Static GK Mixed Quiz: Set 17

The correct answer is A, Evangelista Torricelli. In 1643 the Italian scientist Torricelli filled a long glass tube with mercury and inverted it in a dish, and the column that stayed up showed that the air outside was pressing on the mercury; that apparatus is the mercury barometer, and the unit torr is named after him. Option B is wrong because Anders Celsius gave the centigrade temperature scale, which belongs to the thermometer and not the barometer. Option C is wrong because Robert Boyle stated the law relating the pressure and volume of a gas, a law about pressure but not an instrument to measure it. Option D is wrong because Blaise Pascal, though he carried a barometer up a mountain to prove that pressure falls with height and has the unit of pressure named after him, did not invent the instrument. A falling barometer reading warns of a storm, which is why the instrument matters in weather questions.

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 D, Narendra Modi. The Prime Minister commissioned INS Vikrant at Kochi on 2 September 2022; built by Cochin Shipyard, it is the first aircraft carrier designed and built in India and it carries the name of the older Vikrant that served in the 1971 war. At the same ceremony the new naval ensign was unveiled. Option A is wrong because Rajnath Singh, as Defence Minister, has commissioned and launched other warships but not this carrier. Option B is wrong because Amit Shah holds the Home portfolio, which deals with the central armed police forces rather than the Navy. Option C is wrong because Jyotiraditya Scindia held the civil aviation portfolio and had no role in the commissioning. India's other carrier is INS Vikramaditya, rebuilt from the Russian Admiral Gorshkov.

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 C, Aryabhata. It was launched on 19 April 1975 from a Soviet launch site, was named after the astronomer of the fifth century and carried experiments in astronomy and solar physics. Option A is wrong because Bhaskara was the earth observation satellite that followed it. Option B is wrong because Rohini was the satellite placed in orbit in 1980 by the SLV-3, the first Indian launch vehicle, which is a different record. Option D is wrong because APPLE was an experimental communication satellite of the early 1980s, remembered for the photograph in which it was moved on a bullock cart. The trap in this question is the pair of 1975 and 1980, so read whether the question asks about the satellite or about the launch vehicle.

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, Southern Railway. The Southern Railway was formed on 14 April 1951 and was the first zone created when the old company railways were regrouped after independence. Option A is wrong and Option C is wrong for the same reason: the Central Railway and the Western Railway were both formed later in the same year, on 5 November 1951, so they belong to the first year of zoning but not to the first zone. Option D is wrong because the Eastern Railway came into being in 1952, after the three zones of 1951. Many candidates answer Central Railway because Mumbai feels like the natural first headquarters, so remember instead that the earliest date in April belongs to the south. The Railway Board, which supervises the zones, is older still and dates from 1905.

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, Odisha. The Integrated Test Range of the DRDO lies at Chandipur on the Balasore coast of Odisha, and its launch complex on Dr Abdul Kalam Island, earlier called Wheeler Island, off the same coast is used for longer range tests. Option A is wrong because Andhra Pradesh has Sriharikota, the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, which belongs to ISRO and launches satellites rather than testing military missiles. Option C is wrong because Tamil Nadu has the Thumba equatorial rocket station nearby in Kerala and a propulsion complex at Mahendragiri, but not the missile test range. Option D is wrong because Gujarat has no missile test range of this kind. Keep Chandipur for missiles and Sriharikota for satellite launches separate, because both appear in the same options.

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 B, Rohini. The SLV-3 placed it in orbit on 18 July 1980 from Sriharikota, with A. P. J. Abdul Kalam as the mission director, and the flight made India a country able to launch its own satellites. Option A is wrong because Aryabhata, launched in 1975, went up on a Soviet rocket. Option C is wrong because INSAT-1A was a communication satellite of the early 1980s launched from abroad, as the heavier Indian launchers did not yet exist. Option D is wrong because IRS-1A, the first Indian remote sensing satellite of 1988, was also launched with foreign help. The wording of such questions turns on the phrase by an Indian launch vehicle. The SLV-3 was a four-stage solid rocket and its success placed India among the handful of countries with their own launch capability.

The correct answer is C, Kanpur. The Indian Institute of Pulses Research works at Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh and is one of the institutes of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. It began in 1984 as the Project Directorate on Pulses and was raised to an institute in 1993. Its work is on chickpea, pigeonpea, lentil, mungbean, urdbean and field pea: breeding better varieties, protecting the crop from disease and pests, and advising farmers, which matters because India is the largest producer and consumer of pulses in the world. Option A is wrong because Bhopal has the Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering. Option B is wrong because Patna has the ICAR Research Complex for the Eastern Region. Option D is wrong because Hyderabad has the Indian Institute of Rice Research and the Institute of Millets Research. Exam tip: Kanpur pulses, Hyderabad rice and millets, Shimla potato, Lucknow sugarcane.

The correct answer is B, South Central Railway. The South Central Railway has its headquarters at Secunderabad in Telangana. Option A is wrong because the South Western Railway is headquartered at Hubballi in Karnataka, an answer worth learning separately because the spelling changed from the older Hubli. Option C is wrong; the South East Central Railway has its headquarters at Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh. Option D is wrong because the East Coast Railway is headquartered at Bhubaneswar in Odisha. All four zones carry a compound direction in their names, which is exactly why the paper setter groups them, so revise the southern block together: Chennai for Southern, Secunderabad for South Central, Hubballi for South Western, Kolkata for South Eastern and Bilaspur for South East Central. The headquarters city, not the state, is what the paper wants.

