Static GK Mixed Quiz: Set 14

The correct answer is B, Hyderabad. Bharat Dynamics Limited was set up in 1970 at Hyderabad to produce guided missiles for the armed forces, and it works closely with the DRDO missile laboratories DRDL and the Research Centre Imarat, which are in the same city. Mishra Dhatu Nigam, which makes the special alloys these systems need, is also at Hyderabad.

Option A, Bengaluru, is the headquarters of Hindustan Aeronautics, Bharat Electronics and BEML, so it is the natural trap for any defence production question. Option C, Pune, holds the Defence Institute of Advanced Technology and the Armament Research and Development Establishment. Option D, Nashik, has a major Hindustan Aeronautics aircraft division but is not a company headquarters.

Its units are at Kanchanbagh in Hyderabad, at Bhanur in Telangana and at Visakhapatnam, and it has produced the Akash surface-to-air system and anti-tank missiles for the Army.

The correct answer is A, Brazil. Brazil is called the Coffee Bowl of the World because it grows and sends out more coffee than any other country and has done so for more than a century. Its coffee belt lies in the south-east, in the states of Minas Gerais, Sao Paulo and Parana, where the deep red soil called terra rossa, the warm climate and the rolling plateau suit the plant. The large estates there are known as fazendas, and the port of Santos handles much of the export. Coffee needs a hot, wet climate with well drained slopes, which is why it is a plantation crop of the tropics. B is wrong because Mexico is a smaller coffee grower and is better known for maize and silver. C is wrong because India grows coffee mainly in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu but is far behind Brazil. D is wrong because Serbia has a cool climate that cannot support coffee at all. Exam tip: Brazil Coffee Bowl of the World, Sri Lanka Pearl of the Indian Ocean, Cuba Sugar Bowl of the World.

The correct answer is A, Vikram Sarabhai. Sarabhai set up the Physical Research Laboratory at Ahmedabad, persuaded the government that a developing country needed space technology for communication and weather, and built the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station in Kerala, so he is called the father of the Indian space programme. The Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre at Thiruvananthapuram carries his name.

Option B, C. V. Raman, won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930 for the scattering of light, and National Science Day marks the day of his discovery. Option C, Meghnad Saha, gave the ionisation equation used in the study of stellar spectra. Option D, Jagadish Chandra Bose, worked on radio waves and on plant response. Each is a great Indian scientist, but only Sarabhai is tied to the space programme.

The correct answer is D, India, Australia, Japan and the US. Malabar 2020 was held in two phases in November 2020, the first in the Bay of Bengal off Visakhapatnam and the second in the Arabian Sea, and Australia joined India, Japan and the United States in it. Malabar began in 1992 as a bilateral naval exercise between the Indian Navy and the US Navy. Japan became a permanent participant in 2015. Australia had taken part once in 2007 and then returned in 2020, which brought the navies of all four Quad countries together in the same exercise. The drills cover anti-submarine warfare, air defence, cross-deck flying and live firing. Option A is wrong because that was the three-nation line-up from 2015 to 2019, before Australia rejoined. Option B is wrong because Israel has never been part of Malabar. Option C is wrong for the same reason, and it also leaves out Japan, a permanent member. Exam tip: Malabar started 1992 as India-US, Japan permanent from 2015, Australia from 2020 — the four Quad navies.

The correct answer is C, X-Rays. Roentgen, a German physicist, noticed in 1895 that a screen in his darkened laboratory glowed while a covered discharge tube was running, and he named the unknown radiation X-rays. For this he received the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901. Option A is wrong because the conservation of electric charge is a principle established through the work of Benjamin Franklin and others, not a discovery of Roentgen. Option B is wrong because a practical incandescent electric bulb was made by Thomas Alva Edison in 1879, sixteen years before the X-ray. Option D is wrong because thermodynamics grew out of the work of Carnot, Joule, Clausius and Kelvin and is a body of laws rather than a single discovery. Remember the pairing of Roentgen, X-rays, 1895 and the first physics Nobel of 1901 together.

