Q&A: practice questions with answers

Concept: PMGSY, launched on 25 December 2000, provides all-weather road connectivity to unconnected rural habitations.

1. According to the Ministry of Rural Development, rural road connectivity improved by about 80% between 2000 and 2020 under PMGSY.
2. The scheme is a centrally sponsored scheme; PMGSY-IV was approved in 2024 to connect 25,000 more habitations.

Yaad rakhein: PMGSY launched 2000 under PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee; nodal ministry – Rural Development.

Answer: (D) 80%

Concept: During his five-nation tour in July 2025, PM Modi received several top civilian honours.

1. Barbados conferred the "Honorary Order of Freedom of Barbados" on PM Modi (announced during his visit to Trinidad and Tobago, July 2025).
2. Trinidad and Tobago gave him the "Order of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago" – a different award; Jamaica and Saint Lucia did not confer such an honour.

Yaad rakhein: July 2025 tour honours: Ghana (Officer of the Order of the Star), Trinidad & Tobago (Order of the Republic), Brazil (Grand Collar of the Southern Cross), Barbados (Honorary Order of Freedom), Namibia (Order of the Most Ancient Welwitschia Mirabilis).

Answer: (D) Barbados

Concept: Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, the legendary Hindustani classical vocalist of the Kirana gharana, was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 2008.

1. He was the only Bharat Ratna awardee of 2008 (announced November 2008).
2. His powerful opening lines in the national-integration song "Mile Sur Mera Tumhara" (1988) made him a household name.
3. Gangubai Hangal (Padma Vibhushan 2002) also belonged to the Kirana gharana but never got the Bharat Ratna.

Yaad rakhein: Musicians with Bharat Ratna: M. S. Subbulakshmi (1998), Ravi Shankar (1999), Lata Mangeshkar & Bismillah Khan (2001), Bhimsen Joshi (2008), Bhupen Hazarika (2019).

Answer: (D) Pandit Bhimsen Joshi

Concept: Swami Vivekananda addressed the World's Parliament of Religions at Chicago on 11 September 1893.

1. His opening words "Sisters and Brothers of America" won a standing ovation and introduced Vedanta and Hinduism to the West.
2. He founded the Ramakrishna Mission in 1897; his birthday, 12 January, is National Youth Day.

Yaad rakhein: 1893 – Chicago; 1897 – Ramakrishna Mission (Belur Math); 11 September is Digital India Day / anniversary of the Chicago speech.

Answer: (A) Chicago World's Parliament of Religions

Concept: Karagattam (Karakattam) is a Tamil Nadu folk dance in which performers balance decorated pots (karagam) on their heads.

1. It is performed in praise of the rain goddess Mariamman, especially during temple festivals in villages.
2. The two forms are Aatta Karagam (entertainment) and Sakthi Karagam (temple ritual).

Yaad rakhein: Tamil Nadu folk dances: Karagattam (pot), Mayilattam (peacock), Oyilattam, Poikkal Kudirai (dummy horse), Bommalattam (puppets).

Answer: (B) Goddess Mariamman

Concept: The Malabar Coast is the Kerala–Karnataka coast on the Arabian Sea; Lakshadweep lies 200–440 km off this coast.

1. Lakshadweep (capital Kavaratti) is a coral archipelago in the Arabian Sea, directly west of Kerala.
2. Andaman and Nicobar are in the Bay of Bengal (far east); Diu is off the Gujarat (Kathiawar) coast, not Malabar.

Yaad rakhein: Arabian Sea = Lakshadweep (36 islands, coral); Bay of Bengal = Andaman & Nicobar (volcanic/tectonic).

Answer: (A) Lakshadweep

Concept: The Gram Nyayalayas Act, 2008 provides for village-level courts for speedy, affordable justice in rural areas.

1. It was passed by Parliament in December 2008 (Act No. 4 of 2009) and came into force on 2 October 2009 (Gandhi Jayanti).
2. A Gram Nyayalaya is presided over by a Nyayadhikari, equivalent to a Judicial Magistrate First Class, and can hold mobile courts.

