State Exams Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is B. Potential difference between two points of a circuit is the difference in electric potential between them, and it equals the work done in moving a unit positive charge from one point to the other. In symbols V = W/Q, so the unit is the volt, and one volt means one joule of work for each coulomb of charge. Potential difference is the push that drives a current, it is measured with a voltmeter joined in parallel across the two points, and Ohm's law links it to current as V = IR. Option A is wrong because capacitance is the charge a capacitor stores for each volt applied, measured in farad; it is a property of the device, not a difference between points. Option C is wrong because current is the rate of flow of charge, measured in ampere by an ammeter placed in series, and in a series circuit it is the same everywhere. Option D is wrong because resistance opposes current and is measured in ohm. Exam tip: V = W/Q, voltmeter in parallel, ammeter in series.

The correct answer is A, Article 164. Clause (2) of Article 164 says that the Council of Ministers shall be collectively responsible to the Legislative Assembly of the State, which is the rule of collective responsibility in a parliamentary system: the ministry stays in office only while it holds the confidence of the elected house, and a no-confidence motion removes the whole ministry, not one minister. The same Article also provides that the Governor appoints the Chief Minister and, on the Chief Minister's advice, the other ministers, and that a minister who is not a member of the legislature for six consecutive months ceases to hold office. Option B is wrong because Article 154 vests the executive power of the State in the Governor. Option C is wrong because Article 161 gives the Governor the power to pardon, reprieve and remit sentences. Option D is wrong because Article 151 deals with the audit reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General. Exam tip: collective responsibility is Article 75(3) for the Union and Article 164(2) for a State.

The correct answer is B, because the Rabatak inscription was not found in western Uttar Pradesh. It came to light in 1993 at Rabatak in Baghlan province of northern Afghanistan, and it is written in the Bactrian language using the Greek script. Its importance is that it lists Kanishka's ancestors, Kujula Kadphises, Vima Taktu and Vima Kadphises, and so settled the order of the early Kushan rulers. Statement A is true, since under Kanishka the empire ran from Central Asia through the north-west to the Ganga valley and southward to Malwa, with Purushapura, today's Peshawar, as its capital. Statement C is true, as Kanishka's court supported Ashvaghosha, who wrote the Buddhacharita, and Vasumitra, who presided over the fourth Buddhist council held in Kashmir. Statement D is true, because his coins carry Greek, Iranian and Indian deities side by side, among them the Buddha, Oesho or Shiva, Mithra and Nana. Exam tip: Rabatak means Afghanistan and the Kushan family tree.

The correct answer is D, Afghanistan. The Amir Amanullah Khan Award is Afghanistan's highest civilian honour, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi received it in June 2016 at Herat, on the day he and President Ashraf Ghani opened the Afghan-India Friendship Dam, earlier called the Salma Dam, which India built on the Hari Rud. The honour is named after Amir Amanullah Khan, the ruler who won Afghanistan full control of its foreign affairs from the British in 1919. Option A is wrong, although Saudi Arabia did honour the Prime Minister in April 2016; its top award is the Order of King Abdulaziz Al Saud, a different decoration with a different name. Options B and C are wrong because neither Uzbekistan nor Iran gives an award of this name, and neither conferred its highest civilian honour on him in that year. Exam tip: Amir Amanullah Khan Award means Afghanistan, 2016, Herat and the Afghan-India Friendship Dam.

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 C, Promissory Note. Section 4 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 defines a promissory note as an instrument in writing, signed by the maker, containing an unconditional undertaking to pay a certain sum of money to or to the order of a certain person. The word that decides the question is undertaking, that is a promise: only two parties are involved, the maker who promises and the payee who receives. A currency note is left out of the definition even though the Reserve Bank promises to pay on it. Option B is wrong because a bill of exchange, under Section 5, carries an unconditional order to pay, not a promise, and has three parties: drawer, drawee and payee. Option A is wrong because a cheque, under Section 6, is only a bill of exchange drawn on a specified banker and payable on demand, so it too is an order. Option D is wrong because a hundi is a traditional instrument in a regional language, not defined by the Act. Exam tip: promise means promissory note, order means bill or cheque.

The correct answer is A, Bundi style. The Bundi school of the Hadoti region is the one that fills its pictures with birds, animals and thick green forest. Its painters loved nature: mango and banana groves, lotus tanks, monsoon clouds with lightning, elephants, tigers, squirrels, parrots and peacocks all crowd the background, and human figures are shown with round faces and small noses against them. Bundi work began under Rao Surjan Singh with help from Chunar artists, and its offshoot at Kota went further, making hunting scenes in dense jungle its speciality. Option B is wrong because the Nathdwara school paints Shrinathji, mostly on cloth as pichhwai hangings. Option C is wrong because Kishangarh is remembered for the graceful Bani-Thani face and the Krishna-Radha themes of Nihal Chand, not for animals. Option D is wrong because Bikaner painting carries Mughal and Deccani influence, with pale colours and artists who signed their work. Exam tip: Bundi and Kota mean nature and hunting; Kishangarh means Bani-Thani.