The correct answer is C, Honours Your Trust. UCO Bank uses this line in its logo and advertising.

UCO Bank was founded in Kolkata in 1943 as the United Commercial Bank, and the industrialist G. D. Birla was behind its creation. It was one of the fourteen banks nationalised in July 1969, took its present name in 1985, and still has its head office in Kolkata. Taglines are a favourite one-mark question because each public sector bank keeps the same line for years.

Option A, 'Good People to bank with', belongs to Union Bank of India. Option B, 'Where every individual is committed', is the line of Bank of India. Option D, 'Faithful And Friendly', is used by Bank of Maharashtra.

Exam tip: UCO Bank - Kolkata, 1943, 'Honours Your Trust'; Union Bank - 'Good People to bank with'.

The correct answer is C, Bengaluru. The headquarters of ISRO and of the Department of Space are at Bengaluru, where the U R Rao Satellite Centre and the telemetry and tracking network ISTRAC are also located. Option A is wrong because New Delhi holds the ministries but not the headquarters of ISRO. Option B is wrong because Ahmedabad has the Space Applications Centre, which builds payloads and develops the uses of space data, and also IN-SPACe, the body that regulates private activity in space. Option D is wrong because Thiruvananthapuram has the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, where launch vehicles are designed. Matching centres with cities is the commonest question from this topic, so learn the table rather than single names. The Department of Space reports directly to the Prime Minister, which is a further fact set as a question on its own.

The correct answer is B, Ukraine. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant stands near the town of Pripyat in northern Ukraine, close to the border with Belarus, and was part of the Soviet Union when reactor number four exploded on 26 April 1986 in the worst nuclear accident in history. The explosion during a late night safety test blew off the reactor roof and scattered radioactive material across much of Europe. Pripyat was evacuated, an exclusion zone of 30 kilometres was drawn around the plant and it is still in force. The last working reactor at the site was shut down in December 2000, so the plant is now closed. A is wrong because Russia, though also a Soviet republic at the time, does not contain the site. C is wrong because Belarus received much of the fallout but the plant is not on its soil. D is wrong because Georgia has no connection with the accident. Exam tip: Chernobyl - Ukraine, 26 April 1986; Fukushima - Japan, 2011; Three Mile Island - United States, 1979.

The correct answer is B, Dibrugarh. The Vivek Express runs between Dibrugarh in upper Assam and Kanniyakumari at the southern tip of the mainland, covering roughly 4,200 kilometres, the longest route of any train in the country. It was introduced in 2011, the one hundred and fiftieth birth anniversary year of Swami Vivekananda, which is how it got its name. Option A is wrong; Guwahati is the largest station of the region and the headquarters city of the Northeast Frontier Railway, but the Vivek Express starts further east. Option C is wrong because Silchar lies in the Barak valley and is not a terminus of this train. Option D is wrong; Agartala in Tripura was connected to the broad gauge network much later and has its own long distance trains, but not this one. Remember the pair Dibrugarh and Kanniyakumari as the two ends of the country.

The correct answer is A, Sriharikota, an island on the coast of Andhra Pradesh, from which PSLV, GSLV and LVM3 flights take off. Option B is wrong because Thumba, near Thiruvananthapuram, is the equatorial station from which the first sounding rocket was launched on 21 November 1963, and it is not used for satellite launches. Option C is wrong because Hassan in Karnataka has the Master Control Facility, which controls communication satellites once they are in orbit. Option D is wrong because Mahendragiri in Tamil Nadu is where liquid and cryogenic engines are tested. The question is made harder by offering four real ISRO places, so each place must be tied to its own function. Sriharikota was chosen because it lies close to the equator and has the sea to the east, so spent stages fall into open water.

The correct answer is C, the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, inscribed in 1999 as the first of the three lines that together form the World Heritage property called the Mountain Railways of India. Option A is wrong because the Nilgiri Mountain Railway in Tamil Nadu, the only rack railway in India, was added to the same property in 2005. Option B is wrong since the Kalka to Shimla Railway in Himachal Pradesh was added in 2008 and is therefore the last of the three. Option D is wrong because the Matheran Hill Railway in Maharashtra is a narrow gauge heritage line that has been proposed for inscription but is not part of the property. Note that the fourth railway heritage site in India is not a line at all but the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus building in Mumbai, inscribed in 2004.

The correct answer is B, evidence of water molecules on the Moon. Chandrayaan-1 was launched in 2008, carried the Moon Impact Probe and instruments from several countries, and its data showed the presence of water molecules on the lunar surface, which changed the understanding of the Moon. Option A is wrong because photographs of the far side were taken much earlier by Soviet and American spacecraft. Option C is wrong because helium-3 is discussed as a possible lunar resource but was not a discovery of this mission. Option D is wrong because the soft landing near the south pole was made by Chandrayaan-3 in 2023; Chandrayaan-1 was an orbiter with an impact probe and was never meant to land. The mission was launched by a PSLV and its data are still used by scientists studying the minerals of the lunar surface.