Yaad rakhein: Gram Nyayalayas Act – enacted 2008, in force 2 Oct 2009; based on the 114th Law Commission report.

Answer: (A) 2008

Concept: The New Development Bank (NDB), set up by BRICS in 2015 at Shanghai, has been expanding its membership beyond the founders.

1. Algeria completed its accession and became a member of the NDB in 2025, following the Board of Governors' approval of its membership.
2. Earlier new members: Bangladesh, UAE (2021), Egypt (2023); the other options (Ethiopia, Luxembourg, Taiwan) are not NDB members.

Yaad rakhein: NDB: HQ Shanghai, founded 2015 (Fortaleza Declaration 2014); President Dilma Rousseff (re-appointed 2025).

Answer: (A) Algeria

Concept: The Subsidiary Alliance system was introduced by Lord Wellesley (Governor-General 1798–1805).

1. The Nizam of Hyderabad was the first Indian ruler to sign the Subsidiary Alliance, in 1798.
2. Mysore accepted it in 1799 (after Tipu's defeat), Awadh in 1801 and the Peshwa in 1802 (Treaty of Bassein).

Yaad rakhein: Order of Subsidiary Alliance: Hyderabad (1798) → Mysore (1799) → Tanjore (1799) → Awadh (1801) → Peshwa (1802).

Answer: (C) Nizam of Hyderabad

Concept: System software manages and maintains the computer's own resources; application software performs user tasks.

1. A disk defragmenter manages the storage resource (reorganising file fragments on the disk) – a housekeeping task of the operating system, so it is a system utility.
2. Internet access, removable media or visibility to the user have nothing to do with the classification.

Yaad rakhein: System software = OS, device drivers, utilities (defragmenter, antivirus, disk cleanup); application software = Word, browsers, games.

Answer: (D) It primarily maintains and optimizes storage resources, not domain tasks like writing letters.

Concept: Charles Babbage, the "Father of the Computer", designed the Difference Engine (1822) and the Analytical Engine (1837).

1. The Analytical Engine was the first design of a general-purpose programmable mechanical computer; Ada Lovelace wrote its first algorithm.
2. ENIAC (1945, Eckert & Mauchly), UNIVAC (1951) and the Atanasoff–Berry Computer (1942) are 20th-century electronic machines.

Yaad rakhein: Babbage → Difference & Analytical Engine; Atanasoff–Berry → first electronic digital computer; ENIAC → first general-purpose electronic computer; UNIVAC → first commercial computer.

Answer: (B) Analytical Engine

Concept: "The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity" (2005) is a collection of essays by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen.

1. Amartya Sen (Nobel Prize in Economics 1998, Bharat Ratna 1999) argues that India has a long tradition of public debate and heterodoxy.
2. Shashi Tharoor wrote "An Era of Darkness"; Ramachandra Guha wrote "India After Gandhi"; Nehru wrote "The Discovery of India".

Yaad rakhein: Amartya Sen's books: The Argumentative Indian, The Idea of Justice, Development as Freedom, Home in the World (memoir).

Answer: (D) Amartya Sen

Concept: The 42nd Amendment Act, 1976 inserted Part XIV-A (Articles 323A and 323B) dealing with Tribunals.

1. Article 323A – administrative tribunals (e.g. CAT); Article 323B – tribunals for other matters (tax, land reforms, elections etc.).
2. Part XII is Finance & Property, Part IX-B is Co-operative Societies (97th Amendment), Part XV is Elections.

Yaad rakhein: 42nd Amendment ("Mini-Constitution", 1976, Swaran Singh Committee) added Part IV-A (Fundamental Duties) and Part XIV-A (Tribunals).

Answer: (A) Part XIV-A

Concept: Bhimbetka rock shelters (Raisen district, Madhya Pradesh) show continuous human occupation from the Lower Palaeolithic to historic times.

