Delhi 2018 Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is B, nephrons. The nephron is the structural and functional unit of the kidney, and each human kidney holds about one million of them. Blood is pushed into the cup shaped Bowman's capsule through a knot of capillaries called the glomerulus, and there the actual filtration happens: water, salts, glucose, amino acids and urea pass out while blood cells and large plasma proteins are held back. Option A is wrong because the ureter is only the tube that carries formed urine from the kidney down to the urinary bladder; it filters nothing. Option C is wrong because neurons are nerve cells that conduct impulses and belong to the nervous system, not the excretory system; the similar sound of nephron and neuron is exactly the trap in this question. Option D is wrong because the urethra is the last passage through which urine leaves the body. Remember the order: nephron filters, ureter carries, bladder stores, urethra releases.

The correct answer is A, Raja Ram Mohan Roy. He founded the Atmiya Sabha, a society of friends for religious and philosophical discussion, at Calcutta in 1815, and it was the first of his organised efforts against idol worship and empty ritual. From it grew the Brahmo Sabha of 1828, later the Brahmo Samaj. Option B is wrong because Keshab Chandra Sen came a generation later and split the Brahmo Samaj by founding the Brahmo Samaj of India in 1866. Option C is wrong because Debendranath Tagore founded the Tattvabodhini Sabha in 1839 and joined the Brahmo Samaj in 1843, giving it organisation after Roy's death. Option D is wrong because Raja Radhakant Deb was an orthodox leader who founded the Dharma Sabha to oppose the abolition of sati, that is, to oppose Roy.

The correct answer is B, Kerala. Silent Valley National Park lies in the Palakkad district of Kerala, in the Nilgiri hills of the Western Ghats, and protects one of the last stretches of undisturbed tropical evergreen forest in the country. It is best known as a stronghold of the lion-tailed macaque, a threatened primate found only in the Western Ghats, and it was saved from a hydroelectric project by a long public campaign before being declared a national park. Option A is wrong because Tamil Nadu, though it shares the Nilgiri landscape, holds Mudumalai and Mukurthi instead. Option C is wrong because Odisha is the state of Simlipal and the Gahirmatha turtle coast. Option D is wrong because Chhattisgarh has Indravati and Kanger Valley. Tie Silent Valley to Kerala and to the lion-tailed macaque.

The correct answer is C, Municipal corporation and holding elections for it. The 74th Amendment Act of 1992 created Part IXA for urban local bodies, of which the municipal corporation is the largest form under Article 243Q. It also made regular elections compulsory by fixing a five-year term under Article 243U and by placing the conduct of municipal elections with the State Election Commission under Article 243ZA.

Option A is wrong because district councils in the tribal areas of the North East are governed by the Sixth Schedule, which was part of the original Constitution of 1950. Option B is wrong because panchayats were the subject of the companion 73rd Amendment, which inserted Part IX. Option D is wrong because the Gram Sabha is recognised by Article 243A of Part IX and is not an elected body at all; it is the assembly of all registered voters of a village.

The correct answer is D, Targeted Public Distribution System. The public distribution system was made targeted in 1997, when households were divided into those above and those below the poverty line and the subsidy was concentrated on the poorer group. Grain from the central pool, procured largely by the Food Corporation of India, is issued to the States and sold through fair price shops under this system.

Option A is wrong because it is a made-up phrase about population spread and has no place in food policy. Option B is wrong for the same reason; it describes nothing in the administration of food subsidy. Option C is wrong because although it borrows the word target, there is no scheme by that name; the development programmes of that period were the Integrated Rural Development Programme and its successors. Only option D is the correct expansion.

The correct answer is C, Deciduous forest. Tropical deciduous forest is called monsoon forest because it is the natural vegetation of the monsoon climate, growing where rainfall lies between 70 and 200 centimetres and where a marked dry season follows the rains. Its trees shed their leaves for six to eight weeks in the dry months to save water, and it is the most widespread forest type in India, yielding teak, sal, shisham and sandalwood. Options A and B, rain forest and equatorial forest, describe the evergreen forest of the heavy rainfall belt above 200 centimetres, which has no leafless season at all. Option D, mountain forest, is classified by altitude rather than by the rainfall regime and changes from oak and chestnut through pine and deodar to alpine meadow as one climbs, so it is not tied to the monsoon rhythm.

