NDA (I) 2017 General Ability Test · Question 100 of 149

Correct — C, Corbett – Sariska – Simlipal – Periyar. Place each reserve by its State and the order falls out. Corbett is in Uttarakhand, in the Himalayan foothills, the northernmost of the four. Sariska is in Rajasthan, in the Aravalli hills of Alwar district, well to its south. Simlipal is in Odisha, in the Mayurbhanj district of the Eastern Ghats country, south again. Periyar is in Kerala, in the Western Ghats of Idukki district, the southernmost. Reading Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Odisha, Kerala from north to south gives exactly the sequence in option (c).

• (a)Corbett – Simlipal – Sariska – Periyar — It starts and ends correctly but exchanges the middle two. Sariska in Rajasthan lies clearly north of Simlipal in Odisha, so Simlipal cannot come second.
• (b)Periyar – Sariska – Simlipal – Corbett — This begins in Kerala and ends in Uttarakhand, so it runs broadly south to north — the reverse of what is asked — and its middle pair is out of order as well.
• (d)Periyar – Simlipal – Sariska – Corbett — This is the exact reverse of the correct sequence, a clean south-to-north listing. It is the answer to a differently worded question, which is why the direction in the stem must be read carefully.

Project Tiger was launched on 1 April 1973 with nine reserves, Corbett among them, and the network has grown across the country since. The four reserves in this question sit in four different physiographic settings: Corbett in the Terai and Bhabar tracts below the Himalaya, Sariska in the Aravallis, Simlipal in the hills of the Odisha plateau, and Periyar in the Cardamom hills of the Western Ghats. Simlipal is also a biosphere reserve, and Periyar surrounds the reservoir of the Mullaperiyar dam.

Ordering questions of this kind never need latitudes, only the State each place belongs to and a mental map of where those States sit. The one habit that saves marks is to read the direction asked for — north to south here — because the paper usually offers the exact reverse as another option, and it does so in this item. Beyond that, Corbett is worth remembering as the country's first national park, established in 1936 as Hailey National Park and renamed after Jim Corbett in the mid-1950s, and Sariska as the reserve that lost all its tigers in 2004-05 and was restocked by translocation from Ranthambore.

• Corbett Tiger Reserve is in Uttarakhand and was among the first Project Tiger reserves, declared in 1973-74.
• Sariska Tiger Reserve is in the Aravalli hills of Rajasthan, declared a tiger reserve in 1978-79.
• Simlipal Tiger Reserve is in the Mayurbhanj district of Odisha, also declared in 1973-74.
• Periyar Tiger Reserve is in the Western Ghats of Kerala, declared in 1978-79, and is the southernmost of the four.
• Project Tiger was launched on 1 April 1973 with nine reserves.

• Missing the direction asked for, when the reverse sequence is also on offer.
• Placing Simlipal in Bihar or Jharkhand rather than Odisha, or Sariska in Gujarat rather than Rajasthan.
• Confusing a tiger reserve with a national park — Periyar's core is a national park within the reserve, and the two labels are not interchangeable.

NDA asks for a north-to-south or west-to-east ordering of places, or pairs a protected area with its State.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Sariska Tiger Reserve is situated in

  • (a)Madhya Pradesh
  • (b)Rajasthan
  • (c)Gujarat
  • (d)Haryana

  Answer(b) Rajasthan — it lies in the Aravalli hills of Alwar district.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following tiger reserves lies farthest south?

  • (a)Corbett
  • (b)Simlipal
  • (c)Periyar
  • (d)Sariska

  Answer(c) Periyar — it is in the Western Ghats of Kerala, south of the other three.