Q&A: practice questions with answers

Concept: NJAC was meant to replace the collegium system for appointing Supreme Court and High Court judges.

1. The 99th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2014 (with the NJAC Act, 2014) inserted Article 124A creating the NJAC.
2. In October 2015 the Supreme Court struck it down as violating judicial independence (basic structure), restoring the collegium.
3. 102nd (2018) gave constitutional status to the NCBC; 76th (1994) put Tamil Nadu reservation in the 9th Schedule.

Yaad rakhein: 99th = NJAC (2014), 100th = India–Bangladesh land boundary, 101st = GST.

Answer: (A) 99^th Amendment

Concept: India has major physiographic divisions: Himalayas, Northern Plains, Peninsular Plateau, Indian Desert, Coastal Plains and Islands.

1. The Northern Plains were formed by the deposition of alluvium brought by the Indus, Ganga and Brahmaputra river systems over millions of years in the foredeep between the Himalayas and the Peninsula.
2. The Peninsular and Meghalaya Plateaus are ancient crystalline (igneous/metamorphic) landmasses, not alluvial.

Yaad rakhein: Alluvium → plains (Bhabar, Terai, Bhangar, Khadar belts).

Answer: (D) The Northern Plains

Concept: Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) shows running processes and their CPU, memory, disk, network and GPU usage.

1. Its purpose is to spot applications consuming excessive resources – i.e. those degrading (slowing down) system performance – so they can be ended.
2. “Enhancing/stabilizing/simplifying” do not fit: you monitor to find problems, not helpers.

Yaad rakhein: Task Manager → “End task” for the app that is hogging resources.

Answer: (A) degrading

Concept: The “Coalition of the Willing”, led by France and the UK, is a group of countries backing Ukraine’s security after a ceasefire with Russia.

1. At the coalition summit in Paris on 4 September 2025, President Macron announced that 26 countries had committed to postwar security guarantees for Ukraine, including troops on land, sea or air as a reassurance force.

Yaad rakhein: Sept 2025 Paris summit – 26 nations – Ukraine security guarantees.

Answer: (B) Ukraine

Concept: A Dynamic-Link Library holds code and data that many programs can load and share at run time, saving memory and disk space.

1. In Windows such files have the extension .dll (e.g. kernel32.dll, user32.dll).
2. .drv = device driver file, .tmp = temporary file; “.is” is not a standard extension.

Yaad rakhein: DLL = Dynamic-Link Library; EXE runs on its own, DLL is called by other programs.

Answer: (B) .dll

Concept: World Population Prospects is the UN DESA’s biennial estimate of global population.

1. The 2024 edition projects the world population (8.2 billion in 2024) to peak at about 10.3 billion in the mid-2080s and then decline slightly to about 10.2 billion by 2100.
2. 8.2 billion is the 2024 figure, not the peak – the tempting wrong option.

Yaad rakhein: WPP 2024: now 8.2 bn → peak 10.3 bn (≈2084) → 10.2 bn (2100).

Answer: (A) 10.3 billion

Concept: A file extension (.docx, .jpg, .mp3 …) tells the operating system the file’s format.

1. Windows keeps a mapping of extensions to default programs, so double-clicking a .pdf opens a PDF reader and a .xlsx opens Excel.
2. Extensions do not hide content, change size or merely lengthen names – those options are meaningless.

Yaad rakhein: Extension = file’s “identity card” for the OS → chooses the app.

Answer: (D) To allow the OS to determine which application should open the file

Concept: Early nationalists exposed how British rule drained India’s wealth.

1. Dadabhai Naoroji, the “Grand Old Man of India”, wrote Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901) and formulated the Drain of Wealth theory.
2. R.C. Dutt wrote Economic History of India; Tilak and Gandhi are not linked to this book.

Yaad rakhein: Naoroji → Drain theory → “Poverty and Un-British Rule”; first Indian MP in British House of Commons (1892).

Answer: (A) Dadabhai Naoroji

Concept: A balanced chemical equation gives the quantitative relation between reactants and products.

1. Stoichiometry (Greek stoicheion = element, metron = measure) is the calculation of amounts (moles, masses, volumes) of reactants and products in a reaction.
2. Molarity, mass per cent and mole fraction are ways of expressing the concentration of a solution, not reaction quantities.

Yaad rakhein: Reaction quantities → stoichiometry; solution strength → molarity/molality/mole fraction.

Answer: (B) Stoichiometry

Concept: Secret societies spearheaded the revolutionary stream of the freedom struggle in the early 1900s.

1. Abhinav Bharat was founded in 1904 at Nasik by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar with his brother Ganesh Savarkar (grew out of Mitra Mela, 1899).
2. Shyamji Krishna Varma founded India House in London (1905); Lala Har Dayal – Ghadar Party (1913); Khudiram Bose was an Anushilan Samiti revolutionary.

Yaad rakhein: Abhinav Bharat – Savarkar – Nasik 1904; Anushilan Samiti – Bengal 1902.

Answer: (C) V.D. Savarkar

Concept: The Ministry of Panchayati Raj is deploying AI tools for transparent, paper-light Gram Sabha functioning.

