Prelims

Consider the following pairs of a high office under the Constitution of India and the tenure of the person who holds it:

1. Judge of the Supreme Court — holds office until he attains the age of sixty-five years
2. Judge of a High Court — holds office until he attains the age of sixty-five years
3. Comptroller and Auditor-General of India — holds office for six years, or until he attains the age of sixty-five years, whichever is earlier
4. Attorney-General for India — holds office for six years, or until he attains the age of sixty-five years, whichever is earlier

How many of the pairs given above are correctly matched?

Consider the following statements about the natural vegetation of the world:

1. In the equatorial rainforests the crowns of the trees form a dense cover, so little sunlight reaches the ground and the forest floor carries thin undergrowth.
2. Many plants of the Mediterranean region have thick bark and small waxy leaves, which help them get through a long dry summer.
3. Trees of the temperate deciduous forests shed their leaves before winter, which cuts their water loss at a time when soil water is frozen.
4. Trees of the equatorial rainforest do not all shed their leaves at the same time, so the forest looks green through the whole year.

How many of the statements given above are correct?

With reference to the colours we see in the sky, consider the following statements:

1. The sky looks blue because the molecules of air scatter the shorter waves of sunlight, such as blue, much more strongly than the longer ones, such as red.
2. The Sun looks reddish at sunrise and sunset because its light then travels a longer path through the atmosphere, and most of the blue is scattered away before the light reaches the eye.
3. A rainbow is formed when sunlight enters raindrops, is bent and separated into colours, and is reflected inside the drops back towards the observer.
4. The sky would still look blue to an astronaut standing on the Moon, because sunlight is itself blue in colour.

How many of the statements given above are correct?

With reference to the way electricity is carried from a power station to a household, consider the following statements:

1. Electricity is sent over long distances at a very high voltage because, for the same power delivered, a higher voltage means a smaller current, and the heat wasted in the wire depends on the current.
2. A transformer can raise or lower a voltage only when the current passing through it keeps changing, which is one of the main reasons the grid is built on alternating current.
3. While stepping the voltage up, a transformer also increases the electrical power passing through it.
4. The high voltage of a transmission line is brought down in stages, so the supply reaching a household is at a far lower voltage than the line leaving the power station.

How many of the statements given above are correct?

Consider the following pairs of reform movements and the persons associated with founding or leading them:

1. Satyashodhak Samaj — Jyotirao Phule
2. Aligarh movement — Syed Ahmad Khan
3. Young Bengal movement — Keshab Chandra Sen
4. Self-Respect Movement — Narayana Guru

How many of the pairs given above are correctly matched?

The dance form Kathak is correctly described by which one of the following?

With reference to the physical conditions that limit where organisms can live, consider the following statements:

1. Of the solar radiation that reaches the earth, less than half is photosynthetically active radiation, that is, the part of sunlight that plants can actually use for photosynthesis.
2. There are natural habitats on earth, such as thermal springs and deep-sea hydrothermal vents, where average temperatures are above 100 degrees Celsius and organisms still live.
3. Properties of soil such as grain size and the way particles clump together decide how much water the soil can hold, and along with pH, mineral composition and topography they largely decide the vegetation of an area.
4. Many herbs and shrubs growing on a forest floor are adapted to photosynthesise well under very low light, because they are constantly overshadowed by tall canopy trees.

How many of the statements given above are correct?

On a cold morning a steel spoon and a wooden spoon have been lying side by side on a table in the same room all night. When they are picked up, the steel spoon feels much colder than the wooden one. Which one of the following best explains this?

With reference to the International Whaling Commission, consider the following statements:

1. It was set up under an international convention on the regulation of whaling that was adopted in 1946.
2. In 1982 the Commission decided on a moratorium on commercial whaling, which took effect in the middle of the 1980s and has not been lifted since.
3. The convention allows a member government to issue a special permit for the killing of whales for purposes of scientific research.
4. A decision of the Commission binds every member of it, because the convention gives a member no way of standing outside a decision it disagrees with.

How many of the statements given above are correct?

With reference to the Group of Seven (G7), consider the following statements:

1. It was created by a treaty signed by its founding members, and it runs a permanent secretariat that prepares its meetings.
2. Its presidency rotates every year among the member countries, and the country holding the presidency hosts that year's summit.
3. Russia took part in the group's summits for several years, and its participation was suspended in 2014.
4. All the members of the G7 are members of the European Union.

How many of the statements given above are correct?

Consider the following statements about volcanic activity:

1. The belt running around the margins of the Pacific Ocean carries more active volcanoes than any other belt in the world.
2. A volcano that has not erupted in recorded history, and is not expected to erupt again, is described as a dormant volcano.
3. Hot springs and geysers are found mainly in areas of present or recent volcanic activity, where groundwater is heated by hot rock below.
4. The largest part of the gas given off during a volcanic eruption is water vapour.

