Static GK Mixed Quiz: Set 5

The correct answer is B, Bachendri Pal, who stood on the summit in 1984 as a member of an Indian expedition and became the first Indian woman to climb the world's highest peak.

Option A, Santosh Yadav, holds the next distinction in the same sequence: she was the first woman in the world to climb Everest twice, and she is the usual distractor. Option C, Arunima Sinha, was the first woman amputee to reach the summit, a later and separate first. Option D, Premlata Agarwal, became the oldest Indian woman to climb it. Learn the Everest chain in order, since the examiner picks any link from it: Tenzing Norgay with Edmund Hillary made the first ascent in 1953, Captain Avtar Singh Cheema was the first from an Indian expedition in 1965, and Bachendri Pal was the first Indian woman in 1984.

The correct answer is B, Kangchenjunga. Kangchenjunga rises to 8,586 metres on the border of Sikkim with Nepal and is the third highest mountain in the world after Mount Everest and K2. It is the highest peak in India and its summit region is treated as sacred in Sikkim, so climbers traditionally stop short of the final point.

Option A, Nanda Devi, in Uttarakhand, is a very high Himalayan peak and the second highest in the country, but it is lower than Kangchenjunga. Option C, Anamudi, at 2,695 metres in Kerala, is the highest peak of peninsular India and of the Western Ghats, not of the country. Option D, Doda Betta, is the highest peak of the Nilgiri hills in Tamil Nadu and is lower still. The question is set to see whether a candidate can keep the national, the peninsular and the regional superlatives apart.

The correct answer is D, Uruguay. Uruguay both hosted and won the first FIFA World Cup in 1930, beating Argentina in the final at Montevideo, and the tournament was awarded to the country partly because it had won the Olympic football title twice in the preceding years.

Option C, Argentina, lost that first final and is therefore the sharpest distractor; the runner-up is offered whenever the winner is asked. Option B, Italy, won the next two World Cups, in 1934 and 1938. Option A, Brazil, has won the tournament more often than any other country but did not win it first. Keep the cricket parallel separate in your notes: the first Cricket World Cup was played in England in 1975 and was won by the West Indies.

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 C, Kerala. Anamudi stands 2,695 metres high in the Idukki district of Kerala, in the Anaimalai hills of the Western Ghats, close to Eravikulam National Park, which protects the Nilgiri tahr. It is the highest point of peninsular India and the highest point of the Western Ghats.

Option A, Karnataka, has Mullayanagiri in the Chikkamagaluru district as its highest point, which is far lower. Option B, Tamil Nadu, has Doda Betta in the Nilgiris as its highest peak, and the state shares the Anaimalai range with Kerala but not the summit itself. Option D, Maharashtra, has Kalsubai in the Sahyadri as its highest point. Since all four states lie along or near the Western Ghats, the examiner expects the candidate to know not only the name of the peak but the state that holds the summit.

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 A, Mariana Trench. The Mariana Trench lies in the western Pacific, east of the Mariana Islands, and its deepest part, the Challenger Deep, is close to eleven kilometres below sea level. Trenches of this kind form where one oceanic plate is pushed under another, a process called subduction, which is why they lie along the edges of the Pacific.

Option B, the Puerto Rico Trench, is the deepest point of the Atlantic Ocean, but it is far shallower than the Mariana. Option C, the Java or Sunda Trench, is the deepest part of the Indian Ocean and lies along the Indonesian arc. Option D, the Peru-Chile or Atacama Trench, runs along the western coast of South America, where the Nazca plate slides beneath the South American plate and raises the Andes. Each option is a real trench, so the answer rests on knowing which one holds the record.

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 A, Sukumar Sen, an officer of the Indian Civil Service who was appointed the first Chief Election Commissioner and conducted the first general elections to the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies, an exercise held on a scale never attempted before anywhere.

Option B, T. N. Seshan, is the best remembered holder of the office because of the strict enforcement of the model code of conduct in the 1990s, and for that reason he is the commonest wrong answer here. Option C, K. V. K. Sundaram, and option D, S. P. Sen Verma, were his early successors and are placed here simply as plausible names from the same list. Group this fact with the other constitutional firsts: Justice H. J. Kania as the first Chief Justice of India and G. V. Mavalankar as the first Speaker of the Lok Sabha.

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 C, Australia. Of the four countries listed, Australia gave women the vote first, in 1902. Its Commonwealth Franchise Act of that year let women vote in and stand for the federal Parliament, following the colony of South Australia, which had already granted it in 1894. New Zealand was the first self-governing country in the world to allow women to vote, in 1893, but it is not among the options here. Option A is wrong because France let women vote only in 1944, at the end of the Second World War. Option B is wrong because the United States granted it in 1920 through the Nineteenth Amendment. Option D is wrong because the United Kingdom gave the vote to women above 30 in 1918 and to all adult women only in 1928. India, by contrast, gave women the vote on equal terms from its very first general election under the Constitution. Exam tip: fix the order as New Zealand 1893, Australia 1902, UK 1918, USA 1920 and France 1944.

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 D, Rajasthan. Rajasthan is the largest state of India by area, holding the Thar desert in its west and the Aravalli range running across it from the south-west to the north-east. The smallest state by area is Goa, while among the union territories Ladakh is the largest and Lakshadweep the smallest.

Option A, Madhya Pradesh, is the second largest state by area and became so after Chhattisgarh was carved out of it. Option B, Maharashtra, is third by area and the second most populous state. Option C, Uttar Pradesh, is the most populous state according to the 2011 Census but stands well below these in area. The trap in this question is the word area: a candidate who reads it as population will pick Uttar Pradesh, which is why the two superlatives should always be learnt as a pair.

