State Exams 2019 Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is D, Padma Bhushan. The Indian civilian honours run in a fixed order of precedence: the Bharat Ratna first, then Padma Vibhushan, then Padma Bhushan and then Padma Shri. Counting from the top, Padma Bhushan is therefore the third highest, and it is given for distinguished service of a high order in any field. Option A, Padma Vibhushan, is the second highest, awarded for exceptional and distinguished service, and is the option most often chosen by candidates who forget to count the Bharat Ratna. Option B, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, is the highest honour in Indian cinema and is given by the government for lifetime contribution to film; it is outside the civilian order of precedence altogether. Option C, the Arjuna Award, belongs to sport and recognises consistently outstanding performance over several years, so it too is a field award rather than a general civilian honour.

The correct answer is D, the tropical savanna region. The savanna is a tropical grassland with tall coarse grass and scattered flat topped trees, and its wet season produces an enormous crop of grass. That grass supports the largest herds of grazing animals on earth, the zebra, the wildebeest, the giraffe and the antelope, and those herds in turn support the lion, the leopard and the cheetah. Because so many large mammals live there together, the savanna, especially in East Africa, is called the land of big game. Option A is wrong because the temperate grassland has short grass and has been ploughed for wheat so widely that it is called the granary of the world, and its large wild herds are long gone. Option B is wrong because the tropical monsoon region is known for deciduous forest and for rice cultivation under a seasonal rainfall regime. Option C is wrong because the hot desert has too little vegetation to feed large herds, and its animals are small and mostly nocturnal.

The correct answer is B, the Information Technology Act, 2000. It is India’s first cyberlaw, and it is the statute that gave legal recognition to electronic records and to digital and electronic signatures, so that a contract concluded online is as enforceable as one written on paper and a department may accept a filing or issue a licence electronically. That recognition is exactly what electronic commerce needs, which is why the Act is described as providing its legal infrastructure; it also created the Controller of Certifying Authorities and was amended in 2008 to cover data protection, cyber terrorism and interception. Options A, C and D are wrong because no Information Technology Act was passed in 1996, 1998 or 1990; they are near years offered to test whether the candidate remembers the exact one. Note that 2000 is also the year in which the United Nations model law on electronic commerce was being adopted widely.

The correct answer is C, butane and propane. The LPG supplied in household cylinders is mainly a mixture of butane and propane, two gases that turn liquid under moderate pressure. Both are saturated hydrocarbons got while refining crude oil or processing natural gas, and because they liquefy on compression, a cylinder holds far more fuel than the same volume of gas would. The gases have no smell of their own, so a strong-smelling compound called ethyl mercaptan is added to make a leak noticeable at once. LPG burns with a clean blue flame and leaves almost no residue, which makes it a far better home fuel than wood or coal. A is wrong because methane is the chief part of CNG and biogas, not of LPG. B is wrong because ethane is at most a minor component. D is wrong because hexane is a liquid at room temperature and serves as a solvent. Exam tip: LPG is butane plus propane, while CNG is mainly methane.

The correct answer is D, -40°. Only at -40 do the two scales read alike, so -40 °C and -40 °F are the very same temperature. The scales are linked by F = (9/5)C + 32. Writing C in place of F gives C = (9/5)C + 32, so -(4/5)C = 32 and C = -40. On the Celsius scale water freezes at 0° and boils at 100°, while on the Fahrenheit scale the same two points are 32° and 212°, so 100 Celsius divisions cover 180 Fahrenheit divisions. Because the two scales climb at different rates, they can agree at exactly one point, and that point lies well below both freezing marks. A is wrong because 0 °C equals 32 °F. B is wrong because -25 °C equals -13 °F. C is wrong because -37 °C comes to about -34.6 °F. Exam tip: remember the single crossing point -40 °C = -40 °F, and the freezing pair 0 °C = 32 °F.

