CDS GK Questions 2026

Arranged by the year each era begins, the order is Vikrama, Shaka, Kalachuri, Gupta and Harsha. The Vikrama era (Vikram Samvat) begins in 57 BCE and is still used in much of north and west India.

Statement 1 is right, but statement 2 has the date change the wrong way round. The Earth turns 360° in 24 hours, so every 15° of longitude means one hour of time.

Mosses and liverworts have no xylem or phloem, so water moves through them cell to cell. Bryophytes, such as Funaria (a moss) and Marchantia (a liverwort), are called the amphibians of the plant kingdom because they live on land but need water for fertilisation.

Copper with dilute nitric acid gives copper nitrate, water and nitric oxide: 3Cu + 8HNO 3 → 3Cu(NO 3 ) 2 + 2NO + 4H 2 O. Nitric acid is a strong oxidising agent, so metals usually do not release hydrogen from it; instead the acid itself is reduced, and…

The heat needed is 50 cal to warm the ice to 0°C, 800 cal to melt it, and 200 cal to warm all 20 g of water to 10°C. Take the specific heat of ice as 0.5 cal/g°C, the latent heat of fusion of ice as 80 cal/g and the…

Vinegar is a dilute solution of ethanoic acid, commonly called acetic acid, in water. Vinegar contains about 5 to 8 per cent ethanoic acid (CH 3 COOH) and is made by the fermentation of sugar or alcohol by acetic acid bacteria.

Cells made by the meristem lose the ability to divide and take on a fixed shape, size and job, and this change is called differentiation.

The Umaria coalfield lies in the Umaria district of Madhya Pradesh, not in Jharkhand. Most of India's coal is Gondwana coal, found in the valleys of the Damodar, Son, Mahanadi, Godavari and Wardha rivers.

In water plants, parenchyma cells enclose large air cavities; this special form is called aerenchyma, and it helps the plants float.

Iron is more reactive than copper, so it pushes copper out of copper sulphate, and the freed copper coats the nail brown.

Kudremukh in Karnataka is known for iron ore, not bauxite, so this pair is wrong. The Kudremukh hills in the Western Ghats of Chikkamagaluru district hold large deposits of magnetite iron ore.

The islands get most of their rain from the south-west monsoon, from about May to September, with more from the north-east monsoon later; March and April are among the driest months.

Rutherford found the nucleus to be positively charged, not neutral. In his gold foil experiment of 1911, Rutherford fired alpha particles at a very thin sheet of gold.

Only statement III is wrong, because colloidal particles are too small to be seen with the naked eye. Mixtures are graded by particle size.

Sound travels faster in warmer air, so statement I is wrong, while II and III are right. The speed of sound in a gas is v = √(γP/ρ).

Fungal cell walls are built mainly of chitin, whereas plant cell walls are built of cellulose. Chitin is a tough polysaccharide made of units of N-acetylglucosamine, a sugar that carries nitrogen.

This filarial roundworm causes elephantiasis, also called lymphatic filariasis. The adult worms live in the lymphatic vessels and block the flow of lymph, so the legs, arms or genitals swell and the skin thickens, giving the disease its name.

It is part of the kidney's nephron and filters blood to form urine; it plays no role in breathing. Bowman's capsule is the cup-shaped start of each nephron, wrapped around a tuft of capillaries called the glomerulus.

Boiling removes only temporary hardness; permanent hardness comes from salts that do not break down on heating. Temporary hardness is caused by the bicarbonates of calcium and magnesium.

The Scottish historian and philosopher James Mill published 'The History of British India' in three volumes in 1817. Mill wrote the work without ever visiting India or knowing an Indian language, and he judged Indian society as backward and in need of reform by British law and government.