UPHESC Assistant Professor Geography 2025 PYQs

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.

Concept: Sclerophyllous = ‘hard-leaved’: small, thick, waxy leaves that resist summer drought.

1. This is typical of Mediterranean climates (dry summer, wet winter): maquis, chaparral, garrigue, cork oak, olive.
2. Rain forests are broad-leaved; taiga is needle-leaved; tidal forests are mangroves.

Short trick: Dry summer → hard leaves → Mediterranean.

Concept: The oceanic Nazca plate subducts beneath the continental South American plate, raising the Andes with volcanoes and the Peru–Chile trench.

1. East African rift – continental divergence.
2. San Andreas – transform boundary.
3. Mid-Atlantic ridge – oceanic divergence.

Short trick: Ocean–continent convergence = Andes / Cascades.

Concept: Katabatic (Greek kata = down) winds are cold, dense air draining downslope under gravity, e.g. mountain winds at night, Antarctic/Greenland ice-sheet winds, bora.

1. Anabatic winds are upslope (valley breeze by day).

Short trick: Kata = down; Ana = up.

Concept: Derwent Whittlesey (1954, in ‘American Geography: Inventory and Prospect’) coined ‘compage’ for a region defined by the whole complex of physical, biotic and societal features that are functionally associated with man’s occupance.

1. Whittlesey also gave ‘sequent occupance’ (1929).
2. Herbertson – natural regions; Unstead – hierarchy of regions (stows, tracts).

Short trick: Whittlesey = compage + sequent occupance.

Concept: The Puranas describe seven dvipas around Jambudvipa; S. M. Ali (Geography of the Puranas) identified them with real regions.

1. Shalmali – tropical/East Africa along the western Indian Ocean, including Madagascar.
2. Kusha – Iran–Iraq; Plaksha – Greece/Mediterranean; Shaka – Malaya–Indochina (monsoon Asia); Pushkara – Japan–Manchuria.

Short trick: Shalmali (silk-cotton tree) → East Africa.

Concept: The mesosphere (≈50–80 km) is where most meteors burn up through friction with air molecules.

1. (A) true.
2. (R) false: the air there is very thin; greenhouse gases (water vapour, CO₂) are concentrated in the lower troposphere. The mesosphere is the coldest layer.

Short trick: Meteors burn – mesosphere; GHGs – troposphere.

Concept: J. T. Hack (1960) revived G. K. Gilbert’s idea as the theory of dynamic equilibrium.

1. (A) true.
2. (R) false: Hack precisely emphasised that landforms reach a time-independent steady state in which uplift is balanced by denudation, so form persists while material is removed.

Short trick: Hack = uplift ⇄ erosion balance (time-independent landforms).

Concept: The Aleutian arc is a volcanic island arc on the Pacific Ring of Fire.

1. The Pacific plate subducts beneath the North American plate along the Aleutian trench (a convergent boundary).
2. Melting of the subducting slab feeds the volcanoes – so (R) explains (A).

Short trick: Subduction → island arc volcanoes (Aleutians, Japan, Kurils).

Concept: Repetitive multi-date satellite imagery is the standard tool for land use/land cover change detection – (A) true.

1. (R) false: a key advantage of remote sensing is precisely its synoptic (bird’s-eye, large-area) view – one Landsat scene covers about 185 × 185 km.

Short trick: RS advantages: synoptic + repetitive + multispectral.

Concept: Grand Banks (Gulf Stream + Labrador), Japan (Kuroshio + Oyashio) etc. are the richest fishing grounds – (A) true.

1. At the meeting zone the mixed water has moderate, favourable temperature and the mixing brings up nutrients and oxygen, so plankton – the food of fish – multiplies.
2. The favourable temperature for breeding and growth of fish is the reason these zones are rich, so (R) explains (A) (plankton growth goes with it).

Short trick: Warm + cold meet → mild water + plankton → fish.