The Battle of Plassey, which opened Bengal to the East India Company, was fought in which year?

The correct answer is B, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. West Bengal is the only Indian state that touches three foreign countries: Nepal lies to its north west, Bhutan to its north and Bangladesh to its east along a long eastern frontier. Option A is wrong because West Bengal does not reach the Chinese border; Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh lie between. Option C is wrong because Myanmar borders Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh, none of which touches West Bengal. Option D is wrong for the same reason regarding China and because it leaves out Bangladesh, the longest of the state's three international borders. Connected to this is the Siliguri corridor in the north, the narrow strip between Nepal and Bangladesh called the chicken's neck, which is the only land link to the north eastern states.

The correct answer is C, the Calcutta High Court. It was established in 1862 under the Indian High Courts Act of 1861, a few days before the High Courts at Bombay and Madras, which makes it the oldest in the country; its jurisdiction also extends beyond the state to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Option A is wrong because the Bombay High Court, though set up in the same year under the same Act, came after Calcutta. Option B is wrong for the same reason in the case of the Madras High Court. Option D is wrong because the Allahabad High Court was established later, in 1866, and had its seat first at Agra. The trio created under the 1861 Act, with Calcutta first, is the standard form of this question.

The correct answer is A, 1948. The Corporation was created soon after independence to control the floods of the Damodar, a river so destructive that it was called the sorrow of Bengal, and it was modelled on the Tennessee Valley Authority of the United States, combining flood control, irrigation, power generation and navigation in one body. Option B is wrong because 1956 is the year of the States Reorganisation Act, a separate landmark. Option C is wrong because 1962 has no bearing on the Corporation; it is the year the Paradip port was inaugurated in Odisha. Option D is wrong because 1975 is the year the Farakka Barrage on the Ganga was commissioned, which is also in West Bengal but is a different project with a different purpose, namely diverting water into the Hooghly.

The correct answer is B, Gitanjali. The collection of devotional poems, which Tagore himself rendered into English, won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913, making him the first Indian and the first non European to receive the award. He also wrote the national anthems of India and of Bangladesh. Option A is wrong because Anandamath is the novel of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, the work in which the song Vande Mataram appears. Option C is wrong because Gora is indeed a novel by Tagore but is not the work for which the prize was given. Option D is wrong for the same reason: Chokher Bali is another of his novels, not the Nobel work. Remember three names together: Gitanjali for Tagore, Anandamath for Bankim Chandra and Jana Gana Mana for the anthem.

The correct answer is B, to divert water into the Hooghly and flush silt from the approach to Kolkata port. The Ganga splits in West Bengal, with the main stream going into Bangladesh as the Padma and the Bhagirathi and Hooghly running south past Kolkata. The Hooghly was silting up and the port becoming hard to reach, so the barrage at Farakka was built to send a guaranteed flow down that channel. Option A is wrong because the barrage is not a hydroelectric project. Option C is wrong because the Dooars tea gardens lie far to the north and are not served by it. Option D is wrong because flood control on the Damodar is the work of the Damodar Valley Corporation set up in 1948, a different project that candidates often confuse with this one.