How many of the statements given above are correct?

A farmer releases ladybird beetles into a cotton field instead of spraying a chemical. Which one of the following best describes what biological control of crop pests actually sets out to achieve?

With reference to the supply of a good by its producers, which one of the following statements is correct?

A religious denomination owns a temple and the land around it, and wants to decide for itself how that property will be managed. Which one of the following statements about Article 26, which deals with the freedom to manage religious affairs, is correct?

With reference to enzymes in the human body, consider the following statements:

1. An enzyme speeds up a chemical reaction by lowering the energy needed to start it, and the enzyme itself is not used up in that reaction.
2. An enzyme acts only on a limited range of substances, because its action depends on a particular part of the enzyme fitting the shape of the substance.
3. Boiling a solution containing an enzyme makes the enzyme work faster, since chemical reactions in general go faster at a higher temperature.
4. Enzymes work equally well at any level of acidity, because only temperature affects how an enzyme behaves.

How many of the statements given above are correct?

With reference to the theory of production, consider the following statements:

1. Total product is the total quantity of output that a producer obtains from a given quantity of inputs over a given period of time.
2. Average product is obtained by dividing the total product by the number of units of the variable input that are employed.
3. Marginal product is the addition made to total product when one more unit of the variable input is employed, the other inputs remaining unchanged.
4. As more and more units of a variable input are applied to a fixed input, the marginal product of the variable input eventually begins to fall.

How many of the statements given above are correct?

With reference to infrastructure in an economy, consider the following statements:

1. Infrastructure is commonly divided into economic infrastructure, which directly supports production and distribution, and social infrastructure, which supports the development of people.
2. Energy, transport, communication and banking are usually treated as parts of economic infrastructure.
3. Schools, hospitals and sanitation facilities are usually treated as parts of social infrastructure.
4. Social infrastructure only improves the quality of life and has no bearing on the productivity of workers, since it lies outside the process of production.

How many of the statements given above are correct?

An ocean is divided into zones by depth of light, by position over the shelf, and by whether one means the water or the floor. Which one of the following statements about these zones is correct?

Consider the following pairs of designations made by UNESCO and what each of them recognises:

1. Memory of the World Register — documentary heritage such as manuscripts, rare books and archives, listed under a programme begun in 1992
2. UNESCO Global Geopark — a single, unified area whose sites and landscapes are of international importance for their geology
3. Creative City — a city that has made culture and creativity a central part of its plan for development
4. Intangible Cultural Heritage — living practices such as oral traditions, performing arts, rituals and craft skills, safeguarded under a convention of 2003

How many of the pairs given above are correctly matched?

A citizen is told that the Constitution does not merely give him rights, it also lays down duties that he owes. These duties are collected in Part IVA. Which one of the following statements about the Fundamental Duties is correct?

Consider the following pairs of terms used in the study of a firm and what each of them means:

1. Total revenue — the amount a firm receives from selling its output, obtained by multiplying the price by the quantity sold.
2. Average revenue — the revenue a firm earns per unit of output sold, obtained by dividing total revenue by the quantity sold.
3. Marginal revenue — the total revenue that a firm earns at the level of output where its profit is the highest.
4. Profit — the difference between the total revenue a firm earns and the total cost it incurs.

Which of the pairs given above are correctly matched?

Consider the following pairs of coral formations and their descriptions:

1. Fringing reef — a reef that grows outward directly from the shore, with little or no lagoon separating it from the land
2. Barrier reef — a reef that runs roughly parallel to the coast but is separated from it by a wide and comparatively deep lagoon
3. Atoll — a broadly ring-shaped reef enclosing a lagoon, typically found in the open sea around a volcanic island that has subsided
4. Lakshadweep — coral formations of the fringing type, built along a continental shoreline

How many of the pairs given above are correctly matched?

With reference to the transfer of power in 1947, consider the following statements:

1. Under the plan announced by Lord Mountbatten on 3 June 1947, the members of the legislative assemblies of Bengal and Punjab were to meet in two groups and vote on whether their province should be divided.
2. The plan brought the date of British withdrawal forward from June 1948, which the British government had announced earlier, to August 1947.
3. Whether the North-West Frontier Province would join India or Pakistan was settled by a referendum held in 1947.
4. The boundary commissions for Bengal and Punjab were both chaired by Sir Cyril Radcliffe, and their awards were made public only after power had been transferred.

How many of the statements given above are correct?

Rain, snow, sleet, hail and drizzle are the forms in which precipitation reaches the ground. Which one of the following statements about these forms is correct?

