MPSC 2021 Prelims Paper-I · Question 26 of 100

Correct — option (3), which reads (a) - (iv), (b) - (iii), (c) - (ii), (d) - (i). Every pair here is decided by location alone. The Columbia plateau at (a) is in the north-western United States, spread across Washington, Oregon and Idaho between the Cascade Range and the Rocky Mountains and cut through by the Columbia river; it is the flood-basalt plateau of the Columbia River Basalt Group, and it takes North America at (iv). The Bolivia plateau at (b) is the Altiplano of west-central South America, the high basin between the eastern and western cordilleras of the Andes; it lies mostly in Bolivia with parts in Peru, Chile and Argentina, averages about 3,750 m above sea level, carries Lake Titicaca and is the most extensive area of high plateau on earth outside Tibet. It takes South America at (iii). The Central Massif plateau at (c) is the Massif Central, the highland of mountains and plateaus in south-central France that covers about fifteen per cent of mainland France, is studded with some 450 extinct volcanoes and rises to the Puy de Sancy at 1,886 m; France is in Europe, so it takes (ii). The Yunan plateau at (d) is the Yunnan plateau of southern China, part of the Yunnan-Guizhou highland, and China is in Asia, so it takes (i). That gives (a) - (iv), (b) - (iii), (c) - (ii), (d) - (i), which is option (3). The one thing that can go wrong is a spelling: the English column prints this plateau as 'Columbia plateau' here and, on the page carrying an earlier question, as 'Colombia Plateau' for the same feature — the Marathi writes कोलंबिया in both. Colombia with an o is a country of South America and Columbia with a u is the river and plateau of the American north-west, and the second column offers South America as a live choice.

• (1)(a) - (iv), (b) - (ii), (c) - (i), (d) - (iii) — This row keeps Columbia with North America, which is right, and then scrambles the other three: it sends the Bolivia plateau to Europe, the Central Massif to Asia and the Yunan plateau to South America. Each of the three is wrong on the plainest grounds. The Bolivia plateau is named for the South American country it mostly occupies, the Altiplano of the central Andes. The Massif Central is in south-central France and therefore Europe — the word 'Central' in its name refers to central France, not to any central position in a continent. The Yunan plateau is in southern China, so it can only be Asian. This is the row built for a candidate who checks the first pair, finds it sound and accepts the rest, which is why a matching row should always be verified to its last cell.
• (2)(a) - (ii), (b) - (iii), (c) - (iv), (d) - (i) — This row sends the Columbia plateau to Europe, the Bolivia plateau to South America, the Central Massif to North America and the Yunan plateau to Asia. Two of its four pairs are right and two are wrong, and the two that are wrong exchange the Columbia plateau with the Massif Central across the Atlantic. There is no European plateau called Columbia; the name belongs to the Columbia river of Washington, Oregon and Idaho, and the plateau is the basalt sheet the river has cut through. The Massif Central, conversely, is French. A row that gets half its pairs right is the most expensive kind to accept, because the candidate's confidence comes from the half they checked.
• (4)(a) - (i), (b) - (ii), (c) - (iii), (d) - (iv) — This row is the second column read straight down against the first — Columbia to Asia, Bolivia to Europe, Central Massif to South America, Yunan to North America — so it pairs by printed position rather than by geography, and every pair fails. It is the row that a candidate produces when they treat two side-by-side lists as though the printing had already matched them. This question prints no column headers at all, unlike the other matching questions around it, so the temptation to read the lists as a grid is stronger here than elsewhere. Adjacency on the page is layout and asserts no pairing whatsoever; each row of a matching question has to be built by the reader from what they know.

The world's major plateaus are worth holding by continent, because that is the frame in which they are usually examined. Asia carries Tibet, the highest and largest of all at about 4,500 m between the Himalaya and the Kunlun, along with the Deccan and Chota Nagpur in India, the Anatolian and Iranian plateaus in the west and the Yunnan-Guizhou plateau in southern China. South America carries the Altiplano or Bolivian plateau of the central Andes — about 3,750 m on average, holding Lake Titicaca, the most extensive high plateau outside Tibet — together with the Brazilian highlands and the Patagonian plateau. Europe carries the Massif Central of France, about fifteen per cent of the country, an old crystalline block with some 450 extinct volcanoes rising to the Puy de Sancy at 1,886 m, along with the Meseta of Iberia. North America carries the Columbia plateau of the Pacific north-west, a flood-basalt surface built by the Columbia River Basalt Group, the Colorado plateau of the Four Corners into which the Grand Canyon is cut, and the Mexican plateau. Africa is in effect a continent of plateaus, from the Ethiopian highlands to the East African plateau and the Katanga and Drakensberg country of the south, and Australia carries the Western Plateau across the bulk of the continent.

