UPHESC Assistant Professor Geography 2025 PYQs

Concept: Both statements are true but unrelated as cause and effect.

1. (A) Odisha faces frequent Bay of Bengal cyclones (1999 super cyclone, Phailin, Fani) – due to its location on the cyclone track and warm Bay waters.
2. (R) Mangroves have prop and stilt roots that anchor them – true, and they reduce cyclone damage, but they do not cause the cyclone-proneness.

Short trick: R explains protection, not proneness.

Concept: Convergent boundaries are destructive margins.

1. The denser (heavier) plate sinks into the mantle along the inclined Wadati–Benioff zone of earthquakes and is consumed (melted).
2. This consumption is exactly the loss of crust – (R) explains (A).

Short trick: Divergent = crust created; convergent (Benioff zone) = crust destroyed.

Concept: In the systems view of the Davisian cycle, entropy (evenness of energy distribution) rises as relief and potential energy are used up.

1. In old age relief is reduced to a nearly flat peneplain – energy is evenly spread, so entropy is maximum (A true).
2. Peneplanation is the dominant process of old age (R true), and it is this levelling that produces maximum entropy, so R explains A.

Short trick: Youth = high relief, low entropy; old age = peneplain, maximum entropy.

Concept: Urban TFR is lower than rural TFR almost everywhere (India: urban TFR ≈ 1.6 vs rural ≈ 2.1).

1. Female education and paid work raise age at marriage, raise the opportunity cost of children and improve contraceptive use.
2. So the better access of women to education and jobs is the direct reason for lower fertility – (R) explains (A).

Short trick: Educated, working women → later marriage → fewer children.

Concept: Antarctica is a cold (polar) desert: its interior gets only about 5 cm water-equivalent a year, yet the snow never melts – (A) true.

1. Low precipitation is due to very cold air holding little moisture and the permanent polar high (descending air).
2. (R) strong katabatic winds do blow constantly – true – but they do not explain the low precipitation.

Short trick: Polar desert = cold + high pressure; winds are a separate fact.

Concept: Arrange by longitude.

1. Malacca ≈ 100° E (Malaysia–Sumatra) → Palk ≈ 79–80° E (India–Sri Lanka) → Hormuz ≈ 56° E (Iran–Oman) → Bab-el-Mandeb ≈ 43° E (Yemen–Djibouti).
2. Order: I, IV, III, II.

Short trick: From Singapore sail west: Malacca → Palk → Hormuz → Bab-el-Mandeb (Red Sea mouth).

Concept: Demarcating (delimiting) a region means drawing boundaries/assigning areas to centres.

1. Thiessen polygons divide space into areas nearest to each centre; graph theory uses flows/linkages (dominant flow) to group nodes into functional regions; discriminant analysis assigns areal units to regions statistically.
2. Nearest neighbour analysis only describes the pattern (clustered/random/uniform) of points – it does not draw region boundaries.

Short trick: Boundary-drawing tools = Thiessen, graph theory, discriminant; NNA = pattern only.

Concept: Across Jammu & Kashmir–Ladakh from south to north:

1. Pir Panjal (Lesser Himalaya) → Kashmir valley → Greater Himalaya → Zanskar range (Trans-Himalaya, just north of the Great Himalaya) → Indus valley → Ladakh range → Karakoram.
2. Order: I, III, II, IV.

Short trick: P-G-Z-L-K: Pir Panjal, Great Himalaya, Zanskar, Ladakh, Karakoram.

Concept: Vector data store points, lines and polygons; raster data store a grid of pixels.

1. MDB – ESRI personal geodatabase (feature classes); TAB – MapInfo table; DLG – USGS Digital Line Graph: all vector.
2. PNG – an image (raster) format.

Short trick: Pixels (PNG, JPG, TIFF) = raster; features (SHP, TAB, DLG, MDB) = vector.

Concept: Follow the west coast from Gujarat to Kerala.

1. Sabarmati (Gujarat, Gulf of Khambhat) → Tapi (Surat) → Kali Nadi (Karwar, Karnataka) → Bharathapuzha (Ponnani, Kerala).
2. Order: I, II, III, IV.

Short trick: Gujarat → Gujarat (south) → Karnataka → Kerala.

Concept: Match each theory with its author.