The correct answer is D, Toggle Keys. A toggle key switches a feature on with one press and off with the next, so it has two states and keeps whichever one you left it in. Caps Lock, Num Lock, Scroll Lock and the Insert key work this way, and most keyboards carry a small indicator light that glows while the feature is on. Caps Lock, for instance, holds capital letters until it is pressed a second time. Option A is wrong because navigation keys move the cursor or the view: the four arrow keys with Home, End, Page Up and Page Down. Option B is not a standard class; keys such as Enter, Esc, Tab and the Windows key are grouped as control or special keys, and none of them stay switched on. Option C is wrong because the function keys are F1 to F12, which run one command each time they are pressed. Exam tip: the four toggle keys are Caps Lock, Num Lock, Scroll Lock and Insert.

The correct answer is C, 27 K. A rise of 27°C is a rise of 27 K, because one degree Celsius and one kelvin are exactly the same size. The two scales differ only in where they begin: the melting point of ice is 0°C but 273.15 K. So the formula T(K) = t(°C) + 273.15 converts a reading, not a difference. When two temperatures are subtracted the 273.15 cancels out, which is why a rise, a fall or an interval carries the same number on both scales. Option D, 300 K, is the trap in this question: 27 + 273 is the Kelvin reading of a body that is at 27°C, not the size of a 27-degree rise. Options A and B follow from no step at all; they would need a scale whose divisions are smaller than the Celsius degree, and the kelvin is not such a unit. Exam tip: add 273.15 to a reading, but copy an interval straight across.

The correct answer is D, Akbar. He built Fatehpur Sikri in the Agra district of present day Uttar Pradesh in the sixteenth century and made it his capital, naming it after his victory in Gujarat. The city holds the Buland Darwaza, the Jama Masjid, the Panch Mahal and the tomb of Salim Chishti, and it was abandoned after a few years, which is why it survives so completely. It is on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Option A, Babur, founded the dynasty after the first battle of Panipat in 1526 and ruled from Agra, not from Sikri. Option B, Humayun, lost the empire to Sher Shah Suri and regained it shortly before his death, and built nothing of this kind. Option C, Jahangir, was Akbar's son and was born at Sikri, which is the reason the place is often wrongly credited to him; he ruled from Agra and Lahore.

The correct answer is C, Sardar Hukam Singh. The Parliamentary Committee headed by Sardar Hukam Singh, then Speaker of the Lok Sabha, examined the demand for a Punjabi-speaking state and recommended the division of Punjab. The Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966 followed, and on 1 November 1966 Haryana became a separate state while the hill districts went to Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh was made a Union Territory serving as the shared capital.

Option A, Lal Bahadur Shastri, was Prime Minister until January 1966 and did not head such a committee. Option B, Indira Gandhi, was Prime Minister when the Act was passed but again headed no committee on the question. Option D, Sir Chhotu Ram, was a peasant leader of the region who died in 1945, long before the reorganisation. A related name worth keeping is the Shah Commission, which drew the actual boundaries after the committee reported.

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 C, both I and II. The Reserve Bank is banker to banks: every scheduled bank keeps an account with it, holds its cash reserve ratio there, settles payments with other banks through those accounts and can borrow from it when short of funds. It is also the currency issuing authority, with the sole right to issue currency notes in India under the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934.

Option A is wrong because it leaves out note issue, which is the function the Bank is best known for. Option D is wrong because it leaves out the banker to banks role, from which the description lender of last resort follows. Option B is wrong on both counts. The one refinement worth remembering is that the one rupee note and all coins are issued by the Government of India, although the Reserve Bank puts them into circulation, and that the Bank is also banker to the Government.

The correct answer is A, 1975. The rupee was tied to the pound sterling from colonial times and stayed pegged to it after independence. In 1975 the link was cut and the rupee was tied instead to a basket of currencies of India's major trading partners, with the Reserve Bank fixing the daily rate. The step was taken because the pound itself had become unstable after the breakdown of the fixed exchange rate system in the early 1970s.

Option B, 1947, is independence, when the sterling link was retained. Option D, 1963, belongs to no exchange rate change; the two devaluations students confuse it with are 1949 and 1966. Option C, 1982, is the year NABARD and the EXIM Bank were set up, not an exchange rate landmark. The basket peg lasted until the reforms of 1991 to 1993, when India moved to a market determined exchange rate.

