MPSC 2023 Prelims Paper-I · Question 31 of 100

Correct — option (2), 'All are correct'. The stem sets out a structural principle before it lists the statements: taken in order from the north, the major hill ranges of the Maharashtra plateau alternate with the river basins that lie to their south. That is not a coincidence of description but the way the plateau is built. The ranges run roughly east and west across it, and each one is a water divide; the ground on either side drains away from it, so that a basin occupies the trough between one range and the next. Working down the state, all four printed statements land correctly. Statement a places the Tapi and Purna basin south of the Satpura range, which is right: the Satpura forms the northern rim of Maharashtra along the Madhya Pradesh border, and the Tapi with its principal Maharashtra tributary the Purna occupies the trough immediately south of it. Statement b places the Godavari valley south of the Satmala and Ajintha hills, which is right: that range is the divide between the Tapi system to its north and the Godavari system to its south. Statement c places the Bhima basin south of the Harishchandra and Balaghat hills, which is right: this range separates the Godavari's catchment from the Bhima's. Statement d places the Krishna basin south of the Shambhu Mahadeva hills, which is right: they form the divide between the Bhima and the Krishna. Since every one of the four is correct, the answer is the option that says so. The underlying picture is worth carrying whole, because it answers a large number of questions at once: the rivers rise in or near the Sahyadri, the plateau slopes eastward, and so the Godavari, the Bhima and the Krishna all run east or south-east towards the Bay of Bengal, while the Tapi is the single exception, flowing west to the Arabian Sea through the trough between the Satpura and the Ajintha ranges. North to south the ladder reads Satpura, Tapi and Purna, Satmala and Ajintha, Godavari, Harishchandra and Balaghat, Bhima, Shambhu Mahadeva, Krishna.

• (1)Only a — This option accepts only statement a and rejects the three that follow, which is the profile of a candidate who is secure about the range that forms a state boundary and unsure about the ranges inside the plateau. The Satpura is the easiest of the four to place, because it marks the northern edge of Maharashtra and appears on every map of the state, whereas the Satmala, Ajintha, Harishchandra, Balaghat and Shambhu Mahadeva hills are lower, less continuous and easily confused with one another. But their obscurity is not evidence against them: each is a genuine water divide separating two of the state's major basins, and statements b, c and d state those relationships correctly. Choosing this option amounts to marking three true statements false because they were harder to verify, which is the opposite of what an uncertain candidate should do with a statement he cannot check.
• (3)Only a and b — This option stops the ladder after the Godavari, keeping statements a and b and rejecting c and d. It is the natural choice for a candidate whose mental map of Maharashtra ends at the Godavari, which is the state's largest river and the one most often studied. Statement c, however, is correct: the Harishchandra and Balaghat hills run east from the Sahyadri and form the divide between the Godavari's catchment to their north and the Bhima's to their south. Statement d is correct too: the Shambhu Mahadeva hills perform the same office between the Bhima and the Krishna. It is worth noting that the Bhima is itself a tributary of the Krishna, joining it further downstream in Karnataka, so the two basins named in statements c and d belong to a single system that is nevertheless divided within Maharashtra by a real range of hills.
• (4)Only a and c — This combination keeps statements a and c while rejecting b, and it is the hardest of the three wrong options to arrive at honestly, because the statement it discards is among the easiest to confirm. The Satmala and Ajintha hills are the divide between the Tapi basin and the Godavari basin, and the Ajintha range is the best known of all the plateau's internal ranges, since the Ajanta caves are cut into its scarp. A candidate who has accepted the Harishchandra and Balaghat divide in statement c has already granted the principle that these east-west ranges separate successive basins, so rejecting the same relationship one rung higher is inconsistent. Options built by skipping a statement in the middle of an otherwise correct sequence generally catch guessing rather than reasoning, and the remedy is to test each statement against the same rule instead of judging them one by one on familiarity.

Maharashtra divides into three physiographic units from west to east: the narrow Konkan lowland along the Arabian Sea, the Sahyadri or Western Ghats rising steeply behind it, and the great plateau that extends inland from the crest. The Sahyadri is the state's principal water divide. West of it the rivers are short, steep and swift, falling to the sea in a few tens of kilometres; east of it the plateau tilts gently away, and the rivers that rise along the crest run long courses eastwards across the whole peninsula to the Bay of Bengal. The Godavari rises near Trimbakeshwar, the Bhima at Bhimashankar and the Krishna at Mahabaleshwar, all within a short distance of the Ghat crest, and all three then travel hundreds of kilometres in the opposite direction from the sea that lies just below their sources. Across this eastward-sloping surface run the secondary ranges — Satpura in the far north, then Satmala and Ajintha, then Harishchandra and Balaghat, then Shambhu Mahadeva — each a low east-west ridge acting as the divide between one basin and the next. The one river that breaks the pattern is the Tapi, which flows west to the Arabian Sea along the trough between the Satpura and the Ajintha ranges, occupying a structural depression rather than a valley it has cut for itself. Hold the ladder of ranges and basins in order and the drainage map of the state follows from it.

