Match List – I with List – II and select the correct answer using the codes given below: List – I (National Parks) A. Simlipal B. Indravati C. Kanha D. Bandipur List – II (States) 1. Karnataka 2. Madhya Pradesh 3. Chhattisgarh 4. Odisha Codes:
- (a)A – 4, B – 3, C – 2, D – 1
- (b)A – 2, B – 4, C – 1, D – 3
- (c)A – 3, B – 2, C – 4, D – 1
- (d)A – 1, B – 3, C – 2, D – 4
Correct — A, A – 4, B – 3, C – 2, D – 1.
Simlipal sits in Mayurbhanj district in northern Odisha, so A takes 4. Indravati lies in the Bastar region of southern Chhattisgarh, which fixes B – 3.
Kanha spreads across the Mandla and Balaghat districts of Madhya Pradesh (C – 2), and Bandipur is in Chamarajanagar district, Karnataka, at the foot of the Nilgiris (D – 1). That gives A – 4, B – 3, C – 2, D – 1.
The method to carry away: settle the pairing you are surest of first, then test every remaining park against what is left, instead of scanning the codes for one that looks familiar.
- (b)A – 2, B – 4, C – 1, D – 3 — None of the four pairings here holds. Simlipal goes to Madhya Pradesh, Indravati to Odisha, Kanha to Karnataka and Bandipur to Chhattisgarh.
Simlipal – Madhya Pradesh is the pairing UPPSC 2018 keyed as the one 'not correctly matched'. Simlipal is Odisha's park, so this code fails on its very first entry.
- (c)A – 3, B – 2, C – 4, D – 1 — Only the last entry survives. This code is right that Bandipur belongs to Karnataka, then rotates the other three: Simlipal to Chhattisgarh, Indravati to Madhya Pradesh, Kanha to Odisha.
Kanha in Odisha is the quickest way to break it. Kanha is the Mandla–Balaghat park of Madhya Pradesh, and Odisha's entry in this list is Simlipal.
- (d)A – 1, B – 3, C – 2, D – 4 — This is the near miss. It has Indravati in Chhattisgarh and Kanha in Madhya Pradesh right, then reverses the two ends: Simlipal to Karnataka and Bandipur to Odisha.
The hazard is stopping once the middle two check out. Simlipal is in Mayurbhanj, Odisha, and Bandipur in Chamarajanagar, Karnataka, so those two entries are the wrong way round.
A matching item of this kind rewards knowing where a protected area physically is, not how well known it is. Each park has one home State, and a code is correct only if all four placements are.
The workable route is to anchor on the pairing you can defend, strike out every code that contradicts it, then repeat with the next park you are sure of.
These four parks sit in two different landscapes. Simlipal, Indravati and Kanha belong to the central and eastern Indian forest belt running across Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.
Bandipur belongs to the Western Ghats–Nilgiri landscape of southern Karnataka, where the Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala forests meet. Moving a park between those two belts is exactly what the wrong codes here do.
- Simlipal lies in Mayurbhanj district, Odisha, and is both a tiger reserve and a biosphere reserve.
- Indravati National Park lies in the Bastar region of southern Chhattisgarh and is also a tiger reserve.
- The Indravati river rises in Kalahandi district, Odisha, and flows west into Chhattisgarh before joining the Godavari.
- Kanha covers parts of the Mandla and Balaghat districts of Madhya Pradesh.
- The hard-ground barasingha, Madhya Pradesh's State animal, is associated with Kanha.
- Bandipur is in Chamarajanagar district, Karnataka, adjoining Mudumalai in Tamil Nadu and Wayanad in Kerala.
- Simlipal, Kanha and Bandipur were among the nine tiger reserves notified when Project Tiger began in 1973.
- Corbett, in Uttarakhand, belongs to that same 1973 group of Project Tiger reserves.
The two highlighted entries are the ones option d reverses; the middle two it already has right.
- The Indravati river rises in Odisha, but Indravati National Park is in Chhattisgarh; a river's source is not the park's address.
- Two entries checking out does not make a code correct — a wrong code can carry two right pairings and swap the remaining two.
- Simlipal and Bandipur lie at opposite ends of the country, so a code that reverses them can still read plausibly at a glance.
- Madhya Pradesh holds several well-known tiger parks, so recalling 'a famous tiger reserve' does not settle which State the item wants.
- Kanha is spelt close to Kanha–Pench and Kanger; read the List-I entry itself rather than the association it triggers.
The same knowledge appears as a two-list code like this one, as a 'which pair is not correctly matched' item, and as a single-fact question naming a park's district, its river or its status as a tiger or biosphere reserve.
A harder version swaps the State column for a river, a tribal region or a biosphere reserve, so the park has to be located rather than merely recognised.
UPPSC_2018_PRE_GSI_Q582018Same two parks, inverted format. That item asked which pair is NOT correctly matched and keyed 'Simlipal National Park – Madhya Pradesh' as the faulty one, while treating Bandipur – Karnataka as sound. Here the identical facts have to be held together inside a four-way code rather than judged one pair at a time.
UPPSC_2020_PRE_GSI_Q622020The same List-I (National Parks) / List-II (States) construction, and Indravati appears in it as well. What differs is the rest of the set: that list draws on Goa, Haryana and Jharkhand, so it exercises the same matching mechanics over a different group of parks.
UPSC_2019_GS1_Q332019The same cluster of States — Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Odisha — but a different fact about them. It asks for their ascending order by percentage of forest cover to total State area, which is a statistic to be ranked, not a park to be located.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following national parks lies at the foot of the Nilgiris and adjoins Mudumalai?
- (a)Kanha
- (b)Simlipal
- (c)Bandipur
- (d)Indravati
Answerc — Bandipur is in Chamarajanagar district, Karnataka, on the Nilgiri foothills, and shares a boundary with Mudumalai in Tamil Nadu.The other three lie in central and eastern India: Kanha in the Mandla–Balaghat belt of Madhya Pradesh, Simlipal in Mayurbhanj in Odisha, and Indravati in Bastar in Chhattisgarh.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The hard-ground swamp deer (barasingha) is most closely associated with which of the following national parks?
- (a)Bandipur
- (b)Kanha
- (c)Indravati
- (d)Simlipal
Answerb — Kanha, in Madhya Pradesh, is the park identified with the hard-ground barasingha, the State animal of Madhya Pradesh.The barasingha of Kanha is a hard-ground race found on its meadows, whereas Bandipur is a Western Ghats park in Karnataka, Indravati a Bastar park in Chhattisgarh and Simlipal a sal-forest park in Odisha.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following pairs is correctly matched?
- (a)Indravati National Park – Odisha
- (b)Simlipal National Park – Chhattisgarh
- (c)Kanha National Park – Madhya Pradesh
- (d)Bandipur National Park – Kerala
Answerc — Kanha lies in the Mandla and Balaghat districts of Madhya Pradesh.Indravati is in Chhattisgarh, not Odisha; Simlipal is in Odisha, not Chhattisgarh; and Bandipur is in Karnataka, not Kerala, although the Wayanad forests across its boundary are Kerala's.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Indravati river, which gives Indravati National Park its name, is a tributary of which river?
- (a)Mahanadi
- (b)Godavari
- (c)Krishna
- (d)Narmada
Answerb — the Indravati rises in Kalahandi district of Odisha, flows west across Bastar in Chhattisgarh and joins the Godavari.The Mahanadi drains Chhattisgarh and Odisha on a separate course to the Bay of Bengal, the Krishna lies further south, and the Narmada flows west to the Arabian Sea through Madhya Pradesh.