NDA 2017 Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is A, it proposed that the Indian magistrates would try Europeans in criminal cases. The Ilbert Bill of 1883 sought to remove the rule that European British subjects could be tried only by European judges. It was drafted by Sir Courtenay Ilbert, the law member of Lord Ripon’s council, and would have let Indian district magistrates and sessions judges hear criminal cases against Europeans. The European community in India protested so fiercely that the bill was watered down in 1884, giving a European the right to be tried by a jury half of whose members were European. The episode taught educated Indians the value of organisation and is counted among the immediate causes of the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885. Option B is wrong because Indians could already file such cases. Option C is wrong because the bill spoke of Indian judges and magistrates generally, not of ICS officers alone. Option D is wrong because Ilbert wrote the bill; the agitation was against it. Exam tip: Ilbert Bill 1883, Lord Ripon, and the Congress in 1885.

The correct answer is A, the air pressure is less. A liquid boils when its vapour pressure equals the pressure of the air pressing on its surface, so lower air pressure means a lower boiling point. At sea level the atmosphere presses with about 101 kilopascals and water boils at 100 degrees Celsius. On a hill station the column of air above is shorter, the pressure falls, and water may boil at 90 degrees or less, which is why rice and pulses cook slowly in the mountains and a pressure cooker, which raises the pressure inside, is used to cook them faster. Option B is wrong because the surrounding temperature only decides how long heating takes, not the temperature at which boiling begins. Option C is wrong because the latent heat of vaporisation is a property of water and does not shrink with altitude. Option D is wrong because option A already states the correct reason. Exam tip: boiling point rises with pressure and falls with altitude; that single rule explains both the cooker and the hill station.

The correct answer is B, Cones. Cones are the photoreceptor cells of the retina that respond to colour in bright light. The human retina carries two kinds of photoreceptors. Cones number about six to seven million, sit densely near the centre of the retina and come in three types, sensitive to red, green and blue light; the brain mixes their signals into every shade we see. They work only when the light is good, which is why colours fade at dusk. Option A is wrong because rods are far more numerous but work in dim light and give only shades of grey, not colour. Option C is wrong because the blind spot is the point where the optic nerve leaves the eyeball and carries no photoreceptors at all. Option D is wrong because the fovea is a small pit in the retina, a place rather than a cell type, although it is packed with cones. Exam tip: rods for night and grey, cones for colour and daylight; colour blindness is a defect of the cones.