State Exams 2018 Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is D, 6. The Nobel Prize is awarded every year in six categories: Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, Peace and Economic Sciences. The first five were named in the will of Alfred Nobel and have been given since 1901, while the prize in Economic Sciences was instituted by the Sveriges Riksbank in 1968 and awarded for the first time in 1969.

Option A, 5, is the number of categories in Nobel's own will and is therefore the strongest distractor, but the count asked for today includes economics. Option B, 7, is one more than the list and matches no prize category. Option C, 4, would leave out two of the sciences altogether. The Peace Prize among the six is decided in Norway and presented at Oslo, while the other five are presented at Stockholm on 10 December each year.

The correct answer is A, a simple majority of its members. Article 343 says Hindi in Devanagari script is the official language of the Union and that English was to continue for fifteen years from 1950, but it also lets Parliament provide by law for the continued use of English after that period, and such a law needs only a simple majority of the members present and voting. The Official Languages Act of 1963 was passed in exactly this way and allowed English to go on alongside Hindi. So this change is made outside the special procedure of Article 368. Option B is wrong because a two-thirds majority of members present and voting, with a majority of the total membership, is the requirement for a constitutional amendment under Article 368. Option C is wrong because no amendment needs a three-fourths majority; half the state legislatures are what a federal amendment adds. Option D is wrong because one-third support is only a quorum-like number and passes nothing. Exam tip: Article 343, Official Languages Act 1963, simple majority.

The correct answer is C, Article 66. Article 66 lays down the manner of electing the Vice-President of India. He is chosen by an electoral college made up of the members of both Houses of Parliament, elected and nominated alike, by proportional representation through the single transferable vote and by secret ballot. A candidate must be a citizen of India, at least thirty-five years old, qualified for election as a member of the Rajya Sabha, and must hold no office of profit. Note that state legislatures take no part, unlike in the presidential election. Option A is wrong because Article 54 is about the electoral college for the President. Option B is wrong because Article 63 merely says there shall be a Vice-President of India. Option D is wrong because Article 74 is about the Council of Ministers that aids and advises the President. Exam tip: Article 63 the office, Article 64 ex officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, Article 66 the election.

The correct answer is A. The Banking Ombudsman is a senior officer appointed by the Reserve Bank of India to hear and settle customer complaints about deficiency in banking service. The scheme was first brought in under Section 35A of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, and the ombudsman decides complaints on matters such as delayed payment, wrongly levied charges, card and digital transaction disputes and refusal to accept small coins. A customer must first take the complaint to the bank and may approach the ombudsman when the bank does not reply in thirty days or the reply is unsatisfactory. Option B is wrong because private banks, foreign banks, regional rural banks and scheduled cooperative banks are covered too, not only public sector banks. Option C is wrong because the complainant is free to reject the award and go elsewhere; it binds the bank once accepted. Option D is wrong because the whole process is free of cost to the customer. Exam tip: the ombudsman is appointed by the RBI, complain to the bank first, and the service costs nothing.

The correct answer is D, Zero-Based Budgeting. In zero based budgeting every item of expenditure starts from a zero base and has to be justified afresh for the coming period, instead of being carried over because it existed last year. Each activity is examined for whether it is needed at all, and only then for how much it should get, so wasteful schemes are cut out. The method was developed by Peter Pyhrr at Texas Instruments around 1970, and the Government of India adopted it for the expenditure of its ministries from the second half of the 1980s. Option A is wrong because incremental budgeting simply adds a margin to last year figures. Option B is wrong because a flexible budget is one that changes with the level of output or activity. Option C is wrong because a static budget is fixed for a single planned level of activity and is not revised. Exam tip: zero based budgeting starts from zero, Peter Pyhrr, adopted in India in the 1980s.

