The Turbulent Years: 1980-1996 and The Coalition Years were written by

The correct answer is B, Jawaharlal Nehru. He wrote it in 1944 while imprisoned in Ahmadnagar Fort, tracing Indian history and thought from the earliest times. Its Hindi version is Bharat Ki Khoj and the television series Bharat Ek Khoj was based on it.

Option A, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, wrote India Divided in 1946, Satyagraha in Champaran and the Hindi autobiography Atmakatha, and because he and Nehru wrote in the same years he is the distractor used most often here. Option C, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, wrote on philosophy, including Indian Philosophy and The Hindu View of Life, not on history. Option D, Sardar Patel, left speeches and letters rather than a book of this kind. Remember that all three of Nehru's famous titles, An Autobiography, Glimpses of World History and The Discovery of India, were written in prison.

The correct answer is C, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. Wings of Fire, written with Arun Tiwari, describes his boyhood in Rameswaram, his training as an engineer and his years in the space and missile programmes, and it is the most frequently asked title in this whole chapter.

Option A, Dr. Zakir Husain, was an educationist whose known work is The Dynamic University. Option B, K. R. Narayanan, is remembered for collections of speeches and essays such as Images and Insights rather than for an autobiography. Option D, Pranab Mukherjee, wrote a political memoir in three volumes, The Dramatic Decade, The Turbulent Years and The Coalition Years, and it is these that examiners set against Kalam's books. Kalam's other titles worth carrying are India 2020, written with Y. S. Rajan, Ignited Minds, Turning Points and My Journey.

The correct answer is A, P. V. Narasimha Rao. The Insider is a novel that follows a politician's climb through state and national politics, and it is read as a lightly disguised account of the system its author knew from the inside. He was a scholar of several languages and also wrote on the Ayodhya question.

Option B, I. K. Gujral, wrote an autobiography, Matters of Discretion, which is a memoir and not fiction. Option C, Morarji Desai, wrote the autobiography The Story of My Life, again a work of recollection. Option D, Chandra Shekhar, left no book that examiners ask about. The fact to hold is a simple one: Narasimha Rao is the only Prime Minister of India to have published a novel, so any question mentioning fiction and the office of Prime Minister points to him.

The correct answer is B, Dr. Rajendra Prasad. The first President of India published India Divided in 1946, examining the demand for partition and the arguments made on both sides in the years before independence. His other works are Satyagraha in Champaran and Atmakatha, the autobiography he wrote in Hindi while in prison.

Option A, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, wrote on philosophy and religion, not on the political question of partition. Option C, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, wrote India Wins Freedom, the title candidates most often confuse with this one because both names contain the word India and both deal with the same years. Option D, V. V. Giri, came from the trade union movement and wrote Jobs for Our Millions and Industrial Relations. Keep the pair apart: India Divided is Rajendra Prasad, India Wins Freedom is Azad.

The correct answer is A, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, the second President of India and a professor of philosophy before he entered public life. Besides these two titles he wrote Indian Philosophy in two volumes and The Philosophy of the Upanishads, and Teachers' Day is observed on his birthday, 5 September.

Option B, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, wrote on politics and on the Champaran movement, not on philosophy. Option C, Swami Vivekananda, is the strongest distractor because his lectures on Hinduism are famous, but he held no constitutional office and these particular titles are not his. Option D, Dr. Zakir Husain, the third President, was an educationist known for The Dynamic University. A quick rule keeps this family of questions safe: philosophy and the Upanishads point to Radhakrishnan, education to Zakir Husain, labour to V. V. Giri.