1. Malthusian – Thomas Malthus (1798) → III.
2. Demographic transition – Warren Thompson (1929), later Notestein → I.
3. Optimum population – Edwin Cannan → IV.
4. Cornucopian (population as ‘ultimate resource’) – Julian Simon → II.

Short trick: a-III, b-I, c-IV, d-II.

Concept: Place each technique in its DIP stage.

1. De-striping removes sensor striping – radiometric correction (III).
2. Histogram equalisation stretches contrast – enhancement (I).
3. NDVI = (NIR − Red)/(NIR + Red) – band-ratio transformation (IV).
4. Maximum likelihood – supervised classifier (II).

Short trick: Pre-processing → enhancement → transformation → classification.

Concept: Match by payload.

1. SARAL (ISRO–CNES, AltiKa altimeter) – sea-surface height, ocean studies → IV.
2. Cartosat-3 – very high resolution (≈0.25 m) mapping – urban planning → III.
3. RISAT-2BR1 – all-weather radar imaging – disaster management → II.
4. SCATSAT-1 – scatterometer for ocean winds, cyclones, weather/climate → I.

Short trick: SARAL = sea; Carto = cities; RISAT = radar for disasters; SCAT = winds/climate.

Concept: Locate each feature.

1. Mid-Atlantic Ridge – Atlantic (II).
2. Mariana Trench (deepest, Challenger Deep) – western Pacific (III).
3. Great Barrier Reef – off Queensland in the Coral Sea (IV).
4. Java (Sunda) Trench – deepest point of the Indian Ocean (I).

Short trick: a-II, b-III, c-IV, d-I.

Concept: Match each idea with its scholar.

1. Camille Vallaux – ‘Géographie sociale’ (1908–11), first formal concept of social geography → II.
2. Frédéric Le Play – the triad Lieu–Travail–Famille (Place–Work–Folk, later used by Geddes) → III.
3. Doreen Massey – ‘Space, Place and Gender’ (1994) → IV.
4. Henri Lefebvre – ‘The Production of Space’ (1974) → I.

Short trick: Le Play = Place-Work-Folk; Lefebvre = production of space.

Concept: Different terms for the area served by a town.

1. André Allix – ‘Umland’ (1914) → III.
2. R. E. Dickinson – ‘City Region’ (City, Region and Regionalism, 1947) → I.
3. F. H. W. Green – ‘Urban hinterland’ (bus-service hinterlands of England & Wales, 1950) → IV.
4. A. E. Smailes – ‘Urban field’ → II.

Short trick: Allix–Umland, Dickinson–City region, Green–Hinterland, Smailes–Urban field.

Concept: Locate the currents.

1. Humboldt (Peru) – cold, west coast of South America → I.
2. Agulhas – warm, east coast of southern Africa → IV.
3. Benguela – cold, west coast of southern Africa → III.
4. Antilles – warm, north of Cuba/Greater Antilles → II.

Short trick: Cold currents on west coasts (Humboldt, Benguela); warm on east coasts (Agulhas).

Concept: Match local winds with regions.

1. Harmattan – dry dusty NE wind of West Africa (‘doctor’) → III.
2. Haboob – violent dust storm of Sudan → IV.
3. Bora – cold katabatic wind on the Adriatic coast → II.
4. Zonda – warm föhn-type wind on the eastern Andes, Argentina → I.

Short trick: Harmattan–W. Africa, Haboob–Sudan, Bora–Adriatic, Zonda–Argentina.

Concept: Match pattern with typical example.

1. Dendritic (tree-like) – Amazon basin on uniform rocks → IV.
2. Centripetal – rivers draining into an inland basin, e.g. Caspian Sea → I.
3. Radial – from a central dome: Amarkantak (Narmada, Son, Mahanadi tributaries) → II.
4. Trellis – folded ridge-and-valley Appalachians → III.

Short trick: Radial = outward from a peak; centripetal = inward to a basin.

Concept: Identify the process.

1. Drumlin – oval hill of glacial till → II.
2. Bajada – coalesced alluvial fans at the foot of desert ranges (fluvial/sheet-flood deposition) → III.
3. Inselberg – residual rock hill left by weathering and wind erosion in deserts → IV.
4. Tombolo – sand bar joining an island to the mainland → I.

Short trick: a-II, b-III, c-IV, d-I.