NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 3 –66End-of-chapter exercise — Questions and activities

Book page 65 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.

Match the climatic factors with their effects: Column A — (1) Latitude, (2) Altitude, (3) Proximity to the ocean, (4) Monsoon winds. Column B — (a) Brings wet air to India during summer, (b) Creates different climates in the north and south, (c) Keeps higher places cooler, (d) Moderates the temperature.

Answer

Column A	Answer	Column B	Why
(1) Latitude	(b)	Creates different climates in the north and south	Latitude fixes the angle of the sun's rays — so southern Kanniyakumari is hot all year while northern Srinagar is cool
(2) Altitude	(c)	Keeps higher places cooler	Air pressure and density fall with height, and you are farther from the heated ground — Ooty against Coimbatore
(3) Proximity to the ocean	(d)	Moderates the temperature	The sea acts as a moderator — Mumbai's range is about 14°C, Nagpur's 34°C
(4) Monsoon winds	(a)	Brings wet air to India during summer	The southwest monsoon draws moist air off the ocean towards the hot land, and it falls as rain

1 – b 2 – c 3 – d 4 – a

Q2.

Answer the following questions: a) What is the difference between weather and climate?

Answer

Weather is what we experience every hour or day — it might be raining, or there could be bright sunshine, a lot of wind. The weather keeps changing.

Climate is the pattern of weather an area or region experiences over a long period of time — several decades at least. This pattern varies from region to region, and it usually remains stable.

	Weather	Climate
Period	Hours or days	Three decades or more
Stability	Changes constantly	Usually stable over long periods
What it describes	Today's rain, sun, wind	The pattern of temperature, precipitation and wind conditions in a region
Example	‘It is very windy in Jaipur today’	‘Jaipur has a semi-arid to arid climate’

Tip: examiners look for the words ‘day to day’ and ‘over decades’. Include both and the answer is complete.

Q3.

b) Why do places near the ocean have milder temperatures than places far away from it?

Answer

Because the sea acts as a moderator for the temperature. Land heats up quickly and loses heat rapidly; the sea absorbs heat slowly and loses it slowly.

Season	What the sea does	Effect on the coast
Summer	The sea absorbs heat slowly, so it stays cooler than the land	Sea air cools the coastal region — summers are not too hot
Winter	The sea loses heat slowly, so it stays warmer than the land	Sea air warms the coastal region — winters are not too cold

As you move inland from the coast the temperatures get more extreme — summer temperatures higher and winter temperatures lower. The chapter's own pair proves it:

Mumbai (near the sea): summer ≈ 32°C, winter ≈ 18°C
Range = 32 − 18 = 14°C

Nagpur (away from the coast): summer up to 44°C, winter ≈ 10°C
Range = 44 − 10 = 34°C

Same latitude, but Nagpur's range is 20°C wider.

Why water behaves this way: water needs far more heat than soil or rock to warm up by the same amount, and the sea keeps mixing its warm surface down into the cold depths. So a coast is never dealing with just the air — it is dealing with a vast, slow store of heat that flattens out both extremes.

Q4.

c) What role do monsoon winds play in affecting India's climate?

Answer

The monsoon winds are what give India its fifth season and most of its water. They act in two opposite phases.

	Summer / southwest monsoon	Winter / northeast monsoon
Pressure	Hot Asian landmass = low pressure; cooler ocean = high pressure	Cold land = high pressure; warmer ocean = relatively low pressure
Wind direction	From ocean to land	From land to ocean
What it carries	Moisture, which condenses over the warmer land	Dry air — but part of it crosses the Bay of Bengal and picks up moisture
Result	Heavy monsoon rain; reaches the southern tip in early June, covers the subcontinent by mid-July	Cold, dry weather in south India, but rainfall for parts of east and south India

Their effects on India's climate:

They give India a distinct rainy season that most of the world does not have.
They create the wet and dry periods that define the tropical climate of eastern India and the southern peninsula.
Working with topography, they divide the country: the western slopes of the Western Ghats get heavy rain (tropical wet), while the Deccan Plateau behind gets less and with interruptions (semi-arid).
They control the whole farming year — “the rivers fill up, the soil is soaked with water, crops grow and life thrives.”

Q5.

d) Why is Chennai warm or hot throughout the year, while Leh is cold?

Answer

Two of the five factors differ sharply between them — latitude and altitude — and both push in the same direction.

Factor	Chennai	Leh
Latitude	Low — in the southern peninsula, close to the Equator, so the sun's rays fall nearly perpendicular and their energy is concentrated	High — far north, so the rays are oblique, spread over a larger area and weakened by a longer path through the atmosphere
Altitude	On the coastal plain, near sea level	High in the Himalayas — thin, less dense air and far from the heated surface, so much colder
Proximity to the sea	On the Bay of Bengal, so the sea moderates the temperature — no bitter winter	Deep inland with no moderating sea at all, so winters are severe
Climate type	Tropical — warm or hot almost all year, humid, with rain from the northeast monsoon	Alpine — cold, snowy winters and cool summers

Chennai — low latitude + near sea level + beside the sea → warm all year
Leh — high latitude + very high altitude + far inland → cold

Did you know? Leh is also very dry. It lies beyond the Himalayas, which block the monsoon, so it is a cold desert — as arid as the Thar, but freezing instead of scorching.

