State Exams 2020 Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is A, nitrogen oxide. Nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide, together written as nitrogen oxides, are air pollutants that come mainly from combustion in vehicles and power stations; they help form smog and acid rain but are not counted among the greenhouse gases of the natural atmosphere. The gas of this family that is a greenhouse gas is nitrous oxide, a different compound, so read the name carefully. Option B is wrong as the answer because carbon dioxide occurs naturally from respiration, decay and volcanoes and is the principal greenhouse gas. Option C is wrong because methane is released naturally from wetlands and the digestion of animals and is a strong greenhouse gas. Option D is wrong because ozone occurs naturally in the stratosphere, is listed as a greenhouse gas, and also forms near the ground as a pollutant. The trap here is the similarity between nitrogen oxide and nitrous oxide.

The correct answer is A, Karnataka. The Gol Gumbaz stands at Bijapur, now called Vijayapura, in Karnataka. It is the tomb of Muhammad Adil Shah of the Adil Shahi dynasty of Bijapur and was completed in the middle of the seventeenth century. Its dome is one of the largest masonry domes in the world and rests on interlocking arches without any supporting pillars inside, leaving a single vast chamber. The gallery running around the base of the dome is famous as the whispering gallery, where a low sound is repeated several times.

Option B, Tamil Nadu, is the land of Dravida temple building, not of the Deccan sultanates. Option C, Kerala, has its own timber and tiled roof tradition. Option D, Telangana, does hold Qutb Shahi work such as the Charminar and the Golconda fort, but the Adil Shahi capital was Bijapur in Karnataka, so D is the trap option here.

The correct answer is D, Bahlul Khan Lodhi. Bahlul Khan Lodi, an Afghan noble and governor of Sirhind, took the throne of Delhi in 1451 after the last Sayyid ruler Alauddin Alam Shah withdrew to Badaun. His line was the first Afghan dynasty to rule Delhi and the last of the five Sultanate dynasties. Option A is wrong because Daulat Khan Lodi was the governor of Punjab who invited Babur to invade India; he did not found the dynasty. Option B is wrong because Sikandar Lodi was Bahlul's son and successor, the ruler who founded the city of Agra in 1504 and made it his capital. Option C is wrong because Ibrahim Lodi was the last ruler of the dynasty, defeated by Rana Sanga at Khatoli in 1517 and killed by Babur at the First Battle of Panipat in 1526.

The correct answer is D, 2019. The National Clean Air Programme was launched by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in January 2019 as a national framework to cut particulate pollution in cities that do not meet the national ambient air quality standards. It works city by city, through action plans prepared with the State Pollution Control Boards and monitored by the Central Pollution Control Board.

Option A, 2018, is the year the draft of the programme was put out for comments, which is why it is the most tempting wrong answer. Option B, 2017, predates the proposal altogether. Option C, 2020, is later than the launch and is sometimes confused with the creation of the Commission for Air Quality Management for the national capital region, which came afterwards. Remember 2019 for the programme, and remember that its legal backing comes from the Air Act of 1981 and the Environment (Protection) Act of 1986.

The correct answer is B, D.C. only. In a permanent magnet moving coil instrument the coil is pivoted in the field of a permanent magnet, so the deflecting torque is proportional to the current itself and not to its square. If alternating current is passed, the torque reverses every half cycle; the pointer cannot follow fifty reversals a second and rests at zero, because the average value of a sine wave over a full cycle is zero. That is why such an ammeter or voltmeter reads direct current only, and why a rectifier is placed ahead of it when alternating current has to be measured. Its scale is uniform and it draws very little power, which makes it the moving coil galvanometer of the laboratory. Options A and D are wrong for the reason just given. Option C is wrong because an impulse lasts a few microseconds, far too short for the inertia of a pivoted coil and pointer. Exam tip: moving coil reads D.C., moving iron reads both A.C. and D.C.

The correct answer is C, 1949. The Reserve Bank of India began as a shareholders' bank and was taken into public ownership on 1 January 1949 under the Reserve Bank (Transfer to Public Ownership) Act, 1948. Since then the entire capital has been held by the Government of India, although the Bank continues to be run by a Central Board under its own Act of 1934.

Option A, 1971, is the year in which the Bank's insurance related subsidiary work expanded and is close to the 1969 bank nationalisation, so it is placed to confuse. Option B, 1956, is the year the Imperial Bank of India became the State Bank of India, which candidates often mix up with this event. Option D, 1935, is the year the Reserve Bank began operations, on 1 April, under the Act of 1934, and is the commonest wrong answer of the four.

The correct answer is C, Habib Tanvir. He was a playwright, director and actor of the modern Indian theatre, best known for Charandas Chor and for working with folk performers of Chhattisgarh in his company Naya Theatre. He belongs to drama, not to painting, so he is the odd one out.

Option A, Tyeb Mehta, was a painter of the Progressive Artists Group generation, known for his diagonal canvases and the Falling Figure and Mahishasura series. Option B, Jamini Roy, was a Bengal painter who left academic realism for the bold flat line of Kalighat painting and folk art of Bengal. Option D, Satish Gujral, was a painter, sculptor and muralist who also designed the Belgian Embassy building in New Delhi, so painting is one of his fields. Questions of this kind slip one name from theatre, music or sculpture into a list of painters.