The correct answer is B, Article 13. Article 13 declares that any law inconsistent with or in derogation of the fundamental rights is void, and it binds both the laws made before the Constitution and those made after it. It is the article that makes the rights enforceable, because it gives the Supreme Court and the High Courts the power of judicial review over ordinary legislation. Article 13(3) defines law widely enough to cover ordinances, orders, rules, notifications and even custom, and clause (4), added by the 24th Amendment, keeps constitutional amendments out of this definition. Option A is wrong because Article 14 guarantees equality before the law and equal protection of the laws. Option C is wrong because Article 11 lets Parliament regulate the right of citizenship by law. Option D is wrong because Article 12 only defines the term State for this Part. Exam tip: 12 defines State, 13 voids inconsistent laws, 14 equality.

The correct answer is A, Federal. The Preamble describes India as a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic; the word federal appears nowhere in it, or indeed anywhere in the Constitution. Article 1 instead calls India a Union of States, a wording the drafters chose to show that the states did not join by agreement and cannot leave. The words socialist and secular, along with integrity, were inserted by the 42nd Amendment Act of 1976, which is why they are part of the description today. Option B is wrong because republic is in the Preamble and means the head of state is elected, not hereditary. Option C is wrong because socialist was added in 1976 and stands in the Preamble. Option D is wrong because secular is also in the Preamble and means the state has no religion of its own. Exam tip: Preamble order is Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, Democratic, Republic; federal is absent.

The correct answer is C, Garhwal Himalayas. The Chipko movement began in 1973 in the Garhwal Himalayas, in Chamoli district of what is now Uttarakhand, when villagers hugged trees to stop contractors from felling them. Its name comes from the Hindi word chipko, to cling. Chandi Prasad Bhatt led the first protest at Mandal village, Gaura Devi led the women of Reni village in 1974, and Sunderlal Bahuguna carried the message across the hills with the slogan that the soil, water and pure air are the real produce of a forest. The movement led to a fifteen-year ban on green felling above 1,000 metres in the Himalayan forests of Uttar Pradesh in 1980. Option A is wrong because Patna in Bihar has no link with it. Option B is wrong because Thrissur is in Kerala, far from the movement. Option D is wrong because Jammu was never its centre. Exam tip: Chipko 1973, Garhwal; Appiko 1983, Karnataka.

The correct answer is C, 10 Joule. Potential difference is defined as the work done for each unit of charge carried between two points, so V = W/Q and therefore W = QV. Here the charge is 2 coulomb and the potential difference is 5 volt, which gives work of 2 into 5, that is 10 joule. The definition is the whole question: one volt is one joule per coulomb, so a charge of two coulomb moving across five volt must take ten joule of work. Option A, 0.4 joule, comes from dividing the charge by the voltage instead of multiplying. Option B, 2.5 joule, comes from dividing the voltage by the charge, which gives volt per coulomb and not an energy at all. Option D, 20 joule, is double the right value and would need a charge of 4 coulomb or a potential difference of 10 volt. Exam tip: W = QV, and one volt means one joule of work for every coulomb of charge.

The correct answer is D, Ministry of Education. The National Digital Library of India is a single window that brings together lakhs of learning resources, from school books to research papers, and lets a student search them free of cost in many Indian languages. It is developed by IIT Kharagpur under the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology, a mission of the Ministry of Education; the ministry was called the Ministry of Human Resource Development when the library was launched and was renamed in 2020. Option A is wrong because the Ministry of Finance handles the budget, taxes and public spending, not education platforms. Option B is wrong because India has no ministry of that name; Science and Technology is a separate ministry of its own. Option C is wrong because the electronics and information technology ministry runs Digital India, e-governance services and BharatNet, but not this library. Exam tip: National Digital Library of India means IIT Kharagpur, the NMEICT mission and the Ministry of Education.

