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Class 7 Social Science: Understanding the Weather, 8 practice questions with answers

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These are 8 practice questions on the second chapter of the new NCERT Class 7 Social Science textbook, Exploring Society: India and Beyond, Part 1, called Understanding the Weather. Each has a short answer and the textbook page it comes from. They cover the elements of weather, what the mean and the range of temperature each show, why two rain gauges of different sizes show the same depth, air pressure, the anemometer, humidity, the troposphere, and weather stations and forecasts. For heat in the world around us, see our Class 7 Heat Transfer in Nature 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, and no question retells one of the chapter's activities, boxes or exercises; 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, Part 1 for Grade 7, Chapter 2, printed pages 27 to 44):

Elements of weather

Question 1. Which element of weather is each description about? (a) Small balls of ice fall from the sky. (b) The air feels damp and sticky. (c) A strong breeze blows from the east. (d) The weight of the air above us drops sharply before a storm. (e) It is much colder this morning than yesterday.

Answer: (a) precipitation; (b) humidity; (c) wind; (d) atmospheric pressure; (e) temperature. (a) Precipitation is any form of water falling from the sky: rain, snow, sleet or hail. (b) Humidity tells how much water vapour the air holds. (c) Wind is moving air, with a speed and a direction. (d) Atmospheric pressure is the weight of the air above us. (e) Temperature is how hot or cold the atmosphere is. (Elements of weather, page 29.)

Question 2. Two towns both report a mean daily temperature of 25 °C. (a) Using the chapter's definition of the mean daily temperature, explain how one town could still have much hotter afternoons and much colder nights than the other. Give a possible maximum and minimum for each town. (b) Which other statistic from the chapter would show the difference straight away?

Answer: (a) the mean only shows the middle of the day's maximum and minimum, so a town with 33 °C and 17 °C and one with 41 °C and 9 °C both have a mean of 25 °C; (b) the range of temperature. (a) The mean daily temperature is the maximum plus the minimum, divided by two. Many different pairs give the same answer: a mild town with a maximum of 33 °C and a minimum of 17 °C has (33 + 17) ÷ 2 = 25 °C, and a town with a hot 41 °C afternoon and a cold 9 °C night also has (41 + 9) ÷ 2 = 25 °C. The mean hides how far apart the two are. (b) The range of temperature, the maximum minus the minimum, shows it: 33 − 17 = 16 °C for the first town and 41 − 9 = 32 °C for the second. (Any pair adding up to 50 works for (a).) (Range and mean daily temperature, page 32.)

Question 3. (a) Two rain gauges stand side by side in the same shower. One is built exactly like the other but twice as wide, funnel and cylinder both. Afterwards, will their scales show the same depth of water? Explain. (b) Rainfall is reported as a depth, such as "12 mm", not as an amount of water such as "2 litres". Why is a depth the better way to report it?

Answer: (a) yes, the same depth, although the wider gauge holds more water; (b) the depth is the same whatever the size of the gauge, so reports from different gauges can be compared. (a) A gauge measures rainfall as the depth of water collected. The rain falls evenly on both. The wider gauge has a mouth twice as wide, so its opening is 2 × 2 = 4 times the area and it catches 4 times as much water; but that water spreads over a cylinder floor that is also 4 times the area, so it stands to the same height. Both scales show the same depth. (b) A gauge with a wider funnel catches more litres of water in the same shower, so litres would depend on the gauge. The depth of rain that falls does not, so every weather station can report rainfall in the same way, in millimetres. (The reasons in (a) and (b) go a little beyond the chapter, which gives the method.) (Measuring rainfall, page 33.)

Question 4. (a) Two barometers on the coast read 1013 mb and 996 mb. Which reading is about normal for the coast, and which points to a depression? (b) At another coastal town the reading falls from 1008 mb in the morning to 994 mb by evening. By how much has it fallen, and what kind of weather could follow?

Answer: (a) 1013 mb is about normal; 996 mb points to a depression; (b) it has fallen by 14 mb, to below 1000 mb, so a storm or even a cyclone could follow. (a) The usual pressure at the sea coast is about 1013 mb, and a reading under 1000 mb signals a depression, an area of low pressure. (b) 1008 − 994 = 14 mb. The reading has gone from above 1000 mb to below it, so a depression is forming over the town, and a depression can at times grow into a storm or even a cyclone. (Atmospheric pressure, page 35.)

Wind, humidity and the atmosphere

Question 5. How does an anemometer tell how fast the wind is blowing, and what else does the chapter say it measures?

Answer: its cups spin faster in a stronger wind, and a meter counts the spins to give the speed; it also measures the wind's direction. An anemometer has three or four metal cups on a vertical shaft. The wind turns them, and the stronger the wind, the faster they turn. A meter at the bottom counts how many times it spins in a certain time and works out the wind speed in kilometres per hour. The chapter calls the anemometer the simplest instrument to measure both the direction and the speed of the wind. A wind sock beside an airstrip is another kind of wind vane: it gives pilots an idea of the wind's direction. (Wind instruments, pages 36 and 37.)

Question 6. (a) Relative humidity runs from 0% to 100%. Why is 0% never found in natural conditions? (b) Give two places, other than a weather station, where the chapter says humidity is measured, and say why.

Answer: (a) natural air always holds at least some water vapour; (b) museums, to keep a dry environment that preserves their exhibits, and industries such as food processing. (a) 0% relative humidity would mean air with absolutely no water vapour at all. The chapter says that is impossible in natural conditions: water is always evaporating somewhere, so the air around us always holds some vapour. (The reason given here goes a little beyond the chapter, which states the fact.) (b) Museums monitor humidity because they need to keep a dry environment to preserve their exhibits, and factories also need to know it, for example in food processing. (Humidity, page 38.)

Question 7. (a) In which layer of the atmosphere does almost all weather happen? (b) How thick is it, and where is it thinnest?

Answer: (a) the troposphere; (b) 6 to 18 km, thinnest at the poles. (a) The troposphere is the layer closest to the Earth's surface, where land plants and animals live and where almost all weather takes place. (b) It reaches from 6 to 18 km above the ground: thinnest over the poles, where the cold air shrinks, and thickest over the tropics, where warm air spreads out. (The atmosphere, page 28.)

Question 8. (a) What is an automatic weather station, and how is it different from a station where people read the instruments? (b) How do meteorologists turn the readings from weather stations into a forecast?

Answer: (a) a station that measures and records the weather by itself, with sensors, so no one has to read it; (b) readings taken at regular times are collected over long periods, then studied with scientific methods to predict the weather. (a) An automatic weather station runs on its own: its sensors measure and record temperature, humidity, rain, air pressure, and how fast and from where the wind blows, without a person reading the instruments. Such stations are used in farming, flying and shipping, among other fields. (b) A weather station brings the instruments together, and its readings, taken at regular intervals, are used to map the weather. Meteorologists gather this data over long periods, study it and apply scientific methods to work out what the weather is likely to do next. (Weather stations, page 39; predicting the weather, pages 39 and 40.)

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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 + 26 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.