Match List I with List II and select the correct answer using the code given below the Lists: List I (Name of Shifting Cultivation) A. Roca B. Chena C. Masole D. Tamarai List II (Country) 1. Sri Lanka 2. Thailand 3. Brazil 4. Zaire Code:
- (a)A-2 B-4 C-1 D-3
- (b)A-2 B-1 C-4 D-3
- (c)A-3 B-4 C-1 D-2
- (d)A-3 B-1 C-4 D-2
Correct — D, A-3 B-1 C-4 D-2. Each name in List I is what shifting cultivation is called in one country, and three of the four pairings can be settled directly. Roca is the Brazilian name, from the Portuguese for a clearing, so A goes to 3. Chena is the Sri Lankan name, used for the dry-zone slash-and-burn plots of the island, so B goes to 1. Masole is the Congo name, and the paper's List II uses the country's older name, Zaire, so C goes to 4. That leaves Tamarai to pair with Thailand, and D goes to 2 — the only remaining slot, which is how a four-by-four matching item is meant to be closed. Only option (d) puts Roca in Brazil and Chena in Sri Lanka together, so the three secure pairings identify it without needing to recall the fourth name at all.
- (a)A-2 B-4 C-1 D-3 — Sends Roca to Thailand and Chena to Zaire. Both are wrong: Roca is Brazilian and Chena is the Sri Lankan term.
- (b)A-2 B-1 C-4 D-3 — Gets Chena and Masole right but puts Roca in Thailand and Tamarai in Brazil, exactly reversing the pair that the other two leave over.
- (c)A-3 B-4 C-1 D-2 — Correct on Roca and on Tamarai, but swaps Chena and Masole — it sends the Sri Lankan term to Zaire and the Congo term to Sri Lanka.
Shifting cultivation is the oldest surviving form of farming: a patch of forest is cleared and burnt, the ash fertilises the soil, crops are taken for one to three years until yields fall, and the plot is abandoned to a long fallow while the cultivator moves on. It survives in the humid tropics of Asia, Africa and Latin America, and almost every region that practises it has its own word for it. The system supports low population densities and collapses when the fallow is squeezed.
Matching items on local names are pure vocabulary, but they are not pure memory: a bijection can be solved from partial knowledge. Fix whichever pairs you are certain of, then read the options and discard every one that contradicts them. Here the Brazilian Roca and the Sri Lankan Chena are the two most commonly listed in Indian textbooks, and holding just those two leaves one surviving option. The wider list is worth learning as a block — Jhum in north-east India, Podu and Penda in the Andhra-Odisha belt, Bewar and Dahiya in Madhya Pradesh, Kumari in the Western Ghats, Ladang in Malaysia and Indonesia, Milpa in Mexico and Central America, Ray in Vietnam, Taungya in Myanmar, Conuco in Venezuela. Note that List II names Zaire, the name the Democratic Republic of the Congo carried between 1971 and 1997; the country has not been called that since, and a present-day atlas will not show it.
- Roca is the Brazilian name for shifting cultivation; Chena is the Sri Lankan name.
- Masole is the name used in the Congo, printed here under the country's older name, Zaire.
- Tamarai is the term paired with Thailand in this question, which the other three pairings leave as the only remaining slot.
- Indian names for the same practice include Jhum in the north-east, Podu and Penda in the Andhra-Odisha belt, Bewar and Dahiya in Madhya Pradesh and Kumari in the Western Ghats.
- The system crops a plot for one to three years and then rests it for far longer; where the fallow is shortened, soil fertility falls quickly.
Fix the pairs you are sure of and the matching item closes itself.
- Trying to recall all four names when three fix the answer.
- Confusing Chena with Ladang — one is Sri Lankan, the other Malaysian and Indonesian.
- Reading Zaire as a country that still exists under that name.
As a four-by-four match of local names to countries, or as a single-line 'what is Ladang / Milpa / Jhum' item.
Consider the following statements about the Jorwe culture of the Deccan : 1. It covers, practically, the whole of modern Maharashtra except the coastal Konkan district. 2. The Pravara-Godavari valleys seem to have been the nuclear zone. 3. The large sites of this culture yield evidence of shifting agriculture. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 1 and 2 only
- (c) 2 and 3 only
- (d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer(b) 1 and 2 only
The same practice from the archaeological side. That item turns on recognising that the large Jorwe settlements, with granaries and a fortification wall, are evidence of settled fields rather than of shifting plots.
- practice — not a real PYQ
'Milpa', a name for shifting cultivation, is used in which one of the following regions?
- (a)Mexico and Central America
- (b)Sri Lanka
- (c)Vietnam
- (d)Malaysia
Answer(a) Mexico and Central America — the maize-based swidden system of the region.
- practice — not a real PYQ
In shifting cultivation, why is a plot abandoned after a few years of cropping?
- (a)Because rainfall stops after three years
- (b)Because soil fertility falls once the ash nutrients are used up
- (c)Because the government reallocates the land
- (d)Because the crops become resistant to pests
Answer(b) Because soil fertility falls once the ash nutrients are used up — the plot is then left to a long fallow while the cultivator clears another.