The correct answer is B, 22. The Government of India announces a Minimum Support Price for twenty-two mandated crops on the recommendation of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices. These cover cereals, pulses, oilseeds and commercial crops such as copra, raw cotton and raw jute. Sugarcane is kept outside this list and is dealt with separately through a Fair and Remunerative Price.

Option A is wrong because twenty is short of the mandated list and matches no official grouping. Option C is wrong because twenty-four is often chosen by candidates who count sugarcane and one or two minor crops along with the mandated list. Option D is wrong because eighteen is far too small; the pulses and oilseeds alone account for more than ten of the twenty-two. The figure to remember is twenty-two mandated crops plus a separate FRP for sugarcane.

The correct answer is D, Thermal Power Plant. Fly ash is the fine, powdery residue that rises with the flue gases when pulverised coal is burnt to raise steam in a coal-fired power station. Because it is so light it escapes up the chimney unless electrostatic precipitators trap it, and untrapped fly ash settles on fields and water bodies carrying heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury. India's Fly Ash Notification makes it compulsory for thermal power stations to use this ash, so today most of it goes into cement, bricks, road embankments and mine filling, turning a pollutant into a building material. Option A is wrong because an oil refinery mainly releases sulphur dioxide, hydrocarbons and volatile organic compounds. Option B is wrong because a fertilizer plant emits ammonia and oxides of nitrogen. Option C is wrong because a cement plant gives out cement dust and carbon dioxide; it consumes fly ash rather than producing it. Exam tip: fly ash comes from coal-based thermal power plants, is captured by electrostatic precipitators and is reused in cement and bricks.

The correct answer is A, Urdu. Under Article 345 a State may adopt any language in use within it as its official language, and Uttar Pradesh has adopted Hindi as its official language and Urdu as its second official language. Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language written in the Perso-Arabic script and is in the Eighth Schedule. Option B is wrong because Awadhi, the speech of the Awadh region and the language of Tulsidas's Ramcharitmanas, is counted as a dialect of Hindi in the census returns and has no official status. Option C is wrong because Bundeli, spoken in the Bundelkhand region, is likewise treated as a Hindi dialect. Option D is wrong because Bagheli, spoken in the Baghelkhand tract on the Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh border, is also a dialect and not an official language. The examiner is testing the difference between an official language and a regional dialect.

The correct answer is B, African-Asian. There is no language family by that name in India. The Afro-Asiatic family, which the name echoes, covers Arabic, Hebrew and the Berber and Cushitic languages of West Asia and North Africa, and no Indian language belongs to it. Option A is wrong because the Tibeto-Burman family, a branch of the Sino-Tibetan family, is very much present in India and covers Manipuri, Bodo, Lepcha, Ladakhi and the Naga languages of the north-east. Option C is wrong because the Dravidian family is the second largest family in the country and covers Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Tulu and Gondi. Option D is wrong because the Austro-Asiatic or Munda family is spoken in Jharkhand, Odisha and Meghalaya and covers Santali, Mundari, Ho and Khasi. The families actually found in India are Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, Tibeto-Burman, and the small Andamanese and Tai-Kadai groups.

The correct answer is A, football. An offside trap is a defensive tactic in which the defenders move up the field together at the right moment so that an attacking player is left beyond the last defender when the ball is played forward, and the referee then gives offside. The tactic exists only because football has an offside law. Option B is wrong because badminton has no offside rule; its terms are smash, drop shot, lob and deuce. Option C is wrong because tennis is played across a net with the players in separate courts, so there is no line to be caught behind; its terms are love, deuce, ace and let. Option D is wrong because table tennis is also a net game with its own terms such as chop, loop and let. Hockey has an offside rule in its older form, but the trap as a named tactic is asked for football.

