Geography Paper 1 November 2024

Answer this when you sit the paper.

1. ASupercooled water droplets are chemically unstable and spontaneously convert to ice without any vapour exchange.
2. BThe saturation vapour pressure over ice and over water is always identical, so no net transfer occurs, which would leave no mechanism at all for ice crystals to grow faster than the surrounding supercooled droplets.
3. CThe saturation vapour pressure over ice is lower than over supercooled water at the same temperature, so vapour deposits onto the ice while droplets evaporate to compensate.
4. DIce crystals are heavier than water droplets, so they simply fall through and absorb the droplets by direct contact.

1. AWater vapour condenses directly onto dust particles without any droplet collision taking place, describing the initial formation of tiny cloud droplets rather than the growth of raindrops the question actually asks about.
2. BLarger droplets fall faster and collide with and absorb smaller droplets in their path, growing progressively larger.
3. CAll droplets in a warm cloud are identical in size, so no collision between differently sized droplets can occur.
4. DIce crystals grow at the expense of supercooled water droplets due to differing saturation vapour pressures.

1. AThe Eastern Highlands have no vegetation at all, which by itself increases rainfall, an explanation that ignores the region's relief and instead credits an assumed lack of vegetation cover that does not actually describe the area.
2. BThe lower lying areas to the west receive more solar radiation than the Eastern Highlands.
3. CThe Eastern Highlands are located much closer to the equator than the areas to their west.
4. DRelief: air forced to rise over the highland barrier cools adiabatically to its dewpoint on the windward side, producing orographic rainfall, while the western side lies in a rain shadow.

Answer this when you sit the paper.

1. AA biological (plant behaviour) indicator, alongside animal and insect behaviour indicators such as flying ant emergence.
2. BAn astronomical indicator, based on the position of the moon and stars.
3. CA purely instrumental indicator, based on formal meteorological equipment.
4. DA geological indicator, based on rock type and structure, treating tree flowering as though it were a property of the surrounding rock rather than of the living plant itself.

1. ACloud seeding and deforestation are identical processes with the same physical mechanism, collapsing a deliberate atmospheric intervention and a change in land cover into a single, unrelated cause.
2. BUrbanisation is a more direct and intentional method of influencing rainfall than cloud seeding.
3. CCloud seeding intentionally targets rainfall formation directly, whereas urbanisation and deforestation influence rainfall only as a side effect of other activity.
4. DCloud seeding has no actual effect on rainfall formation of any kind, unlike urbanisation and deforestation.

Answer this when you sit the paper.

1. ADew forms where only the ground surface itself cools below the dewpoint of air in direct contact with it, while radiation fog forms where the whole surface air layer cools below its dewpoint.
2. BDew and radiation fog are in fact identical phenomena with no meaningful difference between them.
3. CDew only forms during the day, while radiation fog only forms during a full moon, attaching each process to a timing condition that has no real bearing on the radiative cooling that actually causes both.
4. DRadiation fog requires strong wind, while dew requires perfectly still air with no exceptions.

1. AIt contributes to smog and haze formation by providing abundant surfaces around which water vapour condenses more readily.
2. BIt completely replaces natural radiative cooling as the dominant cause of condensation worldwide.
3. CIt only affects condensation in polar regions, never in or around cities, the reverse of where aerosol-driven smog and haze are actually most commonly observed.
4. DIt has no effect on condensation at all, since aerosols cannot act as condensation nuclei.

Answer this when you sit the paper.

Answer this when you sit the paper.

1. AA delta
2. BLevees
3. CBraids
4. DA floodplain

1. ADownstream discharge increases dramatically and permanently regardless of releases from the dam.
2. BThe sediment-starved water erodes (incises) its own bed and banks, since it has excess energy no longer used to carry sediment.
3. CThe channel below the dam fills rapidly with sediment, since dams always increase downstream sediment supply.
4. DThe channel below the dam is completely unaffected by the presence of the dam, overlooking the sediment-starved, erosive water a dam is known to release downstream.

Answer this when you sit the paper.

1. AImpermeable rock stores far more water underground than permeable rock does.
2. BPermeable rock always receives less total rainfall than impermeable rock in the same region.
3. CPermeable rock has no vegetation growing on it, unlike impermeable rock, a claim about vegetation cover that has no real bearing on the infiltration and baseflow difference the question is actually asking about.
4. DPermeable rock allows rainfall to infiltrate and be released slowly as baseflow, while impermeable rock sheds most rainfall quickly as surface runoff.

1. ATermite mound size is understood to indicate the depth of the nearest mineral deposit, not water.
2. BTermite mounds are believed to actively create underground water where none previously existed, rather than simply indicating where moisture that is already present lies close to the surface.
3. CTermites are understood locally to favour sites with accessible subsurface moisture, so large, established mounds are taken as a sign of dependable underground water nearby.
4. DTermite mounds are used only for aesthetic purposes and carry no connection to water availability.

Answer this when you sit the paper.

