Static GK Mixed Quiz: Set 6

The correct answer is B, Bhagirathi. The Tehri dam stands on the Bhagirathi in the Tehri Garhwal region of Uttarakhand and rises to about 260 metres, which makes it the highest dam in India. It is a rock and earth fill dam and supplies power, irrigation and drinking water. Its reservoir submerged the old town of Tehri, which had to be rebuilt as New Tehri.

Option A, the Alaknanda, is the other headstream of the Ganga and joins the Bhagirathi at Devprayag, but the Tehri dam is not on it. Option C, the Yamuna, carries the Lakhwar and Hathnikund works, not Tehri. Option D, the Sutlej, is the river of the Bhakra dam in Himachal Pradesh, which is the second highest dam in India and was called a temple of modern India by Jawaharlal Nehru. Remember the pair for the paper: Tehri is the highest dam and Hirakud on the Mahanadi is the longest.

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, Venezuela. Angel Falls drops 979 metres from the edge of a flat-topped table mountain called Auyan Tepui in the Guiana highlands of Venezuela, and is the highest uninterrupted waterfall in the world. The water falls so far that much of it turns to mist before reaching the bottom.

Option A, Brazil, shares the Iguazu Falls with Argentina, which are famous for their width and their many separate cascades rather than their height. Option C, Zambia, shares the Victoria Falls on the Zambezi with Zimbabwe, a fall known for the sheet of water it carries over a single wide ledge. Option D, Canada, shares Niagara Falls with the United States, the most visited of all waterfalls but far lower than any of the others named. The question is testing height, not fame or volume.

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 C, Ganga, Brahmaputra and Meghna. These three rivers meet near the head of the Bay of Bengal and drop an enormous load of silt, building the Sundarbans, the largest delta in the world, shared between India and Bangladesh. It also holds the largest mangrove forest on earth, is a national park and tiger reserve on the Indian side, and is a World Heritage Site.

Option A, the Godavari and the Krishna, build large deltas of their own on the eastern coast of peninsular India, but neither is the largest. Option B, the Narmada and the Tapi, flow west through rift valleys and form estuaries rather than deltas, a point examiners like to test on its own. Option D, the Mahanadi and the Subarnarekha, reach the Bay of Bengal in Odisha, and the Mahanadi builds a fair delta, but nothing of the scale of the Sundarbans.

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 A, Greenland. Greenland lies between the Arctic and the Atlantic, is covered almost entirely by an ice sheet and is an autonomous territory of Denmark. It is the largest island in the world. Australia is larger still but is counted as a continent rather than an island, which is the distinction the question rests on.

Option B, New Guinea, is the second largest island and is divided between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Option C, Borneo, is the third largest and is shared by Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. Option D, Madagascar, off the eastern coast of Africa, is the fourth largest and is known for species found nowhere else. Related superlatives worth learning together are Indonesia as the largest archipelago and the Arabian peninsula as the largest peninsula.

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, Hemis National Park. Hemis lies in eastern Ladakh, in high cold desert country, and is the largest national park in India by area. It is best known as a stronghold of the snow leopard, and it also holds the Tibetan wolf, the bharal or blue sheep and the Asiatic ibex.

Option A, Jim Corbett in Uttarakhand, is the oldest national park in India and the place where Project Tiger was launched, but it is far smaller. Option C, Kaziranga in Assam, is a World Heritage Site famous for the one-horned rhinoceros and for its grasslands along the Brahmaputra. Option D, Gir in Gujarat, is the only natural home of the Asiatic lion. Each of the four is a park a paper setter likes to name, so the distinction being tested here is size, not fame.

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 C, Lake Baikal. Baikal lies in southern Siberia in Russia, fills a deep rift in the earth's crust and is the deepest lake in the world. It also holds a larger volume of fresh water than any other lake, roughly a fifth of all the unfrozen fresh surface water on earth, and is a World Heritage Site.

Option A, the Caspian Sea, is the largest lake in the world by area, but its water is salty and it is far shallower than Baikal. Option B, Lake Superior, one of the Great Lakes of North America, is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area, which is a different record. Option D, Lake Victoria in east Africa, is the largest lake of Africa and the chief reservoir of the White Nile. Each option holds some record of its own, so the qualifier deepest is what decides the answer.

