RRB NTPC 2022 Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

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.

The correct answer is C, Article 360. Article 360 lets the President proclaim a financial emergency when the financial stability or credit of India, or of any part of it, is threatened. Such a proclamation must be approved by both Houses of Parliament within two months, after which it continues indefinitely until revoked; there is no maximum period. During it the Union can direct states to follow canons of financial propriety, and salaries of government servants, including Supreme Court and High Court judges, can be reduced. No financial emergency has ever been declared in India, though it was discussed during the 1991 crisis. D is wrong because Article 352 is the national emergency on grounds of war, external aggression or armed rebellion, imposed in 1962, 1971 and 1975. A is wrong because Article 356 is President's rule, imposed when a state's constitutional machinery fails. B is wrong because Article 359 only suspends the enforcement of fundamental rights during a national emergency. Exam tip: 352 national, 356 state, 360 financial; only 360 has never been used.

The correct answer is C, 277. Water is densest at about 4 degrees Celsius, and 4 plus 273 gives roughly 277 kelvin. Most liquids keep shrinking as they cool, but water behaves oddly: below 4 degrees Celsius it starts to expand again because its molecules begin forming the open, hexagonal pattern of ice. This anomalous expansion is why ice is lighter than water and floats, and why a lake freezes from the top while the 4-degree water sinks to the bottom, letting fish survive the winter. Its density at that point is very close to 1 gram per cubic centimetre. D is wrong because 273 kelvin is 0 degrees Celsius, the freezing point, where water is already less dense than at 4 degrees. A is wrong because 0 kelvin is absolute zero, where no liquid water can exist. B is wrong because 227 kelvin is about minus 46 degrees Celsius, far below freezing. Exam tip: maximum density of water at 4 degrees Celsius equals 277 K; freezing at 273 K, boiling at 373 K.

The correct answer is C, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. National Unity Day, or Rashtriya Ekta Diwas, is observed on 31 October, the birth anniversary of Sardar Patel, who was born in 1875 at Nadiad, Gujarat. The day was started in 2014 to honour his role as the first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister who brought more than 560 princely states into the Indian Union, earning him the title Iron Man of India. It is marked with a Run for Unity and a unity pledge, and on 31 October 2018 the 182-metre Statue of Unity was unveiled in his memory at Kevadia on the Narmada. A is wrong because Dr Ambedkar's birth anniversary, 14 April, is Ambedkar Jayanti. B is wrong because Indira Gandhi's birthday, 19 November, is observed as National Integration Day. D is wrong because Mother Teresa was born on 26 August, which is not a national day. Exam tip: 31 October means Sardar Patel, National Unity Day and the Statue of Unity.

The correct answer is D, Jyotirao Govindrao Phule. Jyotiba Phule founded the Satyashodhak Samaj at Pune on 24 September 1873 to fight caste discrimination and the hold of priests over society. The same year he published Gulamgiri (Slavery), attacking Brahmanical domination, and earlier, in 1848, he and his wife Savitribai had opened one of the first schools for girls in Pune. The Samaj promoted education for Shudras, Dalits and women, marriages without priests, and equality; Phule was given the title Mahatma in 1888, and Dr Ambedkar counted him among his three gurus. A is wrong because Savitribai Phule, though a pioneer of women's education and a member of the Samaj, was not its founder. B is wrong because E. V. Ramasamy Periyar led the Self-Respect Movement in Tamil Nadu from 1925. C is wrong because Ayyankali was a Dalit reformer of Kerala who set up the Sadhu Jana Paripalana Sangham in 1907. Exam tip: Satyashodhak Samaj, Pune, 1873, Jyotiba Phule, book Gulamgiri.

The correct answer is B, 44th Constitutional Amendment 1978. The 44th Amendment, passed by the Janata Party government of Morarji Desai, took the right to property out of Part III of the Constitution. It deleted Article 19(1)(f) and Article 31, which had guaranteed the right to acquire, hold and dispose of property, and put in their place Article 300A, which says no person shall be deprived of property except by authority of law. Property thus became a legal or constitutional right, not a fundamental one, from 20 June 1979, so a citizen can no longer go straight to the Supreme Court under Article 32 for it. C is wrong because the 42nd Amendment of 1976 added the words Socialist, Secular and Integrity and the Fundamental Duties; it did not remove property. A is wrong because the 46th Amendment (actually of 1982) dealt with sales tax on goods. D is wrong because the 48th Amendment (1984) extended President's rule in Punjab. Exam tip: 42nd added Fundamental Duties, 44th removed the fundamental right to property (now Article 300A).