The correct answer is D, Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu is the first state in India to make rooftop rainwater harvesting structures compulsory for all houses and buildings across the state, through a law brought in 2003. The state depends heavily on the north-east monsoon and on groundwater, and Chennai faced severe water shortages, so collecting roof water and sending it into the ground became a priority. Rooftop harvesting collects rain from roofs and stores it in tanks or uses it to recharge wells and aquifers, which raises the water table. Option A is wrong because Kerala gets heavy rain and has promoted harvesting, but it was not the first to make it compulsory for every house. Option B is wrong because Gujarat is known for check dams and other water works, not for this first law. Option C is wrong because Rajasthan is known for traditional harvesting, such as the tankas of Bikaner and Phalodi, not for the first statewide law. Exam tip: Tamil Nadu was the first state to make rooftop rainwater harvesting compulsory (2003); tankas are Rajasthan's traditional underground tanks.

The correct answer is C, Jim Corbett National Park. It is India's first national park, set up in 1936 as Hailey National Park, in the Nainital area of present-day Uttarakhand. It was later called Ramganga National Park and was renamed in the 1950s in honour of Jim Corbett, the famous hunter who turned into a naturalist and wrote 'Man-Eaters of Kumaon'. Project Tiger was launched here in 1973, and the park lies along the Ramganga river in the foothills of the Himalayas. Option A is wrong because Gir in Gujarat, the last home of the Asiatic lion, became a national park only in 1975. Option B is wrong because Kaziranga in Assam, famous for the one-horned rhinoceros, became a national park in 1974. Option D is wrong because Rajaji National Park in Uttarakhand was formed in 1983 by joining three sanctuaries. Exam tip: the first national park went from Hailey (1936) to Ramganga to Jim Corbett, and Project Tiger began here in 1973.

The correct answer is C, Both I and II. Atomicity is the number of atoms in one molecule of an element, and it is why we write nitrogen gas as N2 and not just N. Nitrogen gas exists as N2, two atoms joined by a strong triple bond, so it is diatomic, like oxygen, hydrogen and chlorine. Sulphur exists as S8, a crown-shaped ring of eight atoms, so it is polyatomic. Phosphorus, as P4, is tetra-atomic, ozone (O3) is triatomic, and noble gases such as helium and argon are monoatomic because they exist as single atoms. These examples are listed in the NCERT Class 9 chapter on atoms and molecules. Option A is wrong because it accepts only the first pair, though the sulphur pair is also right. Option B is wrong because both pairs are correct, so 'neither' cannot be the answer. Option D is wrong because it accepts only the sulphur pair and leaves out nitrogen, which is correctly diatomic. Exam tip: He mono, N2 di, O3 tri, P4 tetra, S8 poly.

The correct answer is B, H3O+. A hydrogen ion (H+) is just a bare proton, so it cannot stay alone in water. It at once attaches itself to a water molecule and forms the hydronium ion, H3O+. So when an acid such as hydrochloric acid dissolves in water, it really produces H3O+ ions, and these give the solution its acidic nature. Without water, acids do not show acidic behaviour, which is why dry HCl gas does not change the colour of dry blue litmus paper. Option A is wrong because HO- (OH-) is the hydroxide ion, which bases give in water. Option C is wrong because H2 is hydrogen gas, a neutral molecule, not an ion. Option D is wrong because H2SO4 is sulphuric acid itself, a compound that releases hydrogen ions in water. Exam tip: acids give H3O+ ions in water and bases give OH- ions; a solution with pH 7 is neutral, below 7 acidic and above 7 basic.

The correct answer is D, f-block. The inner transition elements are the lanthanides and actinides, in which electrons fill the f-orbitals, so they form the f-block of the periodic table. They are placed in two separate rows at the bottom of the table so that the table does not become too wide. The lanthanides run from cerium to lutetium and are also called rare earth elements; the actinides run from thorium to lawrencium and are all radioactive. Uranium and plutonium, used in nuclear power, are actinides. Option A is wrong because the d-block holds the transition elements such as iron, copper and zinc, in groups 3 to 12. Option B is wrong because the p-block holds groups 13 to 18, including the halogens and the noble gases. Option C is wrong because the s-block holds groups 1 and 2, the alkali and alkaline earth metals. Exam tip: the d-block has the transition elements; the f-block has the inner transition elements, the lanthanides and actinides.

The correct answer is D, Golgi apparatus. The Golgi apparatus is the main site where glycoproteins and glycolipids are formed. It is a stack of flat, disc-shaped sacs called cisternae, first described by Camillo Golgi in 1898. Proteins made on the endoplasmic reticulum reach the Golgi, where sugars are added to them, and they are then packed into vesicles and sent to places inside the cell or out of it. That is why the Golgi is called the packaging and dispatch centre of the cell, and it also helps to form lysosomes. Option A is wrong because plastids, such as chloroplasts, carry out photosynthesis or store food and pigments in plant cells. Option B is wrong because lysosomes are small sacs of digestive enzymes and are called the suicide bags of the cell. Option C is wrong because mitochondria make energy in the form of ATP and are called the powerhouse of the cell. Exam tip: Golgi means packaging and adding sugars; mitochondria mean ATP; a lysosome is the suicide bag.