The correct answer is C, Text. LEN returns the number of characters in an entry, counting letters, digits, punctuation and spaces alike, so =LEN("Excel") gives 5. Because it works on text rather than on values, Excel files it under the Text category of the Formulas tab, along with LEFT, RIGHT, MID, UPPER, LOWER, TRIM and CONCATENATE.

Option A, Financial, holds the money functions such as PMT, RATE, NPV and FV, which work out instalments, interest rates and present values. Option B, Logical, holds IF, AND, OR, NOT and IFERROR, the functions that test a condition and return one result or another. Option D, Math and Trig, holds SUM, ROUND, ABS, SQRT, POWER and MOD, which calculate on numbers. LEN does return a number, and that is the trap that pulls candidates towards D, but a function is classified by what it works on, and LEN works on text.

The correct answer is A, Title bar. The title bar is the strip along the very top of the Excel window, and it carries the name of the open workbook followed by the name of the program, for example Book1 - Excel. The minimise, maximise and close buttons sit at its right end, and the Quick Access Toolbar at its left.

Option B, the tool bar, holds command buttons rather than names; in Excel 2007 and later it survives only as the small Quick Access Toolbar. Option C, the task bar, belongs to the Windows operating system and not to Excel; it runs along the bottom of the screen and shows the Start button and the programs that are open. Option D, the menu bar, was the row of word menus of Excel 2003 and earlier, replaced by the ribbon from Excel 2007; it listed commands such as File and Edit, never the file name. The cell address, by contrast, is shown in the Name Box beside the formula bar.

The correct answer is B, Hindi. The Vyas Samman was instituted in 1991 by the K. K. Birla Foundation and is given for an outstanding literary work in Hindi published in the previous ten years. Its first recipient was the critic and scholar Ram Vilas Sharma.

Option A, Rajasthani, is the language of the foundation's Bihari Puraskar, which is open to a writer from Rajasthan writing in either Hindi or Rajasthani, and that overlap is what makes this option tempting. Option C, Sanskrit, has no award of its own from this foundation, though a Sanskrit writer is eligible for the Saraswati Samman because Sanskrit is in the Eighth Schedule. Option D, Konkani, is likewise covered by the Saraswati Samman rather than by the Vyas Samman. The clean distinction to carry into the exam is that the Vyas Samman is for Hindi alone while the Saraswati Samman, instituted by the same foundation in the same year, is open to every Eighth Schedule language.

The correct answer is C, Ctrl + click. Holding the Ctrl key and clicking anywhere inside a sentence selects that whole sentence, from its first letter to the full stop that ends it, and the selected sentence can then be deleted, moved or formatted in one action. The selection shortcuts form a ladder: a double click selects a word, a Ctrl + click selects a sentence, a triple click selects the whole paragraph and Ctrl + A selects the entire document.

Option A, Alt with a click, does not select a sentence; Alt held down while dragging selects a rectangular block of text running down several lines. Option B, a single click, only places the insertion point at that spot and selects nothing at all. Option D, a double click, selects the single word under the pointer, which is the step below a sentence on the same ladder.

The correct answer is B, Chandragupta I. The first two members of the family, Sri Gupta and Ghatotkacha, used only the modest title Maharaja, which historians read as a sign that they were subordinate rulers. Chandragupta I was the first to assume the imperial title Maharajadhiraja, king of great kings, and the Gupta era of 319 to 320 CE is counted from his accession. His marriage to the Lichchhavi princess Kumaradevi is celebrated on the king and queen type gold coins.

Option A, Ramagupta, is a shadowy figure known mainly from the play Devichandraguptam and a few inscriptions, and he never raised the family's status. Option C, Samudragupta, was Chandragupta I's son and inherited the imperial title rather than introducing it. Option D, Skandagupta, ruled almost a century and a half later and is remembered for checking the Hunas.

The correct answer is C, the Agulhas current. It is a warm current of the Indian Ocean that flows southward along the eastern coast of southern Africa, carrying tropical water towards the Cape before most of it turns back into the Indian Ocean. Along with the Mozambique and West Australian currents it makes up the southern Indian Ocean gyre.

Option A, the Florida current, belongs to the Atlantic; it carries water out of the Gulf of Mexico past Florida and feeds the Gulf Stream. Option B, the Canary current, is also Atlantic, a cold current flowing south along the north-western coast of Africa past the Canary Islands. Option D, the Kurile or Oyashio current, is a cold current of the northern Pacific that flows south past the Kurile Islands towards Japan, where it meets the warm Kuroshio.

The correct answer is D, wetland conservation. The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance was signed in 1971 in the Iranian city of Ramsar and came into force in 1975. It is the only global environmental treaty devoted to a single type of ecosystem, and parties designate wetlands of international importance for the Ramsar List and undertake to maintain their ecological character. The second of February is observed as World Wetlands Day.

