays, etc.

Statement 2 is correct. They were written in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Tamil. Manuscripts are writings on soft surfaces such as palm leaf, or on the specially prepared bark of a tree known as the birch. The word manuscript comes from the Latin word ‘manu’ meaning hand.

Statement 3 is incorrect: Inscriptions are writings on relatively hard surfaces such as stone or metal. Kings used to get their orders inscribed so that people could see, read and obey them. They often kept records of victories in battle through inscriptions. There are other kinds of inscriptions as well, where men and women, including kings and queens, recorded what they did.

Rabindranath Tagore was born on 7 May 1861 to Debendranath Tagore and Sarada Devi in Kolkata (Calcutta).

• He is popularly known as ‘Gurudev’.

• He was primarily known as a writer, poet, playwright, philosopher and aesthetician, music composer, choreographer, and painter.

• He was influenced by the classical poetry of Kalidasa and started writing his own classical poems.

• He released his first collection of poems under the pen name ‘Bhanusimha’ at 16 years of age.

• He published several books of poetry in the 1880s and completed Manasi (1890), a collection that marks the maturing of his genius.

• He wrote the National Anthems of India and Bangladesh.

• He wrote the song Banglar Mati Banglar Jol (Soil of Bengal, Water of Bengal) to unite the Bengali population after the Bengal partition in 1905.

• He also wrote the famed ‘Amar Sonar Bangla' which helped ignite a feeling of nationalism amongst people.

• In 1913, he became the first Indian to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature for his novel ‘Geetanjali.

• Statement 1 is incorrect: The roots of the poligars or Palayakkars date back to 14th century to the beginning of Vijayanagar empire in south India who established a unique three tier administrative system thereby creating an administrative class called the ‘ Palayakkars’.

• This three-tier set up consisted of the emperor at Vijayanagar at the top of pyramid; the Nayakas or viceroys forming the second tier and the Palayakkars or polygars comprising the grassroot leaders in the hierarchy. This system allowed for an efficient revenue administration as well as created a mechanism to help raise an army, besides keeping generals, warriors, courtiers etc.

• Statement 2 and 3 are correct: By the 18th century While the Northern Polygars fell under the kingdom of Mysore, those in southern Tamil Nadu had to deal with the revenue demands of the British East India company. Between 1803 and 1805, the poligars of North Arcot rose in rebellion against the company as they were deprived of their right to collect the kawal fees(Kawal or ‘watch’ was an ancient institution of Tamil Nadu. It was a hereditary village police office with specified rights and responsibilities.

• After the withdrawal of the Non-cooperation movement, disintegration set in Congress. A group of leaders led by Chittaranjan Das (C.R. Das) and Motilal Nehru advocated the end of the boycott of Legislative Councils. Sardar Patel, Dr. Ansari, Rajendra Prasad, and others are known as 'no changers opposed Council entry.

• In 1922, in the Gaya session of the Congress, C R Das (who was presiding over the session) moved a proposal to enter the legislatures but it was defeated. Das and other leaders broke away from Congress and formed the Swaraj Party on 1 January 1923. Das and Motilal Nehru formed the Congress Khilafat Swaraj Party with Das as president and Motilal Nehru as one of the secretaries. The new party was to function as a group within the Congress. It accepted the Congress programme except in one respect - it would take part in Council elections. Hence statements 1 and 2 are correct.

• The Swarajists and the no-changers engaged in fierce political controversy. On Gandhiji's advice, the two groups agreed to remain in the Congress though they would work in separate ways.

• Swarajists won 42 seats out of the 101 elected seats in the Central Legislative Assembly. With the cooperation of other Indian groups, they repeatedly outvoted the Government in the Central Assembly. In March 1925, they succeeded in electing Vithalbhai J. Patel, a leading nationalist leader, as the speaker of the Central Legislative Assembly. Hence statement 3 is not correct.

• The All India Muslim League, annoyed with the Congress for not sharing power with them,  established the Pirpur Committee in 1938 to prepare a detailed report on the atrocities supposedly committed by the Congress ministries.
• In the report, the committee charged the Congress with interference in the religious rites, suppression of Urdu in favor of Hindi, denial of proper representation, and oppression of Muslims in the economic sphere. So, Option (a) is correct.