Q6.

Look at a map of India given at the end of this book. Identify the climate for these cities — Leh, Chennai, Delhi, Panaji and Jaipur. Is the place near the sea, in the mountains, or in the desert? How do these factors affect the climate there?

Answer

Find each city on the physical map at the end of your book, note what kind of land it stands on, then read off the climate from the list on page 48.

City	Where it is	Climate	How the factors work there
Leh	High in the Himalayas (Ladakh), far inland, beyond the main ranges	Alpine — a cold desert	Very high altitude and high latitude make it cold; the mountains cut off the monsoon, so it is also extremely dry, with cool summers and freezing, snowy winters
Chennai	On the east coast, beside the Bay of Bengal	Tropical	Low latitude gives strong sun all year; the sea keeps the range small and the air humid; the northeast monsoon brings its main rain in Oct–Dec
Delhi	In the northern plains, far from the sea	Subtropical	No sea to moderate it, so summers are very hot and winters cold; hot dry winds from the west bring heat waves, and cold winds from the north bring cold waves; rain comes with the southwest monsoon
Panaji	On the western coastal strip, with the Western Ghats just behind	Tropical wet	The sea keeps temperatures even all year; the Ghats force the southwest monsoon to rise, so rainfall is heavy — good for rice and spices
Jaipur	In Rajasthan, on the edge of the Thar Desert, inland	Arid to semi-arid	Hot, dry winds off the desert and a flat topography with no barrier; far from the sea, so days are extremely hot and nights cool, and rainfall is very low

Why the same country holds all five: lay the cities on the map and you have travelled through every factor in the chapter — 3,000 km of latitude from Chennai to Leh, 3,500 m of altitude, coast to deep interior, and desert to rain-drenched Ghats. Diversity of climate is really diversity of geography, seen from the sky.

Q7.

Draw the monsoon cycle in summers and winters on a map of India. Label where the winds blow in summer and winter. Show the direction of winds during the monsoon.

Answer

How to draw it. Make two outline maps of India side by side, as Fig. 3.9 does — one titled A. Summer, one titled B. Winter. Use one colour for winds coming in from the sea and another for winds going out to the sea.

On the summer map	On the winter map
Mark LOW pressure over north-west India / the Asian landmass	Mark HIGH pressure over the landmass
Mark HIGH pressure over the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal	Mark relatively LOW pressure over the warmer ocean
Draw arrows from the sea towards the land: one branch from the Arabian Sea striking the Western Ghats, another from the Bay of Bengal curving up into the North-East and then north-west along the Himalayas	Draw arrows from the land out to the sea, running from the north-east towards the south-west
Label them southwest monsoon; write ‘moist winds — heavy rain’	Label them northeast monsoon; write ‘dry winds’, and show one arrow crossing the Bay of Bengal picking up moisture and giving rain to the Coromandel coast
Add the advance dates: south tip early June → whole country by mid-July	Add ‘October–December, rain for parts of east and south India’

A rough guide to the two maps you must draw. Your own outline should be traced from the map at the end of your book, and both branches of the summer monsoon should be shown.

Tip: the names describe where the wind comes from, not where it goes. ‘Southwest monsoon’ blows from the south-west towards India; ‘northeast monsoon’ blows from the north-east out over the sea. Getting the arrowheads the wrong way round is the commonest mistake in this question.

Q8.

Make a colourful poster showing festivals in India linked to farming and weather (e.g., Baisakhi, Onam). Add pictures or drawings of these festivals.

Answer

How to build the poster. Do not scatter pictures at random — give the poster a shape that makes an argument. The best layout is a circle for the year, with each festival placed at its own month, so the reader sees at a glance that festivals follow the farming calendar.

What a good poster must contain, for each festival: its name, the state or region, the month/season, and one line on what farming event it marks — plus a picture or drawing.

Sample answer — eleven festivals, all from the chapter's Fig. 3.11, arranged around the year:

Festival	Where	When	What it celebrates
Lohri	Punjab	13 January	End of the coldest days; the sugarcane and rabi harvest; a bonfire of peanuts and popcorn
Makar Sakranti	All over India	14–15 January	The Sun's northward turn — days start lengthening; kite flying
Pongal	Tamil Nadu	Mid-January	The rice harvest; new rice boiled over in a clay pot, and cattle honoured on Mattu Pongal
Losoong	Sikkim	December	End of the harvest season, the Sikkimese new year
Gudi Padwa	Maharashtra	March–April	Spring and the new year; the rabi harvest is in
Baisakhi	Punjab, Haryana	13–14 April	The wheat harvest; bhangra and gidda in the fields
Bihu (Rongali)	Assam	Mid-April	Start of the agricultural year and the sowing season
Hemis	Ladakh	June–July	Held in the short warm season, when the high passes are open
Onam	Kerala	August–September	The harvest at the close of the southwest monsoon; boat races and the Onasadya
Chhath Puja	Bihar, eastern UP, Jharkhand	October–November	Thanksgiving to the Sun after the kharif harvest; offerings standing in the river
Awe Winter Festival	Arunachal Pradesh	Winter	A community festival of the cold months, with dance and traditional dress

Tip: write one sentence at the bottom of the poster tying it together — for example, “Every festival on this poster is really a date in the farming calendar: sowing, first rain, or harvest.” That single line turns a decorated sheet into an answer.