The correct answer is C, Euro. The euro is the official currency of the European Union. It came into being as an accounting currency in 1999 and reached people's hands as notes and coins on 1 January 2002. It is managed by the European Central Bank at Frankfurt, its symbol is a crossed E and its code is EUR. Not every member state uses it: the group that does is called the eurozone, while members such as Sweden, Poland and Denmark keep their own currencies. A is wrong because the yen is the currency of Japan. B is wrong because the dollar belongs to the United States and several other countries, none of them the European Union. D is wrong because the pound sterling is the currency of the United Kingdom, which never adopted the euro and left the Union in 2020. Exam tip: euro - European Central Bank at Frankfurt, notes and coins from 1 January 2002, and its users form the eurozone.

The correct answer is B, Nile. The Nile flows north through north-eastern Africa for about 6,650 kilometres to the Mediterranean and is the river taken as the longest in the world in almost every textbook and examination. Its two great branches, the White Nile and the Blue Nile, meet at Khartoum in Sudan.

Option A, the Amazon, is the largest river in the world by the volume of water it discharges and by the area of its basin, which holds the largest rainforest; some surveys that measure it from a different headstream in the Andes also claim it as the longest, but that reading is not the one papers expect. Option C, the Yangtze, is the longest river of Asia and flows entirely within China. Option D, the Mississippi with the Missouri, is the longest river system of North America. Read the wording carefully, since longest and largest give different answers here.

The correct answer is C, 1962. The Battle of Rezang La was fought on 18 November 1962 during the India-China war, at a pass about 16,000 feet high near Chushul in Ladakh. The Charlie Company of 13 Kumaon, 120 men mostly Ahirs from Haryana under Major Shaitan Singh, held the post against repeated Chinese attacks in freezing cold and without artillery support; 114 of them died fighting almost to the last man and the last round. Major Shaitan Singh was awarded the Param Vir Chakra posthumously, and the battle is remembered as one of the greatest last stands in military history. A rebuilt memorial at Rezang La was inaugurated in 2021. A, 1948, falls in the first India-Pakistan war over Kashmir (1947 to 1948), remembered for the tank assault on Zoji La. B, 1956, saw no war fought by India. D, 1972, is the year of the Shimla Agreement, after the 1971 Bangladesh war. Exam tip: Rezang La, 18 November 1962, 13 Kumaon, Major Shaitan Singh, Param Vir Chakra.

The correct answer is C, Aditya Nath Jha. He became the first Lieutenant Governor of Delhi in 1966 and held the post until January 1972. Before 1966, Delhi was run by a Chief Commissioner. The Delhi Administration Act, 1966 created an elected Metropolitan Council and raised the head of the administration to the rank of Lieutenant Governor. A. N. Jha, an ICS officer, had in fact been Delhi's last Chief Commissioner for a short while before taking up the new post. Today the Lieutenant Governor is the administrator of the National Capital Territory under Article 239AA and is appointed by the President. Option A is wrong because Krishan Chand held the post later, from 1974 to 1978, including the Emergency years. Option B is wrong because Baleshwar Prasad served from 1972 to 1974. Option D is wrong because M. C. Pimputkar came after Jha and served for only a few months in 1972. Exam tip: Delhi had Chief Commissioners until 1966; its first Lieutenant Governor was A. N. Jha.

The correct answer is B, Wular Lake. Wular Lake lies in the Kashmir valley in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, is fed by the Jhelum and is the largest freshwater lake in India. It is a Ramsar site and acts as a natural flood absorber for the valley.

Option A, Chilika Lake in Odisha, is the largest brackish water lagoon in India, connected to the Bay of Bengal by a narrow mouth, and is known for migratory birds and Irrawaddy dolphins; it is not freshwater. Option C, Sambhar Lake in Rajasthan, is the largest inland salt lake in the country and a major source of common salt. Option D, Vembanad in Kerala, is the longest lake in India and the heart of the backwater system, but it is a brackish lagoon as well. The question turns on the word freshwater, which rules out three of the four.

The correct answer is C, Sahara. The Sahara stretches across northern Africa from the Atlantic to the Red Sea and is the largest hot desert in the world. Note the qualifier in the question: the largest desert of any kind is Antarctica, because a desert is defined by how little precipitation it receives rather than by heat, and Antarctica is therefore a cold desert.

Option A, the Gobi, lies in Mongolia and northern China and is a cold desert of the mid latitudes, not a hot one. Option B, the Kalahari, in southern Africa, is much smaller than the Sahara. Option D, the Atacama in Chile, holds a different record: it is the driest desert on earth, with places that have gone for years without measurable rain. Papers set this question in both forms, so learn the pair together: Antarctica is the largest desert and the Sahara the largest hot desert.

The correct answer is B, Brahmaputra. Majuli lies in the Brahmaputra in Assam and is the largest river island in India. It is inhabited, it has been made a district of Assam, and it is famous for the satras, the Vaishnava monasteries founded in the tradition of Srimanta Sankardeva. Its area has been shrinking steadily because of erosion by the river.

Option A, the Ganga, is the longest river of India and forms the Sundarbans delta with the Brahmaputra and the Meghna, but Majuli is not on it. Option C, the Godavari, is the longest river of peninsular India and is called the Dakshin Ganga; it forms a large delta on the eastern coast. Option D, the Mahanadi, flows through Chhattisgarh and Odisha and is dammed at Hirakud, the longest dam in India. All four are major rivers, so the question checks a single precise pairing rather than a general idea.