Swami Viveknanda – 

• Born in Kolkata in 1863, he was known as Narendra Nath Datta in his pre-monastic life. He was a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna Parmahansa and a major force in the revival of Hinduism in India. He pushed for national integration in colonial India, and his famous speech remains as the one that he gave in Chicago in 1893 (Parliament of the World Religions). 
• He established a new monastic order in Baranagar in Kolkata and went to explore India. During his travels, he was deeply moved by appalling poverty and backwardness of the masses. He was the first religious leader who highlighted that real cause of India’s downfall was the neglect of masses and highlighted the immediate need to provide food and other necessities. He emphasised on improved methods of agriculture, village industries etc. 
• According to him, the crux of problem of poverty in India was because of centuries of oppression, downtrodden masses had lost faith in their capacity to improve their lot. Therefore, it was necessary to infuse faith in their own capacities. 
• Vivekanand believed that principle of Atman i.e. doctrine of potential divinity of soul, taught in Vedanta could ameliorate the condition of the poor people. Thus, the masses needed two kinds of knowledge: secular knowledge to improve their economic condition and spiritual knowledge to infuse in them faith in themselves. He formed the Ramakrishna Mission in 1897 “to set in motion a machinery which will bring noblest ideas to the doorstep of even the poorest and the meanest.” 
• In 1899, he established the Belur Math, which became his permanent abode. He also wrote books like Karma yoga, Jnana yoga, Raja Yoga etc.

• Wellesley did not invent the Subsidiary System. The System existed long before him and was of an evolutionary growth. Dupleix (French) was perhaps the first who had lent European troops to the Indian princes at the expense of the latter. The English also adopted this System. Ever since the governorship of Clive, the System had been applied with more or less insight by almost every Governor and Governor-General of India.
• Wellesley's special contribution was that he greatly developed and elaborated the System and applied it in the case of almost every Indian state A typical Subsidiary Treaty was negotiated on the following terms and conditions: The Indian state was to surrender its external relations to the care of the Company and was to make no wars. It was to conduct negotiations with other states through the Company.
• A bigger state was to maintain an army within its territories commanded by the British officers for the 'preservation of public peace' and the ruler was to cede territory in full sovereignty for the upkeep of that force; a smaller state was required to pay tribute in cash to the Company. The state was to accept a British Resident at its head-quarters. The state was not to employ Europeans in its service without the consultation of the Company. The Company was not to interfere in the internal affairs of the state. The Company was to protect the Indian state against foreign enemies of 'every sort or kind'.

• The Congress Socialist Party (CSP) was founded under the leadership of Jayaprakash Narayan, Acharya Narendra Dev and Minoo Masani at Bombay in October, 1934.
• Despite the ideological diversity among the leaders, the CSP, as a whole, accepted a basic identification of socialism with Marxism.
• Jayaprakash Narayan wrote the book “Why Socialism?”

• The All India Students Federation (AISF) is the first student organization of India. It was founded by the students in 1936.
• The Progressive Writers‘ Association was established in London in 1935 by the Indian writers and intellectuals, with the encouragement and support of some British literary figures. It was in the central London that a group of writers, including Mulk Raj Anand, Sajjad Zaheer and Jyotirmaya Ghosh drafted a manifesto which stated their aims and objectives.
• The All India States Peoples' Conference (AISPC) was a conglomeration of the political movements in the princely states of the British Indian Empire. In Bombay, in December 1927, the first session of the organization was held. (Nehru became its President in 1939).

• Statement 1 is correct: Sea surface with a temperature higher than 27° C provides a continuous source of water to the storm leading to formation and intensification of tropical cyclone storms.

• Statement 2 is correct: Coriolis force is formed due to the rotation of the Earth on its axis. It deflects bodies towards their right in the Northern hemisphere and towards their left in the Southern hemisphere. Coriolis force provides circular movement to the cyclone.

• Statement 3 is not correct: Small differences in the vertical wind speed is required for formation and intensification of tropical cyclone storms. Statement 4 is not correct: Cyclones are characterised by a low pressure area at the Centre, which is called the Eye of the Cyclone. Therefore, a pre-existing low pressure area is conducive to the formation of a cyclone.

Option (a) is the correct answer.

There is a certain definite pattern to the location of the world’s desert. Almost all the deserts are confined within the 15 to 30 degrees parallels of latitude north and south of the equator.

Deserts lie in the trade wind belt on the western part of the continent where trade winds are off-shore. They are bathed by Cold Currents which produce a desiccating effect. So that moisture is not easily condensed into precipitation.

Statement 1 is correct. Deserts are mostly formed in the western part of the continent where trade winds are off-shore.

