Static GK Mixed Quiz: Set 16

The correct answer is B, Calcutta (Kolkata). India's first cotton mill was set up in 1818 at Fort Gloster near Calcutta, at Bauria in present-day Howrah district, so Kolkata holds the first place in the story of the Indian cotton industry. That early mill did not survive, and the first commercially successful cotton textile mill was started at Bombay in 1854 by Cowasjee Nanabhai Davar, which is why Mumbai came to be called the Manchester of India. Ahmedabad followed in 1861, when Ranchhodlal Chhotalal set up its first mill, and the city grew into so large a centre that it earned the name Manchester of the East. A is wrong because Surat was famous for handloom textile trade in Mughal times, not for the first mill. C is wrong because Ahmedabad's mill of 1861 came much later. D is wrong because Coimbatore, called the Manchester of South India, built its mills only in the twentieth century. Exam tip: first mill 1818 near Kolkata, first successful mill 1854 at Bombay.

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 C, James Chadwick. Chadwick showed in 1932 that the radiation given off when beryllium is struck by alpha particles consists of neutral particles of about the mass of a proton, and he named them neutrons; he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for it. Option A is wrong because J. J. Thomson discovered the electron in 1897 through his cathode ray experiments. Option B is wrong because Ernest Rutherford discovered the atomic nucleus with the gold foil experiment and named the proton, and although he had predicted a neutral particle, he did not find it. Option D is wrong because Niels Bohr gave the model of the atom in which electrons occupy fixed energy levels. Fix the order for the exam: electron in 1897, nucleus and proton with Rutherford, neutron with Chadwick in 1932.

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 B, an anti tank guided missile. Nag is a third generation fire and forget anti tank missile of the IGMDP, and its helicopter launched version is called Helina. Option A is wrong because the surface to air missiles of the same programme are Trishul, for short range, and Akash, for medium range air defence. Option C is wrong because the Indian beyond visual range air to air missile fired from fighter aircraft is Astra, not Nag. Option D is wrong because the submarine launched ballistic missiles of India are the K series, K 15 Sagarika and K 4, carried by the Arihant class submarines that give the country the sea leg of its nuclear triad. Match the five IGMDP names to their roles once and this family of questions becomes free marks.

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 B, Vikram Sarabhai. He chaired the Indian National Committee for Space Research set up in 1962, chose Thumba for the first sounding rocket launches and argued that a poor country needed space technology for communication, education and weather rather than for prestige. Option A is wrong because Homi J. Bhabha built the atomic energy programme, although the early space work was placed under his department. Option C is wrong because Satish Dhawan led ISRO after Sarabhai and the launch range at Sriharikota is named after him. Option D is wrong because U. R. Rao led the team that built Aryabhata and the satellite centre at Bengaluru carries his name. All four names appear in the options, so the exact contribution must be remembered.

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 B, Bori Bunder and Thane. On 16 April 1853 the first passenger train in India ran about 34 kilometres from Bori Bunder in Bombay to Thane on the line of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway, drawn by three locomotives named Sahib, Sindh and Sultan. Option A is wrong but it is a real event of the next year, since the first train in eastern India ran in 1854 from Howrah to Hooghly on the East Indian Railway. Option C is wrong; the Madras Railway opened its first passenger line in 1856, three years after Bombay. Option D is wrong because the Bombay to Poona route is remembered for the Deccan Queen of 1930 and not for the first train. Fix the triple of 1853, Bori Bunder and Thane, because a paper may ask for the year, the stations or the distance separately.

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 C, Kothari commission 1966. The Kothari Commission, which worked from 1964 to 1966, recommended the three language formula for schools, and the policy of 1968 later adopted it. The commission was headed by Daulat Singh Kothari, then chairman of the University Grants Commission, and its report was titled Education and National Development. Under the formula a pupil learns the regional language or mother tongue, Hindi and English, so that the country keeps a link language while regional languages are respected. The same commission is remembered for asking that six per cent of national income be spent on education. A is wrong because the National Policy on Education of 1968 only accepted and announced what the commission had proposed. B is wrong because the policy of 1986 restated the formula and added the idea of a national system of education. D is wrong because the Chattopadhyaya Commission, which sat from 1983 to 1985, examined teachers and their status. Exam tip: the Kothari Commission of 1964 to 1966 proposed it and the 1968 policy adopted it.

