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Class 6 Social Science: Landforms and Life, 8 practice questions with answers

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These are 8 practice questions on the third chapter of the new NCERT Class 6 Social Science textbook, Exploring Society: India and Beyond, called Landforms and Life. Each has a short answer and the textbook page it comes from. They cover telling landforms apart, the forces still shaping the Himalayas, farming in the mountains, why plateaus are mined, why people settle on plains, the cost of irrigation, rivers as roads, and how many people live in the Ganga plain. For natural resources, see our Class 6 Nature's Treasures guide. Try each question before you read the answer.

These questions are our own, drafted with AI help. Every fact was checked against the page it cites by a test script, but no practising teacher has reviewed them yet. If you find a mistake, please tell us.

What the chapter says you need

Facts from the NCERT textbook (Exploring Society: India and Beyond, Grade 6, Chapter 3, printed pages 41 to 58):

Landforms

Question 1. Name the landform described in each case. (a) A large raised area whose top is more or less flat; some are only a few hundred metres high, others several thousand. (b) A wide, flat stretch along a river, about 100 metres above sea level, with no big hills. (c) A highland with gentle slopes and a rounded top, not very high. (d) A very high landform, wide at its foot, steep-sided and narrow at its snowy top.

Answer: (a) a plateau; (b) a plain; (c) a hill; (d) a mountain. (a) A plateau is raised above the land around it and has a fairly flat top; plateaus range from a few hundred to several thousand metres in height. (b) Plains are wide, flat or gently rolling lands, usually no higher than about 300 metres above sea level. (c) Highlands that are lower than mountains, with less steep slopes and rounded tops, are hills. (d) Mountains rise far above the land around them, wide at the bottom, steep at the sides and narrow at the top; high ones may be covered in snow. (Mountains and hills, pages 42 and 43; plateaus, page 51; plains, page 53.)

Question 2. The chapter says that in the Himalayas two natural processes are both still going on. (a) Name them. (b) Which one makes the mountains taller, and which one slowly wears mountains down and rounds them?

Answer: (a) upliftment and erosion; (b) upliftment raises them; erosion wears them down and rounds them. (a) In the Himalayas the land is still being pushed up (upliftment), and at the same time it is still being worn away (erosion). (b) Upliftment is why the Himalayas are still growing in height. Erosion works the other way: over a very long time it wears mountains down and gives them rounded tops. (Mountains old and new, page 46.)

Question 3. (a) Why do farmers in mountain areas cut steps into the slopes? What is this called? (b) Name two other ways people earn a living in the mountains.

Answer: (a) because regular farming is hard on steep, rugged slopes; it is terrace farming; (b) herding and tourism. (a) Mountain land is rugged and steep, so ordinary farming is possible only in some valleys. Cutting steps into the slope makes flat strips that can be farmed: terrace farming. (b) In many mountain regions, herding animals is preferred to farming, and tourism is an important source of income, though too many visitors can strain the fragile mountain environment. (Life in the mountains, pages 48 and 49.)

Plateaus and plains

Question 4. (a) Why is mining common on plateaus? Give an Indian example. (b) Plateaus are often less good for farming than plains. Which kind of plateau is an exception, and why?

Answer: (a) plateaus are rich in minerals; for example the Chhota Nagpur Plateau has iron, coal and manganese; (b) lava plateaus, which often have rich black soil. (a) Plateaus are rich in mineral deposits and have been called "storehouses of minerals", so many large mines are found on them; in India, the Chhota Nagpur Plateau holds large amounts of iron, coal and manganese. (b) Many plateaus have rocky soil that is less fertile than the soil of plains, but lava plateaus, formed by volcanic activity, often have a rich black soil. (Plateaus, pages 51 and 52.)

Question 5. Give two reasons from the chapter why so many people have lived on plains since early times.

Answer: for example, the fertile soil that suits farming, and the easy river travel; the first civilisations grew up on river plains. Plains are flat or gently rolling, and rivers coming down from the mountains spread rich sediments over them, so crops of all kinds grow well and farming is the main occupation. Their gentle slope also makes it easy to travel and carry goods by river. That is why the first civilisations, thousands of years ago, grew up around rivers on fertile plains, and why a large part of the world's people still live on plains today. (Plains and farming, page 53; early civilisations, page 54; river navigation, page 55.)

Question 6. Farming in the Ganga plain once depended mostly on rain. (a) What has changed in recent decades? (b) What problem has this change caused?

Answer: (a) more irrigation, from canals and pumped groundwater; (b) the groundwater is running down. (a) Farmers now depend more on irrigation: water reaches the fields along canals, or is pumped up from under the ground. (b) Irrigation has increased production, but it has also contributed to the depletion of groundwater, which is a challenge for the future of farming in the region. The chapter also names a large population and pollution as problems of the plain. (Life in the plains, page 55.)

Question 7. Why are rivers in plains easier to use for boats than mountain rivers? What have people used them for?

Answer: plains have a gentle slope; rivers there have long been used for travel and trade. Because plains slope gently, river navigation is easy there, and it supports many economic activities. In earlier days people used rivers widely to travel from place to place, and in some stretches of the Ganga people still prefer boats. (The fast, steep flow of mountain rivers is our contrast, not a statement of the chapter.) (Rivers in the plains, page 55.)

Question 8. About 40 crore people live in India's Ganga plain, which the chapter says is more than one-fourth of India's population. What does this tell you about India's total population: more or less than 160 crore?

Answer: less than 160 crore. If 40 crore were exactly one-fourth, the total would be 4 × 40 = 160 crore. Since 40 crore is more than one-fourth of the total, the total must be less than 160 crore. This shows how crowded the fertile plains are compared with other landforms. (Population of the Ganga plain, page 54.)

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Sources

All opened and read on 2 November 2026. Page numbers are the printed page numbers of the textbook; printed page = PDF page + 40 for this chapter.

The facts are from the textbook pages above. The questions, answers and checks are our own. This guide is general information; follow your teacher and the textbook.