Railway 2022 Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is C, Kachchh. The Kachchh Biosphere Reserve in Gujarat, notified in 2008, covers about 12,454 square kilometres and is the largest biosphere reserve in India by area. It takes in the Great Rann and the Little Rann of Kachchh, salt marshes that flood in the monsoon, and is home to the Indian wild ass, the flamingo breeding grounds and the desert fox. The first biosphere reserve of India was the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, set up in 1986 across Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka. A is wrong because the Sundarbans reserve in West Bengal covers about 9,630 square kilometres. B is wrong because the Gulf of Mannar reserve in Tamil Nadu is about 10,500 square kilometres. D is wrong because Nanda Devi in Uttarakhand is about 5,860 square kilometres. Exam tip: largest biosphere reserve by area = Kachchh (Gujarat); first = Nilgiri (1986); do not confuse it with the largest national park, Hemis in Ladakh.

The correct answer is A, Refuse. The 3 R's of waste management are Reduce, Reuse and Recycle; Refuse is not one of them. Reduce means creating less waste in the first place, such as buying fewer packaged goods and switching off lights to save power. Reuse means using a thing again, like refilling a bottle or turning old clothes into bags. Recycle means sending waste such as paper, glass, metal and plastic to be made into new products. NCERT gives the three in this order, and the order matters: reducing is the best option and recycling the last resort because it still uses energy. Some newer lists add Refuse and Repurpose to make 5 R's, but the paper asks about the 3 R's. B is wrong because recycling is one of the three. C is wrong because reducing is the first R. D is wrong because reuse is the second R. Exam tip: 3 R's = Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, in that order of preference.

The correct answer is B, New Delhi. The Ministry of Panchayati Raj is a Union ministry, and like every ministry of the Government of India it works from the national capital, New Delhi. It was set up as a separate ministry in May 2004 to look after the three-tier system of village, block and district panchayats. That system got constitutional status through the 73rd Amendment Act, 1992, which came into force on 24 April 1993; this is why 24 April is observed as National Panchayati Raj Day. Part IX of the Constitution and the Eleventh Schedule, with 29 subjects, deal with panchayats. A is wrong because Jaipur is the capital of Rajasthan; Rajasthan was the first state to start Panchayati Raj, at Nagaur on 2 October 1959, but the ministry is not there. C is wrong because Chennai is the capital of Tamil Nadu. D is wrong because Pune is a city of Maharashtra, not a seat of Union ministries. Exam tip: Union ministries = New Delhi; 73rd Amendment = panchayats; first Panchayati Raj = Nagaur, Rajasthan, 2 October 1959.

The correct answer is B, Gulzarilal Nanda. Gulzarilal Nanda became the first Deputy Chairman when the Planning Commission began work in 1950, and he later became interim Prime Minister twice, in 1964 and 1966. The Planning Commission was set up by a Cabinet resolution on 15 March 1950 with the Prime Minister as its ex-officio Chairman; it was neither a constitutional nor a statutory body. Nanda was also Union Planning Minister and received the Bharat Ratna in 1997. The Commission was replaced by NITI Aayog on 1 January 2015. A is wrong because Sardar Patel was Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister and never served on the Planning Commission. C is wrong because K.C. Neogy headed the first Finance Commission in 1951. D is wrong because Nehru was the Chairman of the Planning Commission as Prime Minister, not its Deputy Chairman. Exam tip: Planning Commission 1950, Chairman = Prime Minister, first Deputy Chairman = Gulzarilal Nanda; NITI Aayog replaced it on 1 January 2015.

The correct answer is B, 1976. Regional Rural Banks were set up under the Regional Rural Banks Act, 1976, after the Narasimham Working Group of 1975 recommended small banks close to the villages. The first RRB, Prathama Bank, opened at Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh on 2 October 1975 under an ordinance, and the Act followed in 1976. Each RRB is sponsored by a commercial bank, and its capital is shared by the Centre (50 per cent), the sponsor bank (35 per cent) and the State government (15 per cent). Their aim is credit for small farmers, artisans and rural labourers, and NABARD supervises them. A is wrong because in 1966 rural credit still depended on cooperatives; no RRB law existed. C is wrong because 1986 saw no such Act. D is wrong because 1996 is long after the Act, not the year it was passed. Exam tip: RRB Act 1976; first RRB Prathama Bank, 2 October 1975; capital shared 50:35:15 between Centre, sponsor bank and State.

