Q&A: practice questions with answers

Concept: AMRUT = Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation, launched in June 2015.

1. AMRUT builds urban infrastructure – water supply, sewerage, storm-water drains, green spaces and urban transport in cities.
2. PMGSY (rural roads), MGNREGA (rural jobs) and the Rurban Mission (rural clusters) are all rural schemes.

Yaad rakhein: "U" in AMRUT = Urban.

Answer: (A) AMRUT

Concept: Islets of Langerhans in the pancreas have alpha, beta, delta and PP cells.

1. Alpha cells secrete glucagon, which raises blood glucose by breaking down liver glycogen.
2. Beta cells secrete insulin (lowers glucose) – the tempting wrong option.
3. Delta cells – somatostatin; PP cells – pancreatic polypeptide.

Yaad rakhein: Alpha → glucagon (glucose "gone up"), Beta → insulin.

Answer: (B) Alpha cells

Concept: Before becoming Sultan, Alauddin Khilji was governor of Kara under his uncle Jalaluddin Khilji.

1. In AD 1292 Alauddin led a successful raid on Bhilsa (Vidisha) in Malwa and won great booty; Jalaluddin rewarded him with the governorship of Awadh as well.
2. The wealth he heard about there led to his famous Devagiri raid (1296).
3. Ulugh Khan was Balban's title; Ghazi Malik was Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq; Iltutmish ruled earlier (1211–36).

Yaad rakhein: Bhilsa 1292 → Devagiri 1296 → Sultan 1296 – all Alauddin.

Answer: (D) Alauddin Khilji

Concept: Himalayan rivers are antecedent rivers – they cut deep gorges while the mountains were rising.

1. The Brahmaputra (Tsangpo/Siang/Dihang) takes a sharp U-turn around Namcha Barwa and forms one of the deepest gorges in the world before entering Arunachal Pradesh.
2. Godavari, Tapti and Penner are Peninsular rivers – they flow through old plateaus with shallow, graded valleys.

Yaad rakhein: Gorges → Himalayan rivers (Indus, Sutlej, Brahmaputra).

Answer: (C) Brahmaputra

Concept: Part XVII (Articles 343–351) of the Constitution deals with Official Language.

1. Article 344 – Commission and Committee of Parliament on official language; the President constitutes the Commission (first: B.G. Kher Commission, 1955).
2. Article 343 – Hindi in Devanagari as the official language of the Union.
3. Articles 341 and 342 deal with Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

Yaad rakhein: 343 = language, 344 = commission, 351 = development of Hindi.

Answer: (A) Article 344

Concept: Bibi-ka-Maqbara at Aurangabad (Maharashtra) was built during Aurangzeb's reign (c. 1660s) in memory of his wife Dilras Banu Begum.

1. It was commissioned by Aurangzeb (work supervised by his son Azam Shah) and resembles the Taj Mahal, so it is called the "Taj of the Deccan".
2. Humayun's tomb – built by Hamida Banu Begum; Taj Mahal – Shah Jahan; Qutub Minar – Qutbuddin Aibak/Iltutmish.

Yaad rakhein: Bibi-ka-Maqbara = "Dakkhani Taj".

Answer: (A) Bibi-ka-Maqbara

Concept: Nyaya Panchayats are village-level judicial bodies set up under state Panchayati Raj laws for speedy, cheap justice.

1. They try petty civil and minor criminal cases and can impose small fines on offenders.
2. They cannot award imprisonment; levying taxes and development work belong to the Gram Panchayat, not the Nyaya Panchayat.

Yaad rakhein: Nyaya Panchayat – fine yes, jail no.

Answer: (C) Imposing fines on offenders

Concept: The CPU has three parts – ALU, CU and registers/memory unit.

1. ALU performs arithmetic (add, subtract…) and logical operations (AND, OR, comparisons).
2. CU fetches and decodes instructions and directs/coordinates the flow of data among CPU, memory and I/O.
3. Options A, B, D swap or misstate these roles; storage of temporary data is done by registers.

Yaad rakhein: ALU = calculator, CU = manager/traffic police of the CPU.

Answer: (C) ALU handles calculations and logic functions; CU manages instruction flow and coordination.

Concept: The Northern Plains are divided into the Punjab Plains (west), Ganga Plains (middle) and Brahmaputra Plains (east).

1. Punjab lies in the Punjab Plains formed by the Indus tributaries (Sutlej, Beas, Ravi), not the Ganga Plain.
2. The Ganga Plain extends from the Ghaggar (Haryana, Delhi) through UP and Bihar to West Bengal.

Yaad rakhein: Ghaggar–Yamuna divide separates the Punjab Plain from the Ganga Plain.

Answer: (C) Punjab

Concept: French possessions in India were Pondicherry, Karaikal, Mahe, Yanaon (Yanam) and Chandernagore.

1. Chandernagore merged with West Bengal (1950–54); Pondicherry, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam became the UT of Puducherry (de facto 1954, de jure 1962).
2. The Portuguese held Goa, Daman and Diu; Austria and Germany had no such possessions.

Yaad rakhein: "PKMYC" – the five French settlements.

Answer: (A) French

Concept: "Keep with Next" (Paragraph → Line and Page Breaks) keeps a paragraph on the same page as the paragraph that follows it.

