AMU Entrance Exam Syllabus for M.Sc. in Geography

FACULTY OF SCIENCE M. Sc. (Geography) The objective (Multiple Choice) as well as short answer type questions will be asked covering the following courses taught at Graduation level. 1. Geomorphology : Theories of the origin of the earth – Laplace, Chemberlin & Mouition, Big Bang; the constitution of the earth’s interior; Isostasy; Wagener’s theory and Plate Tectonics; earthquakes and volcanoes; Kober and Holmes theories of mountain building; the work of running water, glacier and wind; karst topography; concept of cycle of erosion 0 Davis and Penck. 2. Climatology and Oceanography : Composition and structure of the atmosphere; insolution and heat budget; horizontal and vertical distribution of temperature, pressure and wind; forms of precipitation and types of rainfall; classification and properties of air masses and fronts; tropical and temperate cyclones; Koppen’s climatic classification; relief features of the ocean floor; vertical and horizontal distribution of salinity and temperature; tides and ocean currents; ocean deposits. 3. Geography of Resources and its Utilization : Soil formation and soil types; types of forest and forest products; production and distribution of iron ore, copper, coal, petroleum and hydro-power; solar energy; water conservation and future prospects; distribution, density and growth of world population; concept of optimum, over and under population; population resource regions of the world; production and distribution of wheat, rice, cotton, sugarcane and tea; industries – iron and steel, cotton textile and sugar, distribution and characteristics of primary; secondary and tertiary activities. 4. Evolution of Geographical Thought : Contribution of Strabo, Ptolemy, Al- biruni, Ibn-Khaldum, Humboldt, Ritter, Ratzel and Vidal-de-la-Blache; environmental determinism, possibilism and stop and go determinism; quantitative revolution, behavioural geography, radical geography and welfare geography. 5. Major World Environment : Physical and human environment in equatorial, monsoon, hot desert, tropical and temperature grasslands, Mediterranean, tundra and taiga regions; air, water and soil pollution. 6. Geography of India : Structure and relief; evolution of extra peninsular drainage and its major river system; characteristics of peninsular drainage and its major river system; origin and development of monsoon and its mechanism; El-Nino and its effect on Indian weather; identificatioin of flood prone areas and draught prone areas; types of forests and its distribution, characteristics and economic importance, deforestation and its consequences, social forestry and its significance, distribution and characteristics of soils in India; soil erosion and conservation; distribution and growth of population; agro – climate regions; the Green Revolution; distribution and production of rice, wheat, cotton and tea;

production and distribution of coal, petroleum, hydro-electricity and nuclear energy; localization factors and spatial pattern of major industries – iron and steel industry and cotton textile industry. 7. Practical Aspects in Geography : Nature and sources of geographic data; classification and significance of maps; definition, significance and types of scale; methods of showing relief; representation of population, agricultural and transport data by various Cartographic techniques including choropleth and isopleth; classification, identification, transformation and choice of map projections; measures of central tendency and dispersion – arithmetic mean, median, mode, standard deviation, co-efficient of variation; types and utility of aerial photographs, chief elements of aerial photo interpretation; application of remote sensing in geographical studies; remote sensing platform and sensors – active, passive and micro wave remote sensing.