1. AWind physically pulls water molecules out of the soil through mechanical suction alone.
2. BWind removes saturated air from immediately above the surface and replaces it with drier air, maintaining a steep vapour pressure gradient that sustains the rate of evaporation.
3. CWind directly cools the evaporating surface, which by itself increases the rate of evapotranspiration.
4. DWind has no effect on evapotranspiration rate; only temperature and humidity matter, overlooking the way moving air replaces a saturated boundary layer and keeps the vapour pressure gradient steep.

1. ARainfall in the region and downwind is completely unaffected by the loss of forest cover.
2. BClearing the forest always increases rainfall immediately, since bare ground evaporates faster than vegetation transpires.
3. CEvapotranspiration is entirely unrelated to rainfall formation in any tropical region, a claim the well documented moisture recycling over the Congo Basin directly contradicts.
4. DLocal evapotranspiration and moisture recycling fall, which has been linked in several tropical regions to reduced rainfall further downwind.

Answer this when you sit the paper.

1. ATo directly absorb sunlight, functioning as an additional photosynthetic surface.
2. BTo provide additional lateral stability in the thin, nutrient-poor tropical soils, since the trees cannot root deeply enough for support alone.
3. CTo attract pollinating insects toward the base of the tree trunk, a role usually served by flowers and scent rather than by a structural root feature at ground level.
4. DTo store large volumes of water during the dry season, since rainforests experience severe droughts.

1. AIt only affects grass species, having no impact whatsoever on tree seedlings, when it is specifically the killing of young tree seedlings and saplings that prevents woody regeneration.
2. BIt permanently increases tree cover compared with an area subject to no burning at all.
3. CIt has an identical effect to controlled early burning in every measurable respect.
4. DIt kills seedlings and saplings before they can mature, simplifying the vegetation and potentially preventing woody regeneration altogether.

1. AThey capture solar energy directly through photosynthesis, exactly as producers do.
2. BThey feed exclusively on living producers, never on dead organic matter.
3. CThey have no functional role in nutrient cycling within the ecosystem, overlooking the fact that without them dead organic matter would never be broken down and its nutrients never released back to the soil.
4. DThey break down dead organic matter from all trophic levels, releasing nutrients back to the soil for producers to take up again.

1. ADense vegetation cover traps heat during the day and releases it evenly overnight, a description that fits a forested biome far better than the sparse cover typical of semi-arid and arid land.
2. BThese biomes experience no meaningful difference between day and night temperature at all.
3. CFrequently cloudless skies allow intense daytime heating and rapid nighttime radiative heat loss.
4. DThese biomes have unusually high humidity, which is what causes large temperature swings.

Answer this when you sit the paper.

1. AThe whole rock mass contracts uniformly as it cools, and the resulting tension fractures the rock into regular columnar joints.
2. BChemical weathering of the cooled basalt produces the observed columnar shapes, substituting a slow solution process for the physical contraction that actually fractures the cooling rock.
3. CBedding planes form as successive layers of magma are deposited one on top of another.
4. DTectonic folding compresses the rock into columns immediately after it solidifies.

1. ABecause limestone is composed mainly of calcium carbonate, which reacts with weak carbonic acid in rainwater and is carried away in solution rather than left as a solid residue.
2. BBecause limestone experiences no rainfall in the regions where it typically occurs, which would remove the very water that carbonation depends on rather than explain why the reaction dominates.
3. CBecause mechanical weathering removes limestone faster than any chemical process could.
4. DBecause limestone is chemically inert and cannot react with rainwater under any circumstances.

1. ACalcite is deposited only when the cavern floods completely with river water, rather than through the ordinary, continuous dripping of mineral-laden water that actually builds stalactites and stalagmites.
2. BWater reaching the open air of the cavern loses dissolved carbon dioxide, causing calcite to precipitate out of solution.
3. CThe cavern's cooler temperature freezes the water, physically depositing ice rather than calcite.
4. DBacteria within the cavern actively manufacture calcite from surrounding limestone.

Answer this when you sit the paper.

1. ANo active process at all; section A is described as entirely stable and unchanging.
2. BOnly chemical weathering, with no physical weathering of any kind, when it is the mechanical breakup and removal of already-weathered rock by mass movement that keeps this section active.
3. CWeathering of exposed rock and rapid mass movement, which together allow the free face to retreat while broadly maintaining its steep angle.
4. DOnly deposition of material transported from further down the slope.

1. ASection C is at a higher elevation than sections A and B, so gravity pulls material back toward A.
2. BNo material from sections A and B ever reaches section C under any circumstances, which would leave no source at all for the depositional apron the question describes forming there.
3. CThe gradient becomes too gentle and the transporting energy of surface wash too low to carry the material any further.
4. DSection C consists of solid bedrock with no capacity to receive any deposited material.

1. AIt converts a continuous slope into a stepped series of near-flat platforms separated by shorter, steeper risers.
2. BIt permanently removes the entire slope, replacing it with completely flat ground at the original base elevation.
3. CIt steepens the overall slope angle far beyond what cultivation would otherwise require.
4. DIt has no effect on slope shape; it only changes the crops grown on an unmodified slope, overlooking the stepped platforms and risers that terracing physically cuts into the original profile.