The correct answer is D, Altitude and slope determine the rate of humus formation. Altitude and slope, which together make up relief, decide how much soil collects at a place, not how fast humus forms. Humus is the dark organic matter made when dead leaves and animals rot, and its rate of formation depends on climate and on the living things in the soil: plants, animals and micro-organisms. NCERT lists five factors of soil formation. Parent rock gives the soil its colour, texture and minerals; climate, meaning temperature and rainfall, sets the rate of weathering and humus formation; relief, meaning altitude and slope, controls how much soil accumulates; time decides the thickness of the soil profile; and flora, fauna and microbes affect humus. A is wrong as a choice because temperature and rainfall really do control weathering. B is wrong because time does decide how thick the profile grows. C is wrong because parent rock does fix the colour of soil. Exam tip: relief = accumulation of soil; climate and organisms = humus; parent rock = colour and texture; time = thickness.

The correct answer is B, Fourth Schedule. The Fourth Schedule allots the seats of the Rajya Sabha, the Council of States, among the States and Union Territories. Uttar Pradesh gets the most with 31, followed by Maharashtra with 19 and Tamil Nadu with 18, while small states such as Goa, Sikkim and Mizoram get one seat each. Article 80 fixes the House at not more than 250 members, 12 of them nominated by the President for their work in literature, science, art and social service. Members are elected by the State Legislative Assemblies by proportional representation and serve six years, with one-third retiring every two years. A is wrong because the First Schedule lists the States and Union Territories and their territories. C is wrong because the Third Schedule contains the forms of oaths and affirmations. D is wrong because the Second Schedule gives the salaries and allowances of the President, Governors, judges and other officials. Exam tip: Schedule 1 = States and UTs, Schedule 2 = salaries, Schedule 3 = oaths, Schedule 4 = Rajya Sabha seats.

The correct answer is C, Article 343. Article 343(1) declares that the official language of the Union shall be Hindi in the Devanagari script, with the international form of Indian numerals for official purposes. Part XVII of the Constitution, Articles 343 to 351, deals with official language. Article 343 allowed English to continue for fifteen years from 1950, and the Official Languages Act of 1963 kept English alongside Hindi after that period. Article 344 provides for a Commission and a Committee of Parliament on official language, and the Eighth Schedule lists the languages recognised by the Constitution. A is wrong because Article 351 is only a directive to promote and develop Hindi. B is wrong because Article 336 gives a special provision for the Anglo-Indian community in certain services. D is wrong because Article 347 lets the President recognise a language spoken by a section of a State's population. Exam tip: Article 343 = Hindi in Devanagari as the official language; Article 351 = directive to develop Hindi; Articles 343 to 351 make up Part XVII.

The correct answer is D, 2002. Article 21-A was inserted by the Constitution (86th Amendment) Act, 2002, making free and compulsory education for children aged six to fourteen a Fundamental Right. The same amendment added a new Fundamental Duty in Article 51-A(k), asking parents and guardians to provide education to their children, and reworded Article 45 to cover early childhood care for children below six years. The law that puts Article 21-A into practice is the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, which came into force on 1 April 2010. A is wrong because 2003 saw no amendment on education. B is wrong because 2004 is not linked to Article 21-A. C is wrong because 2001 is before the amendment was passed. Exam tip: 86th Amendment 2002 = Article 21-A; RTE Act 2009, enforced from 1 April 2010; age group 6 to 14 years.

The correct answer is D, Article 154. Article 154 says the executive power of a State is vested in the Governor, who exercises it directly or through officers under him, exactly as Article 53 does for the President at the Centre. Part VI of the Constitution deals with the States: Article 153 provides a Governor for each State, Article 155 says the President appoints the Governor, Article 156 fixes the term at five years, and Article 163 gives the Governor a Council of Ministers to aid and advise him. In practice the Chief Minister and the ministers run the government, and the Governor acts on their advice. A is wrong because Article 124 establishes the Supreme Court. B is wrong because Article 134 deals with criminal appeals to the Supreme Court. C is wrong because Article 144 requires all authorities to act in aid of the Supreme Court. Exam tip: Article 53 = President's executive power, Article 154 = Governor's executive power; the two Articles mirror each other.