Statement 2 is incorrect. Cold currents contribute to the formation of deserts by producing a desiccating effect (removal of moisture) so that moisture is not easily condensed. This also causes the air above the cod current to become cold and develops into a stable cold air mass which is difficult to break, thus causing stable conditions for desert to form.

• The Paris Agreement (also known as the Conference of Parties 21 or COP 21) was adopted in 2015. It replaced the Kyoto Protocol which was an earlier agreement to deal with climate change. Hence, statement 1 is correct.

• It is a global treaty wherein some 200 countries agreed to cooperate to reduce Green House Gas (GHG) Emissions and rein in climate change. It seeks to limit global warming to well below 2°C, preferably to 1.5°C, compared to pre-industry levels. Hence, statement 2 is not correct.

• The Northern Atlantic Sea Route links North-eastern U.S.A. and North-western Europe, the two industrially developed regions of the world. The foreign trade over this route is greater than that of the rest of the world combined. One-fourth of the world's foreign trade moves on this route. It is, therefore, the busiest in the world and otherwise, called the Big Trunk Route. Hence option (d) is the correct answer.

• Both the coasts have highly advanced ports and harbor facilities. Rich agricultural, commercial, and industrial regions of Europe export large quantities of manufactured items-textiles, chemicals, machinery, fertilizers, steel, and wine to the United States and Canada. Bulky and large quantities of food grains and raw materials, like wheat, wood pulp, copper as well as iron and steel, transport, copper as well as iron and steel, transport, copper as well as iron and steel. Transport equipment etc. is sent to Western Europe through this route.

Earth's geomagnetic field originates in the fluid outer core. Like boiling water on a stove, convective forces (which move heat from one place to another, usually through air or water) constantly churn the molten metals, which also swirl in whirlpools driven by Earth's rotation. As this roiling mass of metal moves around, it generates electrical currents hundreds of miles wide and flowing at thousands of miles per hour as Earth rotates. This mechanism, which is responsible for maintaining Earth's magnetic field, is known as the geodynamo.

Cooling of the Earth's core leads to stopping the convection mechanism within the Earth and also leads to disappear the magnetic shield around the planet, which protects Earth from cosmic radiation. When the Earth has cooled completely, the movement in the mantle will also stop eventually. Then, the plates on the surface will no longer move, and Volcanoes will no longer erupt; the continents will stop drifting, clashing, and causing earthquakes. The magnetic field will disappear, and the planet will become similar to Mars. So, Statements 1, 2 and 3 are correct.

• The average temperature of surface water in the oceans is about 27°C, gradually decreasing from the equator towards the poles. The rate of decrease of temperature with increasing latitude is generally 0.5°C per latitude. The surface water temperature decreases from the equator to the poles as the sun's rays become increasingly slanted, and therefore the amount of insolation decreases poleward. The surface water temperature between 40°N and 40°S is lower than the air temperature, but it becomes higher than the air temperature between 40° latitude and the poles in both the hemispheres. So, Statement 1 is correct.
• The oceans in the northern hemisphere record relatively higher temperatures than in the southern hemisphere. The highest temperature is not recorded at the equator but slightly towards the north of it. The average annual temperature for the northern and southern hemispheres is around 19° C and 16° C, respectively. This variation is due to the unequal distribution of land and water in the northern and southern hemispheres. It is a well-known fact that the maximum temperature of the oceans is always at their surfaces because they directly receive the heat from the sun, and the heat is transmitted to the lower sections of the oceans through the conduction process. It results in the decrease of temperature with the increasing depth, but the rate of decrease is not uniform throughout. The temperature falls very rapidly up to the depth of 200 m, and after that, the rate of decrease of temperature is slowed down. So, Statement 2 is correct.
• In Northern Atlantic, there is a very low decrease in temperature with increasing latitudes towards the north. However, in the southern Atlantic, the decrease in temperature with increasing latitude is more pronounced. The North Atlantic is the warmest and saltiest, the South Atlantic is the coldest and densest, and the North Pacific is the least dense and least salty. Temperature variations between the northern and southern hemispheres are caused by the different distribution of land and ocean water. Because of warm ocean currents, the temperature decline with increasing latitude in the northern Atlantic Ocean is very low. So, Statement 3 is not correct.

• In Context: The La Nina is being blamed this year for worsening the longest spell of heat waves in north, west and Central India.

• Statement 1 is not correct: El-Nino: It leads to warming in surface temperature of the eastern Pacific Ocean region. This is associated with an increase in rainfall along the western coast of South America and a decrease in rainfall over the Indian subcontinent. It also leads to westerly winds, instead of the generally occurring easterly winds.

