CDS Previous Year GK Questions

It is a form of physical, or mechanical, weathering: the rock breaks into pieces but its chemical make-up does not change.

Sponges are the members of phylum Porifera, a name that means "pore bearers", because their bodies are full of tiny pores called ostia.

It is an entry of the Concurrent List, not the State List, so both Parliament and the state legislatures can make laws on it.

A monatomic element exists as single, separate atoms. Helium is a noble gas of group 18: its only shell, the first, is full with two electrons, so a helium atom has no tendency to share or transfer electrons and does not bond even with another helium atom.

The Election Commission of India sorts political parties into three categories under the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968: National Parties, State Parties (recognised in particular states) and Registered Unrecognised Parties.

The Peninsula Shield Force is the joint military force of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), set up in 1984 to deter and respond to attacks on its member states.

Plantation agriculture means growing a single cash crop such as tea, coffee, rubber or spices on large estates, with heavy capital, hired labour and processing on the spot.

Under the Subsidiary Alliance, introduced by Lord Wellesley (Governor-General 1798–1805), the Indian ruler gave up exactly this freedom: he could not make war, sign treaties or even employ other Europeans without the Company's consent, and he had to keep a British Resident at his court.

The Sahajiya cult grew out of late Tantric Buddhism in eastern India, especially Bengal, and is often called Sahajayana, a branch of Vajrayana.

Isobars are lines on a weather map joining places that have the same atmospheric pressure, reduced to sea level. The pressure gradient is the rate at which pressure changes over a horizontal distance.

Blood pressure is written as two numbers, and normal adult blood pressure is about 120/80 mm of mercury.

UN peacekeeping missions are set up by resolutions of the Security Council, the organ that the UN Charter makes primarily responsible for international peace and security, so the power does not rest exclusively with the General Assembly and statement 1 is wrong.

Anthropology, from the Greek 'anthropos' (human) and 'logos' (study), is the science of human beings: how societies and cultures began, how they changed and how people live today.

The Soo Locks, or Sault Ste. Marie canals, carry ships around the rapids of the St. Marys River, which drains Lake Superior into Lake Huron.

Jahandar Shah won the throne in 1712 with the help of Zulfiqar Khan, and the Sayyid brothers, Abdullah Khan and Husain Ali Khan, helped his nephew Farrukhsiyar defeat and kill him in 1713.

Mangaluru lies on the Karnataka coast, on the western, windward side of the Western Ghats. The south-west monsoon winds coming off the Arabian Sea strike the Ghats there, rise and shed heavy rain, so the coastal belt gets well over 3,000 mm a year.

The Alvars were twelve Tamil poet-saints, active roughly between the 6th and 9th centuries, whose name means 'those who are immersed' in devotion to Vishnu.

Naropa is a Buddhist festival held at Hemis Monastery in Ladakh in honour of Naropa, the 11th-century Indian scholar-yogi of Nalanda and Vikramashila whose teachings shaped the Drukpa Kagyu order that runs Hemis.

This is part of the very definition of a parliamentary committee: it is appointed or elected by the House or nominated by the presiding officer, works under the presiding officer's direction, reports to the House, and has a secretariat provided by the Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha secretariat.

A blizzard is a severe snowstorm with strong winds, blowing snow and very low visibility, so it occurs only where there is heavy snowfall in winter.