Which of the following pairs is NOT correctly matched? Mineral — Location
- (a)Dolomite — Dehradun, Pithoragarh
- (b)Soap stone — Chamoli, Bageshwar
- (c)Graphite — Almora, Nainital
- (d)Silica sand — Pauri Garhwal
Correct — D, Silica sand — Pauri Garhwal.
The stem asks which pair is NOT correctly matched, so what you have to hand in is the faulty pair, not a true one. UKPSC's key marks Silica sand — Pauri Garhwal as that pair.
The other three ride on rock belts you can name. Dolomite is a carbonate rock, and the Lesser Himalayan carbonate formations that carry it run through Dehradun and Pithoragarh. Soapstone travels with the magnesite-and-talc rocks of Chamoli and Bageshwar. Graphite is reported from Almora and Nainital.
Carry away the method rather than the list: fix the mineral to its host rock belt first, then ask whether that belt passes through the district printed beside it.
- (a)Dolomite — Dehradun, Pithoragarh — This pairing holds, so it cannot be the exception the stem is hunting. Dolomite is a carbonate rock, and the carbonate sequences of the Lesser Himalaya are exposed in both Dehradun and Pithoragarh.
Mark it when the question turns around and asks for a correctly matched mineral-and-district pair, or where Uttarakhand's dolomite is worked.
- (b)Soap stone — Chamoli, Bageshwar — Soapstone is the massive, compact form of talc, and it occurs with the magnesite-bearing rocks of the Garhwal and Kumaun hills. Chamoli and Bageshwar both sit in that tract, so the pair survives and is not the answer.
It is what you want when the question asks for the Uttarakhand districts associated with soapstone quarrying.
- (c)Graphite — Almora, Nainital — Graphite occurrences in Uttarakhand are reported from Almora and Nainital, and the Commission's key treats this pair as sound. A pair you cannot fault is not the pair a NOT-matched stem is after.
Choose it when the question instead asks for the Uttarakhand districts where graphite is reported.
Mineral occurrence is a fact about rocks, not about administrative lines. A mineral appears wherever the rock unit that hosts it is exposed, and a district name enters the answer only because that belt happens to cross the district.
So a mineral-and-location pair is really two claims stacked together: this mineral belongs to that rock unit, and that rock unit runs through the district named. Breaking the pair into those two steps is what makes the item answerable.
In Uttarakhand a small number of belts carry most of the load — carbonate rocks for limestone and dolomite, the magnesite-and-talc tract for soapstone, metamorphic rocks for graphite.
The Directorate of Geology and Mining, Uttarakhand describes the state as a Himalayan tract in which minerals and minor minerals are both abundantly present.
It names magnesite, limestone and base metals such as gold, silver and lead among the major minerals. Among minor minerals it lists local rock minerals such as soapstone, silica sand and barite, along with riverbed sand, gravel and boulders.
That matters for this item: the four minerals printed here do not all belong to the same administrative class, and the Directorate's own District Survey Reports are the state's district-by-district record of what occurs where.
- Uttarakhand's Directorate of Geology and Mining names magnesite, limestone and base metals such as gold, silver and lead among the state's major minerals.
- The same Directorate lists soapstone, silica sand and barite among minor minerals, alongside riverbed sand, gravel and boulders.
- Soapstone, also called steatite, is the massive compact form of talc.
- Talc is assigned hardness 1 on the Mohs scale, the lowest step of that scale.
- Dolomite is a carbonate rock, chemically a carbonate of calcium and magnesium.
- Graphite is a form of the element carbon; silica sand is made of quartz, an oxide of silicon.
- Chamoli lies in the Garhwal division of Uttarakhand and Bageshwar in the Kumaun division.
- The Directorate publishes District Survey Reports district by district as its own record of local mineral occurrence.
Because the stem asks for the pair that is NOT correctly matched, the highlighted row is the one to mark.
- The stem is negative. Read as 'which pair is correctly matched' it inverts the answer, because three of the four options are then defensible.
- Two districts are printed against three of the minerals; the pair fails if either district is wrong, so an option is cleared only after both are checked.