The correct answer is D, Hubli. The South Western Railway zone has its headquarters at Hubballi, still widely written as Hubli, in Karnataka. The zone was carved out of the Southern and South Central Railways and began work on 1 April 2003; it runs the Hubballi, Bengaluru and Mysuru divisions and covers most of Karnataka with a little of Goa, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Option A is wrong because Chennai is the headquarters of Southern Railway, the first zone of independent India, formed in 1951. Option B is wrong because Secunderabad is the headquarters of South Central Railway. Option C is wrong because Kolkata is the headquarters of Eastern Railway and of Metro Railway, while South Eastern Railway sits at Garden Reach in the same city. Indian Railways is managed by the Railway Board, and the first train in India ran from Bori Bunder to Thane on 16 April 1853. Exam tip: Hubballi South Western, Jabalpur West Central, Bilaspur South East Central, Hajipur East Central, Bhubaneswar East Coast.

The correct answer is B, Stern. The German psychologist William Stern gave the term Intelligence Quotient in 1912, proposing that a child's mental age be divided by the actual age to express intelligence as a single number. Multiplying that ratio by 100 clears the decimal, so a child whose mental age matches the real age scores 100. The idea gave a ready way to compare one child with others of the same age, and it still underlies modern intelligence tests, though these now set a score against the average of an age group instead of using the plain ratio. A is wrong because Alfred Binet, working with Theodore Simon, built the first usable intelligence test in 1905 and gave the idea of mental age, but not the quotient. C is wrong because Lewis Terman revised that test at Stanford, producing the Stanford-Binet scale, and spread the quotient in America. D is wrong because Francis Galton began the measurement of individual differences but worked before the quotient was framed. Exam tip: Binet made the test, Stern coined IQ and Terman took it to Stanford.

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, Tim Berners-Lee. Working at the CERN laboratory in 1989, Berners-Lee proposed a system of linked documents and wrote the first web browser and server, giving the world HTML, HTTP and the address form known as the URL. Option B is wrong because Ray Tomlinson is credited with electronic mail in its modern form and with the use of the at sign to separate the user from the host. Option C is wrong because Charles Babbage designed the difference engine and the analytical engine in the nineteenth century and is called the father of the computer, long before any network existed. Option D is wrong because Vint Cerf, with Bob Kahn, designed the TCP and IP protocols that carry data across the internet. The internet is the network itself; the web is one service running on it, and papers test that difference.

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, Ashoka Chakra. India keeps two ladders of gallantry awards. Away from the battlefield the order is Ashoka Chakra, Kirti Chakra and Shaurya Chakra, so Ashoka Chakra stands highest in peacetime. Option A is wrong because the Param Vir Chakra is the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy, that is in war. Option C is wrong because the Kirti Chakra stands second in the peacetime ladder, below the Ashoka Chakra. Option D is wrong because the Maha Vir Chakra is the second highest wartime award, below the Param Vir Chakra and above the Vir Chakra. All six decorations were instituted on 26 January 1950, and the first Param Vir Chakra went posthumously to Major Somnath Sharma in 1947.

The correct answer is B, 1969. ISRO was formed on 15 August 1969, taking over the work of the committee that had been running the programme. Option A is wrong because 1962 is the year in which the Indian National Committee for Space Research was set up under the Department of Atomic Energy with Vikram Sarabhai as chairman. Option C is wrong because 1972 is the year in which the Government created the Space Commission and the Department of Space, under which ISRO has worked since then. Option D is wrong because 1975 is the year of Aryabhata, India's first satellite. These four years are offered together in almost every question on the subject, so each must be tied to its own event. The date is easy to hold in memory because it falls on Independence Day, which papers sometimes use as the hint in the question itself.

The correct answer is C, Gorakhpur. The North Eastern Railway has its headquarters at Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, and the zone despite its name serves eastern Uttar Pradesh and northern Bihar rather than the north eastern states. Option A is wrong, and it is the intended trap, because Guwahati, or more precisely Maligaon in Guwahati, is the headquarters of the Northeast Frontier Railway, a different zone whose name is only one word apart. Option B is wrong since Hajipur in Bihar is the headquarters of the East Central Railway. Option D is wrong because Prayagraj is the headquarters of the North Central Railway. The safest way to hold these is by the pair of similar names: North Eastern goes with Gorakhpur and Northeast Frontier goes with Maligaon in Guwahati.

The correct answer is B, Charles Babbage. Babbage designed the difference engine and then the analytical engine, a mechanical machine with a store, a mill and punched card input, which carried every idea of a modern general purpose computer, and he is therefore called the father of the computer. Option A is wrong because Alan Turing gave the theoretical model of computation known as the Turing machine and worked on codebreaking, a century later. Option C is wrong because John von Neumann described the stored program architecture that most computers still follow, but that came in the 1940s. Option D is wrong because Blaise Pascal built a mechanical adding machine, the Pascaline, in 1642, which could add and subtract but could not be programmed. Remember also that Ada Lovelace, who wrote an algorithm for the analytical engine, is called the first programmer.