1. Excavations at Bhimbetka (V. S. Wakankar, 1957) revealed Acheulian (Lower Palaeolithic), Middle and Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic levels in the same shelters, besides famous rock paintings.
2. Chirki-Nevasa is mainly Acheulian, Adamgarh is noted for Mesolithic microliths and Paisra for Acheulian tools – none shows the full sequence.

Yaad rakhein: Bhimbetka – UNESCO World Heritage Site (2003); more than 700 rock shelters with paintings up to 30,000 years old.

Answer: (C) Bhimbetka Rock Shelters in Madya Pradesh

Concept: A bit (binary digit) is the smallest unit of data in a computer, holding a 0 or a 1.

1. All other units are built from bits: 4 bits = 1 nibble, 8 bits = 1 byte, and a word is a group of bytes the processor handles at once (e.g. 32 or 64 bits).
2. Byte is the basic unit for measuring storage size, but the basic unit for binary data is the bit.

Yaad rakhein: Bit → Nibble (4) → Byte (8) → KB → MB → GB → TB; each step after byte is $2^{10}=1024$.

Answer: (B) Bit

Concept: India is a federation with a strong unitary bias. Unitary features include a single Constitution, single citizenship, integrated judiciary, all-India services, emergency provisions and a strong Centre.

1. Integrated judiciary: one hierarchy of courts (Supreme Court at the top) enforces both Central and State laws – a unitary feature.
2. Bicameral legislature, supremacy of the Constitution and dual government (Centre + States) are federal features.

Yaad rakhein: Federal = "division" (two governments, two sets of laws); Unitary = "single" (one judiciary, one citizenship, one Constitution).

Answer: (B) Integrated judiciary

Concept: Population density = number of people living per unit area of land (usually per square kilometre).

1. $\text{Density}=\frac{\text{Population}}{\text{Land area}}$; e.g. India (2011) ≈ 382 persons per ${\text{km}}^2$.
2. Density measured only over arable land is called physiological density – a different concept; "urban centre" and "total population" are not denominators.

Yaad rakhein: Density means "how crowded" – persons per ${\text{km}}^2$ of land.

Answer: (A) Unit of land area

Concept: Speed of sound in air depends on temperature; at ${20}^{\circ }\text{C}$ it is about $343\text{m/s}$ (≈ 1235 km/h).

1. At $0^{\circ }\text{C}$ it is about $331\text{m/s}$; it rises by roughly $0.6\text{m/s}$ per ${}^{\circ }\text{C}$, so at ${20}^{\circ }\text{C}$: $331+12\approx 343\text{m/s}$.
2. $1500\text{m/s}$ is the speed in water and $\approx 5000\text{m/s}$ in steel/iron, not in air.

Yaad rakhein: Air 343, water ~1500, steel ~5000 (all in m/s) – solids fastest, gases slowest.

Answer: (A) 343 m/s

Concept: Sound is a mechanical wave: it needs a medium and travels fastest in solids, slower in liquids and slowest in gases, because particles in solids are most tightly bound (high elasticity).

1. Order of speed: Solid (iron ≈ 5000 m/s) $>$ Liquid (water ≈ 1500 m/s) $>$ Gas (air ≈ 343 m/s).
2. Vacuum has no particles, so sound cannot travel at all – it is the trap option.

Yaad rakhein: "Solid-Liquid-Gas" = fast to slow for sound; vacuum = no sound (that is why space is silent).

Answer: (D) Iron

Concept: Globalisation means integrating a country's economy with the world economy through free flow of goods, services, capital, technology and people.

1. India adopted globalisation in the 1991 LPG reforms (Liberalisation, Privatisation, Globalisation) – lowering tariffs, inviting FDI, opening trade.
2. Options B, C and D describe the opposite: state control, shrinking trade and isolation.

Yaad rakhein: LPG 1991 → "G" = Globalisation = joining the world market.

Answer: (A) Integration of a country’s economy with the world economy