The correct answer is D, anthracite. Anthracite is the oldest and hardest grade of coal, with the highest proportion of carbon, so it gives the most heat for its weight and burns with a clean, almost smokeless flame. Option A is wrong because bituminous coal, though the grade most widely used in industry and in power stations, stands below anthracite in carbon content and produces more smoke. Option B is wrong because lignite, also called brown coal, is a low grade with high moisture, used mainly in power stations built at the mine itself. Option C is wrong because peat is the first stage of the process, little more than partly decayed plant matter, with the least carbon and the most moisture of the four. The rising order to remember is peat, lignite, bituminous, anthracite.

The correct answer is A, Guru Angad Dev. The second Guru standardised and popularised Gurmukhi, the script in which the hymns of the Gurus were written down, and this made it possible to preserve the teaching of the movement in the language its followers actually spoke. Option B, Guru Amar Das, the third Guru, is remembered for strengthening the langar, the free community kitchen where people of all castes ate together, and for organising the manji system of preaching centres. Option C, Guru Ram Das, the fourth Guru, founded the city of Amritsar. Option D, Guru Nanak Dev, the first Guru and founder of the faith, preached one formless God, the remembrance of the divine name and honest labour, and travelled widely on his udasis, but the script itself is credited to his successor.

The correct answer is B, Geitonogamy. Geitonogamy is pollination between two different flowers borne on the same plant. It is an odd halfway case: because the pollen has to travel from one flower to another it needs an agent such as an insect or the wind, so in working it looks like cross-pollination, yet the pollen comes from the same plant, so genetically it is self-pollination and brings no new variation. A is wrong because autogamy is pollination within the same flower, where pollen falls on the stigma of that very flower, as in pea and wheat. C is wrong because xenogamy is the transfer of pollen to the stigma of a flower on a different plant, and it is the only one of the three that brings genetically different pollen and so gives rise to variation. D is wrong because option B already names the process correctly. Exam tip: autogamy – same flower; geitonogamy – same plant, another flower; xenogamy – another plant.

The correct answer is A, 1856. The Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act was passed in July 1856 and made the remarriage of a Hindu widow lawful, so that the children of such a marriage were treated as legitimate. It came after a long campaign by Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, the Sanskrit scholar of Bengal, who argued from the shastras themselves that remarriage was allowed, and who gathered thousands of signatures in its support. The reformer also had to accept a condition in the Act by which a widow who remarried gave up the property she held from her first husband. B is wrong because 1858 is the year of Queen Victoria's Proclamation, which passed the rule of India to the Crown. C is wrong because 1859 is remembered for the Bengal Rent Act and the Indigo revolt, not for this law. D is wrong because 1862 is the year the High Courts were set up at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. Exam tip: 1829 sati banned, 1856 widow remarriage allowed, 1891 Age of Consent Act.

The correct answer is C, Carbohydrates. The buccal cavity is the mouth, and the saliva poured into it begins the digestion of starch, a carbohydrate. Three pairs of salivary glands supply saliva, which carries the enzyme salivary amylase, also called ptyalin. It works best in a slightly alkaline medium and breaks the long starch chains into the sugar maltose, which is why a piece of bread kept in the mouth slowly tastes sweet. The teeth and tongue help by grinding the food and rolling it into a bolus. A is wrong because protein digestion begins in the stomach, where pepsin works in the acid of hydrochloric acid. B is wrong because the digestion of fat takes place chiefly in the small intestine, where bile from the liver breaks fat into small droplets and pancreatic lipase acts on them. D is wrong because starch digestion clearly does begin in the mouth. Exam tip: mouth – starch by amylase; stomach – protein by pepsin; small intestine – fat by bile and lipase.

The correct answer is A, Rill erosion. Water erosion of soil moves through a fixed sequence: raindrops first loosen the soil, that is splash erosion; the water then takes off a thin even layer of topsoil, which is sheet erosion; the flow soon gathers into small finger-like channels called rills; and when those rills are cut deeper and wider by running water until a plough can no longer cross them, they become gullies. So a gully is a grown up rill, the advanced stage of rill erosion. The ravines along the Chambal in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh are the classic Indian example of badlands made by gully erosion. B is wrong because splash erosion is the first step, the impact of raindrops. C is wrong because sheet erosion comes before rills and removes soil in a uniform layer. D is wrong because wind erosion is a separate agent that lifts dry loose soil, not the parent of a gully. Exam tip: splash, then sheet, then rill, then gully.