The correct answer is C, New Delhi and Varanasi Junction. The first Vande Bharat Express was flagged off on 15 February 2019 on the New Delhi to Varanasi route. It was built at the Integral Coach Factory in Chennai and was known as Train 18 while under development. The train is India's first indigenous semi high-speed train set: it has no separate engine, as motors are spread under the coaches, which lets it pick up speed quickly, and it is designed for 160 kilometres an hour. The second Vande Bharat, started later in 2019, runs from New Delhi to Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra. Option A is wrong because the Howrah to Puri service is one of the many later Vande Bharat trains. Option B is wrong because Mumbai Central to Ahmedabad is the bullet train corridor under construction and got its Vande Bharat only in 2022. Option D is wrong because Hazrat Nizamuddin to Jhansi is the route of the Gatimaan Express. Exam tip: Train 18, ICF Chennai, 15 February 2019.

The correct answer is C, the President of India. Article 53 of the Constitution vests the supreme command of the defence forces of the Union in the President, and the exercise of that command is regulated by law; commissions to officers are granted in the President's name. Option A is wrong because the Prime Minister heads the government and the Cabinet Committee on Security, and the President acts on ministerial advice, but the Prime Minister is not the Supreme Commander. Option B is wrong because the Defence Minister heads the Ministry of Defence, which is the administrative department for the forces, not the commander of them. Option D is wrong because the Chief of Defence Staff, a post created in 2019, is the principal military adviser to the Defence Minister and head of the Department of Military Affairs. The constitutional office is the answer examiners want.

The correct answer is A, Kolkata. Kolkata earned the name City of Palaces in the colonial era for the grand mansions built by British officials and rich Bengali families along its main streets. It was the capital of British India until 1911, when the capital moved to Delhi, and many of those buildings still stand, from the Victoria Memorial to the Marble Palace and the Writers Building. The city also carries the names City of Joy and the cultural capital of India, and it was the first city in India to get a metro railway, in 1984. B is wrong because Hyderabad is the City of Pearls and the City of Nizams. C is wrong because Mumbai is known as the Gateway of India, the City of Seven Islands and the financial capital of India. D is wrong because Chennai is called the Gateway of South India and the Detroit of India for its car industry. Exam tip: Kolkata = City of Palaces and City of Joy; Hyderabad = City of Pearls; Jaipur = Pink City; Udaipur = City of Lakes.

The correct answer is A, Boston. The Freedom Trail is a 2.5-mile red brick path laid out in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1951, linking sixteen sites connected with the American Revolution. Walkers pass the Massachusetts State House, the Old South Meeting House where the Boston Tea Party was planned, the spot of the Boston Massacre, Paul Revere's house and the Bunker Hill Monument, and the walk ends at the warship USS Constitution. Boston was the centre of colonial protest against British taxes, which is why so much of the revolution's story sits inside one walkable city. B is wrong because Memphis in Tennessee is known for Beale Street and the civil rights museum at the Lorraine Motel. C is wrong because Denver in Colorado is a much later city of the American West. D is wrong because Connecticut is a state, not a city. Exam tip: Freedom Trail, Boston Tea Party and Boston Massacre all point to the same city.

The correct answer is C, Anti-lock braking system. ABS stands for anti-lock braking system, a safety device that keeps the wheels from locking during hard braking. Sensors at the wheels watch how fast each one is turning, and when a wheel is about to stop turning the control unit releases and applies the brake pressure many times a second. Because the wheels keep rolling, the tyres hold their grip on the road, so the driver can still steer while braking hard and the vehicle usually stops in a shorter distance. A locked wheel simply skids and goes wherever it was already going. ABS is now required by law on cars and on larger two-wheelers in India. Option A is wrong because 'avoid brake system' is not a term used for any vehicle part. Option B is wrong because 'actual brake system' has no meaning in engineering. Option D is wrong because an automatic braking system is a different feature in which the vehicle applies the brakes by itself to avoid a crash. Exam tip: ABS prevents wheel lock and keeps steering control; it does not replace the brakes.

