Ans: D

Exp: 

Option (a) is correct: Monazite is a yellowish brown to reddish brown or greenish brown mineral with a resinous to vitreous lustre. It is translucent and rarely seen in large grains or as well-formed crystals.

Option (b) is correct: Monazite is a rare phosphate mineral. It usually occurs in small isolated grains, as an accessory mineral in igneous and metamorphic rocks such as granite, pegmatite, schist, and gneiss.

Option (c) is correct: Thorium is mainly obtained from monazite and ilmenite in the beach sands along the coast of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. 

Option (d) is incorrect: The world’s richest monazite deposits occur in the Palakkad and Kollam districts of Kerala, near Vishakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, and in the Mahanadi river delta in Odisha.

Ans: A

Exp: 

Pair 1 is incorrect: The Canadian Prairies made up of Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan provinces, are very important in the world due to their grain production. The Prairies export a lot of agricultural food products to other nations in the world. In 2012 alone, for example, Saskatchewan, which is considered the breadbasket of Canada, exported over $11 billion worth of agricultural produce.

Pair 2 is correct: The state of California is important to the total agricultural production of the United States. It accounts for 12.8% of the country’s agricultural yield. Most of this produce comes from the San Joaquin Valley, which is referred to as a breadbasket globally.

Pair 3 is incorrect: Brazil is the largest country in South America. The southern states of Parana and Rio Grande do Sul account for almost 90% of the wheat production in Brazil.

Ans: B

Exp:

Statement 1 is incorrect: Malthus’ theory of population growth was outlined in his Essay on Population (1798). He argued that human populations tend to grow at a much faster rate than the rate at which the means of human subsistence (especially food, clothing, and other agriculture-based products) can grow. According to this theory, while population rises in geometric progression (i.e., like 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc.), agricultural production can only grow in arithmetic progression  (i.e., like 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, etc.).

Statement 2 is correct: According to this theory, Population growth always outstrips growth in the production of subsistence resources, so the only way to increase prosperity is by controlling population growth. Unfortunately, humanity has only a limited ability to voluntarily reduce the growth of its population (through ‘preventive checks’ such as postponing marriages or practising sexual abstinence or celibacy). Thus, Malthus believed that ‘positive checks’ on population growth – in the form of famines and diseases – were inevitable because they were nature’s way of dealing with the imbalance between food supply and increasing population.

Ans: B

Exp: 

Pair 1 is correctly matched: The period from 1901-1921 is referred to as a period of stagnant or stationary phase of growth of India’s population, since in this period, the growth rate was very low, even recording a negative growth rate during 1911-1921. Both the birth rate and death rate were high, keeping the rate of population growth low. Poor health and medical services, illiteracy of people and an inefficient distribution system of food and other basic necessities were largely responsible for high birth and death rates in this period.

Pair 2 is correctly matched: The decades 1921-1951 are referred to as the period of steady population growth. An overall improvement in health and sanitation throughout the country brought down the mortality rate. At the same time, better transport and communication systems improved the distribution system. The crude birth rate remained high in this period, leading to a higher growth rate than in the previous phase. This was impressive against the backdrop of the Great Economic Depression, 1920s and World War II. 

Pair 3 is incorrectly matched: The decades 1951-1981 are referred to as the period of population explosion in India, which was caused by a rapid fall in the mortality rate but a high fertility rate of the population in the country. The average annual growth rate was as high as 2.2 percent. In this period, developmental activities were introduced through a centralised planning process, and the economy started showing up results, ensuring the improvement of the living conditions of most people. Consequently, there was a high natural increase and a higher growth rate in the population.

Pair 4 is incorrectly matched: Post 1981, the growth rate of the country’s population, though it remained high, has started slowing down gradually. A downward trend in the crude birth rate is held responsible for such population growth. This was, in turn, affected by an increase in the mean age at marriage and improved quality of life and education for females in the country. 

Ans: D

Exp:

The spatial distribution of religious communities in the country shows that there are certain states and districts with a large numerical strength of one religion, while the same may be very negligibly represented in other states. 

• Christian population is distributed mostly in rural areas of the country. The main concentration is observed along the Western coast around Goa, Kerala and also in the hill states of Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Chotanagpur area, and the Hills of Manipur. 
• Sikhs are mostly concentrated in relatively small areas of the country, particularly in the states of Punjab, Haryana and Delhi.
• Jains and Buddhists, the smallest religious groups in India, have their concentrations only in selected areas of the country. Jains have a major concentration in the urban areas of Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra, while Buddhists are concentrated mostly in Maharashtra. The other areas with a high proportion of Buddhists are Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh in Jammu & Kashmir, Tripura, and Lahul and Spiti in Himachal Pradesh.