The correct answer is D, It has no unit. Magnification is a ratio of two lengths, so the units cancel and it is a pure number. For a mirror or a lens, magnification m equals the height of the image divided by the height of the object (h′/h). For a lens it also equals v/u, the image distance divided by the object distance, and for a mirror it equals −v/u. A value of 2 means the image is twice the size of the object; a value less than 1 means it is smaller. With the usual sign convention a negative m means a real, inverted image, and a positive m means a virtual, erect image. A is wrong because the dioptre is the unit of the power of a lens, P = 1/f with f in metres. B is wrong because the newton is the SI unit of force. C is wrong because the centimetre measures lengths such as focal length and image distance, not their ratio. Exam tip: magnification = no unit; power of a lens = dioptre; focal length = metre or centimetre.

The correct answer is A, un-deviated. A ray that passes through the optical centre of a thin lens comes out in the same direction, without any bending. The optical centre is the central point of the lens on its principal axis. Near it the two faces of the lens are almost parallel, like a thin glass slab, so the ray shifts sideways by a negligible amount and keeps its direction. This is one of the three standard rays used to draw ray diagrams: a ray parallel to the principal axis passes through the focus after refraction in a convex lens, a ray through the focus comes out parallel to the axis, and a ray through the optical centre goes straight on. B is wrong because only rays that strike the lens away from the centre are deviated. C is wrong because bent means the same as deviated, which does not happen at the centre. D is wrong because a lens refracts light; reflection is what mirrors do. Exam tip: through the optical centre = straight through; parallel ray = through the focus; ray through the focus = emerges parallel.

The correct answer is D, (i) - (c), (ii) - (b), (iii) - (a). Red cabbage is a natural acid-base indicator, methyl orange is a synthetic acid-base indicator, and onion and clove are olfactory indicators. An indicator tells whether a solution is acidic or basic. Natural indicators come from plants: litmus from lichen, turmeric, red cabbage leaves and coloured petals such as hydrangea and petunia. Synthetic indicators made in the laboratory include methyl orange, which is red in acid and yellow in base, and phenolphthalein, which is colourless in acid and pink in base. Olfactory indicators change their smell instead of their colour; onion, vanilla and clove lose their smell in a basic solution. A is wrong because it calls methyl orange an olfactory indicator. B is wrong because it labels red cabbage as olfactory. C is wrong because it puts onion and clove under natural colour indicators. Exam tip: change of smell = olfactory (onion, clove, vanilla); change of colour = litmus, turmeric, red cabbage; lab-made = methyl orange, phenolphthalein.

The correct answer is D, Hg. Mercury (Hg) belongs to group 12, not group 11. Group 11 of the modern periodic table holds copper (Cu, atomic number 29), silver (Ag, 47) and gold (Au, 79). These three are called the coinage metals because coins were made from them; each has one electron in its outermost s orbital, which makes them soft and shiny, and silver and copper are the best conductors of electricity of all metals. Mercury sits right next to gold in period 6 but in group 12, together with zinc and cadmium, and it is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature. A is wrong because silver is a group 11 metal. B is wrong because gold is also in group 11. C is wrong because copper heads group 11. Exam tip: Group 11 = Cu, Ag, Au (coinage metals); Group 12 = Zn, Cd, Hg; the liquid metal mercury is never a coinage metal.

The correct answer is A, Platelets. Platelets are the tiny cell fragments that rush to a cut and start the clot. They are also called thrombocytes and are made in the bone marrow from large cells called megakaryocytes. A healthy adult has about 1.5 to 4 lakh platelets per cubic millimetre of blood, and each one lives for only 8 to 10 days. At a wound they stick together to form a plug and release chemicals that turn the soluble protein fibrinogen into fibrin threads, which trap blood cells and seal the leak. B is wrong because plasma proteins such as fibrinogen take part in clotting, but the paper marks platelets as the component that starts and aids clot formation. C is wrong because white blood cells fight infection, not bleeding. D is wrong because red blood cells carry oxygen with haemoglobin. Exam tip: RBC = oxygen, WBC = immunity, platelets = clotting; a falling platelet count is what dengue is known for.