The correct answer is C, 1959. Parliament passed the Arms Act in 1959, and it came into force in 1962 along with the Arms Rules. It replaced the colonial Indian Arms Act of 1878, which the British had brought in after the Revolt of 1857 to disarm Indians while exempting Europeans. The 1959 Act governs who may acquire, keep, carry, make, sell or import firearms and ammunition, and it makes a licence necessary for almost all of them. An amendment in 2019 cut the number of licensed firearms a person may hold from three to two and raised the punishment for illegal manufacture and trade. Option A is wrong because 1951 is the year of the first general election and the first constitutional amendment. Option B is wrong because 1955 gave India the Citizenship Act and the Hindu Marriage Act. Option D is wrong because no arms law was enacted in 1964. Exam tip: Indian Arms Act 1878 was colonial; the Arms Act 1959 is the law in force, amended in 2019.

The correct answer is C, NH 44. NH 44 runs roughly north to south from Srinagar to Kanyakumari, about 3,745 kilometres, and is the longest national highway in India. It was formed by merging several older highways, among them the stretch long known as NH 7, and it passes through the national capital and a long list of states on the way down the peninsula.

Option A, NH 27, is the long east to west highway linking Gujarat with Assam and is one of the longest in the country, but not the longest. Option B, NH 48, connects Delhi with Chennai through Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Bengaluru. Option D, NH 16, runs along the eastern coast between Kolkata and Chennai. The numbering itself carries a rule worth remembering: highways running mainly north to south take even numbers and those running east to west take odd numbers.

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, Andes. The Andes run down the whole western edge of South America, through seven countries from Venezuela to the southern tip of Chile and Argentina, and form the longest mountain range above sea level. They were raised where the Nazca plate is pushed beneath the South American plate, and they hold Ojos del Salado, the highest volcano in the world.

Option A, the Himalaya, holds the highest peaks in the world, including Everest, K2 in the neighbouring Karakoram and Kangchenjunga, but it is much shorter than the Andes. Option B, the Rockies, run through western North America and are long but not the longest. Option D, the Alps, are the great range of central Europe and are shorter still. Note one further distinction: the mid-ocean ridge system is longer than any of these, but it lies under the sea, which is why the question says on land.

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, Jama Masjid, Delhi. The Jama Masjid was built under Shah Jahan in the seventeenth century in red sandstone and white marble, opposite the Red Fort in Shahjahanabad, and its vast courtyard makes it the largest mosque in India. Its formal name is Masjid-i-Jahan Numa.

Option B, the Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad, was begun under the Qutb Shahi rulers and is one of the largest mosques of the Deccan, but not the largest in the country. Option C, the Moti Masjid or Pearl Mosque in the Agra Fort, is a small white marble mosque built for the emperor's court, prized for its finish rather than its size. Option D, the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque in the Qutub complex at Delhi, is the earliest surviving mosque built by the Delhi Sultanate and stands beside the Qutub Minar, the tallest brick minaret in the world. All four are examinable monuments, so the size test is the point of the question.

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 B, Bay of Bengal. The Bay of Bengal is the north-eastern arm of the Indian Ocean, bounded by India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sri Lanka, and it is the largest bay in the world. The Ganga, the Brahmaputra, the Mahanadi, the Godavari and the Krishna all drain into it, which is why it receives such a heavy load of silt and builds large deltas along its coast.

Option A, Hudson Bay in northern Canada, is a very large body of water and is sometimes offered as the answer, but it is smaller than the Bay of Bengal. Option C, the Bay of Biscay, lies between France and Spain and is known for rough seas, not for size. Option D, the Gulf of Mexico, is the largest gulf in the world, which is a separate record; the paper sometimes places bay and gulf in the same set of options to see whether the candidate keeps the two apart.

The correct answer is C, Vatican City. Vatican City is an independent state of well under half a square kilometre lying entirely inside the city of Rome, and it is the smallest country in the world by both area and population. It is the seat of the Pope and holds St Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel. At the other end of the scale, Russia is the largest country in the world by area.

Option A, Monaco, on the Mediterranean coast beside France, is the second smallest country. Option B, Nauru, an island in the Pacific, is the smallest island country and the third smallest state. Option D, San Marino, another enclave within Italy, is among the smallest and also among the oldest surviving republics. All four are genuinely tiny states, so the ranking has to be learnt rather than guessed from familiarity.