BPSC 70th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 18 of 143

Correct — C, 1 2 3 4. East to west is settled by longitude alone, so the task is to place four features on a line of degrees east. The Garo Hills, in western Meghalaya, lie at about 90 degrees 20 minutes east — more than ten degrees east of anything else on the list, and therefore first in any east-to-west reading. K2, in the Karakoram, stands at 76 degrees 30 minutes 48 seconds east, the most westerly of the four, and therefore last. Between them sit two peaks that are both in the Garhwal Himalaya, both in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand, and only a short distance apart — which is where the question is actually decided. Nanda Devi is at 79 degrees 58 minutes 15 seconds east and Kamet at 79 degrees 35 minutes 30 seconds east, so Kamet lies about twenty-three minutes of longitude, roughly a third of a degree, further west. Going east to west, Nanda Devi comes before Kamet. Assembling the four gives Garo Hills at 90.33 degrees east, Nanda Devi at 79.97, Kamet at 79.59 and K2 at 76.51, which is exactly the printed order 1, 2, 3, 4. Two features of the stem are worth noticing even though neither changes the answer. It calls all four 'mountain ranges of India', but only the Garo Hills are a range — the other three are individual peaks. And K2 stands in the Karakoram in territory that India claims as part of Jammu and Kashmir and that is presently under Pakistani administration, with a further portion claimed by China, which is why it appears on an Indian paper's list of Indian mountains.

• (a)4 3 1 2 — 4 3 1 2 — the option built for a candidate who reads the direction backwards. It opens with K2, which is the most westerly of the four and so must come last in an east-to-west list, not first. Reversing the direction is the single commonest error on sequence questions, and the option is designed to reward exactly that mistake — though it does not even hold together as a clean reversal, since it then places the Garo Hills third rather than first.
• (b)3 4 2 1 — 3 4 2 1 — begins with Kamet and puts K2 second, which places two western Himalayan points ahead of the Garo Hills entirely. The Garo Hills are more than ten degrees of longitude east of every other item on the list, a gap of over a thousand kilometres, so no correct east-to-west ordering can have them anywhere but at the head.
• (d)2 1 4 3 — 2 1 4 3 — starts with Nanda Devi and demotes the Garo Hills to second, which fails on the same ground as option (b). It also ends by putting Kamet after K2, reversing the western pair. Two independent errors in one option, and the first of them is visible without knowing a single coordinate.

India spans from about 68 degrees 7 minutes east to 97 degrees 25 minutes east, and an east-to-west question is asking you to place named features on that span. The mountains involved here belong to two entirely different systems, which is worth holding because it explains the enormous gap in the middle of the list. The Himalaya and the Karakoram form the young folded mountain wall along the northern edge of the country, arcing from the Indus gorge in the west to the Brahmaputra gorge in the east; the Karakoram carries K2 at 8,611 metres, the second-highest mountain in the world, while the Garhwal section of the Himalaya in Uttarakhand carries Nanda Devi at about 7,816 metres — the second-highest mountain in India after Kangchenjunga and the highest lying entirely within the country — and Kamet at 7,756 metres, the twenty-ninth highest in the world. The Garo Hills are not part of that system at all. Together with the Khasi and Jaintia Hills they make up the Meghalaya plateau, a detached fragment of the ancient peninsular block that was separated from the main shield, and their highest point, Nokrek, reaches only 1,412 metres. Low hills of old rock in the east, very high young peaks in the west.

The efficient way to answer a sequence question is never to order all four items. It is to fix the one item you are certain about at one end and then delete every option that disagrees. Here the certainty is the Garo Hills. They are in Meghalaya, at roughly 90 degrees east, and every other item on the list is a Himalayan or Karakoram feature at 80 degrees east or less. So in an east-to-west sequence item 1 must come first, and only option (c) begins with it. The question is finished at that point, without ever having to compare Nanda Devi with Kamet. Cross-check at the other end if time allows: K2 in the Karakoram is the westernmost, and option (c) duly ends with item 4. Keep the harder comparison in reserve rather than starting with it, because Nanda Devi and Kamet are both Garhwal peaks in the same district and separated by only a third of a degree — a genuinely fine call that an examiner could have made the whole question, but here did not need to.

• Longitudes that decide the order: Garo Hills about 90.33 degrees east, Nanda Devi 79.97, Kamet 79.59, K2 76.51 — giving east to west as 1, 2, 3, 4.
• Nanda Devi, 7,816 metres in the Garhwal Himalaya of Chamoli district, Uttarakhand, is the second-highest mountain in India after Kangchenjunga and the highest lying entirely within India, since Kangchenjunga sits on the border with Nepal.
• Kamet, 7,756 metres, is also in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand and is the twenty-ninth highest mountain in the world and the second highest in the Garhwal region — which is why it and Nanda Devi are only about a third of a degree of longitude apart.
• K2, 8,611 metres, is the second-highest mountain in the world and belongs to the Karakoram rather than the Himalaya; it lies in territory India claims as part of Jammu and Kashmir, currently under Pakistani administration, with a portion also claimed by China.
• The Garo Hills are part of the Garo-Khasi range of the Meghalaya plateau, geologically a detached piece of the ancient peninsular block rather than of the Himalaya, and their highest point is Nokrek at 1,412 metres.
• India's longitudinal extent runs from roughly 68 degrees 7 minutes east to 97 degrees 25 minutes east, so the four items in this question span nearly half the country's width.

• Reading the direction backwards. The question asks east to west, and option (a) opens with K2, the most westerly of the four.
• Trying to settle Nanda Devi against Kamet first. They are the hardest pair and the question does not require them, because fixing the Garo Hills at the eastern end already leaves only one option standing.
• Being thrown by the stem calling all four 'mountain ranges'. Only the Garo Hills are a range; the other three are peaks, and the loose wording does not affect the ordering.

BPSC asks physical geography as a numbered list with coded options and a stated direction — east to west, north to south, ascending order — and hides the difficulty in one adjacent pair while leaving at least one item so far out of line that the whole question can be cracked from that end. UPSC uses the identical architecture but almost always on rivers rather than peaks, asking for tributaries of the Ganga from west to east or peninsular rivers from north to south, so the same technique of anchoring on a certain extreme transfers directly between the two papers.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which is the highest mountain peak lying entirely within the territory of India ?

  • (a)Kangchenjunga
  • (b)Nanda Devi
  • (c)Kamet
  • (d)K2

  Answer(b) Nanda Devi, 7,816 m in Chamoli district, Uttarakhand. Kangchenjunga is higher but stands on the India-Nepal border, and K2 is in the Karakoram in territory under Pakistani administration.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Garo Hills form part of which of the following ?

  • (a)The Eastern Himalaya
  • (b)The Purvanchal or Eastern Hills of the Indo-Myanmar border
  • (c)The Meghalaya plateau, a detached block of the peninsular shield
  • (d)The Chota Nagpur plateau

  Answer(c) the Meghalaya plateau, a detached block of the peninsular shield — the Garo, Khasi and Jaintia Hills together, with Nokrek at 1,412 m as the highest point of the Garo Hills. They are old peninsular rock, not young Himalayan fold mountains.