India's oldest oil well and oldest operating refinery are located at which place in Assam?

The correct answer is B, Dispur. Dispur is the seat of the Assam government and lies within the larger city of Guwahati, which is why the two are so often confused. Option A, Guwahati, is the commonest wrong answer; it is the largest city of the state and of the whole north-east, the seat of the Gauhati High Court and the site of the Kamakhya temple, but it is not the capital in name. Option C, Jorhat, is wrong; it is known for the Tocklai Tea Research Institute and as the gateway to Majuli. Option D, Silchar, is wrong because it is the chief town of the Barak valley in southern Assam. A useful way to hold this is that Dispur is a locality of Guwahati, so the capital sits inside the largest city.

The correct answer is B, 1985. Kaziranga, which holds the largest population of the Indian one-horned rhinoceros, was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1985, the same year as Manas National Park on the Bhutan border. Option A, 1974, is the strongest distractor because that is the year Kaziranga was declared a national park, having earlier been a reserve forest and a game sanctuary. Option C, 2006, is wrong; that is the year it was declared a tiger reserve, which it is in addition to being a World Heritage Site. Option D, 2002, is wrong because that is the year Deepor Beel near Guwahati was designated a Ramsar site. Four dates of Assam's protected areas thus sit close together and are regularly swapped in the options.

The correct answer is B, Lachit Borphukan. Saraighat was a naval battle fought on the Brahmaputra near Guwahati in 1671, in which the Ahom commander Lachit Borphukan defeated the Mughal force led by Ram Singh, and it ended Mughal ambitions in the Brahmaputra valley. Option A, Sukaphaa, is wrong; he founded the Ahom kingdom in 1228, more than four centuries before this battle, and Assam Day on 2 December commemorates him. Option C, Chilarai, is wrong because he was the general of the Koch kingdom in the sixteenth century, a different state and an earlier period, which makes him the most plausible wrong choice. Option D is wrong as it is not the name of a historical commander of this battle. The National Defence Academy awards a gold medal named after Lachit Borphukan.

The correct answer is A, Sukaphaa. Sukaphaa was a Tai prince who crossed the Patkai range and established the Ahom kingdom in 1228; it lasted about six hundred years, the longest unbroken rule by any Indian dynasty of the medieval period, and 2 December is observed in Assam in his memory. Option B, Rudra Singha, is wrong; he was a powerful later Ahom king of the early eighteenth century under whom the kingdom reached a cultural peak. Option C, Gadadhar Singha, is wrong because he too was a later Ahom ruler, of the late seventeenth century. Option D, Naranarayana, is wrong since he was a king of the Koch dynasty, the rival power to the west, and his general was Chilarai. Only the founder's name answers a question about 1228.

The correct answer is A, the Treaty of Yandabo of 1826. It ended the First Anglo-Burmese War, and under it the Burmese gave up their claims to Assam, Manipur, Arakan and Tenasserim, so Assam came under the East India Company. Option B is wrong; the Treaty of Amritsar of 1846 transferred Kashmir to Gulab Singh after the First Anglo-Sikh War. Option C is wrong because the Treaty of Bassein of 1802 brought the Peshwa into subsidiary alliance and precipitated the Second Anglo-Maratha War. Option D is wrong since the Treaty of Allahabad of 1765 followed the Battle of Buxar and settled affairs with the Mughal emperor and the Nawab of Awadh. Yandabo is the one to remember for the north-east, because the same treaty also brought Manipur and Arakan into the British sphere.