MPSC 2021 Prelims Paper-I · Question 27 of 100

Correct — option (4), which reads (c), (a), (d), (b), (e). Density of population is population divided by area, and the Census of India 2011 puts these five Maharashtra districts at Pune 603, Kolhapur 504, Nagpur 470, Jalgaon 360 and Solapur 290 persons per square kilometre. Descending order means highest first, so the sequence runs Pune, Kolhapur, Nagpur, Jalgaon, Solapur — that is (c), then (a), then (d), then (b), then (e), the row printed at option (4). The question is harder than the arithmetic because density does not follow population. Solapur, with 43.18 lakh people, has more inhabitants than Kolhapur's 38.76 lakh and Jalgaon's 42.30 lakh, yet it comes last on this list, because its 14,895 square kilometres are nearly twice Kolhapur's 7,685. Kolhapur is the smallest of the five in population and the second densest, for the same reason in reverse. Pune leads on both counts, with 94.29 lakh people and the highest density of the five. A candidate who ranks these districts from a memory of how populous they are will produce a different and wrong sequence, and that is precisely what the wrong rows are built from. Two checks settle the row without recalling all five figures: only one row begins with Pune, and only one row ends with Solapur, and they are the same row. Maharashtra's own density in 2011 was 365 per square kilometre, so Pune, Kolhapur and Nagpur are above the state average, Jalgaon sits just below it and Solapur well below.

• (1)(b), (e), (d), (a), (c) — This row opens with Jalgaon and closes with Pune, which is the ranking almost exactly inverted: Pune is the densest of the five at 603 persons per square kilometre and cannot occupy the last place in a descending sequence, while Jalgaon at 360 is fourth of five and cannot lead it. The row does place Solapur second, which is its only nod to the data, and Solapur is in fact the least dense of the five. What this option really tests is whether the reader has fixed the direction of the sequence before looking at any row. The stem turns on the words 'descending order', and a row that puts the largest value last is answering the opposite question. Checking the first and last cells of an ordering row is the fastest way to dispose of it.
• (2)(a), (c), (d), (b), (e) — This row runs Kolhapur, Pune, Nagpur, Jalgaon, Solapur — the correct sequence with its first two members exchanged. It is the near-miss, and it is built on the one comparison in the list that a candidate is likely to get wrong from general impression rather than from figures. Pune district recorded 603 persons per square kilometre in 2011 against Kolhapur's 504, so Pune leads comfortably; the impression that western Maharashtra's compact sugar belt must be denser than a district that includes the Sahyadri and the eastern plateau is what this row trades on. Everything after the first two cells is right, which makes the row look convincing to a candidate who checks the tail. On an ordering question the top of the sequence deserves as much attention as the rest.
• (3)(c), (d), (a), (e), (b) — This row reads Pune, Nagpur, Kolhapur, Solapur, Jalgaon, so it starts correctly with Pune and then makes two errors: it puts Nagpur ahead of Kolhapur, and it puts Solapur ahead of Jalgaon at the tail. The census figures are Kolhapur 504 against Nagpur 470, and Jalgaon 360 against Solapur 290, so both swaps are wrong. The Solapur and Jalgaon exchange is the more instructive of the two: Solapur has the larger population of the pair, 43.18 lakh against 42.30 lakh, and a candidate ranking by population rather than by density will place it higher — but Solapur's area is 14,895 square kilometres against Jalgaon's 11,765, and area is what decides. This row is the reason to compute or recall density itself rather than to reason from population size.

Density of population is the number of persons per square kilometre of land, and it is one of three related measures that are regularly confused. Arithmetic density, the one used by the census and by this question, divides total population by total area. Physiological density divides population by cultivable land, and agricultural density divides the agricultural population by cultivable land; both are higher than arithmetic density and both say more about pressure on land. India's density in 2011 was 382 persons per square kilometre against 325 in 2001. Maharashtra's was 365, a little below the national figure, but the state average conceals an enormous range: the two Mumbai districts are urban districts of a few hundred square kilometres holding millions of people, while Gadchiroli and the forested districts of the east are thinly peopled. Density responds to relief, rainfall, soil, water, urbanisation and industry rather than to administrative size, which is why Pune, with a large industrial and urban core, leads a list that also contains districts of similar population but much larger area. The decadal growth rate, the sex ratio and the level of urbanisation are the companion measures the census reports alongside density, and MPSC examines all four.