Q9.

Imagine you are a farmer in India. Write a short diary entry about how you would prepare for the rainy season.

Answer

What a good diary entry needs: a date and a place, the first person (‘I’), specific tasks rather than general hopes, one worry, and one sign from nature that the rain is coming — that last touch connects your answer straight back to page 56.

Sample answer:

28 May — Village Kondhwa, Maharashtra

The amaltās by the well came into flower ten days ago, and last evening the ants were carrying their eggs up the bund in a long line. My grandfather always said that means the rain is near. The radio says the monsoon has reached Kerala, so we have perhaps two weeks.

Today I finished ploughing the upper field and let the sun bake the clods; tomorrow I will level it so the water does not run off and take the soil with it. I have repaired the bund on the eastern side where it broke last year, and cleared the small channel that carries water from the road into the tank — it was choked with plastic and thorn.

The soyabean seed is bought and kept dry in the loft, with neem leaves against insects. I have not sown it yet, and I will not, whatever the neighbours do. Two years ago the first shower came, half the village sowed, and then it did not rain again for three weeks — everything died and the seed money was gone. This time I wait for the rain to settle.

Still to do: mend the leaking roof over the cattle shed, buy a length of pipe for the pump, and take the bullocks for their check-up. If the rain is good this year I will pay back the co-operative loan and perhaps buy a second-hand sprayer.

May it come on time, and may it not come all at once.

Tip: the difference between a weak answer and a strong one here is detail. ‘I will prepare my field’ says nothing; ‘I levelled the field so the water would not carry the soil away’ shows you understood the chapter.

Q10.

Identify a natural disaster (e.g., cyclone, flood, landslide, or forest fire) and write a short essay that includes the causes and impacts. Suggest actions that individuals, communities and the government can take to reduce the impact.

Answer

How to structure the essay — five short paragraphs: (1) name the disaster and one real example, (2) causes, natural and human, (3) impacts on people, plants, animals and the economy, (4) what individuals, the community and the government can each do, (5) a closing line.

Sample answer — Floods

What it is. A flood occurs when water overflows into normally dry land. It happens when heavy rainfall generates more run-off than the land can absorb, or when rivers and lakes accumulate so much water that they overflow or their banks are breached. Floods occur frequently during the monsoons, and Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Assam are particularly vulnerable. In 2013 an unusual kind of flood struck Uttarakhand: days of continuous heavy rain caused a glacial burst, landslides followed, the area around the Kedarnath temple was destroyed, and about 6,000 people — many of them pilgrims — lost their lives.

Causes. The natural causes are heavy monsoon rain, rivers swollen with snow-melt, flat land that drains slowly, and glacial lakes bursting through their barrier of rock and ice. The human causes make the damage far worse: deforestation upstream, which lets rain rush off bare slopes; construction encroaching on waterways and blocking the flow of water; overburdened city drainage; concrete and asphalt surfaces that do not let water be absorbed by the earth; and climate change, which is melting glaciers faster and making rainfall more extreme.

Impacts. People lose their homes and sometimes their lives; families live in relief camps and drink contaminated water, so disease spreads. Standing crops rot and the harvest is lost, so farmers and labourers lose a whole year's income and often migrate to the cities. Cattle drown. Roads, bridges, schools and power lines are destroyed, and the money that should have built new ones is spent rebuilding the old. Food becomes costlier for everyone, fuelling inflation — the flood is felt in kitchens hundreds of kilometres away.

What can be done.

Individuals	Communities	Government
Never throw plastic into drains; keep documents and valuables above flood level; learn the warning signals and the route to higher ground; help elderly neighbours move early	Clean drains and canals before the monsoon; revive village ponds and tanks that hold run-off; plant trees on slopes and banks; refuse and report illegal building on waterways; run rescue and first-aid training	Fund flood forecasting and early-warning systems; desilt rivers and widen drains; build and maintain embankments; enforce building rules and remove encroachments; monitor Himalayan glacial lakes; keep NDRF battalions equipped and ready; provide quick relief and crop insurance

Conclusion. A flood begins as rain, which no one can stop. What turns rain into a disaster is a blocked drain, a cut forest and a house built in a river's path — and every one of those is a decision people made. That is why understanding the climate matters: it does not remove the water, but it tells us where not to stand.

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