Sports GK Mixed Quiz: Set 6

The correct answer is A, Ajit Pal Singh, the centre half who captained India to the World Cup title at Kuala Lumpur in 1975. He had also played in the World Cups of 1971 and 1973 and was later given the Padma Shri for his services to the game.

Option B, Ashok Kumar, played in that final and scored the winning goal against Pakistan, but he was not the captain; he is remembered as the son of Dhyan Chand. Option C, Vasudevan Bhaskaran, captained the team that won the Olympic gold at Moscow in 1980, five years later. Option D, Kishan Lal, led India to the Olympic gold at London in 1948, the first won after independence, twenty seven years before this World Cup. A question of this kind usually mixes the captains of different titles, so the safe way is to learn the pairs together: 1948 London with Kishan Lal, 1975 World Cup with Ajit Pal Singh and 1980 Moscow with Vasudevan Bhaskaran.

The correct answer is C, Hockey. Back-stick is a foul in field hockey, called when a player strikes the ball with the rounded back of the stick.

A hockey stick has one flat face and one rounded face, and only the flat face may touch the ball. Using the rounded side gives the offending side a penalty and the other team a free hit. Other terms a paper setter may pair with hockey are bully, dribble, scoop, push-in, short corner, penalty stroke, tackle and hat-trick.

A is wrong: basketball terms include dribble, pivot, dunk, lay-up and free throw. B is wrong: badminton terms include smash, drop shot, deuce, let and service court. D is wrong: volleyball terms include spike, block, serve, dig and libero.

Exam tip: Back-stick, bully, scoop and short corner all belong to hockey; pivot and dunk to basketball.

The correct answer is D, Australian Open 2009. Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi won the mixed doubles title at Melbourne Park in 2009, and that made Mirza the first Indian woman to win any Grand Slam title. She had already been the first Indian woman to reach the fourth round of a Major, at the US Open in 2005.

Options A and B, Wimbledon 2015 and the US Open 2015, are both real Mirza titles but in women's doubles, won with Martina Hingis of Switzerland, and they came six years after the first. Option C, the French Open in 2012, is also a genuine Mirza title in mixed doubles, won with Mahesh Bhupathi, but it was her second mixed doubles Major and not her first of all. The pair added the Australian Open women's doubles in 2016, so Mirza's Major titles run across mixed and women's doubles; the one the exam wants as her first is Melbourne in 2009.

The correct answer is C, Manipur. M. C. Mary Kom was born in Kangathei village of Churachandpur district in Manipur.

Mary Kom is the only woman boxer to have won six world championship titles, and she is nicknamed Magnificent Mary. She took the bronze medal in the flyweight class at the London Olympics of 2012, the first Indian woman boxer to win an Olympic medal, and she has also won gold at the Asian Games of 2014 and the Commonwealth Games of 2018. She received the Arjuna Award, the Padma Shri, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan, and served as a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha.

Option A is wrong because Mizoram is best known in Indian sport for footballers. Option B is wrong because Assam is the home state of the boxer Shiva Thapa and the sprinter Hima Das. Option D is wrong because Meghalaya has produced no boxer of this record.

Exam tip: Mary Kom of Manipur, six world titles, bronze at London 2012, called Magnificent Mary.

The correct answer is D, 11. A hockey side fields eleven players at a time, one of whom is the goalkeeper, and the other ten are spread across defence, midfield and attack. Substitutes wait off the field and may be sent on and taken off any number of times while play goes on, which is called rolling substitution, but the count on the field never rises above eleven unless the umpire has to be told otherwise.

Option A, 10, is the number a team is left with after a player is sent off with a yellow or a red card, not the normal count. Option B, 16, is the size of the full squad a team names for a tournament such as the Olympics, of whom eleven take the field. Option C, 12, is the number in a kho kho team, of whom nine enter the field. Cricket and football also field eleven players each, which is why such a question often lists several eleven player games together.

The correct answer is C, Bhalchandra Bhaskar Bhagwat. The Dronacharya Award, India's honour for coaches who produce outstanding sportspersons, was given for the first time in 1985, and Bhalchandra Bhaskar Bhagwat, a wrestling coach, was among the first three to receive it, along with O.M. Nambiar in athletics and Om Prakash Bhardwaj in boxing. The award is named after Dronacharya, the teacher of the Pandavas and the Kauravas in the Mahabharata, and it carries a bronze statuette of Dronacharya, a certificate and a cash prize. It is given in two categories, regular and lifetime. Option A is wrong because Hansa Sharma was not among the first recipients. Option B is wrong because Karan Singh did not receive the award in 1985. Option D is wrong because Hawa Singh, the boxer, was honoured as a coach much later, not in the first list. Exam tip: the Dronacharya Award began in 1985, the Arjuna Award in 1961 and the Khel Ratna in 1991-92.

The correct answer is B, 1968. Until that year the Majors were reserved for amateurs, and the best players of the day, once they turned professional, could no longer enter them. In 1968 the tournaments were opened to all players, and every season from then on is called the Open Era, which is why the Australian Championships became the Australian Open and the French Championships the French Open.