1. SabhaSaar (“Sabha” = meeting, “Saar” = summary), launched in 2025 and integrated with BHASHINI, converts audio/video recordings of Gram Sabha and Panchayat meetings into structured minutes in 14 Indian languages.
2. The other three names are invented distractors.

Yaad rakhein: SabhaSaar = AI minutes of Gram Sabha; BHASHINI = national language-translation mission.

Answer: (D) SabhaSaar

Concept: The Equator divides N/S hemispheres; the Prime Meridian divides E/W hemispheres.

1. Australia lies wholly south of the Equator and east of the Prime Meridian (roughly 10°S–44°S, 113°E–154°E) – the only continent entirely in both the Southern and Eastern Hemispheres.
2. Africa and Asia are crossed by the Equator/Prime Meridian; Europe is in the Northern Hemisphere.

Yaad rakhein: Equator passes through Africa, Asia (Indonesia) and South America – never Australia.

Answer: (C) Australia

Concept: Fundamental Duties (Part IV-A, Article 51A) were added on the recommendation of the Swaran Singh Committee.

1. The 42nd Constitutional Amendment Act, 1976 (“Mini Constitution”, Emergency period) inserted 10 duties.
2. The 11th duty (education of children 6–14 years) was added by the 86th Amendment, 2002.

Yaad rakhein: 42nd – 1976 – 10 duties; 86th – 2002 – 11th duty.

Answer: (D) 1976

Concept: Dimensions are found from the defining formula; energy (work) = force × distance.

1. Force $=\text{mass}\times \text{acceleration}=[ML{T}^{-2}]$.
2. Energy $=\text{Force}\times \text{distance}=[ML{T}^{-2}]\times [L]=[M{L}^2{T}^{-2}]$.
3. Check: 1 joule $=1{\text{kg m}}^2{\text{s}}^{-2}$. Option (C) is force, (D) is energy per unit mass.

Yaad rakhein: Work, energy and torque all have $[M{L}^2{T}^{-2}]$.

Answer: (A) $[M{L}^2{T}^{-2}]$

Concept: Jyotirao Phule (Satyashodhak Samaj, 1873) fought caste oppression and compared it with slavery.

1. His book Gulamgiri (“Slavery”, 1873) was dedicated to “the good people of the United States” who fought to abolish Negro slavery.
2. Shetkaryacha Asud (The Cultivator’s Whipcord) is also Phule’s, on peasants; Stripurushtulna is by Tarabai Shinde; Satyarth Prakash by Dayananda Saraswati.

Yaad rakhein: Gulamgiri 1873 – same year as Satyashodhak Samaj – dedicated to American abolitionists.

Answer: (D) Gulamgiri

Concept: When capitals are invested for the same time, profit is divided in the ratio of capitals.

1. Ratio of investments $=2300:4600=1:2$.
2. Total parts $=1+2=3$; one part $=\frac{37272}{3}=12424$.
3. P has 1 part, so P's share = ₹12,424.

Trick: Q invested exactly double, so P gets one-third of the profit – just divide by 3.

Answer: (A) 12,424

Concept: Area of rectangle $=l\times b$; area of circle $=\pi r^2$; circumference $=2\pi r$.

1. Area of field $=77\times 98=7546{\text{m}}^2$.
2. $\frac{22}{7}{r}^2=7546\Rightarrow r^2=7546\times \frac{7}{22}=343\times 7=2401\Rightarrow r=49$ m.
3. Perimeter $=2\times \frac{22}{7}\times 49=308$ m.

Trick: $77=7\times 11$ and $98=2\times 49$ – the 11 cancels the 22 and 7s pair up nicely; the answer must be a multiple of 44 ($2\times 22$), and only 308 is.

Answer: (B) 308

Concept: Time $=\frac{\text{Distance}}{\text{Speed}}$; add the times of the two legs.

1. Let one-way distance be $d$ km. $\frac{d}{60}+\frac{d}{80}=3.5$.
2. LCM 240: $\frac{4d+3d}{240}=3.5\Rightarrow 7d=840\Rightarrow d=120$ km.
3. Check: $\frac{120}{60}+\frac{120}{80}=2+1.5=3.5$ h.

Trick: Same distance both ways – average speed $=\frac{2\times 60\times 80}{140}=\frac{480}{7}$ km/h; total distance $=\frac{480}{7}\times 3.5=240$, so one way $=120$ km.

Answer: (B) 120 km

Concept: In SI the amount grows by the same interest every year.

1. Interest for 2 years (from year 2 to year 4) $=6400-5200=1200$, so yearly SI $=600$.
2. Principal $=5200-2\times 600=4000$.
3. Rate $=\frac{600}{4000}\times 100=15\%$.

Trick: Difference of amounts ÷ difference of years = SI per year; subtract it back to reach P.

Answer: (D) 15 percent

Concept: If sum $=S$ and difference $=D$, larger $=\frac{S+D}{2}$, smaller $=\frac{S-D}{2}$.

1. Elder $=\frac{28+8}{2}=18$ years.
2. Younger $=\frac{28-8}{2}=10$ years; check $18+10=28$, $18-10=8$.

Trick: Larger number is always half of (sum + difference).

Answer: (C) 18 years