• Statement 2 is correct: La-Nina: It is the reverse phenomenon of El-Nino. The temperatures over the eastern Pacific Ocean increases, along with a decrease in rainfall. Also, the rainfall over the Indian subcontinent increases, along with augmentation of the strength of surface-level easterly winds. El-Nino causes higher temperatures and lesser rainfall over the Indian subcontinent, during the monsoon season. On the other hand, la-Nina increases the rainfall and decreases the temperature. Therefore, it is the La-Nina which is (ironically!) much warmly welcomed in the Indian subcontinent. While El-Nino leads to drought events in the subcontinent, La-Nina is primarily associated with flood events. These disasters affect the socio-economic status of the affected communities.

Coastlines of Submergence:

Ria Coast: During the Ice Age a great deal of water was locked up in ice. The warmer climate that followed melted much of the ice. Subsequently there was an increase in the waters of the oceans and the sea level rose appreciably.

In some cases it is estimated that there was a rise of almost 300 feet! In upland coastal regions where the mountains run at right angles to the sea, that is transverse or discordant to the coast, a rise in the sea level submerges or drowns the lower parts of the valleys to form long, narrow branching inlets separated by narrow head­lands.

Statement 1 is incorrect. They differ from fiords in two important respects, i.e. they are not glaciated, and their depth increases seawards. A Ria coast is typical of the Atlantic type of coast like those of north-west France, north-west Spain, south-west Ireland, Devon and Cornwall. As Rias are generally backed by highland, they support few large commercial ports though they have deep water and offer sheltered anchorage. They have been

extensively used for siting fishing ports and naval bases such as Plymouth and Brest.

Fiord Coast: Fiords are submerged U-shaped glacial troughs. They mark the paths of glaciers that plunged down from the highlands. They have steep walls, often rising straight from the sea, with tributary branches joining the main inlet at right angles.

Statement 2 is incorrect. Due to the greater intensity of ice erosion fiords are deep for great distances inland but there is a shallow section at the seaward end formed by a ridge of rock and called the threshold. Off the fiord coast are numerous islands or skerries which, with the shallow thresholds, sometimes only 200 feet deep, complicate coastal navigation. Fiord coasts are almost entirely confined to the higher latitudes of the temperate regions which

were once glaciated e.g. Norway, Alaska, British Columbia, southern Chile and the South Island of New Zealand.

Some of the large fiords are extremely long and deep. For example, the Sogne Fiord of Norway is 110 miles long, 4 miles wide and almost 4,000 feet deep in its mid-channel. Despite their deep and sheltered water, few large ports are located in fiords. Their mountainous background with poor accessibility inland, attract few settlements.

Agriculture is confined to the deltaic fans, built up where streams flow down to the fjords. The few towns that exist either as fishing or market centres e.g. Trondheim, are only of local importance.

• Cold air masses: Cold air masses originate in the polar and arctic regions. They are characterized by the following properties in their source regions:

  • Specific humidity is extremely low. Hence statement 1 is correct.

  • Stability increases and normal lapse rate of temperature is low.

• Cold air masses after moving from their source regions and reaching other areas have the following properties:

  • Temperature of that areas where cold air masses reach starts decreasing.

  • The air mass is warmed from below and thus normal lapse rate increases and the air becomes unstable. This mechanism causes convective currents.

  • If the cold air mass lies over warm ocean surface, then its specific humidity increases and cumulo- nimbus clouds are formed.

• Precipitation occurs only when the cold air mass lies over warm ocean surface but if it lies over warm continent, there is clear weather. Hence statement 2 is correct.

• If the cold air mass lies partly over warm ocean surface and partly over the adjoining cold land surface, then cyclonic conditions are induced.

• Warm air mass: Warm air mass is that whose temperature is greater than the surface temperature of the areas over which it moves.

• Warm air masses generally originate in the subtropical regions characterized by anticyclonic conditions. Hence, statement 3 is the correct.

• Pulses are a very important ingredient of vegetarian food as these are rich sources of proteins. These are legume crops that increase the natural fertility of soils through nitrogen fixation. India is a leading producer of pulses in the world. Hence statement 1 is correct.

• The cultivation of pulses in the country is largely concentrated in the drylands of Deccan and central plateaus and northwestern parts of the country. Pulses occupy about 11 percent of the total cropped area in the country. Hence statement 2 is not correct.

• Being the rainfed crops of drylands, the yields of pulses are low and fluctuate from year to year. Gram and tur are the main pulses cultivated in India.