NDA (II) 2018 General Ability Test · Question 118 of 146

Correct — C, Perth. The steppe or temperate continental type belongs to the interiors and eastern sides of continents in the middle latitudes, and the regional-geography tradition this question follows gathers its outliers under local names — the Prairies of North America, the Pampas of Argentina, the Veld of South Africa, the Downs of Australia. Saskatchewan sits in the Canadian Prairies, Buenos Aires lies in the pampa region, and Pretoria stands in the transitional belt between the Highveld plateau and the Bushveld. Perth belongs to a different family altogether. It is on the south-western corner of Australia, a west-coast site between roughly thirty and forty-five degrees of latitude, and its climate is Mediterranean — hot dry summers and mild wet winters, classified as Csa.

• (a)Pretoria — Pretoria stands on the South African plateau, in the belt between the Highveld and the Bushveld. The Veld is the standard textbook example of a southern-hemisphere temperate grassland, so the city sits inside the type the question describes.
• (b)Saskatchewan — Saskatchewan is one of Canada's Prairie provinces, the North American home of the temperate grassland. It is the least likely of the four to be the exception.
• (d)Buenos Aires — Buenos Aires lies in the pampa region of Argentina, the southern-hemisphere counterpart of the Prairies. Under the strict Köppen scheme the city itself is classed humid subtropical, Cfa, but in the regional-geography framework this question uses, the Pampas are the temperate grassland of South America.

The temperate continental or steppe type occupies continental interiors in the middle latitudes, far from the moderating sea. It brings hot summers, cold winters, a wide annual range of temperature and light rainfall concentrated in the warmer months — enough for grass but not for forest. The result is the world's great grassland belt, which appears as the Steppes in Eurasia, the Prairies in North America, the Pampas in Argentina, the Veld in South Africa and the Downs in Australia.

The clean way to answer is to place each city relative to its continent. Three of the four sit in a continental interior or on a plateau associated with a named grassland; Perth is a coastal city on the western side of its landmass, and west coasts in that latitude band are Mediterranean, never steppe. It is worth being honest about the framework. This item is written in the language of regional geography, not of strict Köppen: Buenos Aires under Köppen is humid subtropical, Cfa, and Pretoria is monsoon-influenced humid subtropical, Cwa, yet both are standard textbook examples of temperate grassland regions. Perth, by contrast, is unambiguously Mediterranean in either scheme, which is why the answer holds however you classify the other three.

• Perth has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate, Köppen Csa, with dry summers and mild wet winters.
• The temperate grasslands are known locally as the Steppes in Eurasia, the Prairies in North America, the Pampas in Argentina, the Veld in South Africa and the Downs in Australia.
• Buenos Aires lies in the pampa region; Pretoria sits in the transitional belt between the Highveld plateau and the lower Bushveld.
• Mediterranean climates occur on west coasts between roughly thirty and forty-five degrees of latitude, in both hemispheres.

• Assuming that anywhere in Australia must be dry and therefore steppe; the south-west and the south coast are Mediterranean.
• Mixing tropical savanna with temperate steppe — the savanna is the land of big game, the steppe of grain and grazing.
• Applying strict Köppen codes to a question written in the vocabulary of regional geography, or the reverse.

Asked as an odd-one-out where three place names belong to named grassland regions and the fourth is a west-coast Mediterranean city.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The temperate grassland of South Africa is known as the

  • (a)Pampas
  • (b)Veld
  • (c)Downs
  • (d)Llanos

  Answer(b) Veld — the Pampas are in Argentina, the Downs in Australia, and the Llanos are a tropical grassland of the Orinoco basin.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following cities has a Mediterranean type of climate?

  • (a)Winnipeg
  • (b)Cape Town
  • (c)Manaus
  • (d)Irkutsk

  Answer(b) Cape Town — it lies on the south-western coast of South Africa in the Mediterranean belt; Winnipeg and Irkutsk are continental interiors and Manaus is equatorial.