UPHESC Assistant Professor Geography 2025 PYQs

Concept: Halos (22° rings) are produced by refraction of light through hexagonal ice crystals in thin high clouds.

1. Cirrostratus (and cirrus) are thin ice-crystal veils – typical halo clouds.
2. Altostratus and altocumulus are mainly water droplets – they give coronas, not halos.

Short trick: Halo = ice crystals = cirrostratus; corona = droplets = alto clouds.

Concept: Empirical schemes use observed temperature/rainfall values; genetic schemes use causes (air masses, circulation).

1. Trewartha modified Köppen’s empirical boundaries and grouped the types according to air masses and pressure belts – combining both approaches.
2. Thornthwaite and Miller are essentially empirical (P/E index, temperature); Oliver and Hidore discussed genetic schemes.

Short trick: Trewartha = Köppen boundaries + air-mass logic.

Concept: Claudius Ptolemy (2nd century AD) wrote the Almagest (Mathematike Syntaxis), the Geographike (Hyphegesis/Syntaxis) and a treatise ‘Analemma’ on sundials.

1. ‘Geographica’ (17 books) is the work of Strabo (1st century BC–AD).
2. So Geographica is not Ptolemy’s.

Short trick: Strabo – Geographica; Ptolemy – Geographike + Almagest.

Concept: Ellsworth Huntington’s ‘The Pulse of Asia’ (1907) linked climatic pulsations in Central Asia with migrations and history.

1. Other works: Civilization and Climate (1915), Mainsprings of Civilization (1945).
2. Bowman – The New World; Sauer – Morphology of Landscape.

Short trick: Huntington = climate pulses → history.

Concept: Globigerina (calcareous) ooze covers more than half of the Indian Ocean floor.

1. The Indian Ocean is relatively shallow and warm, above the carbonate compensation depth over large areas, so calcareous tests survive.
2. Red clay dominates the deep Pacific; diatom ooze is mainly in the Southern Ocean.

Short trick: Indian & Atlantic – Globigerina; Pacific – red clay.

Concept: Bleaching happens when stressed corals expel their symbiotic zooxanthellae algae and turn white.

1. The main trigger is abnormally high sea-surface temperature (marine heatwaves, El Niño) driven by global warming.
2. Pollution, sediment and acidification are secondary stresses.

Short trick: Hot water → algae expelled → white coral.

Concept: Smog is of two types: classical (London) smog from SO₂ + smoke + fog, and photochemical (Los Angeles) smog from NOx + hydrocarbons + sunlight giving ozone and PAN.

1. SO₂, NOx and ozone are all smog-forming/constituent gases.
2. CO is a toxic pollutant but does not form smog.

Short trick: Smog gases: SO₂ (London), NOx & O₃ (photochemical); CO – not.

Concept: The urban–rural temperature difference is greatest a few hours after sunset, on calm clear nights.

1. Concrete, asphalt and buildings store heat by day and release it slowly at night, while rural areas cool quickly.
2. Canyon geometry reduces sky view and night-time radiative loss.

Short trick: UHI peaks at night, not at noon.

Concept: The Smart Cities Mission was launched by the Prime Minister on 25 June 2015 (along with AMRUT and PMAY-Urban).

1. 100 cities were selected through a ‘City Challenge’ competition.
2. 21 June is International Yoga Day – a common distractor.

Short trick: 25 June 2015 – three urban missions launched together.

Concept: Histosols are organic soils (peat, muck, bog) with more than 20–30% organic matter in thick layers.

1. Formed in waterlogged, cold or anaerobic conditions where decomposition is slow.
2. Ultisols – leached red clay soils; Andisols – volcanic ash; Inceptisols – young weakly developed soils.

Short trick: Histo = tissue → organic soil (peat).

Concept: Synthetic rubber is a petrochemical product; China is the world’s largest producer (and consumer), followed by the USA, South Korea, Russia, Japan.

1. Malaysia and Indonesia are big producers of natural rubber (Thailand is first), not synthetic.

Short trick: Natural rubber – Thailand; synthetic rubber – China.

