Railway 2020 Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is C, Odisha. Pattachitra is the old cloth-scroll painting of Odisha, and the name itself explains it: patta means cloth and chitra means picture. The painters, called chitrakars, treat a cloth with chalk and tamarind paste, then draw gods and legends on it with natural colours and a fine brush, keeping a decorated border around the scene. Most works show Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra of Puri, Krishna's life or scenes from the epics. The village of Raghurajpur near Puri is famous for this craft and has a GI tag for Odisha Pattachitra. A is wrong because Andhra Pradesh is known for Kalamkari, drawn and dyed with a pen. B is wrong because Rajasthan is known for Phad paintings and the miniature schools of Kishangarh, Mewar and Bundi. D is wrong because Bihar is known for Madhubani or Mithila painting. Exam tip: Pattachitra is Odisha, Madhubani is Bihar, Kalamkari is Andhra Pradesh, Warli is Maharashtra.

The correct answer is B, Operating system. Ubuntu is a free, open-source operating system built on the Linux kernel and based on the Debian distribution. It was first released in 2004 by Canonical, and its name comes from a Nguni Bantu word of southern Africa meaning humanity towards others. An operating system is the master software that starts the machine and manages its memory, files, processor time and devices; Ubuntu does this job on desktops, laptops, servers and cloud machines, and is popular because it costs nothing and its source code is open. A is wrong because malware means harmful software such as viruses, worms and ransomware. C is wrong because an external hard drive is a piece of hardware used to store data outside the computer. D is wrong because a web browser is an application like Chrome, Firefox or Edge that opens web pages. Exam tip: common Linux distributions are Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian and Red Hat; Windows, macOS and Android are other operating systems.

The correct answer is C, 1986. Parliament passed the Environment (Protection) Act in 1986 and it came into force on 19 November 1986. It was enacted soon after the Bhopal gas tragedy of December 1984, when the country needed one general law to fill the gaps left by the earlier pollution laws. Parliament used Article 253, which allows it to legislate to carry out international agreements, so the Act gives effect to the decisions of the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. It is called an umbrella law because it gives the Central Government wide powers to fix standards, inspect and shut polluting units and frame rules, and most later environmental rules are made under it. A is wrong because no such central environment Act was passed in 1990. B is wrong because 1991 is the year of the Public Liability Insurance Act. D is wrong because 1988 only brought amendments to the Water Act. Exam tip: Water Act 1974, Air Act 1981, Environment (Protection) Act 1986.

The correct answer is A, vitamin B1. Beriberi is caused by a lack of thiamine, which is vitamin B1. Thiamine helps the body turn carbohydrates into energy and keeps nerves and the heart working, so its shortage weakens muscles and nerves (dry beriberi) or causes swelling and heart failure (wet beriberi). The disease was common in Asia among people living mainly on polished white rice, because milling strips away the thiamine-rich outer layer of the grain; whole grains, pulses, nuts and eggs supply it. Vitamin B1 is water-soluble, so the body stores little of it and needs a regular intake. B is wrong because vitamin A deficiency causes night blindness and xerophthalmia. C is wrong because vitamin C deficiency causes scurvy, with bleeding gums. D is wrong because vitamin D deficiency causes rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults. Exam tip: B1 beriberi, B3 pellagra, B12 pernicious anaemia, C scurvy, D rickets.

The correct answer is C, AB+. A person with AB positive blood can receive red cells from every ABO and Rh group, so AB+ is called the universal recipient. The reason is simple: AB+ red cells carry the A antigen, the B antigen and the Rh (D) antigen, so the plasma has no anti-A, anti-B or anti-Rh antibodies to attack donated blood. The opposite case is O negative, whose red cells have none of these antigens, which makes O− the universal donor. Karl Landsteiner discovered the ABO groups in 1900 and received the Nobel Prize in 1930. A is wrong because O+ plasma has both anti-A and anti-B antibodies, so it accepts only O blood. B is wrong because A+ has anti-B antibodies and cannot take B or AB blood. D is wrong because B+ has anti-A antibodies and cannot take A or AB blood. Exam tip: AB+ receives from all, O− gives to all.

The correct answer is C, Lord Chelmsford. Chelmsford was Viceroy from 1916 to 1921, and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre happened on 13 April 1919, the day of Baisakhi, in Amritsar. A peaceful crowd protesting the Rowlatt Act and the arrest of Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr Satyapal was fired upon on the orders of General Dyer, with Michael O'Dwyer as Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab. Rabindranath Tagore returned his knighthood in protest, and the Hunter Commission was set up to inquire into the firing. The Montagu–Chelmsford reforms of the same year and the Government of India Act 1919 are also from his term. A is wrong because Lord Irwin (1926–31) is linked with the Simon Commission boycott, the Dandi March and the Gandhi–Irwin Pact. B is wrong because Dalhousie (1848–56) was a Governor-General famous for the Doctrine of Lapse. D is wrong because Ripon (1880–84) is remembered for local self-government and the Ilbert Bill. Exam tip: 1919 means Rowlatt Act, Jallianwala Bagh and Montagu–Chelmsford reforms, all under Chelmsford.

The correct answer is D, air pollution. Lichens are used as bio-indicators of air quality because they are extremely sensitive to sulphur dioxide and other gases in the air. A lichen is a partnership of a fungus and an alga (or cyanobacterium) living together; it has no roots and takes water and minerals straight from the air, so pollutants build up in it quickly. That is why lichens grow well on trees and rocks in clean hill areas but disappear from the centres of polluted cities, and scientists map their presence to judge how clean the air is. A is wrong because gas pollution is not a separate category; the gases concerned are part of air pollution. B is wrong because water pollution is judged with indicators such as coliform bacteria, BOD and algal blooms. C is wrong because soil pollution is tracked through earthworms and soil tests, not lichens. Exam tip: lichen equals sulphur dioxide equals air pollution indicator.

The correct answer is A, The Hague. The International Court of Justice sits in the Peace Palace at The Hague in the Netherlands. The ICJ is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, set up in 1945 by the UN Charter, and it settles legal disputes between countries and gives advisory opinions to UN bodies. It has 15 judges elected for nine-year terms by the General Assembly and the Security Council, and it is the only one of the six principal UN organs that is not based in New York. Justice Dalveer Bhandari of India is one of its judges. B is wrong because Paris hosts UNESCO, not the court. C is wrong because Washington D.C. is home to the IMF and the World Bank. D is wrong because New York houses the UN headquarters, the General Assembly and the Security Council. Exam tip: ICJ at The Hague, UNESCO in Paris, IMF and World Bank in Washington, UN headquarters in New York.

The correct answer is D, Zoji La. Zoji La is the pass on the Srinagar–Leh highway (NH 1) that joins the Kashmir valley with Dras and Ladakh. It sits at about 3,528 metres in the Great Himalayan range and stays snowbound for months every winter, which is why the Zojila tunnel is being built to keep Ladakh connected all year. Kargil and Dras lie just beyond it, so the pass mattered a great deal during the 1999 Kargil conflict. A is wrong because Nathu La is in Sikkim on the border with Tibet (China) and is used for the Kailash Mansarovar route and border trade. B is wrong because Bara-lacha La is in Himachal Pradesh on the Manali–Leh road, not the Srinagar road. C is wrong because Jelep La is also a Sikkim–Tibet pass, close to Nathu La. Exam tip: Srinagar–Leh means Zoji La; Manali–Leh means Rohtang and Bara-lacha La; Sikkim means Nathu La and Jelep La.