UPHESC Assistant Professor Psychology 2025 PYQs

Concept: A floating body displaces its own weight of liquid (law of flotation).

1. Sea water (≈1.025 g/cm³, due to dissolved salts) is denser than river water (≈1.000 g/cm³).
2. The ship's weight is unchanged, so it needs a smaller displaced volume in sea water – it floats higher (rises a little).
3. Thus R is true and directly explains A.

Short trick: Denser liquid → less sinking (ships carry 'Plimsoll' load lines for fresh vs salt water).

Concept: The AICC met in Delhi on 14–15 June 1947 to ratify the Mountbatten (3 June) Plan.

1. 3 June 1947: Mountbatten announced the partition plan.
2. 14 June 1947: at the AICC meeting Gandhiji, though opposed to partition, advised Congressmen to accept it as the only way out.
3. The AICC then passed the resolution accepting the plan (157 for, 29 against).

Short trick: 3 June = Plan announced; 14 June = AICC (Gandhi) accepts.

Concept: Public health and sanitation is Entry 6 of the State List.

1. The 42nd Amendment (1976) moved five subjects from State to Concurrent List: education (Entry 25), forests, weights and measures (33A), protection of wild animals & birds, and administration of justice (11A).
2. Public health stayed in the State List.

Short trick: 42nd Amendment's five: Education, Forests, Wildlife, Weights & measures, Justice – health is NOT among them.

Concept: Megasthenes was sent by Seleucus Nicator to the court of Chandragupta Maurya at Pataliputra (c. 302 BCE).

1. He wrote 'Indica', describing Mauryan society and administration.
2. Deimachus came to Bindusara's court; Dionysius was sent by Ptolemy II (to Bindusara/Ashoka).
3. Brihadratha was the last Mauryan, killed by Pushyamitra Shunga.

Short trick: Seleucus → Megasthenes → Chandragupta; Antiochus → Deimachus → Bindusara.

Concept: Dyarchy in the provinces was introduced by the Government of India Act, 1919 (Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms), in force from 1921.

1. Provincial subjects were split into 'transferred' (ministers responsible to legislature) and 'reserved' (Governor and executive council).
2. 1909 = Morley–Minto Reforms (separate electorates); 1935 Act abolished provincial dyarchy and introduced it at the Centre; 1937 = provincial elections/ministries.

Short trick: 1919 = dyarchy in provinces; 1935 = provincial autonomy + dyarchy at Centre.

Concept: Article 21A (inserted by the 86th Amendment, 2002) guarantees free and compulsory education to children aged 6–14 years.

1. Implemented through the RTE Act, 2009 (in force 1 April 2010).
2. Article 45 (DPSP) now covers early childhood care and education below 6 years.
3. Article 19 = six freedoms; Article 32 = right to constitutional remedies.

Short trick: 21A = 'A' for Akshar (education); 86th Amendment, 6–14 years.

Concept: The 97th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2011 gave constitutional status to co-operative societies.

1. It added 'co-operative societies' to Art. 19(1)(c), inserted Art. 43B (DPSP) and Part IXB (Arts. 243ZH–243ZT).
2. 96th (2011) = 'Oriya' → 'Odia'; 99th (2014) = NJAC; 101st (2016) = GST.

Short trick: 97 → Co-operatives (Part IXB); 101 → GST.

Concept: In 2020-21 India's real GVA contracted; the contact-intensive services sector was hit hardest and agriculture was the only sector to grow.

1. Provisional estimates (May 2021): services ≈ −8.4%, industry ≈ −7.0%, agriculture ≈ +3.6%.
2. Trade, hotels, transport and communication alone shrank by about 18%.
3. Worst to least affected: Service, Industry, Agriculture.

Short trick: Lockdown hit 'contact' jobs most; the farm sector was the 'silver lining'.

Concept: Disguised (hidden) unemployment: more people are engaged than needed, so the marginal productivity of the extra workers is zero.

1. Typical case: five family members working on a farm that needs only three – removing two does not reduce output.
2. Underemployment = working below capacity/hours; seasonal = jobless in the off-season; 'formal unemployment' is not a standard category.

Short trick: Disguised = 'looks employed, adds nothing' (MP = 0).

Concept: Budget 2025-26 announced a social security scheme for the welfare of online platform (gig) workers.