Concept: David J. M. Hooson wrote ‘A New Soviet Heartland?’ (1964), arguing that the Soviet core had shifted east to the Volga–Urals–West Siberia belt.

1. Mackinder – ‘The Geographical Pivot of History’ (1904); Seversky – Air Power (Airman’s view); Cohen – Geopolitics of the World System.

Short trick: Hooson = new Soviet heartland (eastward shift).

Concept: Dinaric people of the Balkan (Dinaric Alps) region are a sub-type of the Caucasoid (Alpine) stock, not Negroid.

1. American Indians – Mongoloid; Bushman–Hottentot – Negroid (Khoisan) – correct.
2. Veddas are archaic; in Kroeber/older schemes they are grouped with the Caucasoid ‘Veddoid’ branch, so the pair is accepted.
3. ‘Dinaric – Secondary Negroid’ is clearly wrong.

Short trick: Dinaric = Alpine Caucasoid of the Balkans.

Concept: Check which projections can show the whole globe, including both poles.

1. Gall’s stereographic cylindrical (secant at 45° N/S): unlike Mercator, both poles are shown – as straight lines equal in length to the equator’s width on the map.
2. Sinusoidal (Sanson–Flamsteed): a whole-world equal-area projection in which all meridians converge to the North and South Pole, shown as points – so it also shows both poles.
3. Polar zenithal: centred on one pole, normally showing one hemisphere. Bonne’s: used for mid-latitude continents, with arcs centred on one pole.
4. Since both (A) and (B) show both poles, the question has two correct options as printed and is treated as a bonus.

Short trick: Poles as lines – Gall; poles as points – Sinusoidal; Mercator – no poles.

Concept: Ellsworth Huntington was the leading climatic determinist.

1. In ‘Civilization and Climate’ he argued that climate and weather control human energy, distribution and progress more than any other factor.
2. Ratzel and Semple stressed the whole physical environment; Taylor gave ‘stop-and-go’ determinism.

Short trick: Climate above all = Huntington.

Concept: J. C. Weaver (1954) compared actual crop percentages with theoretical curves (100% for 1 crop, 50–50 for 2 …) and chose the combination with the least variance – the minimum deviation method.

1. K. Doi – a simplified version of Weaver’s method using a ready table.
2. Rafiullah – maximum positive deviation method; Kostrowicki – agricultural typology.

Short trick: Weaver = minimum deviation; Rafiullah = maximum positive deviation.

Concept: D. M. Smith (The Geography of Social Well-being in the USA, 1973) measured social well-being with seven criteria.

1. (1) Income, wealth & employment, (2) living environment (housing), (3) health, (4) education, (5) social order (crime, disorganisation), (6) social belonging (participation), (7) recreation & leisure.
2. These were combined into a composite well-being index for regions.

Short trick: Smith’s ‘who gets what, where’ – 7 criteria.

Concept: A backward linkage (Hirschman) is the demand a new industry creates for its inputs.

1. This demand induces supplier units – ancillary, complementary or supporting industries (e.g. a car plant attracts tyre, glass, parts makers).
2. Forward linkage induces user industries that process its output.

Short trick: Backward = suppliers (inputs); forward = users (outputs).

Concept: François Perroux (1955) defined growth poles in abstract economic space – a ‘field of forces’ of propulsive industries and their linkages, not a geographical place.

1. J. R. Boudeville later transferred the idea to geographical (tangible) space as growth centres.
2. Polarisation is an effect of the pole, not the basic space concept.

Short trick: Perroux – economic space; Boudeville – geographical space.

Concept: The Lorenz curve is a graphic method of measuring dispersion (inequality/concentration) of a distribution.

1. Cumulative % of one variable is plotted against cumulative % of another; the diagonal is the line of equal distribution.
2. The farther the curve sags from the diagonal, the greater the dispersion (Gini coefficient).

Short trick: Lorenz curve + Gini = inequality = dispersion.