The correct answer is B, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. The Statue of Unity stands on Sadhu Bet, an island in the Narmada near the Sardar Sarovar Dam in the Narmada district of Gujarat, and it shows Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, independent India's first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, who brought the princely states into the Union. The statue is 182 metres tall, a height chosen to match the number of seats in the Gujarat Assembly, and it was unveiled on 31 October 2018, Patel's birth anniversary. Ram V. Sutar designed it, and iron collected from farmers across the country went into the work. A is wrong because M. K. Gandhi has no statue of this scale. C is wrong because Vinoba Bhave, who led the Bhoodan movement, is not its subject. D is wrong because Dr B. R. Ambedkar is honoured by other memorials, not by this statue. Exam tip: Statue of Unity — 182 m, Sardar Patel, on the Narmada in Gujarat, unveiled 31 October 2018.

The correct answer is B, Cambodia. Angkor Wat stands near Siem Reap in Cambodia and is the largest religious monument in the world. It was built in the early twelfth century by King Suryavarman II of the Khmer empire as a temple of Vishnu, and it later became a Buddhist place of worship. The temple faces west, is ringed by a wide moat, and its towers are shaped like lotus buds; UNESCO put the whole Angkor complex on the World Heritage list in 1992. Angkor Wat also appears on the national flag of Cambodia, which is the only national flag in the world that carries a building. Option A is wrong because Vietnam is known for Ha Long Bay and the My Son Cham temples. Option C is wrong because Thailand's best known temple is Wat Phra Kaew in Bangkok. Option D is wrong because the Philippines is known for its rice terraces and baroque churches. Exam tip: Angkor Wat, Cambodia, built by Suryavarman II and shown on that country's flag.

The correct answer is B, Monthly channel. India Post moves its mail through six named channels, and there is no 'Monthly channel' among them. Under the Mail Network Optimisation Project the department separated its traffic so that each kind of article travels on a route with its own time norms. The six are the Metro channel, for mail between the big metro cities; the Rajdhani channel, linking the state capitals; the Green channel, for local mail inside a city; the Business channel, for corporate and bulk business mail; the Periodical channel, for newspapers and magazines; and the Bulk mail channel, for very large mailings. Because of this split, a letter addressed to a metro city does not travel with local city mail. A is wrong because the Metro channel is one of the six. C is wrong because the Rajdhani channel, which joins the capitals, is also one of them. D is wrong because the Business channel handles corporate and bulk mail and is on the list. Exam tip: the six mail channels are Metro, Rajdhani, Green, Business, Periodical and Bulk.

The correct answer is D, Indonesia. The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, has four members — India, the United States, Japan and Australia — and Indonesia is not one of them. The grouping grew out of the coordination between these four navies after the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, was set up as a dialogue in 2007, lapsed for a decade and was revived in 2017. It is an informal strategic forum rather than a treaty alliance with a standing army, and it works on maritime security, vaccines, critical and emerging technology, climate action and infrastructure across the Indo-Pacific. The Malabar naval exercise, which began as an India–United States drill, now brings all four Quad navies together. Options A, B and C are wrong because the United States, India and Japan are all founder members of the Quad. Indonesia is instead a founder member of ASEAN and a G20 member, and it works with India through forums such as the East Asia Summit and IORA. Exam tip: Quad = India, US, Japan, Australia; Malabar is the exercise of these four navies.

The correct answer is C, Class D. Fires are grouped by what is burning, and Class D covers burning metals such as magnesium, sodium, potassium, titanium and aluminium powder. Such a fire must never be fought with water, because the hot metal breaks water apart and frees hydrogen, which can explode. It is smothered instead with a dry powder agent, graphite or a sodium chloride based powder, which cuts off oxygen and carries heat away. A is wrong because Class B is for flammable liquids such as petrol, diesel, oil, paint and solvents. B is wrong because Class C is for flammable gases such as LPG, methane and acetylene. D is wrong because Class A is for ordinary solid fuels like wood, paper, cloth and rubbish, the one class that water puts out well. Exam tip: A solids, B liquids, C gases, D metals, with cooking oils and electrical fires handled separately.

