How many feathers are fixed in a standard feathered shuttlecock used in badminton?

The correct answer is D, disqualification. Badminton umpires use three cards, and the black one is the last of them: it removes the player or the pair from the match altogether, and the referee is informed. Option C, warning, describes the yellow card, which the umpire shows for a first offence such as delaying play or leaving the court without permission. Option B, fault, describes the red card, which punishes a repeated or a serious offence by awarding the rally, and therefore a point, to the opponent. Option A, suspension, is not a card decision at all; a ban from future tournaments is imposed later by the federation on a disciplinary report, not by the umpire on court. Learn the three cards as a rising ladder — yellow for a warning, red for a point to the other side, black for disqualification — because papers ask for any one of the three.

The correct answer is C, Table Tennis. The Corbillon Cup is the trophy of the women’s team event at the World Table Tennis Championships, and its companion, the Swaythling Cup, is the men’s team trophy. Option D, Badminton, is the distractor the setter counts on, because badminton has its own pair of team cups — the Thomas Cup for men and the Uber Cup for women — and candidates who remember only that cups exist in racket games mix the two sets. Option A, Golf, is wrong: golf’s team trophies are the Ryder Cup, the Presidents Cup and the Solheim Cup. Option B, Hockey, is wrong as well; Indian hockey is associated with the Dhyan Chand Trophy, the Rangaswami Cup and the Beighton Cup. Keep the four cups in two pairs, table tennis against badminton, and this family of questions becomes easy marks.

The correct answer is A, Thomas Cup. Named after Sir George Thomas, an English player and administrator, it is the world men’s team championship in badminton and was first contested in 1948–49. India won it for the first time in 2022, beating Indonesia in the final at Bangkok. Option B, the Uber Cup, is the matching women’s team championship, first held in 1956–57 and named after the English player Betty Uber. Option C, the Swaythling Cup, belongs to a different game: it is the men’s team trophy in table tennis. Option D, the Sudirman Cup, is a badminton team event but a mixed one, contested by combined men’s and women’s teams since 1989 and named after the Indonesian administrator Dick Sudirman. Note the pattern: Thomas for men, Uber for women, Sudirman for mixed.

The correct answer is D, 1.524 m. The badminton net sags very slightly at the middle, so the laws fix two heights: 1.524 metres at the centre of the court and 1.55 metres over the side lines, at the posts. Option B, 1.55 m, is therefore a true figure placed in the wrong slot, and it is the answer most candidates pick when they read the question in a hurry; note carefully whether the question says centre or posts. Option A, 1.50 m, is a rounded-off number that appears in loose writing but is not the legal height. Option C, 1.62 m, is nowhere in badminton; it is close to the height of a volleyball net for women, which is 2.24 metres, and simply serves as a distractor. The court itself is 13.4 metres long, 6.1 metres wide for doubles and 5.18 metres for singles.

The correct answer is B, 21. Since 2006 badminton has used rally point scoring, in which a point is won on every rally whoever served, a game runs to 21 points and a match is decided over the best of three games. From 20–20 a side must take a lead of two clear points, and if the score climbs to 29–29 the thirtieth point settles the game. Option A, 15, was the older system for men’s singles and doubles, where only the serving side could score, and it is the commonest wrong answer. Option C, 11, was the older score for women’s singles and is also the length of a table tennis game today, so it belongs to a different game. Option D, 25, is the score of a set in modern volleyball and has no place in badminton.