1. Platform workers will get identity cards, registration on the e-Shram portal and health care under PM Jan Arogya Yojana.
2. About 1 crore gig workers were expected to benefit.
3. Farm, factory and women workers already had schemes; the 'first time' scheme was for platform workers.

Short trick: Gig workers (delivery/cab apps) → e-Shram + PM-JAY, Budget 2025-26.

Concept: Each early school had one core assumption about mind and behaviour.

1. Structuralism (Wundt, Titchener) – break the mind into its elements by introspection → a.
2. Gestalt (Wertheimer, Köhler, Koffka) – experience depends on the pattern/whole → c.
3. Functionalism (James, Dewey, Angell) – mind and behaviour serve adaptation → d.
4. Behaviourism (Watson) – conditioned S–R responses are the building blocks → b.

Short trick: S-E (elements), G-P (pattern), F-A (adaptive), B-C (conditioning): a c d b.

Concept: Humanistic psychology (Maslow, Rogers) assumes people have free will and strive for self-actualisation.

1. Psychodynamic (Freud) – behaviour is determined by unconscious drives (psychic determinism).
2. Behaviourism – behaviour determined by environment/reinforcement.
3. Humanistic – the 'third force' stresses choice, responsibility and free will.

Short trick: Humanism = Human choice: free will belongs to the 'third force'.

Concept: The phenomenological approach (Rogers, Kelly, humanists) holds that behaviour is understood through the person's own subjective view of the world.

1. Psychodynamic – stresses unconscious conflicts, not conscious experience.
2. Behavioural – studies observable behaviour only.
3. Factor-analytic (Cattell, Eysenck) – derives traits statistically, an outside view.

Short trick: Phenomenon = what appears to ME: subjective experience.

Concept: When the criterion has two categories and predictors are continuous, use discriminant function analysis or binary logistic regression.

1. Discriminant analysis – finds the linear combination of predictors that best separates two (or more) groups.
2. Binary logistic regression – models the log-odds of a two-category outcome.
3. Multinomial logistic is meant for 3+ unordered categories; multivariate regression is for several continuous DVs.

Short trick: Two groups → 'Di'scriminant + 'Bi'nary logistic.

Concept: A predicted score $\hat{Y}$ from two or more predictors with an intercept and slopes is a multiple regression equation.

1. a = intercept; $b_1,b_2$ = partial regression coefficients.
2. Partial correlation gives a single r, not a prediction equation.
3. ANOVA compares means; SD is a dispersion index.

Short trick: One X → simple regression; many X's → multiple regression.

Concept: SD is the square root of the mean of squared deviations taken from the arithmetic mean.

1. $\sigma =\sqrt{\frac{\sum (X-\overline{X}{)}^2}{N}}$ – every deviation is measured from the mean.
2. So SD tells how widely scores scatter around the mean.
3. Lowest/highest values define the range, not SD.

Short trick: SD = 'Spread from the Mean'.

Concept: In a repeated-measures design the same subjects serve in all conditions, so individual differences are removed from the error term.

1. Between-subject variability is partitioned out → smaller error variance.
2. Hence greater statistical power with fewer subjects.
3. It is not automatically more valid – order/carry-over effects threaten it, so counterbalancing is needed.

Short trick: Same people in every condition = each is his own control → less error.

Concept: In probability sampling every unit has a known, non-zero chance of selection.

1. Simple random, stratified random and cluster/area sampling all use random selection.
2. Quota sampling fills fixed quotas by the investigator's convenience/judgement – no random selection.
3. Other non-probability types: purposive, convenience, snowball.

Short trick: Quota = Quick and non-random.

Concept: An interval scale has equal units, so differences between scores are meaningful, but its zero is arbitrary.

1. Categories only → nominal scale.
2. Ordering only → ordinal scale (interval also orders, but that is not its defining feature).
3. True/meaningful zero → ratio scale.
4. Equal intervals so that size of difference shows magnitude → interval scale.

Short trick: NOIR: Nominal-name, Ordinal-order, Interval-equal gaps, Ratio-real zero.

Concept: Statistics exists precisely to describe and explain variability, not to ignore it.

1. Descriptive statistics summarise data from many sources.
2. Inferential statistics generalise from sample to population.
3. Multivariate methods (factor analysis etc.) reduce and explain large data sets.
4. Ignoring variability defeats the purpose of statistics.

Short trick: Statistics = science of variation.