Static GK Mixed Quiz: Set 3

The correct answer is A, Rakesh Sharma. The Indian Air Force pilot flew aboard the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz T-11 in 1984 under a joint programme and spent about a week on the Salyut 7 space station, becoming the first Indian citizen in space.

Option B, Kalpana Chawla, was the first woman of Indian origin to go into space, flying with NASA in 1997, which is a different first and the commonest distractor here. Option C, Ravish Malhotra, was the back-up cosmonaut for the same 1984 mission and trained alongside Rakesh Sharma but did not fly, so he is placed in the options to catch a half-remembered fact. Option D, Sunita Williams, is an American astronaut of Indian origin known for her long-duration stays aboard the International Space Station. Read whether the stem asks for an Indian citizen or a person of Indian origin.

The correct answer is C, China. SAARC, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, has eight members — Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. China is not one of them; it holds only observer status, as do Japan, the United States, the European Union, South Korea, Iran, Mauritius, Myanmar and Australia. SAARC was set up by the Dhaka Declaration of 8 December 1985 with seven members, and its secretariat is at Kathmandu in Nepal. Option A is wrong because Nepal is a founding member and hosts the secretariat. Option B is wrong because the Maldives is also one of the seven founders. Option D is wrong because Afghanistan is a full member, admitted as the eighth at the Delhi summit of 2007. Exam tip: the seven founders are India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives; Afghanistan is the eighth member and China is only an observer.

The correct answer is D, Neil Armstrong. The American astronaut commanded the Apollo 11 mission and stepped out of the lunar module on 20 July 1969, becoming the first human being to walk on the Moon.

Option B, Edwin Buzz Aldrin, followed him out of the same module minutes later and was therefore the second person on the Moon, which is exactly the swap the paper setter is testing. Option A, Michael Collins, was the third member of Apollo 11, but he remained in the command module in lunar orbit and never landed. Option C, Yuri Gagarin, was the first human in space in 1961, a Soviet first that belongs to a different question and to a different country; he never travelled to the Moon. Remember the order for Apollo 11 as Armstrong, then Aldrin, with Collins in orbit.

The correct answer is A, Venezuela. Angel Falls, in the Canaima National Park of Venezuela, is the highest uninterrupted waterfall in the world, with a total height of about 979 metres and a single unbroken drop of about 807 metres. It pours off the edge of Auyan-tepui, a flat-topped table mountain, and the local Pemon people call it Kerepakupai Meru. It is named after Jimmie Angel, an American pilot who flew over it in 1933. The falls are so remote that most visitors reach them by small plane and then by boat along jungle rivers. B is wrong because Brazil shares the wide Iguazu Falls with Argentina, which are famous for their width, not height. C is wrong because the USA shares Niagara Falls with Canada, which are wide but only about 50 metres high. D is wrong because China is known for the Huangguoshu Falls, which are far lower. Exam tip: highest waterfall = Angel Falls (Venezuela); Iguazu = Brazil and Argentina; Victoria Falls = Zambia and Zimbabwe; Niagara = USA and Canada.

The correct answer is A, Azerbaijan. The manat is the currency of Azerbaijan, a country of the Caucasus whose capital is Baku on the shore of the Caspian Sea. The name comes from the Russian word moneta, meaning coin, and Turkmenistan calls its currency the manat too, so the two countries share the name. Azerbaijan's oil and gas wealth keeps Baku in the news, and the country is a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States. B is wrong because the currency of Armenia is the dram. C is wrong because the currency of Albania is the lek. D is wrong because Andorra, a small country between France and Spain, uses the euro and has no currency of its own. Exam tip: manat - Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan; dram - Armenia; lari - Georgia; lek - Albania. When every option starts with the same letter, fix the currency to the country instead of guessing.

The correct answer is A, Roman. The rupee sign blends the Devanagari letter "र" (Ra) with the Roman capital "R" with its vertical stem removed, so that it reads as an Indian letter and an international one at the same time. It was designed by D. Udaya Kumar, then a student at IIT Bombay and later a professor at IIT Guwahati, who won a nationwide open competition; the Union Cabinet approved it on 15 July 2010. The two parallel horizontal lines across the top stand for the tricolour and for the equality sign, a nod to a balanced economy. With this sign the rupee joined the dollar, pound, euro and yen as currencies with their own symbol. B, Ol Chiki, is the script created for the Santali language and has no part in the design. C, Brahmi, is the ancient script of Ashoka's edicts, not used here. D, Cyrillic, is the script of Russian and other Slavic languages. Exam tip: rupee symbol = Devanagari Ra + Roman R, designed by Udaya Kumar, adopted 15 July 2010.