1. It is used so that a heading never sits alone at the bottom of a page while its text moves to the next page.
2. Preventing one paragraph from splitting across pages is "Keep lines together" – the tempting wrong option (D).
3. Indents and bullets are unrelated formatting.

Yaad rakhein: Keep with next = this paragraph + next paragraph; Keep lines together = within one paragraph.

Answer: (C) Ensuring that a heading and the paragraph immediately following it always appear on the same page

Concept: Airports Authority of India (AAI) is under the Ministry of Civil Aviation, headquartered in New Delhi.

1. Vipin Kumar, a 1996-batch IAS officer, was appointed Chairman of AAI in October 2024.
2. He succeeded Sanjeev Kumar.

Yaad rakhein: AAI Chairman (Oct 2024) – Vipin Kumar.

Answer: (D) Vipin Kumar

Concept: Haryana Assembly has 90 seats; majority mark is 46.

1. BJP won 48 seats – a clear majority and a third straight term (statement 1 ✓); up from 40 in 2019 (statement 2 ✓).
2. Congress won 37 seats, up from 31 in 2019 – so statement 3 is wrong.
3. Vote share: BJP 39.94%, Congress 39.09% – a narrow gap (statement 4 ✓).

Yaad rakhein: Haryana 2024: BJP 48, INC 37 – both gained seats.

Answer: (A) Only 1, 2 and 4

Concept: Gopal Ganesh Agarkar (1856–1895) was a fearless rationalist social reformer of Maharashtra.

1. He attacked blind faith, caste rigidity, child marriage and untouchability, and supported widow remarriage and women's education – an "iconoclast" who put reason above tradition.
2. He was the first editor of Kesari, later founded Sudharak, and co-founded the Deccan Education Society with Tilak.
3. Vishnushastri Chiplunkar was a conservative nationalist writer.

Yaad rakhein: Agarkar – Sudharak – reform first; Tilak – Kesari – politics first.

Answer: (D) Gopal Ganesh Agarkar

Concept: $\text{SI}=\frac{P\times R\times T}{100}$ and $A=P+\text{SI}$.

1. SI for 2 years at $12.5\%$ = $25\%$ of $P=\frac{P}{4}$.
2. $A=P+\frac{P}{4}=\frac{5P}{4}=7500\Rightarrow P=6000$
3. $\text{SI}=7500-6000=1500$

Trick: $12.5\%=\frac{1}{8}$; 2 years → $\frac{1}{4}$ of P. So A = 5 parts = 7500, SI = 1 part = 1500.

Answer: (A) ₹$1500$

Concept: If rent is $28\%$, the remaining $72\%$ covers all other expenses and savings.

1. Other spending + saving $=687+7483+218=8388$
2. $72\%$ of salary $=8388$
3. Salary $=\frac{8388\times 100}{72}=11650$

Trick: Check the unit digit: $0.72\times 11650=8388$ exactly – only this option fits.

Answer: (B) ₹$11650$

Concept: Area of four walls of a cube $=4a^2$ (top and bottom faces excluded).

1. $a=3x+8y+5$
2. $a^2=9x^2+64y^2+25+48xy+80y+30x$
3. $4a^2=36x^2+256y^2+100+192xy+320y+120x$

Trick: Use $(p+q+r{)}^2=p^2+q^2+r^2+2pq+2qr+2rp$; the $y$-term $4\times 2\times 8y\times 5=320y$ separates the options.

Answer: (C) $(36x^2+256y^2+100+192xy+320y+120x){\text{m}}^2$

Concept: Median of grouped data $=L+\frac{\frac{N}{2}-cf}{f}\times h$.

1. $N=18+34+17+13+22=104$, $\frac{N}{2}=52$
2. Cumulative frequencies: $18,52,69,82,104$ → median class $170-220$.
3. $L=170$, $cf=18$, $f=34$, $h=50$
4. Median $=170+\frac{52-18}{34}\times 50=170+50=220$

Trick: Here $\frac{N}{2}=52$ equals the cumulative frequency up to 220, so the median is the upper limit 220.

Answer: (B) $220$

Concept: A wire is a cylinder: $V=\pi r^{2}h$ (keep all lengths in cm).

1. $r=\frac{6}{2}=3\text{cm}$, $h=56\text{m}=5600\text{cm}$
2. $V=\frac{22}{7}\times 3^2\times 5600$
3. $=22\times 9\times 800=158400{\text{cm}}^3$

Trick: Cancel 7 into 5600 first ($5600÷7=800$) – the rest is easy.

Answer: (A) $158400$

Concept: Average speed $=\frac{\text{Total distance}}{\text{Total time}}$.

1. Let distances be $d$ and $2d$: onward time $=\frac{d}{52}+\frac{2d}{39}=\frac{11d}{156}$.
2. Total distance $=6d$; total time $=\frac{6d}{56}=\frac{3d}{28}$.
3. Return time $=\frac{3d}{28}-\frac{11d}{156}=\frac{117d-77d}{1092}=\frac{40d}{1092}$
4. Return speed $=\frac{3d\times 1092}{40d}=81.9\text{km/h}$

Trick: Take $d=156$: onward time 11 h, distance 468; total time $\frac{936}{56}$; return time $\frac{936}{56}-11$ → speed 81.9.

Answer: (B) $81.9$