Awards & Honours Mixed Quiz: Set 20

The correct answer is B, 1979. The Pritzker Architecture Prize was founded in 1979 by Jay A. Pritzker and Cindy Pritzker through the Hyatt Foundation of the United States, and the first laureate in that year was Philip Johnson of the United States. The award carries one hundred thousand dollars and a bronze medallion inscribed with the Vitruvian words for firmness, usefulness and beauty. A is wrong because 1969 is the year the Booker Prize for fiction was instituted. C is wrong because 1989 is the year of the Goldman Environmental Prize, known as the Green Nobel, and of the Praemium Imperiale. D is wrong because 1999 has no major international prize attached to it and is placed as filler. Candidates should hold the field and the founding year together for each award in this chapter.

The correct answer is A, Major Somnath Sharma. He was awarded the Param Vir Chakra posthumously for the action at Badgam in Kashmir in November 1947, during the first conflict after independence, and the medal itself was instituted on 26 January 1950 with effect from 15 August 1947. Option B is wrong because Captain Vikram Batra received the Param Vir Chakra posthumously for the Kargil conflict of 1999. Option C is wrong because Subedar Joginder Singh was honoured for the conflict with China in 1962. Option D is wrong because Major Shaitan Singh was honoured for the battle of Rezang La in the same conflict of 1962. The design of the medal is credited to Savitri Khanolkar. Twenty-one Param Vir Chakras have been awarded, the majority of them posthumously, and the medal carries the state emblem surrounded by four replicas of Indra's Vajra.

The correct answer is C, 2000. The awards were established in 1999 by the founders of the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation, and the first ceremony took place in 2000 at Monte Carlo in Monaco, where Nelson Mandela, the patron of the awards, said that sport has the power to change the world. Option A is wrong because 1996 is the year of the Atlanta Olympic Games and has nothing to do with these awards. Option B is wrong because 1999 is the year the awards were set up, which is the trap this question is built on: the setting up and the first ceremony fall in different years, and papers use one against the other. Option D is wrong because 2004 is the year the International Cricket Council began its own annual awards, including the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy.

The correct answer is C, 31 October. The Sardar Patel National Unity Award is announced on 31 October, the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, which is observed as Rashtriya Ekta Diwas or National Unity Day. Option A is wrong because the Padma awards are announced on the eve of Republic Day and conferred later, so 26 January belongs to a different set of honours. Option B is wrong: 2 October is the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and is observed as the International Day of Non Violence, but the Gandhi Peace Prize is not tied to that date. Option D is wrong because no civilian award in this chapter is announced on Independence Day; 15 August is the day gallantry awards are announced. Note also that the Patel award carries a medal and a citation and no cash, and at most three awards may be given in a year.

The correct answer is B, Balkrishna Doshi. Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi became the first Indian to win the Pritzker Prize when it was conferred on him in 2018; he had trained under Le Corbusier, and his works include the Indian Institute of Management at Bangalore and the Aranya low-cost housing at Indore. A is wrong because Charles Correa, the architect of the Jawahar Kala Kendra at Jaipur, received the Royal Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1984 but never the Pritzker, and he is the strongest distractor in this question. C is wrong because Laurie Baker, the British-born architect who worked in Kerala with low-cost local materials, received the Padma Shri but not the Pritzker. D is wrong because Raj Rewal, known for the Asian Games Village in Delhi, has also not received it.

The correct answer is C, 1917. Joseph Pulitzer died in 1911 and his will provided for the prizes, which Columbia University first gave out in 1917. Option A is wrong because 1901 is the year the Nobel Prizes were first awarded, a date candidates often transfer to the Pulitzer by mistake. Option B is wrong because 1911 is the year of Pulitzer's death, not of the first award. Option D is wrong because 1927 is far too late. A clean way to hold the sequence is Nobel 1901, Pulitzer 1917, Magsaysay 1957, Chameli Devi Jain 1980, Ramnath Goenka 2006. Questions in this area almost always test one of these founding years, and the Nobel and Pulitzer pair is the commonest trap of the set. Note also that the journalism categories are open mainly to work published by United States newspapers, magazines and news websites, which is why Indian winners appear through American organisations rather than through Indian ones.

