BPSC 70th CCE Re-exam Prelims General Studies · Question 47 of 142

Correct — A, Taurus. Asia Minor is Anatolia, the peninsula that makes up the Asian part of Turkey, bounded by the Black Sea to the north and the Mediterranean to the south. Two great fold ranges run along its two coasts, and the whole question is about telling them apart. The TAURUS Mountains — Toros Dağları in Turkish — are the southern range: a mountain complex in southern Turkey that separates the Mediterranean coastal region on the Levantine Sea from the central Anatolian plateau, curving from Lake Eğirdir in the west to the upper reaches of the Euphrates and Tigris in the east. Their highest summit is Demirkazık, 3,756 metres, in Niğde Province, and the range belongs to the Alpide belt, the same collision zone that raised the Alps, the Zagros and the Himalaya. Historically the Taurus mattered because of one gap: the Cilician Gates, the narrow pass by which armies from Alexander onwards crossed from the Anatolian plateau down to the Cilician plain and on into Syria. The range is also what makes the Mediterranean coast of Turkey a narrow strip — the Antalya, Mersin and Adana lowlands are the plains left between the mountains and the sea. Two of the four printed option names are misspelt on the booklet — (c) reads 'Alburg' where the Iranian range is Alborz, also written Alburz or Elburz, and (d) reads 'Kirther' where the Pakistani range is Kirthar. These are the Commission's own spellings, reproduced here rather than repaired, and neither misprint changes the answer: both ranges are in the wrong country and on the wrong sea whatever their spelling.

• (b)Pontic — The correct answer to the mirror-image question, and therefore the real trap. The Pontic Mountains — Kuzey Anadolu Dağları, literally the North Anatolian Mountains — run for about a thousand kilometres along Anatolia's BLACK SEA coast and continue into Georgia, with Mount Kaçkar at 3,937 metres as their highest point. Same country, same peninsula, opposite coast. If the stem had said 'Black Sea' instead of 'Mediterranean', this would have been the key.
• (c)Alburg — The Alborz — the booklet's 'Alburg' — is not in Turkey at all. It is a range in northern IRAN, running along the western and southern shores of the CASPIAN Sea, and it carries Mount Damavand at 5,610 metres, the highest peak in Iran and the second most prominent in Asia after Everest. Different country, different sea, and about a thousand kilometres east of the Mediterranean.
• (d)Kirther — The Kirthar range, printed here as 'Kirther', lies in PAKISTAN, marking the boundary between Sindh and Balochistan and separating the Iranian plateau from the Indian subcontinent. It runs roughly 190 miles south from the Mula River to Cape Monze on the Arabian Sea, and its sub-ranges reach into Karachi. It is the option a candidate recognises from Indian regional geography and should reject on exactly that ground.

Anatolia is a high interior plateau rimmed by mountains on three sides, and that structure is the key to everything about Turkey's geography. The Pontic ranges wall it off from the Black Sea in the north, the Taurus from the Mediterranean in the south, and the two converge in the rugged east where the plateau rises towards Mount Ararat and where the Euphrates and Tigris rise. All of it belongs to the Alpide orogenic belt, the band of young fold mountains produced by the collision of the African and Arabian plates with Eurasia, which runs from the Atlas through the Alps and the Caucasus to the Zagros, the Hindu Kush and the Himalaya. Because the rim mountains block moisture, the coasts are humid — the eastern Black Sea coast behind the Pontic range is the wettest part of Turkey — while the interior plateau is semi-arid and salt lakes such as Lake Tuz form in it. Anatolia is also one of the most seismically active regions on earth, sliding westward along the North Anatolian Fault that runs the length of the Pontic mountains.

World-geography questions of this kind are answered by holding a range with its country AND its adjacent water body, because the examiner's decoys are almost always right on one of those and wrong on the other. Build the pairs: Taurus – Turkey – Mediterranean; Pontic – Turkey – Black Sea; Alborz – Iran – Caspian; Zagros – Iran – Persian Gulf; Kirthar – Pakistan – Sindh and Balochistan; Sulaiman – Pakistan – north of the Kirthar; Hindu Kush – Afghanistan. Read the stem for the water body first — here 'Mediterranean' — and only the Taurus survives. It also helps to know the older names, because 'Asia Minor' is an ancient term that survives mainly in examination papers and means the Anatolian peninsula and nothing else. Finally, do not let a misspelling do your reasoning for you: 'Alburg' and 'Kirther' are wrong not because they are misspelt but because Iran and Pakistan do not touch the Mediterranean.

• The Taurus Mountains (Toros Dağları) separate Turkey's Mediterranean coastal region on the Levantine Sea from the central Anatolian plateau, running from Lake Eğirdir in the west to the upper Euphrates and Tigris in the east.
• Their highest peak is Demirkazık, 3,756 metres, in Niğde Province; the Cilician Gates pass through the range and were the historic route from the plateau to the Cilician plain.
• The Pontic Mountains run about 1,000 km along Anatolia's Black Sea coast into Georgia, with Mount Kaçkar at 3,937 metres.
• The Alborz (also spelt Alburz or Elburz) runs along the southern shore of the Caspian Sea in northern Iran and carries Mount Damavand, 5,610 metres, Iran's highest peak.
• The Kirthar range marks the Sindh–Balochistan boundary in Pakistan, extending roughly 190 miles from the Mula River to Cape Monze on the Arabian Sea.

• Choosing Pontic. It is the right country and the right peninsula but the wrong coast — Black Sea, not Mediterranean.
• Reading 'Asia Minor' as a vague term for west Asia. It means the Anatolian peninsula specifically, so any range outside Turkey is disqualified before its position is even considered.
• Rejecting an option because it is misspelt, or accepting one because it looks correctly spelt. 'Alburg' and 'Kirther' fail on geography, not on orthography.

BPSC asks world physical geography as direct identification — name the range, the peak, the river, the strait — usually with one near-miss from the same country in the option set, as the Pontic is here. UPSC prefers to place the country rather than the range, asking for instance which two seas Turkey lies between, or to test the range through a map-based or pairs question rather than by name alone.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Pontic Mountains lie along which coast of Turkey ?

  • (a)The Mediterranean coast
  • (b)The Aegean coast
  • (c)The Black Sea coast
  • (d)The coast of the Sea of Marmara

  Answer(c) The Black Sea coast — the Pontic range, known in Turkish as the North Anatolian Mountains, walls off the Black Sea littoral from the interior plateau, mirroring what the Taurus does on the Mediterranean side.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Mount Damavand, the highest peak of Iran, belongs to which mountain range ?

  • (a)Zagros
  • (b)Alborz
  • (c)Taurus
  • (d)Kirthar

  Answer(b) Alborz — Damavand, at 5,610 metres, stands in the Central Alborz along the southern shore of the Caspian Sea. The Zagros is Iran's other great range, running towards the Persian Gulf.