The correct answer is A, stagflation. Stagflation is a blend of the words stagnation and inflation: output stops growing, unemployment rises, and yet prices keep climbing. Normally inflation and unemployment move in opposite directions, as the Phillips curve shows, so stagflation is a puzzle for policy makers, because raising interest rates to cool prices worsens unemployment while spending to create jobs pushes prices higher. The classic example is the 1970s, when the oil price shocks of 1973 and 1979 hit western economies with slow growth and double-digit inflation at the same time. B is wrong because an inflation premium is the extra return lenders demand to make up for expected inflation. C is wrong because an inflationary gap is the amount by which total demand exceeds full-employment output, a situation of too much demand, not of high unemployment. D is wrong because reflation is a deliberate policy of boosting demand to lift an economy out of a slump. Exam tip: stagflation equals high inflation plus high unemployment plus stagnant growth, remembered by the 1970s oil crisis.

The correct answer is B, Harsha. Ratnavali is one of three Sanskrit plays attributed to Emperor Harshavardhana of Kannauj, who ruled from 606 to 647 CE; the other two are Priyadarshika and Nagananda. Ratnavali tells how Princess Ratnavali of Simhala, living in disguise as Sagarika, wins the love of King Udayana of Vatsa. Harsha was a great patron of learning as well as a writer: Banabhatta lived at his court and wrote Harshacharita and Kadambari, the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang visited him, and he held assemblies at Kannauj and Prayag. A is wrong because Kalidasa, of the Gupta age, wrote Abhijnanashakuntalam, Meghaduta and Raghuvamsha. C is wrong because Bhavabhuti, in the court of Yashovarman, wrote Uttararamacharita and Malatimadhava. D is wrong because Vishakhadatta wrote Mudrarakshasa about Chanakya and Chandragupta Maurya. Exam tip: Harsha's three plays are Ratnavali, Priyadarshika and Nagananda; his biographer was Banabhatta.

The correct answer is D, The People of India. The Preamble opens with the words WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, which declare that the Constitution draws its authority from the people, not from any king, court or legislature. It goes on to promise Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, and ends by recording that the Constituent Assembly adopted, enacted and gave the Constitution to ourselves on 26 November 1949. The Preamble is based on Nehru's Objectives Resolution of 1946; the words Socialist, Secular and Integrity were added by the 42nd Amendment in 1976; and in the Kesavananda Bharati case (1973) the Supreme Court held that the Preamble is a part of the Constitution. A is wrong because the Supreme Court is created by the Constitution and cannot be its author. B is wrong because Parliament too gets its powers from the Constitution. C is wrong because the Central Government is only an organ that works under the Constitution. Exam tip: Preamble begins We the People, adopted 26 November 1949, amended once in 1976.

The correct answer is A, Ganga. The Ganga basin is the most populous river basin on earth, home to more than 600 million people across India, Nepal, Bangladesh and a small part of Tibet. In India alone it covers about 8.6 lakh square km, roughly a quarter of the country, across Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Haryana, Delhi and parts of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, and it supports about 40 percent of India's population. Fertile alluvial soil, plentiful groundwater and a long farming history explain the dense settlement. B is wrong because the Nile, though the longest river, flows mostly through desert and its basin holds far fewer people. C is wrong because the Mississippi basin lies in the thinly populated interior of the USA. D is wrong because the Amazon has the largest discharge and basin area but its rainforest is among the least populated regions on earth. Exam tip: Ganga is the most populated basin; Amazon is the largest by area and water; Nile is the longest river.

The correct answer is C, Open market operations. Open market operations, or OMO, are the buying and selling of government securities by the central bank in the open market to control the money supply. When the RBI buys government bonds it pays money to banks, so liquidity in the system rises and interest rates tend to fall; when it sells bonds it pulls money out, tightening liquidity and pushing rates up. OMO is a quantitative tool of monetary policy, used along with the cash reserve ratio, the statutory liquidity ratio, the repo rate and the bank rate, and the RBI also uses it to manage the government's borrowing programme. A is wrong because national market operations is not a term used in monetary policy. B is wrong because closed market operations does not exist; the whole point is that the trades happen in the open market. D is wrong because international market operations would refer to foreign exchange dealings, not government securities. Exam tip: RBI buys securities means more money, RBI sells securities means less money; that is OMO.