Maharashtra's own physiography and drainage are examined more closely in this paper than any other regional geography, and the commission asks it in ways that reward structure over lists — which range divides which basins, which district lies in which catchment, which river a named dam or project stands on, which way a named river flows. All of these are answerable from a single ordered picture of ranges and basins running north to south, and building that picture is a far better investment than memorising individual facts, because the picture generates the facts on demand. The question also carries a lesson about the 'all are correct' option. It appears freely in this paper, and its presence proves nothing either way; candidates split into those who treat it as a trap and avoid it on principle and those who choose it whenever they are unsure, and both habits are guesses. The only sound method is the one this item forces: verify each statement separately against the same rule and then count. Here all four survive, so the option that includes them all is the answer, and it is the answer for a reason rather than by default.

• The Maharashtra plateau is crossed by a series of roughly east-west hill ranges that act as water divides, with each major river basin occupying the ground immediately south of the range that bounds it.
• From north to south the sequence runs: the Satpura range with the Tapi and Purna basin south of it, the Satmala and Ajintha hills with the Godavari valley south of them, the Harishchandra and Balaghat hills with the Bhima basin south of them, and the Shambhu Mahadeva hills with the Krishna basin south of them.
• The Sahyadri is the state's chief water divide, separating the short, swift, west-flowing rivers of the Konkan from the long east-flowing rivers of the plateau; the Godavari rises near Trimbakeshwar, the Bhima at Bhimashankar and the Krishna at Mahabaleshwar.
• The plateau slopes eastward, so the Godavari, Bhima and Krishna flow east or south-east to the Bay of Bengal; the Tapi is the exception, flowing west to the Arabian Sea along the trough between the Satpura and Ajintha ranges.
• The Bhima is itself a tributary of the Krishna, which it joins downstream in Karnataka, so the two basins named in this question belong to one larger system that is nevertheless separated within Maharashtra by the Shambhu Mahadeva hills.

• Marking a statement false because the range it names is unfamiliar, when unfamiliarity is not evidence and the same rule governs every rung of the sequence
• Stopping the ladder at the Godavari, the state's best-known river, and rejecting the relationships that lie further south
• Treating an 'all are correct' option as automatically a trap or automatically safe instead of verifying each statement and counting
• Assuming that all the plateau's rivers flow east; the Tapi runs west through the trough between the Satpura and the Ajintha ranges

Maharashtra's physiography and drainage are asked in MPSC papers year after year, in forms that include naming the divide between two basins, placing a district or a city in its river basin, identifying the source of a named river, listing tributaries, and — as here — testing a whole ordered sequence through a set of statements. The commission likes sequence questions in particular because they cannot be half-answered: a candidate who knows three of the four relationships still has to decide about the fourth. Expect the option set to be built as a nested series of subsets, so that the difference between two options is one statement, and expect at least one option offering all of them. The efficient preparation is the ordered north-to-south picture of ranges alternating with basins, from which every individual pairing can be read off.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Harishchandra and Balaghat hills of Maharashtra form the water divide between which of the following pairs of river basins ?

  • (a)The Tapi basin and the Godavari basin
  • (b)The Godavari basin and the Bhima basin
  • (c)The Bhima basin and the Krishna basin
  • (d)The Krishna basin and the Wainganga basin

  Answer(b) The Godavari basin and the Bhima basin — the range runs eastward from the Sahyadri across the plateau and separates the Godavari's catchment on its north from the Bhima's on its south. The Tapi and Godavari basins are divided by the Satmala and Ajintha hills further north, while the Bhima and Krishna basins are divided by the Shambhu Mahadeva hills further south.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following major rivers of Maharashtra flows westward and drains into the Arabian Sea ?

  • (a)The Godavari
  • (b)The Bhima
  • (c)The Tapi
  • (d)The Wainganga

  Answer(c) The Tapi — it follows the structural trough between the Satpura range and the Ajintha hills and reaches the Arabian Sea, making it the exception on a plateau that otherwise slopes eastward. The Godavari and the Bhima both rise close to the Sahyadri crest and run east or south-east towards the Bay of Bengal, and the Wainganga drains the eastern part of the state into the Godavari system.