The correct answer is B, Westerlies Winds. The westerlies blow from the subtropical high pressure belt towards the subpolar low, which makes them south-westerly in the northern hemisphere and north-westerly in the southern. Between 40 and 50 degrees south there is almost no land to slow them down, so over the Southern Ocean they blow strong and steady all year and sailors named them the Roaring Forties. Further south they are called the Furious Fifties and the Shrieking Sixties. Option A is wrong because the polar easterlies are cold, dry winds that move from the polar high towards the sixty degree latitudes. Option C is wrong because the trade winds blow from the subtropical highs towards the equator, north-easterly above the equator and south-easterly below it, and once carried sailing ships on their trade routes. Option D is wrong because the doldrums is not a wind at all but the belt of calm near the equator along the inter-tropical convergence zone. Exam tip: forties roar, fifties are furious, sixties shriek, and all three are westerlies.

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.

The correct answer is A, 20 Hz – 20000 Hz. A healthy human ear can hear sound waves with frequencies from about 20 hertz to 20,000 hertz (20 kHz); this band is called the audible range. Sounds below 20 Hz are called infrasonic, and animals such as elephants and whales use them to communicate over long distances. Sounds above 20 kHz are called ultrasonic; bats, dogs and dolphins can hear them, and ultrasound is used in medical scans, in cleaning delicate parts and in SONAR. Children under five and some animals can hear up to about 25 kHz, and the upper limit falls as people grow older. Option B is wrong because 80 to 100 Hz is only a tiny slice of the audible range. Option C is wrong because 2 lakh to 4 lakh Hz, that is 200 to 400 kHz, lies far inside the ultrasonic range. Option D is wrong because 0 to 20 Hz is the infrasonic range, which humans cannot hear. Exam tip: infrasonic below 20 Hz, audible from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, ultrasonic above 20 kHz.

The correct answer is A, M. Visvesvaraya. Sir M. Visvesvaraya, the engineer and former Diwan of Mysore, wrote ‘Planned Economy for India’ in 1934, the first book to set out a plan for India’s development. He proposed doubling the national income in ten years by shifting people from farming to industry, which is why he is seen as a pioneer of economic planning in India. His birthday, 15 September, is observed as Engineers’ Day, and he received the Bharat Ratna in 1955. Other plans followed: the Congress set up the National Planning Committee under Jawaharlal Nehru in 1938, and a group of industrialists released the Bombay Plan in 1944. Option B is wrong because J. R. D. Tata was one of the industrialists who signed the Bombay Plan, not the author of this book. Option C is wrong because G. D. Birla was also a signatory of the Bombay Plan. Option D is wrong because Pattabhi Sitaramayya is known for writing a history of the Indian National Congress. Exam tip: Visvesvaraya’s book 1934, National Planning Committee 1938, Bombay Plan and Gandhian Plan 1944, People’s Plan 1945.

The correct answer is C, 371 C – Meghalaya. Article 371C makes special provision for Manipur, not Meghalaya: the President may provide for a committee of the Legislative Assembly made up of members elected from the Hill Areas, and the Governor reports to the President on the administration of those areas. Articles 371 to 371J give such special provisions to twelve states, each added to meet a regional need. Meghalaya has no Article of its own in this series; its tribal areas are run under the Sixth Schedule. Option A is correctly matched because Article 371A protects the religious and social practices, customary law and land ownership of the Nagas of Nagaland. Option B is correctly matched because Article 371B allows a committee of members from the tribal areas in the Assam Assembly. Option D is correctly matched because Article 371D provides for equal opportunities in public jobs and education in Andhra Pradesh, and now covers Telangana as well. Exam tip: 371A Nagaland, 371B Assam, 371C Manipur, 371D Andhra Pradesh.

The correct answer is C, Man Singh. The Gujari Mahal at the foot of Gwalior Fort was built by Raja Man Singh Tomar, who ruled Gwalior from 1486 to 1516, for his favourite queen Mrignayani. She was a Gujar by birth, and that is how the palace got its name. Today the palace houses the State Archaeological Museum, famous for the graceful Shalbhanjika sculpture from Gyaraspur. Man Singh also built the Man Mandir palace inside the fort and was a great patron of Dhrupad music, so his court is linked with the growth of the Gwalior tradition of singing. Do not confuse him with Raja Man Singh of Amber, the Mughal general of Akbar’s time. Option A is wrong because Akbar’s buildings include Fatehpur Sikri and the Agra Fort, not this palace. Option B is wrong because Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort of Delhi. Option D is wrong because the builder is known and is listed in option C. Exam tip: Gujari Mahal, Gwalior, built by Man Singh Tomar for Queen Mrignayani.