Option A, climate change, is the subject of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of 1992 and the protocols under it. Option B, pesticide pollution, comes closest to the Rotterdam Convention of 1998 on prior informed consent and the Stockholm Convention of 2001 on persistent organic pollutants. Option C, ozone layer depletion, belongs to the Vienna Convention of 1985 and the Montreal Protocol of 1987.

The correct answer is B, 6. Six wetlands of Uttar Pradesh were designated as Ramsar sites in January 2020: Nawabganj, Parvati Arga, Saman, Samaspur, Sandi and Sarsai Nawar. They are all bird sanctuaries in the Ganga plain, shallow lakes and marshes that fill in the monsoon and draw large numbers of migratory waterbirds in winter. A Ramsar site is a wetland of international importance listed under the Ramsar Convention, which was signed in the Iranian city of Ramsar in 1971 and came into force in 1975; India joined in 1982, and World Wetlands Day is observed on 2 February. Option A is wrong because three is too few; that many were added in the same month across other states. Option C and Option D are wrong because no such number of sites in a single state was notified then. Exam tip: Ramsar Convention 1971 at Ramsar in Iran, India a party since 1982, Wetlands Day 2 February.

The correct answer is A, Distillation. Distillation separates a liquid from a solution or from another liquid by boiling it and condensing the vapour, so it is used when the components differ in boiling point, as in getting pure water from salt water or separating acetone from water. It is not the method for purifying a solid mixed with solid impurities. Option B is useful because sublimation purifies a solid that turns straight into vapour on heating, such as camphor, naphthalene, iodine or ammonium chloride, leaving the non-volatile impurity behind. Option C is useful because crystallization dissolves the solid in a hot solvent and lets pure crystals form on cooling, the standard way to purify alum, copper sulphate and sugar. Option D is wrong because two of the three processes do purify solids, so they cannot all be useless. Exam tip: solids are purified by sublimation, crystallization and chromatography; distillation is for liquids.

The correct answer is C, c. The Attorney General of India is dealt with in Article 76, which falls in Part V of the Constitution, the part on the Union, and not in Part XIII. Part XIII carries Articles 301 to 307 on trade, commerce and intercourse within the territory of India, so the pairing in c is the mismatched one. The Attorney General is appointed by the President, must be qualified to be a Supreme Court judge, is the first law officer of the country and has the right to speak in both Houses without a vote. Option A is wrong because the Fundamental Duties in Article 51A really are in Part IV A, added by the 42nd Amendment. Option B is wrong because Part VI, Articles 152 to 237, does cover the States. Option D is wrong because Part XIV, Articles 308 to 323, does cover services under the Union and the States. Exam tip: Attorney General Article 76, Part V; Advocate General Article 165, Part VI.

The correct answer is D, 2010. The National Green Tribunal was set up on 18 October 2010 under the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010. It is a special court for cases about environmental protection, forests and other natural resources, and it is required to dispose of an application within six months. India was the third country in the world, after Australia and New Zealand, to create such a body. Its principal bench sits in New Delhi, with zonal benches at Bhopal, Pune, Kolkata and Chennai, and it is headed by a retired Supreme Court judge. Option A is wrong because 2007 is the year the Tribunal was first proposed, not created. Option B is wrong because 2008 saw no such law. Option C is wrong because 2009 is the year the Ministry of Environment moved the bill, which became law only in 2010. Exam tip: NGT Act 2010, tribunal from 18 October 2010, principal bench New Delhi.

The correct answer is B, ISRO. Vyommitra is a half-humanoid robot built by the Indian Space Research Organisation and shown to the public in January 2020. Its name joins the Sanskrit words vyoma, meaning sky or space, and mitra, meaning friend. The robot is meant to ride on an uncrewed test flight of the Gaganyaan human spaceflight programme, where it will sit in the crew seat, work the panels, monitor the cabin and speak with the ground station, so that engineers learn how a crew module behaves before astronauts fly in it. Option A is wrong because C-DAC in Pune builds the PARAM series of supercomputers. Option C is wrong because the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai does basic research in physics and mathematics. Option D is wrong because the DRDO develops missiles, radars and other defence systems. Exam tip: Gaganyaan and Vyommitra belong to ISRO, PARAM to C-DAC.

The correct answer is B, Absolute pressure. Absolute pressure is counted from the absolute zero of pressure, which is a perfect vacuum, so it can never be negative. The working relation is simple: absolute pressure equals gauge pressure plus atmospheric pressure. A tyre showing 30 units on a gauge is really at 30 plus the local atmospheric pressure. Option A is wrong because gauge pressure is measured above the atmospheric pressure of the place, which is why an ordinary pressure gauge reads zero when it is open to the air even though air is pressing on it. Option C is wrong because vacuum pressure, also called negative gauge pressure, is the amount by which a pressure falls below atmospheric. Option D is wrong because atmospheric pressure is the weight of the air column above a place and is about 101.325 kilopascal, equal to 760 millimetres of mercury or 1.01325 bar at sea level. Exam tip: absolute equals gauge plus atmospheric, and only absolute pressure starts from a perfect vacuum.