NCERT Solutions for Class 7th Social Science Chapter 13 Soils of India — LET’S EXPLORE

Book page 11 Updated on2026-09-19

Q1.

Try to name at least two states in each of the zones mentioned above.

Answer

The chapter names three of India's 15 agroclimatic zones as examples (page 7). Here are states in each, plus the other zones you are likely to meet.

Agroclimatic zone named in the chapter	At least two states / UTs	What it is like
Upper Gangetic Plain Region	Uttar Pradesh (western and central), Uttarakhand (the plains belt)	Deep alluvial soil, subtropical climate, canals and tube wells — wheat, rice, sugarcane
Southern Plateau and Hills Region	Karnataka, Tamil Nadu (also Andhra Pradesh and Telangana)	Red and black soils on the Deccan plateau, semi-arid — ragi, jowar, groundnut, cotton, pulses
Western Dry Region	Rajasthan (western districts), Gujarat (Kachchh)	Sandy desert soil, arid climate, very low rainfall — bajra, moth, guar, groundnut

And the seven climate types of the LET'S REMEMBER box on page 6, with states for each:

Climate type	Where the chapter places it	Two states / UTs
Alpine	The Himalayas	Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh (also Jammu & Kashmir, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh)
Temperate	The lower Himalayas	Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh
Subtropical	The northern plains	Uttar Pradesh, Bihar (also Punjab, Haryana)
Arid	The Thar Desert	Rajasthan, Gujarat
Tropical wet	Western coastal strip	Kerala, Goa (also coastal Karnataka, Maharashtra's Konkan)
Semi-arid	Central Deccan Plateau	Maharashtra, Telangana (also interior Karnataka)
Tropical	Eastern India and the southern peninsula	Odisha, Tamil Nadu (also West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh)

Why it happens: a zone is not drawn along a state border. It is drawn where “climate factors, different types of soil and terrain, and types of vegetation are combined”. That is why one large state can fall into two or three zones at once — western Rajasthan is Western Dry Region while eastern Rajasthan is not.

Q2.

Which type of soil is predominantly found in your state or union territory?

Answer

Method. Find your state on Fig. 1.9 and read its colour against the legend: green = alluvial, grey = black, red-pink = red, light pink = laterite, dark brown = alpine, yellow = sandy. Remember the caption's warning — “Most regions will have local variations”, so name the predominant soil, not the only one.

Soil type	States / UTs where it predominates (from Fig. 1.9)	How it was formed
Alluvial soil	Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Assam valley, and the coastal plains of Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Tamil Nadu	Silt deposits — mud, sand and other fine particles — brought by rivers from the mountains and plateaus; rich in nutrients
Black soil (cotton soil)	Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and parts of Gujarat, Telangana and Karnataka	Weathering of volcanic rocks; holds a lot of moisture and is very fertile
Red soil	Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, and much of the northeastern states	Weathering of slowly cooled lava or old rocks; red because the iron in them reacts with air and water; not very fertile
Laterite soil (brick earth)	Kerala, Goa, coastal Karnataka, parts of Odisha and the Western Ghats	Weathering of rock by rain; most minerals are washed away leaving iron and aluminium; becomes hard in hot weather; not fertile
Alpine / mountain soil	Ladakh, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh	Freezing and melting of ice weathers the rock; the soil is thin, rough and rocky
Desert / sandy soil	Western Rajasthan, and parts of Gujarat (Kachchh)	Mostly small grains of sand; becomes sandy soil when a little water, air and organic matter mix in

Sample answer: “I live in Maharashtra. The predominant soil in my district is black soil, also called cotton soil. It was formed by the weathering of volcanic rocks of the Deccan, it holds moisture well and is very fertile — which is why cotton, jowar, sugarcane and sunflower are the main crops around us. Along the Konkan coast, however, the same state has laterite soil instead.”

Q3.

Soils tell us stories about places — what might have happened over thousands of years during which the soils were being formed. Take a few samples of soil from your neighbourhood. Look carefully at them. (Examine the soil using a magnifying glass or microscope if you have access to either.) What do the samples consist of? What might be the origins of the soil? Are there signs of human activity that you notice? What might happen to the soil over time on account of this?

Answer

Method — do it like a scientist.

Collect three or four samples from clearly different spots — a field or garden, a roadside, a river or pond bank, and a construction site or waste ground. Label each with the place and the date.
Dry each sample on paper. Then look at colour, smell and feel. Rub a pinch between your fingers: gritty = sand, smooth like flour = silt, sticky when wet = clay.
Look through a magnifying glass and sort what you see into piles: mineral grains, bits of dead leaf and root, small living creatures, and anything artificial.
The jar test. Half-fill a transparent jar with soil, top it up with water, shake it hard, and leave it overnight. It settles into layers — sand at the bottom, then silt, then clay, with humus and floating bits on top. You can compare the thickness of the layers between samples.

What a good answer must contain: (i) what the sample is made of, (ii) a reasoned guess at its origin, (iii) the human traces you actually saw, and (iv) a prediction about the soil's future, with the reason.

Sample answer: a soil investigation

Question	What I observed and concluded
What do the samples consist of?	Sample A (field): dark brown, smooth, slightly sticky when wet, smells earthy; under the lens I saw fine mineral grains, bits of broken root and leaf (humus), and two earthworm casts. Sample B (roadside): pale, gritty, mostly sand and small stone chips, hardly any dark matter. Sample C (pond bank): very fine and smooth — mostly silt, with a few tiny shells.
What might be the origins?	The fine, smooth particles of A and C are silt “easily transported by rivers from the mountains to the plains” — so this is alluvial soil laid down by a river over thousands of years. The stone chips in B are not natural to a plain; they were brought in as road material. The dark colour of A is humus built up by generations of plants growing, dying and decaying on the spot.
Signs of human activity?	Small pieces of plastic and glass, brick fragments, a bottle cap, ash from burnt leaves, and near the field edge a white crust on the surface where fertiliser had been applied. Sample B was compacted hard by vehicles and had almost no living thing in it.
What might happen over time?	Where plastic and glass are buried, they will not decay and will keep breaking into smaller pieces, harming the earthworms and microbes that make soil fertile. Where the ground is compacted and bare, rain will run off instead of soaking in, and the topsoil will be eroded away. Where crop residue, compost or manure keeps being returned, humus will increase and the soil will get richer. The soil's future is decided by which of these two habits wins.

Why soil “tells stories”: soil forms in four slow stages (Fig. 1.8) — bedrock begins to disintegrate, organic materials speed up the breakdown, layers form, and finally a developed soil supports thick vegetation. The process “ranges from a century to several millennia”. So every handful you hold is a record of the rock beneath, the rain and frost that broke it, the plants that fed it — and, in the last few decades, of us.

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