The correct answer is A, Nelson Mandela. The first President of a democratic South Africa was the patron of the Laureus awards, and at the opening ceremony in 2000 he said that sport has the power to change the world and to unite people in a way that little else does; the sentence is now printed with the awards. Option B is wrong because Juan Antonio Samaranch was President of the International Olympic Committee and belongs to the Olympic movement, not to Laureus. Option C is wrong because Pele received the first Laureus Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000 but was a recipient at that ceremony and not its patron, which makes him the strongest distractor here. Option D is wrong because Sebastian Coe is a middle distance runner turned administrator, associated with athletics and with the London Games.

The correct answer is D, Smriti Mandhana. The India opener was named ICC Women's Cricketer of the Year for 2021 and received the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy in January 2022. She had scored 855 international runs across the three formats in that year, including India's first century in a day-night Test, made against Australia at Carrara. The trophy is named after Rachael Heyhoe Flint, the England captain who pushed for women's cricket at Lord's and for the first Women's World Cup in 1973. Option A is wrong because Mithali Raj, India's long-serving captain, has never won this particular trophy. Option B is wrong because Ellyse Perry of Australia won it in 2019, not for 2021. Option C is wrong because Lizelle Lee of South Africa took the ICC Women's ODI Cricketer of the Year award that season, which is a separate prize. Exam tip: the women's award is the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy, the men's is the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy.

The correct answer is A, Mother Teresa. The Templeton Prize was established in 1972 by Sir John Templeton for exceptional contribution to affirming the spiritual dimension of life, and Mother Teresa, the founder of the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata, received the very first award in 1973; she went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. B is wrong because Baba Amte, who worked with leprosy patients at Anandwan in Maharashtra, received the Templeton Prize in 1990. C is wrong because the fourteenth Dalai Lama received it in 2012, long after the first award. D is wrong because Pandurang Shastri Athavale, the founder of the Swadhyaya movement, received it in 1997. All four are genuine recipients, so only the year separates the right answer from the rest.

The correct answer is C, 1992. The Academy gave Satyajit Ray an honorary award for his lifetime of work in cinema, and it was handed to him in a Kolkata hospital as he was too ill to travel. He died a few weeks later in the same year, and the Government of India conferred the Bharat Ratna on him in 1992 as well.

Option A, 1983, is the year Bhanu Athaiya won the costume design Oscar for Gandhi, which is the confusion this question rests on. Option B, 1985, is the year Ray was given the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in India, an honour that is often mixed with the Academy award in the options. Option D, 2009, is the year of the four Oscars for Slumdog Millionaire. Ray's films, beginning with Pather Panchali of 1955, had by then been honoured at Cannes, Venice and Berlin.

The correct answer is B, Best Sporting Moment. The award went to the scene after India won the World Cup of 2011, when the younger players carried Sachin Tendulkar on their shoulders around the Wankhede ground; the Best Sporting Moment is the one Laureus award decided by a public vote, which is why the Indian following mattered. Option A is wrong because the World Sportsman of the Year is an award for the season just gone and has not come to an Indian cricketer. Option C is wrong because the Lifetime Achievement Award is a separate category whose first recipient was Pele in 2000. Option D is wrong because the Comeback of the Year is given for a return after injury or a long absence, which is not what the 2020 award recognised.

The correct answer is B, the discovery of the Raman effect. C. V. Raman announced his discovery of the scattering effect now named after him on 28 February 1928, and since 1987 India has observed that date as National Science Day, with a theme, lectures and science fairs in schools and laboratories. Option A is wrong because the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research was founded in 1942 and its founding day is not this date. Option C is wrong because India's first satellite, Aryabhata, was launched in 1975 and the day is not marked as a national observance. Option D is wrong because the nuclear tests conducted at Pokhran in 1998 are marked on 11 May as National Technology Day, a date often exchanged with this one in examination papers.

The correct answer is B, the spiritual dimension of life. Sir John Templeton endowed the prize in 1972 for a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life's spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery or practical works, and he insisted that its value always exceed that of the Nobel Prize. A is wrong because architecture is the field of the Pritzker Prize, founded in 1979. C is wrong because mathematics is covered by the Fields Medal, restricted to those under forty, and by the Abel Prize of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. D is wrong because grassroots environmental activism is recognised by the Goldman Environmental Prize, called the Green Nobel, and partly by the Right Livelihood Award. Matching each prize to its field is the first step in this chapter.