This is the second plateau question in a short stretch of this paper, and the two are set differently: the earlier one asks how each plateau was formed and this one asks only where it is. That pairing is characteristic of MPSC, which likes to test the same object twice from different angles, and it means a candidate who has prepared plateaus by type but not by location, or the reverse, will lose one of the two marks. The other thing this question demonstrates is a printing hazard. It prints its two lists side by side with no column headers at all, which is unusual in this paper and makes the grid look more like a table of pairs than it is; and it prints the Columbia plateau with a spelling that differs from the one used for the same plateau a few pages earlier. Neither is the reader's problem to fix, but both are the reader's problem to notice. Reading each list as an independent list, and identifying each item by what it is rather than by how its name looks, is the whole defence.

• The Columbia plateau lies across Washington, Oregon and Idaho in North America, between the Cascade Range and the Rocky Mountains, and is a flood-basalt plateau built by the Columbia River Basalt Group.
• The Altiplano or Bolivian plateau lies in west-central South America, mostly in Bolivia with parts in Peru, Chile and Argentina, averages about 3,750 m and is the most extensive area of high plateau on earth outside Tibet.
• Lake Titicaca, the largest lake in South America, lies on the Altiplano on the Bolivia-Peru border; Lake Poopo, also on the plateau, had dried up completely by December 2015.
• The Massif Central is a highland of mountains and plateaus in south-central France, covering about fifteen per cent of mainland France, carrying some 450 extinct volcanoes and rising to the Puy de Sancy at 1,886 m.
• The Yunnan plateau of southern China is part of the Yunnan-Guizhou highland and lies in Asia; the Tibetan plateau, also Asian, is the highest and most extensive plateau in the world.

• Reading 'Columbia' as 'Colombia' and sending the plateau to South America; the English column prints both spellings for the same feature on different pages, and South America is one of the four choices offered
• Taking 'Central Massif' to mean a massif at the centre of some continent; it is the Massif Central of south-central France, and the word central refers to its position within that country
• Treating two side-by-side lists as a grid of pairs, a temptation that is strongest in this question because it prints no column headers at all
• Accepting a matching row after verifying only its first pair, when the rows in this question are built so that the first pair is often the one left intact

Plateaus reach MPSC papers as continent matches of exactly this kind, as origin questions asking which plateau is volcanic or intermontane, and as single-line items asking which country a named plateau lies in. The Commission also folds them into questions on the physical divisions of India, where the Deccan, Malwa and Chota Nagpur plateaus carry mineral and soil associations that are examined separately. The efficient preparation is a one-page world map sketch with a dozen plateaus marked, annotated with continent, country, approximate elevation and mode of formation, so that a question set from any of those angles can be answered from the same sheet. Add the pairs of names that look alike — Columbia and Colombia, Guiana and Guyana — since a spelling is often what the question actually turns on.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Altiplano, the most extensive area of high plateau on earth outside Tibet and the site of Lake Titicaca, lies in which continent?

  • (a)Africa
  • (b)Asia
  • (c)South America
  • (d)North America

  Answer(c) South America — the Altiplano or Bolivian plateau is the high basin of the central Andes in west-central South America, mostly in Bolivia with parts in Peru, Chile and Argentina, averaging about 3,750 m above sea level. Lake Titicaca, the largest lake in South America, lies on it at the Bolivia-Peru border, and Lake Poopo on the same plateau dried up completely by December 2015.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Massif Central, a highland of mountains and plateaus carrying some 450 extinct volcanoes, lies in which country?

  • (a)Spain
  • (b)France
  • (c)Italy
  • (d)Germany

  Answer(b) France — the Massif Central occupies south-central France and covers about fifteen per cent of the mainland, rising to the Puy de Sancy at 1,886 m; its volcanism subsided within the last 10,000 years. The Meseta is the corresponding plateau of Spain, so the two are easy to exchange in a question that names only the continent.