The correct answer is A, Ashwagandha. Ashwagandha, whose botanical name is Withania somnifera, is called winter cherry in English because of the small red berry it bears inside a papery cover; it is also called Indian ginseng. The part used is the root, which in Ayurveda is given as a tonic for weakness, stress and sleeplessness, and the plant's Sanskrit name comes from the horse-like smell of the fresh root. It is a hardy shrub of dry regions, so Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat are the main growing states; the Nagauri type from Nagaur in Rajasthan and the crop around Mandsaur and Neemuch in Madhya Pradesh are the best known. B is wrong because rose is an ornamental and perfume crop, not a winter cherry. C is wrong because lily is a garden flower grown from bulbs. D is wrong because chandni is an ornamental flowering shrub grown for its white flowers. Exam tip: Ashwagandha, Withania somnifera, winter cherry or Indian ginseng, root used.

The correct answer is B, Muskmelon. Durgapura Madhu is a muskmelon variety, and it takes its name from the Durgapura research farm of the agricultural research institute at Jaipur in Rajasthan, where it was developed. Hot dry summers and light sandy soils suit melons, so Rajasthan grows them on river beds and in field plots as a summer crop, and Durgapura has released a small family of melon varieties that carry the farm's name, Durgapura Madhu and Durgapura Meetha among them. Madhu is grown for its sweet flesh and is popular in the Jaipur, Tonk and Bharatpur belt. State exams usually ask such questions the other way round too, pairing a variety with its crop, so the name itself is the clue to learn. A is wrong because watermelon is a separate crop with its own varieties such as Sugar Baby and Arka Manik. C is wrong because rose is a flower crop. D is wrong because cucumber varieties, like Poona Khira, carry other names. Exam tip: Durgapura Madhu and Durgapura Meetha are muskmelon varieties from Durgapura, Jaipur.

The correct answer is C, decibel. The loudness or intensity level of sound is measured in decibels (dB), a unit named after Alexander Graham Bell. The decibel is a logarithmic unit, so every rise of 10 dB means the intensity of the sound has become ten times greater; that is why a whisper of about 30 dB and ordinary talk of about 60 dB feel so far apart. City traffic runs at about 80 dB, a sound above 120 dB is painful to the ear, and India's noise pollution rules are themselves written in dB for day and night limits. Option A is wrong because the hertz measures frequency, the number of vibrations a second, which the ear hears as pitch and not as loudness. Option B is wrong because wave number counts how many waves fit into a unit length and is used in spectroscopy, not for measuring sound. Option D is wrong for the same reason, since cm -1 is only the unit in which wave number is written. Exam tip: pitch goes with hertz, loudness with decibel.

The correct answer is B, Humayun, Akbar, Jehangir, Shah Jahan. The Mughal throne passed from Babur, who ruled from 1526 to 1530, to his son Humayun from 1530 to 1540 and again from 1555 to 1556, then to Akbar from 1556 to 1605, to Jahangir from 1605 to 1627, to Shah Jahan from 1628 to 1658 and to Aurangzeb from 1658 to 1707. Option B places four of these in exactly that order and is therefore correct. Option A is wrong because it puts Jahangir, a grandson of Humayun, before both Akbar and Humayun. Option C is wrong because it reverses the line completely, beginning with Shah Jahan and ending with his great-grandfather Humayun. Option D is wrong because Humayun ruled before Akbar, not after Shah Jahan, and Jahangir came before Shah Jahan rather than last. Fixing the six reigns in order is the safest preparation for this question type.