UPHESC Assistant Professor Sociology 2025, 2026 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: The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) is a Ministry of Home Affairs body set up to tackle cyber crime in a coordinated way.

1. The scheme to set up I4C was approved by MHA in October 2018 and the centre was set up in New Delhi.
2. It was formally dedicated to the nation in January 2020; 2020 is not among the options, so the year of establishment, 2018, is the answer.
3. 2000 is the year of the IT Act; 2015 and 2021 have no link with I4C.

Short trick: I4C: approved 2018, inaugurated 2020 – the '4 C' stands for Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre.

Concept: In 'Urbanism as a Way of Life' (1938) Wirth derived urban traits from size, density and heterogeneity of population.

1. Urban social relations are impersonal, superficial, transitory and segmental; anonymity is typical.
2. Secularisation, not religiosity, marks the urban way of life; religiosity is a folk/rural trait.
3. Hence 'Religiousity' is not a trait of urbanism.

Short trick: Wirth's city = Size + Density + Heterogeneity → 'superficial, transitory, anonymous, secular'.

Concept: Class can be measured objectively, subjectively (self-placement) or by reputation (how others in the community rank people).

1. Warner's Yankee City (Newburyport) studies asked residents to rank one another – 'evaluated participation'.
2. This produced the six-class scheme (upper-upper … lower-lower) based on community reputation.
3. Dialectical/critical approaches belong to Marxian analysis, not Warner.

Short trick: Warner = Reputation; Yankee City = 6 classes ranked by neighbours.

Concept: Habitus = durable, socially acquired dispositions that generate practice without conscious rule-following.

1. Bourdieu did fieldwork among the Kabyle (Berbers) of Algeria in the 1950s–60s.
2. In 'Outline of a Theory of Practice' (1972/77) he used Kabyle gift exchange, honour and the house to show that timing and strategy in exchange come from habitus, not rules.
3. The other options have no link with his work.

Short trick: Bourdieu → Algeria → Kabyle gift & honour → habitus.

Concept: Author–book matching.

1. C. Wright Mills – White Collar: The American Middle Classes (1951) → III.
2. R. K. Merton – Sociological Ambivalence and Other Essays (1976) → II.
3. Robert Nisbet – The Sociological Tradition (1966) → I.
4. Ralf Dahrendorf – Essays in the Theory of Society (1968) → IV. So a-III, b-II, c-I, d-IV.

Short trick: Mills = White Collar & Power Elite; Nisbet = Tradition; Merton = Ambivalence.

Concept: In 'The Philosophy of the Act' (1938) Mead described four dialectically linked stages of every act.

1. Impulse – a felt need/stimulus.
2. Perception – searching for and sensing objects that meet the impulse.
3. Manipulation – handling the object.
4. Consummation – satisfying the impulse. Order: III, II, I, IV.

Short trick: I-P-M-C: Impulse → Perception → Manipulation → Consummation.

Concept: Dahrendorf, in 'Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society' (1959), redefined class in terms of authority relations.

1. Marx based class on ownership of the means of production.
2. Dahrendorf argued that in post-capitalist society the decisive line is between those who exercise authority and those who are subject to it within imperatively coordinated associations.
3. Coser studied functions of conflict; Collins wrote on conflict sociology and credentialism.

Short trick: Marx = property; Dahrendorf = authority.

Concept: The World Commission on Environment and Development, chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland, published 'Our Common Future' in 1987.

1. It gave the classic definition: development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
2. Club of Rome published 'The Limits to Growth' (1972); Kyoto Protocol (1997) is on greenhouse gases; Monsanto is a company.

Short trick: 1987 + 'Our Common Future' = Brundtland = sustainable development.

Concept: Manuel Castells, in 'The Rise of the Network Society' (1996), described megacities as nodes of the global economy.

1. He wrote that megacities connect the global economy and concentrate the best and worst of society, and that they work as magnets for their hinterlands, i.e. for the countries/regions where they are located.
2. Saskia Sassen's key term is the 'global city' (New York, London, Tokyo); Harvey wrote on capital and urbanisation; Savage on class and urban sociology.

Short trick: Sassen = global city; Castells = megacity & network society.

Concept: 'The Power of Identity' (1997) is Volume II of Castells' trilogy 'The Information Age'.

1. He compared three movements against the new global order: the Zapatistas of Mexico, the American militia/Patriot movement and Japan's Aum Shinrikyo.
2. Their concerns and goals were dissimilar, yet all built identity in resistance to globalisation.
3. Calhoun, Blumer and Melucci wrote on social movements but not this book.

Short trick: Information Age trilogy: Network Society (I), Power of Identity (II), End of Millennium (III) – all Castells.