The correct answer is B, Justice M. Fathima Beevi, who was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1989, about four decades after the court began work, and later served as Governor of Tamil Nadu.

Option A, Justice Leila Seth, holds a different first: she was the first woman Chief Justice of a High Court, of Himachal Pradesh, and she never sat on the Supreme Court. She is the distractor placed here most often, so learn the two together. Option C, Justice Ruma Pal, and option D, Justice Sujata Manohar, were both later women judges of the Supreme Court and are correct only in the sense of belonging to the small group of women who reached it, not in being the first. Note also that the first woman Chief Justice of India has not yet been appointed, so no name can be offered for that.

The correct answer is A, Black Francolin. The black francolin, known locally as kala teetar, is the state bird of Haryana. It belongs to the pheasant family, and the male is easy to recognise by its black face and breast, white cheek patch and chestnut collar, while the female is mostly brown. It lives in grassland, scrub and farmland with tall crops such as sugarcane, and its loud, repeated call is heard mostly at dawn and dusk. Haryana's other state symbols are the blackbuck as the state animal, the peepal as the state tree and the lotus as the state flower. Option B is wrong because the house sparrow is the state bird of Delhi and Bihar, not Haryana. Option C is wrong because the great egret is a large white wading bird of wetlands and is not Haryana's symbol. Option D is wrong because hummingbirds are found only in the Americas and do not live in India at all. Exam tip: Haryana's symbols are black francolin (bird), blackbuck (animal), peepal (tree) and lotus (flower).

The correct answer is A, Roald Amundsen. The Norwegian explorer and his party reached the South Pole in December 1911, using dog sledges and a carefully laid line of supply depots, and returned safely.

Option B, Robert Falcon Scott, led the British party that reached the same point about a month later, in January 1912, only to find Amundsen's tent already there; Scott and his companions died on the return journey, and he is the standard distractor because the race between the two is so well known. Option C, Robert Peary, belongs to the other end of the Earth, being credited in most examination lists with reaching the North Pole in 1909. Option D, Ernest Shackleton, led famous Antarctic expeditions, including the Endurance voyage, but never stood at the Pole itself.

The correct answer is B, Minsk. Minsk is the capital and largest city of Belarus, a landlocked country of Eastern Europe that shares borders with Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. Belarus became independent when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, its currency is the Belarusian rouble, and Minsk also houses the headquarters of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The city gave its name to the Minsk agreements on the conflict in eastern Ukraine, which is why it appears in the news. A is wrong because Baku is the capital of Azerbaijan, a port on the Caspian Sea. C is wrong because Moroni is the capital of Comoros, an island country off the eastern coast of Africa. D is wrong because Brussels is the capital of Belgium and the seat of the European Union and NATO. Exam tip: Belarus - Minsk; Belgium - Brussels; Azerbaijan - Baku; Comoros - Moroni. The similar-sounding country names are the trap here.

The correct answer is C, Indira Gandhi, who became Prime Minister in 1966 and was also the first woman to receive the Bharat Ratna, in 1971. Both facts are set from this chapter.

Option A, Pratibha Devisingh Patil, was the first woman President of India, taking office in 2007, and the President and the Prime Minister are the pair most often swapped in this question. Option B, Sarojini Naidu, was the first woman Governor of an Indian state, of Uttar Pradesh, and the first Indian woman to preside over the Indian National Congress, at Kanpur in 1925. Option D, Sucheta Kripalani, was the first woman Chief Minister of an Indian state, also of Uttar Pradesh. All four women hold a first of some kind, which is exactly why the examiner groups them; attach each name to its own office.

The correct answer is B, Insat-1B. It was the first working satellite of the Indian National Satellite (INSAT) system, carried to orbit by the US Space Shuttle Challenger in August 1983. INSAT-1B was a multipurpose satellite: its transponders gave national television coverage, telephone links and weather pictures from one spot in geostationary orbit, about 36,000 km above the equator. It made nationwide Doordarshan broadcasts possible and began the INSAT series that still serves communication and meteorology. Its predecessor INSAT-1A, launched in 1982, failed early, which is why 1B is remembered as the real start. A is wrong because Bhaskara-I, launched in 1979 on a Soviet rocket, was an experimental earth-observation satellite, not a geostationary broadcaster. C is wrong because GSAT-7, launched in 2013, is the Indian Navy's dedicated communication satellite, often called Rukmini. D is wrong because RISAT-1, launched in 2012 on a PSLV, is a radar imaging satellite for earth observation. Exam tip: INSAT = communication and weather in geostationary orbit; Bhaskara and RISAT = observing the earth.

The correct answer is C, New Zealand. In 1893 New Zealand, then a self-governing colony, gave women the right to vote in national elections, the first country in the world to do so, after a long campaign led by Kate Sheppard.