- Knowing that a mineral occurs somewhere in Uttarakhand does not validate the district beside it — the occurrence has to be tied to the named district.
- Silica sand and ordinary riverbed sand are different commodities, and treating them as one commodity leads to the wrong district.
- Chamoli and Bageshwar lie in different divisions of the state yet share one mineral tract, so a division-based hunch is not a test of the pair.
- Marking the first pair that looks unfamiliar, rather than the pair you can positively fault, converts a gap in recall into a wrong answer.
The device is a short match table with one deliberate break, flagged by the word NOT in the stem. The examiner supplies pairs you can confirm and one you cannot, so the work is elimination rather than total recall.
The same content also turns up positively — 'which pair is correctly matched' — or as a List-I and List-II item with lettered codes, or stripped down to a single mineral with a 'where is it found' stem.
A second line of attack drops the geography entirely and tests the mineral itself: its composition, its hardness, or the class it falls into.
UKPSC_2024_PRE_GSI_Q872024The same device in the same exam a year earlier — a four-option 'which pair is NOT correctly matched' stem resolved against Uttarakhand districts, with Pauri Garhwal, Pithoragarh, Chamoli and Almora again on the page. What differs is the subject matter: that item pairs wildlife sanctuaries with districts, so the check runs on protected-area geography rather than on which rock belt hosts a mineral.
UPSC_2019_GS1_Q622019Shares the major-versus-minor mineral distinction that sits behind this item, since silica sand and soapstone fall on the minor side of Uttarakhand's own listing. It differs in what it demands: that question is about national law and who grants leases and frames rules for minor minerals, while this one asks only where a mineral occurs, with no legal content at all.
CDS_GK_2024_II_Q712024The same pairing device applied to Himalayan geography, testing whether a named feature really sits in the region printed beside it. It differs in two ways: the pairing is put positively, with codes selecting which numbered pairs are correct, and the objects paired are glaciers and mountain regions rather than minerals and districts.
CDS_GK_2025_I_Q22025The other half of mineral study — that item hands over colour, host rock and chemical composition and asks you to name the mineral. This question assumes you already know the mineral and asks only where in Uttarakhand it is found, so the two together cover identification by property and placement by location.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Soapstone, also called steatite, is the massive compact form of which mineral?
- (a)Talc
- (b)Gypsum
- (c)Barite
- (d)Magnesite
Answera — Soapstone is talc in massive form, which is why it is soft enough to be carved and turned on a lathe.Gypsum is a hydrated sulphate of calcium, barite a sulphate of barium, and magnesite a carbonate of magnesium. Magnesite is the closest trap because it shares the same hill tract as soapstone, but sharing a tract is not being the same mineral.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Directorate of Geology and Mining, Uttarakhand names which of the following among the state's major minerals?
- (a)Soapstone
- (b)Silica sand
- (c)Magnesite
- (d)Barite
Answerc — The Directorate places magnesite, limestone and base metals such as gold, silver and lead in the major mineral group.Soapstone, silica sand and barite are the ones it lists as minor minerals, alongside riverbed sand, gravel and boulders. So each of the other three options names a mineral from the minor list.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following pairs of mineral and its chemical nature is correctly matched?
- (a)Dolomite — a sulphate of barium
- (b)Soapstone — the massive form of talc
- (c)Graphite — an oxide of iron
- (d)Silica sand — a carbonate rock
Answerb — Soapstone is talc in massive form, so this pair stands.Dolomite is a carbonate of calcium and magnesium, not a sulphate of barium, which describes barite. Graphite is a form of the element carbon, not an iron oxide. Silica sand is made of quartz, an oxide of silicon, so calling it a carbonate rock fails as well.
- practice — not a real PYQ
On the Mohs scale of hardness, which of the following minerals occupies the lowest position?
- (a)Gypsum
- (b)Calcite
- (c)Talc
- (d)Quartz
Answerc — Talc is assigned hardness 1, the bottom step of the Mohs scale, and that softness is what makes soapstone workable by hand.Gypsum sits at 2, calcite at 3 and quartz at 7, so each of them is harder than talc. The order of these four on the scale is fixed, which leaves only one defensible answer.