The money of the Government of India does not sit in one place. With reference to the funds and accounts provided for by the Constitution of India, consider the following statements:

1. All revenues received by the Government of India, all loans raised by it and all moneys received by it in repayment of loans form one fund called the Consolidated Fund of India.
2. All other public moneys received by or on behalf of the Government of India are credited to the Public Account of India.
3. No money out of the Consolidated Fund of India can be appropriated except in accordance with law and for the purposes and in the manner provided in the Constitution.
4. The Contingency Fund of India is placed at the disposal of the President, to enable advances to be made out of it for meeting unforeseen expenditure pending its authorisation by Parliament.

How many of the statements given above are correct?

Consider the following pairs of lakes and their descriptions:

1. Caspian Sea — the largest inland water body in the world by surface area
2. Lake Baikal — the deepest lake in the world
3. Lonar — a lake lying in a crater made by a meteorite strike
4. Lake Victoria — the deepest lake in Africa

How many of the pairs given above are correctly matched?

Consider the following pairs of Maratha ruling houses of the eighteenth century and the seats of their power:

1. Holkar — Baroda
2. Gaekwad — Gwalior
3. Bhonsle — Nagpur
4. Scindia — Indore

Which of the pairs given above is correctly matched?

With reference to a consumer who spends her income on two goods, consider the following statements:

1. The budget set is the collection of all bundles of the two goods that the consumer can buy with her income at the prevailing prices.
2. The budget line consists of those bundles which cost the consumer exactly the whole of her income.
3. If the consumer's income rises while the prices of both goods remain unchanged, the budget line becomes steeper.
4. The slope of the budget line depends only on the consumer's income and not on the prices of the two goods.

How many of the statements given above are correct?

With reference to the early Vedic and later Vedic periods, consider the following statements:

1. In the early Vedic period cattle were the main measure of wealth, and several Rigvedic words for a fight or a raid are built on the word for cow.
2. In the later Vedic period the centre of settlement moved eastward to the land between the upper Ganga and the Yamuna, where iron came into use and farming became the main occupation.
3. The Rigveda names assemblies called the sabha and the samiti.
4. Through the later Vedic period the samiti steadily gained power, until the king could take no important decision without its consent.

How many of the statements given above are correct?

With reference to adaptations of animals to physical stress, consider the following statements:

1. Allen's Rule holds that mammals living in colder climates generally have shorter ears and shorter limbs, which reduces the loss of body heat.
2. The kangaroo rat of the North American deserts meets almost all of its water requirement by drinking dew that condenses on plants at night.
3. Marine mammals such as seals carry a thick layer of fat, called blubber, below the skin, which acts as an insulator.
4. When a person from the plains stays for some days at a high altitude, the body adjusts mainly by reducing the number of red blood cells, because thinner blood moves more easily where oxygen is scarce.

How many of the statements given above are correct?

Consider the following statements about the continents and the oceans:

1. The Pacific is the largest of the oceans, and the deepest known point on the Earth's surface lies within it.
2. Africa is the only continent through which the Equator, the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn all pass.
3. Australia is the smallest continent and it lies entirely in the Northern Hemisphere.
4. The Arctic Ocean is the second largest ocean in the world after the Pacific.

How many of the statements given above are correct?

Consider the following pairs of materials and the property that makes each one suitable for the use given:

1. Tungsten, used as the glowing filament of an ordinary electric bulb — it melts at a higher temperature than any other metal, so it can be kept white-hot without melting away
2. Copper, used for the wiring in a house — it lets an electric current pass easily and can be drawn out into a long thin wire without breaking
3. Graphite, used as a pencil lead and as a dry lubricant — its carbon atoms are joined into flat sheets that slide over one another easily
4. Diamond, used in cutting and drilling tools — each of its carbon atoms is joined to four others in a rigid three-dimensional network, which makes it extremely hard

How many of the pairs given above are correctly matched?

With reference to the office of the President of India, consider the following statements:

1. The President holds office for a term of five years from the date on which he enters upon his office, and a person who has held that office is eligible for re-election to it.
2. To be eligible for election as President, a person must have completed thirty-five years of age and be qualified for election as a member of the Council of States.
3. The President may resign his office by writing under his hand addressed to the Vice-President.
4. Notwithstanding the expiration of his term, the President continues to hold office until his successor enters upon his office.

How many of the statements given above are correct?

With reference to the Belt and Road Initiative, consider the following statements:

1. Announced in 2013, it has a land component called the Silk Road Economic Belt and a sea component called the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.
2. India has not joined it, and the reason India gives is that a flagship corridor of the initiative runs through territory that India claims as its own.
3. Apart from India, every member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation has joined the initiative.
4. The money for its projects has come mainly as loans from Chinese State-owned banks, and not as grants from a fund of the United Nations.

Which of the statements given above are correct?

A borrowing country that cannot keep up the repayments on its foreign debt often ends up before the Paris Club. Which one of the following statements about the Paris Club is correct?