The correct answer is B, 2004. The committee on civil services reforms under P. C. Hota, a former Chairman of the Union Public Service Commission, was set up in 2004 and gave its report the same year. It looked at how officers are recruited, trained, posted and promoted, and suggested a fixed minimum tenure in a post, a sounder system of performance appraisal, mid-career training with examinations, and lateral entry of specialists for jobs needing domain knowledge. Many of its ideas later fed into the work of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission set up in 2005 under Veerappa Moily. Option A is wrong because 2003 saw no such committee. Option C is wrong because 2005 is the year of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission and of the Right to Information Act. Option D is wrong because by 2006 the Hota report was already being examined. Exam tip: Hota Committee 2004 on civil services reform; Second ARC 2005 under Veerappa Moily.

The correct answer is B, Gorakhpur. The North Eastern Railway works from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, and its station there is known for one of the longest railway platforms in the world. The zone covers eastern Uttar Pradesh and northern Bihar and has the Izatnagar, Lucknow and Varanasi divisions.

Option A, Guwahati, is where the Northeast Frontier Railway sits, at Maligaon, and that zone serves the North Eastern states, so the two names are the whole trap in this question. Option C, Hajipur in Bihar, is the headquarters of the East Central Railway, created in 2002. Option D, Kolkata, holds two zones, the Eastern Railway and the South Eastern Railway at Garden Reach, along with the Metro Railway.

The zones are worked under the Railway Board at New Delhi, and the Research Designs and Standards Organisation that tests railway designs is at Lucknow in the same state.

The correct answer is B, Verghese Kurien. Kurien built the cooperative dairy at Anand in Gujarat, gave the country the Amul brand and headed the National Dairy Development Board, whose Operation Flood turned India into a large milk producer. That work is the White Revolution, and it earned him the name Milkman of India; National Milk Day is observed on his birthday, 26 November.

Option A, M. S. Swaminathan, is called the father of the Green Revolution in India for the high yielding wheat and rice varieties of the nineteen sixties. Option C, Norman Borlaug, was the American agronomist behind the dwarf wheat varieties and is called the father of the Green Revolution worldwide. Option D, Hiralal Chaudhuri, worked on induced breeding of fish and is linked with the Blue Revolution. Each revolution has its own name, which is the test here.

The correct answer is C, Edward Jenner. In 1796 Jenner showed that material from a cowpox sore protected a boy against smallpox, the first deliberate vaccination, and the word vaccine itself comes from vacca, the Latin for cow. That experiment founded the science of immunology. Option A is wrong because Robert Koch identified the bacteria that cause tuberculosis and cholera and gave the rules for linking a microbe to a disease, so he belongs to bacteriology. Option B is wrong because Louis Pasteur gave the germ theory of disease, pasteurisation and the rabies vaccine, and is called the father of microbiology, although his vaccine work came after Jenner. Option D is wrong because Karl Landsteiner discovered the human blood groups. The trap in this question is Pasteur, whose fame in vaccines makes candidates skip the earlier name.

The correct answer is B. On 15 January 1949 General K. M. Cariappa took charge as the first Indian Commander in Chief of the Indian Army, replacing the last British holder of the post, and the day has been observed as Army Day ever since. Option A is wrong because the Indian Army as a single force dates to 1895, but that year is not the reason for the date of Army Day. Option C is wrong because the end of the 1971 war is marked on 16 December as Vijay Diwas, when Pakistani forces surrendered at Dhaka. Option D is wrong because the first Republic Day parade of 26 January 1950 belongs to the Constitution coming into force, not to the Army. The date and its reason are asked together, so remember Cariappa with 15 January 1949.