The correct answer is A, Kharavela. The Hathigumpha or ‘elephant cave’ inscription is carved in the Udayagiri hills near Bhubaneswar in Odisha and is the main record of Kharavela, the Jain king of Kalinga of the Mahameghavahana (Chedi) dynasty, who ruled around the first century BCE. Written in Prakrit in the Brahmi script, it describes his reign year by year: repairs to his capital, campaigns against rulers in the north and south, gifts to Jain monks, and the extension of a canal first dug by a Nanda king. That Nanda reference makes it an important source for older history too. Option B is wrong because Ashoka is known from his own rock and pillar edicts; his Kalinga war is described in Rock Edict XIII. Option C is wrong because Harshavardhana is known from Banabhatta’s Harshacharita and the Banskhera and Madhuban copper plates. Option D is wrong because Kanishka’s key record is the Rabatak inscription found in Afghanistan. Exam tip: Hathigumpha → Kharavela; Junagadh → Rudradaman; Nasik → Gautamiputra Satakarni.

The correct answer is C, Public Account of India. Money from National Savings Certificates belongs to the savers, not the government, so under Article 266(2) it is credited to the Public Account. The Public Account holds money that the government keeps as a banker or trustee, such as small savings, provident funds, deposits and remittances. Since the money has to be returned to its owners, it can be paid out by executive action without a vote of Parliament. Option A is wrong because the Consolidated Fund, under Article 266(1), receives the government's own revenues, the loans it raises and loan repayments, and nothing can be spent from it without Parliament's approval. Option B is wrong because the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund is a separate fund built from public donations, set up in 1948 to help people displaced by Partition. Option D is wrong because the Contingency Fund, under Article 267, is kept at the disposal of the President for urgent, unforeseen spending. Exam tip: Article 266(1) is the Consolidated Fund, 266(2) the Public Account, 267 the Contingency Fund.

The correct answer is A, Borneo. Of the four islands listed, Borneo has the largest area; it is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. The world's top islands by area run Greenland, New Guinea, Borneo, Madagascar, Baffin and Sumatra, with Australia counted as a continent rather than an island. Borneo lies in South-East Asia and is the only island shared by three countries: Indonesia, whose part is called Kalimantan, Malaysia, with Sabah and Sarawak, and the small nation of Brunei. Option B is wrong because Great Britain, though the largest island in Europe, ranks only around ninth in the world. Option C is wrong because Madagascar, off the east coast of Africa, is the fourth-largest, just behind Borneo. Option D is wrong because Sumatra, also in Indonesia, is sixth, well behind Borneo. Exam tip: remember the top four as Greenland, New Guinea, Borneo, Madagascar, and that Borneo belongs to three countries.

The correct answer is B, Kaka Saheb Kalelkar. The first Backward Classes Commission, set up by the President under Article 340 in January 1953, was headed by the Gandhian writer Kaka Kalelkar. It submitted its report in 1955, but the Centre did not accept its main recommendations. The second Backward Classes Commission was set up in 1979 under B. P. Mandal, a former Chief Minister of Bihar, and its 27 per cent reservation for OBCs in central jobs was implemented in 1990. The 102nd Amendment of 2018 later gave the National Commission for Backward Classes constitutional status under Article 338B. Option A is wrong because Jagjivan Ram, also from Bihar, was a Dalit leader and Deputy Prime Minister, not the head of this commission. Option C is wrong because B. D. Sharma was an IAS officer known for his work on tribal rights. Option D is wrong because the first commission had only one chairman, Kalelkar. Exam tip: first commission Kalelkar 1953, second Mandal 1979, NCBC made constitutional in 2018.