Maharashtra's census data is a permanent fixture of the MPSC state geography section, and the Commission favours the comparative form — rank these districts, which district is highest, which is lowest — because it cannot be answered from a single remembered number. This question adds an ordering instruction, and the ordering word is the whole question: read 'descending' as 'ascending' and every row you consider will be the wrong one. The paper sets a second ordering question a few items earlier, on geological periods, so the habit is being tested twice in one stretch. The other lesson is the difference between size and density, which the five districts here illustrate almost as if they had been chosen for it: the district with the fewest people is the second densest, and one of the more populous is the least dense. That distinction is worth carrying into every population question, because a candidate who ranks by remembered population will produce a plausible and wrong sequence.

• Census 2011 gives these five Maharashtra districts a density of Pune 603, Kolhapur 504, Nagpur 470, Jalgaon 360 and Solapur 290 persons per square kilometre, so the descending order is Pune, Kolhapur, Nagpur, Jalgaon, Solapur.
• Density does not follow population size: Solapur has 43.18 lakh people against Kolhapur's 38.76 lakh, yet Solapur is the least dense of the five because its area of 14,895 square kilometres is nearly twice Kolhapur's 7,685.
• Pune district leads on both counts, with 94.29 lakh people in 2011 and the highest density of the five; Nagpur had 46.54 lakh people and Jalgaon 42.30 lakh across 11,765 square kilometres.
• Maharashtra's population in 2011 was 11.24 crore and its density 365 persons per square kilometre, so Pune, Kolhapur and Nagpur are above the state average, Jalgaon sits just below it and Solapur well below.
• Arithmetic density divides total population by total area and is what the census reports; physiological density divides population by cultivable land and agricultural density divides the agricultural population by cultivable land, and both are higher.

• Ranking districts by population when the question asks for density; Solapur has more people than Kolhapur and yet the lowest density of the five, because its area is nearly twice as large
• Misreading the direction of the sequence — descending means highest first, and this paper prints the reversed sequence among the options
• Quoting a state or national density figure for a district; Maharashtra's 365 and India's 382 persons per square kilometre are averages that no single district need resemble
• Assuming a district containing a big city is automatically the densest in its region, when the district's rural area may be large enough to pull the figure down

Census questions in MPSC papers take three shapes. The first is the ordering item, as here, which asks for districts or states ranked on one measure. The second is the extreme item — which district of Maharashtra has the highest density, the lowest sex ratio, the highest literacy — and it is usually set on the same handful of districts. The third is the conceptual item, asking what density or sex ratio actually measures, or how it is defined. All three are answerable from one prepared sheet: the state totals for 2011 on each measure, the top three and bottom three districts on each, and the definitions. Because the 2021 census was postponed, the 2011 figures remained the current official numbers for this paper, and a candidate should always state which census a figure comes from.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  According to Census 2011, which of the following Maharashtra districts had the highest density of population?

  • (a)Solapur
  • (b)Jalgaon
  • (c)Pune
  • (d)Nagpur

  Answer(c) Pune — Pune district recorded 603 persons per square kilometre in 2011, ahead of Nagpur's 470, Jalgaon's 360 and Solapur's 290, and well above the Maharashtra average of 365. Pune also has the largest population of the four, at 94.29 lakh, but the two facts are independent: Solapur has more people than Kolhapur and yet a much lower density, because its area is nearly twice as large.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The density of population as reported by the Census of India is best described as

  • (a)the number of persons per square kilometre of total area
  • (b)the number of persons per square kilometre of cultivable land
  • (c)the number of agricultural workers per square kilometre of cultivable land
  • (d)the number of households per square kilometre of built-up area

  Answer(a) the number of persons per square kilometre of total area — this is arithmetic density, the measure the census reports, and it gave India 382 and Maharashtra 365 persons per square kilometre in 2011. Population per unit of cultivable land is physiological density, and agricultural population per unit of cultivable land is agricultural density; both are higher than arithmetic density and both are better measures of pressure on land.