Option A, 1958, is a decade too early and belongs to the period when the amateur rule was still being argued over. Option C, 1977, is the year of the Wimbledon centenary, a hundred years after 1877, which makes it a plausible looking but wrong choice. Option D, 1988, is the year Steffi Graf completed the Golden Slam and also the year tennis returned to the Olympic Games as a full medal sport at Seoul, so it appears in several tennis questions, just not in this one.

The correct answer is B, Fencing. Chadalavada Anandha Sundhararaman Bhavani Devi is an Indian fencer from Chennai who competes in the sabre event. She became the first Indian fencer to qualify for the Olympic Games, at Tokyo in 2021, and won her opening bout there. She has taken gold at the Commonwealth Fencing Championship and a medal at the Asian Fencing Championship, and she trains with support from the Target Olympic Podium Scheme. Fencing is a sword-fighting sport with three weapons - foil, epee and sabre - fought on a strip called a piste, where hits are recorded electronically. Option A is wrong because rowing is a water sport, in which India has been represented by athletes such as Bajrang Lal Takhar. Option C is wrong because Bhavani Devi has never been a boxer. Option D is wrong because she is not a wrestler. Exam tip: Bhavani Devi is a fencer in the sabre event and the first Indian fencer at the Olympics.

The correct answer is B, hockey. A penalty corner, also called a short corner, is awarded when a defender breaks a rule inside the striking circle or deliberately puts the ball out over the back line. The ball is pushed out from the back line, stopped at the top of the circle and then struck at the goal while the defenders wait behind their goal line, and it is the way a large share of goals in modern hockey are scored.

Option A, volleyball, uses terms such as service, smash, block, deuce and libero. Option C, basketball, uses dribble, pivot, free throw, rebound and dunk. Option D, badminton, uses smash, drop shot, let, deuce and shuttle. Bully, penalty stroke, astroturf, scoop and flick are the other words that belong with hockey.

The correct answer is C, Balbir Singh Dosanjh, the hockey centre forward known as Balbir Singh Sr. He won Olympic gold with India in 1948, 1952 and 1956, scored five goals in the 1952 final against the Netherlands, and in 1957 became the first sportsperson of any game to be given the Padma Shri, which opened the civilian honours to sport.

Option A, Manpreet Singh, is a much later player who captained the team to the bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. Option B, Milkha Singh, the athlete called the Flying Sikh, did receive the Padma Shri, but after Balbir Singh Sr and for athletics, not hockey. Option D, Dhanraj Pillay, was a celebrated forward of the 1990s and 2000s and was honoured much later still, so none of the three came first.

The correct answer is B, Rod Laver. The Australian won all four Majors in the same calendar year in 1962 as an amateur and did it again in 1969, in the second year of the Open Era, which no other man has matched. The main arena of the Australian Open in Melbourne is named the Rod Laver Arena in his honour.

Option A, Don Budge of the United States, was the first man ever to complete a calendar Grand Slam, in 1938, but he did it only once. Option C, Roger Federer, won twenty Major singles titles and held three of the four at once more than once, but never all four inside a single calendar year. Option D, Bjorn Borg, won the French Open and Wimbledon repeatedly but never played the Australian Open in his prime years and never won the US Open, so a calendar Slam was out of reach. Among women, Maureen Connolly in 1953, Margaret Court in 1970 and Steffi Graf in 1988 completed the feat once each.

The correct answer is B, Wimbledon. The Championships were first played at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in London in 1877, which makes Wimbledon the oldest tennis tournament in the world. That first edition had only a gentlemen's singles event; the ladies' singles was added in 1884.

Option A, the US Open, began in 1881 as the US National Championship, four years after Wimbledon, and is the second oldest of the four. Option C, the French Open, dates from 1891 but stayed a national event, open only to members of French clubs, until 1925, so it is often shown as the youngest in international terms while still older than the Australian event. Option D, the Australian Open, was first held in 1905 as the Australasian Championships and is the newest of the four. Fixing the order 1877, 1881, 1891, 1905 in memory settles every question of this kind.

The correct answer is D, Moscow 1980. India beat Spain 4–3 in the final at the Moscow Games to win its eighth Olympic hockey gold, under the captaincy of Vasudevan Bhaskaran, and the team has not won the gold since. At the Tokyo Games of 2020 India returned to the podium with a bronze after a gap of forty one years.

Option A, Tokyo 1964, was the seventh gold, won against Pakistan in the final. Option B, Mexico City 1968, and Option C, Munich 1972, were the two Games at which India finished third and took the bronze medal, the first slip after the long golden run. The shift to artificial astroturf pitches from the Montreal Games of 1976 is one reason usually given for the decline that followed.