The correct answer is D, Red sandal. Red sanders, or red sandalwood, is a tree of the dry deciduous forest and grows almost entirely in the Seshachalam and Palakonda hills of the Eastern Ghats in Andhra Pradesh, where it is prized for its dark red heartwood; it is not a thorn forest species. Options A, B and C are all classic trees of the tropical thorn forest, which grows in the semi-arid belt receiving less than 70 centimetres of rainfall. Khair, the catechu tree, yields the katha used in paan. Keekar and babool are names for the acacia that dots the plains of Rajasthan, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. All three carry thorns, small leaves and long tap roots, the standard adaptations for a dry habitat, while red sanders is a taller tree of a moister and shadier forest type.

The correct answer is A, 14. When the Constitution came into force in 1950 the Eighth Schedule listed 14 languages. Option B is wrong because 18 was the count reached only in 1992, after the 71st Amendment added Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali to the 15 that existed then. Option C is wrong because 16 was never a stage in the list at all; the count went from 14 to 15 in 1967 when the 21st Amendment added Sindhi, and then straight to 18. Option D is wrong because 22 is the present number, reached in 2003 when the 92nd Amendment added Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali. Candidates lose this question by reading the word initially carelessly and answering with the current figure, so read the stem twice: 14 at the start, 22 today.

The correct answer is A, Kannada. Kannada is one of the four major Dravidian languages, the others being Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam, and it is the official language of Karnataka. Option B is wrong because Hindi belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European family and descends through Prakrit and Apabhramsha from Sanskrit. Option C is wrong because Oriya, now written as Odia, is also an Indo-Aryan language and is the official language of Odisha. Option D is wrong because Manipuri, also called Meitei, belongs to the Tibeto-Burman branch of the Sino-Tibetan family and is written in the Meitei Mayek script as well as in the Bengali-Assamese script. A useful rule for the exam is that the four southern State languages, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, are Dravidian, while almost every northern and eastern State language is Indo-Aryan.

The correct answer is B, charities and religious affairs. The Panditrao was the ecclesiastical head in the Ashta Pradhan, fixing the dates of religious ceremonies, supervising grants to temples and learned men, and punishing offences against religious custom. Option A is wrong because foreign affairs belonged to the Sumant, also called the Dabir, who received and sent envoys. Option C is wrong because accounts and finance belonged to the Amatya or Majumdar, who audited district income and expenditure. Option D is wrong because justice was the work of the Nyayadhish, who decided civil and criminal cases on the basis of custom and the old law books. Note also that the Panditrao and the Nyayadhish were the two ministers who were not given a military command, unlike the other six members of the council.

The correct answer is B, Krishna Devaraya. Krishnadevaraya of the Tuluva dynasty ruled from 1509 to 1529 and his reign is treated as the golden age of Vijayanagara: the Raichur doab was won back, Odisha's Gajapati ruler was humbled, Telugu literature flourished under the eight court poets called the Ashtadiggajas, and the Vitthalaswamy and Hazara Rama temples were raised. He himself wrote the Telugu work Amuktamalyada. Option A is wrong because Vira Narasimha, his half-brother and predecessor, ruled only briefly from 1505 to 1509 and spent that time putting down rebellions. Option C is wrong because Sadashiva Raya was a figurehead of the later Tuluva line in whose name Aliya Rama Raya ruled, and the disaster of Talikota in 1565 falls in his reign. Option D is wrong because Achyuta Deva Raya, who ruled from 1529 to 1542, was the weaker successor of Krishnadevaraya and saw the empire begin to slip.

The correct answer is D, Andhra Pradesh. The Telugu-speaking Andhra State was carved out of the Madras province on 1 October 1953, the first time independent India accepted language as the ground for a new state, and in 1956 it was enlarged and renamed Andhra Pradesh. Every later linguistic state followed this precedent.

Option A, Karnataka, was formed in 1956 as Mysore State by bringing Kannada-speaking areas together and was renamed Karnataka only in 1973, so it came later. Option B, West Bengal, existed from 1947 as a product of the partition of Bengal rather than of a linguistic reorganisation. Option C, Punjab, was reorganised on a linguistic basis much later, in 1966, when Haryana was separated and hill areas went to Himachal Pradesh. Learn 1953 as the single date for the first linguistic state.