The correct answer is C, Kashmir. Rajatarangini, meaning the river of kings, is a Sanskrit verse chronicle of the rulers of Kashmir written by Kalhana around 1148–1150 CE. It runs to about 8,000 verses arranged in eight books called tarangas, or waves, and traces Kashmir's kings from legendary times down to Kalhana's own day in the reign of Jayasimha. Because Kalhana used inscriptions, coins, older records and his own judgement, it is often called the first real work of history written in India. Later authors Jonaraja, Srivara and Prajyabhatta continued the story into the Mughal period. A is wrong because Bengal's rulers are recorded in works like Ramacharita of Sandhyakara Nandi, not in Rajatarangini. B is wrong because Bihar was the seat of Magadha and the Palas, who are not the book's subject. D is wrong because the Delhi Sultans are covered by Persian chronicles such as Tabaqat-i-Nasiri. Exam tip: Kalhana, Rajatarangini, Kashmir, 12th century, eight tarangas.

The correct answer is C, 30 May 1987. Goa became a full state on 30 May 1987 through the Constitution (56th Amendment) Act and the Goa, Daman and Diu Reorganisation Act, and the day is celebrated every year as Goa Statehood Day. Goa had been freed from Portuguese rule on 19 December 1961 in Operation Vijay and was then run as the Union Territory of Goa, Daman and Diu. In 1987 Goa was separated and raised to statehood, while Daman and Diu stayed a union territory; Konkani was made the official language and Panaji the capital. Earlier the same year, on 20 February 1987, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh had become the 23rd and 24th states, so Goa took the 25th place. B is wrong because in 1986 Goa was still a union territory. D and A are wrong because by 1988 and 1990 Goa had already been a state for one and three years. Exam tip: liberated 1961, state 30 May 1987, 25th state after Mizoram (23rd) and Arunachal Pradesh (24th).

The correct answer is C, Zn. Zinc has atomic number 30, meaning every zinc atom has 30 protons in its nucleus. It is the last element of the first transition series in period 4 of the modern periodic table, with the electronic configuration [Ar] 3d10 4s2, and it is placed in group 12. Zinc is a bluish-white metal used to galvanise iron against rust, to make brass with copper, and in dry cells. All four options are neighbours in the same period, which is why paper setters like this question: iron is 26, cobalt 27, nickel 28, copper 29 and zinc 30. A is wrong because Ni, nickel, has atomic number 28. B is wrong because Fe, iron, has atomic number 26. D is wrong because Co, cobalt, has atomic number 27. Exam tip: remember the run Fe 26, Co 27, Ni 28, Cu 29, Zn 30.

The correct answer is A, Brahmaputra. Majuli lies in the Brahmaputra river in Assam, near Jorhat, and is the largest river island in the world. In 2016 it became India's first island district. It is the heart of Assam's neo-Vaishnavite culture: the saint Srimanta Sankardeva and his disciple Madhavdeva set up satras (monasteries) there in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the island is famous for its mask-making and the Raas festival. Every monsoon the Brahmaputra eats away its banks, so Majuli has shrunk from over 1,200 square km to less than half of that, making erosion its biggest worry. B is wrong because the Ganga has no comparable island; its delta islands such as Sagar belong to the Sundarbans. C is wrong because the Indus flows mainly through Pakistan and has no such island. D is wrong because the Godavari's Konaseema is a delta region, not a single river island. Exam tip: Majuli equals Brahmaputra equals Assam, first island district of India (2016).

The correct answer is The People of India. The Preamble opens with the words "We, the people of India", which name the people as the source from which the Constitution draws its authority. The Constitution was not handed down by a government, a court or a legislature; the people, through their Constituent Assembly, adopted, enacted and gave it to themselves on 26 November 1949.

The Supreme Court, the Indian Parliament and the Central Government are all created by the Constitution, so none of them can be its source of authority. Each of them exercises only the powers the Constitution gives it. This is the first of the four things the Preamble tells us, the others being the nature of the Indian State (sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic, republic), its objectives (justice, liberty, equality and fraternity) and the date of adoption. A fill-in-the-blank question like this one tests whether you know the exact opening words, so learn the text as written.