The correct answer is A, Badminton. The Sudirman Cup is the world mixed team championship of badminton, organised by the Badminton World Federation (BWF). It was first held in 1989 in Jakarta and is named after Dick Sudirman, the founder of the Badminton Association of Indonesia. Each tie has five matches, men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles, women's doubles and mixed doubles, so a country needs strong men and women players to win. It is held every two years. The other two team trophies of badminton are the Thomas Cup for men and the Uber Cup for women. B is wrong because baseball's top events include the World Series in the United States and the World Baseball Classic. C is wrong because volleyball has the FIVB World Championship and the Volleyball Nations League. D is wrong because basketball's world event is the FIBA World Cup, and the William Jones Cup is another basketball trophy. Exam tip: badminton team trophies, Thomas Cup (men), Uber Cup (women), Sudirman Cup (mixed).

The correct answer is B, Steffi Graf. In 1988 the German won the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open, and then took the Olympic singles gold medal at Seoul, the first Games at which tennis was again a full medal sport. No other player, man or woman, has completed all five in a single year.

Option A, Martina Navratilova, won eighteen Major singles titles including nine at Wimbledon, and held all four at once across two seasons, but never inside one calendar year and never with an Olympic gold. Option C, Margaret Court, completed the calendar Grand Slam in 1970 and holds the all-time record of twenty-four women's singles Majors, but tennis was not then an Olympic medal sport. Option D, Serena Williams, holds the Open Era women's record of twenty-three Major singles titles and has Olympic gold medals, but her four in a row, the so-called Serena Slam, ran across 2014 and 2015 rather than one year.

The correct answer is C, Football. All three are Indian football tournaments. The Durand Cup, first played in 1888 and named after Sir Mortimer Durand, then Foreign Secretary of British India, is Asia's oldest football tournament and is still organised with the help of the armed forces. The Santosh Trophy is the national football championship for state teams, first held in 1941. The Rovers Cup was a famous club tournament played in Mumbai from 1891. Papers often mix these with trophies from other sports, so learn them in sets. A is wrong because hockey's well-known Indian trophies include the Beighton Cup and the Aga Khan Cup. B is wrong because cricket's domestic trophies are the Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy, Irani Cup and Vijay Hazare Trophy. D is wrong because badminton's world team events are the Thomas Cup for men, the Uber Cup for women and the Sudirman Cup for mixed teams. Exam tip: Durand, Santosh, Rovers, Federation Cup = football; Ranji, Duleep, Irani = cricket; Beighton, Aga Khan = hockey.

The correct answer is C, hockey. The Beighton Cup, played at Kolkata, is the oldest hockey tournament in India, and the Agha Khan Cup is another of the old club competitions of the game. The Rangaswami Cup of the national championship, the Nehru Trophy, the Scindia Gold Cup and the Obaidullah Gold Cup are hockey trophies as well.

Option A, football, has the Durand Cup, the Santosh Trophy, the Rovers Cup and the IFA Shield. Option B, cricket, has the Ranji Trophy, the Duleep Trophy, the Irani Cup and the Vijay Hazare Trophy. Option D, table tennis, has the Swaythling Cup for men and the Corbillon Cup for women. Matching a trophy with its game is a standing question in the general awareness paper, so these lists are worth learning together.

The correct answer is C, deuce. Points in a game are called fifteen, thirty and forty, and when both players reach forty the score is deuce. From there a player must win two points in a row to take the game, and the game can return to deuce any number of times.

Option A, love, means a score of zero, so a game opening with a point to the server is fifteen love and a set won without dropping a game is six love. Option B, advantage, is the score after a player wins the point immediately following deuce; winning the next point as well gives that player the game, while losing it takes the score back to deuce. Option D, a let, is not a score at all but an order to replay the point, most often called when a serve clips the top of the net and still lands in the correct service box. Knowing all four terms together makes this family of questions straightforward.

The correct answer is A, FIH, the International Hockey Federation, founded in 1924 and having its headquarters at Lausanne in Switzerland. It frames the rules of the game, runs the World Cup and the other international competitions and recognises the national associations, of which Hockey India is the Indian member.

Option B, FIFA, founded in 1904 and based at Zurich, governs association football. Option C, the ICC, the International Cricket Council, governs cricket and has its headquarters at Dubai. Option D, the IAAF, the old name of the world body for athletics, now called World Athletics, is based at Monaco. Only the FIH deals with hockey, and a question that pairs a body with its game or with its headquarters city is worth preparing as one list: FIH with Lausanne, FIFA with Zurich, the ICC with Dubai and World Athletics with Monaco.

The correct answer is C, 78 feet. Under the Rules of Tennis a court is 78 feet, about 23.77 metres, from baseline to baseline, and the length is the same whether singles or doubles is being played. Only the width changes: 27 feet for singles and 36 feet for doubles, the extra strip on each side being the tramlines.

Option A, 68 feet, and option B, 74 feet, are simply short of the true figure and have no standing in the rules. Option D, 84 feet, is longer than any tennis court, though the total playing area including the run back behind each baseline does extend well past 78 feet, which is what makes the option look reasonable. The other measurement worth carrying into the hall is the height of the net, 3 feet at the centre and 3 feet 6 inches at the posts.