Option D, Australia, followed within a decade and is the closest distractor, but its franchise came later and did not extend to all women at once. Option B, the United Kingdom, gave the vote to some women only in 1918 and on equal terms with men in 1928. Option A, the United States, extended the vote to women through the nineteenth amendment to its constitution in 1920. The order to remember is New Zealand first, then Australia, with Britain and the United States after the First World War.

The correct answer is B, Hirakud dam – Odisha. The Hirakud dam stands on the Mahanadi near Sambalpur in Odisha. Completed in 1957, it was among the first big multipurpose river valley projects after Independence, built to control the Mahanadi's floods and to give irrigation and hydroelectric power. With its long earthen dykes it is one of the longest earthen dams in the world, about 26 km in total length. A is wrong because the Tehri dam, India's tallest, is on the Bhagirathi in Uttarakhand; it was in Uttar Pradesh only until Uttarakhand was formed in 2000, which is the trap here. C is wrong because Bhakra Nangal is on the Sutlej, with the Bhakra dam in Himachal Pradesh and the Nangal dam in Punjab, and its reservoir is the Gobind Sagar. D is wrong because Nagarjuna Sagar is on the Krishna, on the border of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, far from Rajasthan. Exam tip: match dams with rivers too, Hirakud–Mahanadi, Tehri–Bhagirathi, Bhakra–Sutlej, Nagarjuna Sagar–Krishna.

The correct answer is A, Major Somnath Sharma. He was decorated after his death for the action at Badgam in which his company held back the advance on the Srinagar airfield in November 1947, and his is the first name on the roll of the Param Vir Chakra.

Option B, Naik Jadunath Singh, also received the award for action in the same operations of 1947 and 1948, but later than Somnath Sharma, which makes him the trap in this question. Option C, Captain Vikram Batra, received the award after his death for the Kargil operations of 1999. Option D, Abdul Hamid, received it for destroying enemy tanks in the war of 1965. Remember the separate peacetime award as well: the Ashoka Chakra, whose first woman recipient was Neerja Bhanot.

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 B, Sirimavo Bandaranaike. She became Prime Minister of Ceylon, the island now called Sri Lanka, in 1960, and was the first woman anywhere in the world to head a government as Prime Minister.

Option A, Indira Gandhi, became the first woman Prime Minister of India in 1966, six years later, and she is the distractor set for candidates who read India for the world. Option C, Golda Meir, became Prime Minister of Israel in 1969. Option D, Margaret Thatcher, became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1979 and is remembered as the first woman to hold that office in Britain. Keep the first woman President separate: Isabel Peron of Argentina took that office in 1974, and Vigdis Finnbogadottir of Iceland was the first woman elected President, in 1980.

The correct answer is A, Satyendranath Tagore, the elder brother of Rabindranath Tagore, who qualified in 1863 and became the first Indian member of the Indian Civil Service at a time when the examination was held only in England.

Option B, Surendranath Banerjee, cleared the examination a few years later and was among the earliest Indians in the service, but he was dismissed from it and turned to nationalist politics, founding the Indian Association; that story makes him a strong distractor. Option C, Romesh Chunder Dutt, also entered the service in the same early group and is remembered for his economic writing on British rule, in particular the drain of wealth argument. Option D, Anandamohan Bose, was the first Indian wrangler at Cambridge, a different academic first altogether, and is placed here to catch that confusion.

The correct answer is A, Christiaan Barnard. The South African surgeon carried out the first transplant of a human heart at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town in 1967, on the patient Louis Washkansky, who survived the operation but lived only a further eighteen days.

Option B, Alexander Fleming, discovered penicillin in 1928 and belongs to a different first altogether. Option C, Joseph Lister, introduced antiseptic surgery in the nineteenth century and is remembered as the father of modern surgery, which makes him a plausible but wrong choice here. Option D, Robert Edwards, developed the technique of in vitro fertilisation that led to the birth of Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby, in 1978, and won a Nobel Prize for it; that is the neighbouring medical first most often set with this one.

The correct answer is B, Sarojini Naidu, who presided over the Kanpur session of 1925 and was the first Indian woman to occupy the chair. She later became the first woman Governor of an Indian state, of Uttar Pradesh.

Option A, Annie Besant, presided at Calcutta in 1917 and was the first woman of any nationality to lead the Congress, but she was of Irish birth, so the word Indian in the stem decides between the two. This is the single most frequently set trap in the chapter. Option C, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, holds a different first: she was the first woman to preside over the United Nations General Assembly. Option D, Aruna Asaf Ali, is remembered for hoisting the flag at the Gowalia Tank maidan during the Quit India movement of 1942 and never chaired a Congress session.