In which year did Emperor Akbar build the Buland Darwaja?

The correct answer is A, Karnataka. The Gol Gumbaz stands at Bijapur, now called Vijayapura, in Karnataka. It is the tomb of Muhammad Adil Shah of the Adil Shahi dynasty of Bijapur and was completed in the middle of the seventeenth century. Its dome is one of the largest masonry domes in the world and rests on interlocking arches without any supporting pillars inside, leaving a single vast chamber. The gallery running around the base of the dome is famous as the whispering gallery, where a low sound is repeated several times.

Option B, Tamil Nadu, is the land of Dravida temple building, not of the Deccan sultanates. Option C, Kerala, has its own timber and tiled roof tradition. Option D, Telangana, does hold Qutb Shahi work such as the Charminar and the Golconda fort, but the Adil Shahi capital was Bijapur in Karnataka, so D is the trap option here.

The correct answer is D, Shah Jahan. The Jama Masjid of Delhi, whose formal name is Masjid-i-Jahan-Numa, was built by Shah Jahan between 1650 and 1656 as the congregational mosque of his new capital Shahjahanabad. It is built of red sandstone and white marble, stands on a high plinth reached by broad flights of steps, and has two tall minarets and three domes. It is among the largest mosques in India.

Option A, Akbar, built in red sandstone at Fatehpur Sikri and Agra, but the Delhi Jama Masjid belongs to his grandson. Option B, Humayun, built the short lived Dinpanah and is remembered instead through the garden tomb raised for him after his death. Option C, Babur, ruled only from 1526 to 1530 and left very little building in India. The Jama Masjid belongs firmly to the marble and sandstone age of Shah Jahan, who also raised the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort.

The correct answer is C, 73. The Qutub Minar in Mehrauli, Delhi, rises to about 72.5 metres, which is taken as 73 metres in answer keys. It is the tallest brick minaret of its kind, tapering from a base diameter of roughly 14.3 metres to about 2.7 metres at the top, and it is climbed inside by a spiral staircase of around 379 steps. Qutb-ud-din Aibak began it, Iltutmish added storeys, and Firoz Shah Tughlaq repaired the upper part after lightning damage, which is why the material changes from red sandstone below to marble and sandstone above.

Options A, B and D give 75, 77 and 71 metres. All three are near misses put there to test whether the figure has been memorised rather than guessed. Examiners like this monument because it also carries the Iron Pillar of Delhi in the same complex, along with the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque and the Alai Darwaza.

The correct answer is D, Jahangir. The Shalimar Bagh on the bank of the Dal lake in Srinagar was laid out by Jahangir in 1619 for his queen Nur Jahan. It is a Mughal garden in the charbagh plan, built in rising terraces fed by a central water channel, with pavilions and cascades, and it shows how far the Mughals carried the Persian idea of a garden as a picture of paradise. Jahangir loved Kashmir and the Nishat Bagh nearby belongs to the same period.

Option A, Azam Shah, was a son of Aurangzeb and is linked with the Bibi ka Maqbara at Aurangabad, not with Kashmir. Option B, Akbar, annexed Kashmir in 1586 and built the Hari Parbat fort wall there, but not this garden. Option C, Humayun, spent his reign in war and exile and left no garden of this kind. The Shalimar Bagh belongs to Jahangir.

The correct answer is B, Alauddin Khalji. The Alai Darwaza was added in 1311 as the southern gateway to the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque in the Qutub complex at Delhi. It is the first surviving building in India in which the arch and the dome are true, that is, built of wedge shaped stones that carry the load sideways, instead of being corbelled by laying flat stones one over another. Its red sandstone walls are inlaid with white marble and carry lotus bud fringes on the arches.

Option A, Iltutmish, belongs to the earlier Slave dynasty and built his own tomb and the upper storeys of the Qutub Minar, still in the corbelled manner. Option C, Firoz Shah Tughlaq, came much later and is known for Firozabad, Hauz Khas and the repair of the Qutub Minar. Option D, Sikandar Lodi, is associated with the double dome and with Agra as a capital. Only Alauddin Khalji fits the date and the gateway.