UPSC Prelims 2015 · Question 52 of 98

UPSC Prelims 2015 question on Namdapha National Park

Which one of the following National Parks has a climate that varies from tropical to subtropical, temperate and arctic?

  1. Khangchendzonga National Park
  2. Nandadevi National Park
  3. Neora Valley National Park
  4. Namdapha National Park
Show answer

Answer: D. Namdapha National Park

Verdict

The answer is Namdapha National Park. Its altitudinal range gives it a climate running from tropical to arctic.

Analysis

Namdapha in Arunachal Pradesh rises from a little over two hundred metres to more than four thousand five hundred metres within a single protected area, which is why it carries tropical, subtropical, temperate and alpine or arctic conditions together, and it is the only Indian park known to hold four large cat species. Nanda Devi lies wholly at high altitude and lacks a tropical belt. Khangchendzonga and Neora Valley in the eastern Himalaya both have real altitudinal range but neither spans the full sequence in the way Namdapha does.

Source

Reference material on Namdapha accessed through the online book source given in the analysis.

How to crack it

A climate spanning tropical to arctic within one park is a statement about vertical extent, so the question reduces to which park has the largest altitudinal range beginning near sea level. A park that starts high, as Nanda Devi does, cannot have a tropical zone at all, and that reasoning eliminates the strongest distractor. Read superlative descriptions as physical constraints and test each option against the constraint rather than against your memory of the park.

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