The correct answer is A, tolerance and non-violence. The prize was created in 1995, a year that marked both the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations and the hundred and twenty fifth birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, and it is named after Madanjeet Singh, the Indian artist, writer and diplomat who endowed it. It is awarded every two years on 16 November, the International Day for Tolerance. Option B is wrong because adult literacy is rewarded by the King Sejong and Confucius literacy prizes. Option C is wrong because scientific research as such is not the subject; UNESCO's science prizes reward the popularisation of science and ethics in science. Option D is wrong because freedom of information belongs with the Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, given on 3 May.

The correct answer is B, France Football. The French magazine France Football created the Ballon d’Or in 1956 on the idea of its editor Gabriel Hanot, and the winner is settled on the votes of journalists, which is what separates it from an award given by a federation. Option A is wrong because L’Equipe is the French sports daily from the same publishing house and is remembered for proposing the European Cup, not the Ballon d’Or. Option C is wrong because World Soccer is a British magazine that runs awards of its own, which are not the Ballon d’Or. Option D is wrong because Marca is a Spanish sports daily that gives the Pichichi trophy to the leading scorer of the Spanish league and the Zamora trophy to the best goalkeeper there.

The correct answer is C, 1995. The Government of India instituted the Gandhi Peace Prize in 1995, the year of the 125th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, and it is administered by the Ministry of Culture. Option A is wrong because 1969 was the centenary year of Gandhi's birth, when other memorials were set up but not this prize. Option B is wrong because 1991 is the year of the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award, later renamed, and has no link with this prize. Option D is wrong because 2000 is simply a round year offered as a distractor. Learn the amount with the year: the prize carries one crore rupees along with a citation and a plaque, it may be given to a person or to an institution, and the jury is headed by the Prime Minister of India.

The correct answer is B, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. The Abel Prize was established in 2002, the bicentenary of the birth of the Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel, first awarded in 2003 to Jean-Pierre Serre, and it carries no age limit, so it recognises a lifetime of work. A is wrong because the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences selects the Nobel laureates in physics and chemistry and the economics laureate, but there is no Nobel Prize in mathematics at all. C is wrong because the International Mathematical Union awards the Fields Medal, given every four years to mathematicians under forty. D is wrong because the Association for Computing Machinery awards the Turing Award, the highest honour in computer science. For revision, note that the Fields Medal is the one restricted by age and the Abel the one that is not, and that both exist because Alfred Nobel's will of 1895 named no prize for mathematics.

The correct answer is A, Stanley Matthews. The English winger, then playing for Blackpool and already past forty, received the first Ballon d’Or in 1956, at a time when only European players could be considered. Option B is wrong because Alfredo Di Stefano, the Real Madrid forward, won the award twice later in the nineteen fifties and is the strongest distractor because he dominated that decade. Option C is wrong because Raymond Kopa, the French forward, won in 1958, and his name now belongs to the Kopa Trophy for the best young player. Option D is wrong because Lev Yashin won in 1963 and is remembered for a different reason, as the only goalkeeper ever to take the award, after whom the Yashin Trophy is named.

The correct answer is A, below the age of forty. The Fields Medal was instituted in 1936 and is awarded every four years at the International Congress of Mathematicians, with the condition that the recipient be under forty on the first of January of that year, the purpose being to encourage further achievement rather than to crown a career. B is wrong because the medal has no nationality requirement and has gone to mathematicians from many countries; Manjul Bhargava and Akshay Venkatesh, both of Indian origin, won in 2014 and 2018. C is wrong because the rule is the reverse of an upper age bar of forty. D is wrong because no condition of employment applies. Maryam Mirzakhani of Iran became the first woman to win the medal, in 2014.

The correct answer is A, goalkeeper to have won the award. Lev Yashin of the Soviet Union, known as the black spider for his dark jersey and his reach, won the Ballon d’Or in 1963, and no other goalkeeper has taken it since, which is why the trophy for the best goalkeeper of the year, given from 2019, is named the Yashin Trophy. Option B is wrong because several defenders have won the award, among them Franz Beckenbauer and Fabio Cannavaro. Option C is wrong because the award has not gone to a player from Asia, and in any case Yashin was European. Option D is wrong because winning in consecutive years has happened more than once, so it is no distinction peculiar to Yashin.