State Exams Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is B, botnet attack. A botnet is built by infecting many connected devices, each of which becomes a zombie obeying a single controller; the network so assembled is then rented out or used for spam, fraud or a flood of traffic. The wording of the question, many interconnected devices turned into one attack network, describes the building of the botnet itself. Option A is wrong for a reason worth understanding: a distributed denial of service attack is usually launched from a botnet, but it names the flooding of one victim, not the assembling of the device network. Option C is wrong because a zero-day attack exploits a flaw the vendor does not yet know of and has nothing to do with numbers of devices. Option D is wrong because spear phishing is a targeted fraudulent message sent to one chosen person.

The correct answer is B, to block unauthorised access to a network. A firewall sits between a trusted internal network and the untrusted world outside, inspects the traffic crossing it and permits only what its rules allow, dropping the rest; it may be a hardware appliance, a software program or both together. Option A is wrong because unrestricted access is the exact opposite of what a firewall exists to provide, and a network left open in that way needs no firewall at all. Option C is wrong because taking backups is the work of backup software and storage policy; a firewall keeps no copy of data and would not help after a disk failure. Option D is wrong because option B states the purpose correctly. Note the common types for objective questions: packet filtering, stateful inspection and the proxy or application gateway firewall.

The correct answer is A, phishing attack. Phishing sends a message that looks as if it came from a bank, an employer or a government office, and asks the reader to confirm a password, a card number or a one-time password on a page that belongs to the attacker; the target of the attack is the person, not the machine, which is why it is classed as social engineering. Option B is wrong because SQL injection puts database commands into a web form to make the server reveal stored data; the user is not tricked at all. Option C is wrong because a denial of service attack floods a server with requests so that genuine users cannot reach it, which harms availability and steals nothing. Option D is wrong because option A is correct. Remember the family: spear phishing on one person, whaling on an executive, vishing by call, smishing by message.

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 D, Amatya. The Amatya, also called the Majumdar, kept the accounts of the kingdom and checked the income and expenditure of every district, which makes him the finance member of the eight. Option A is wrong because the Peshwa was the chief minister who looked after general administration and stood in for the ruler; under the later rulers the office swallowed the state, but it was never the finance department. Option B is wrong because the Sachiv, also called Surnavis or Shuru Nawis, handled royal correspondence and checked the wording of letters and grants. Option C is wrong because the Sumant, also called Dabir, was the minister for foreign affairs and dealt with envoys of other states. A useful way to hold this is to fix three pairs: Amatya with money, Sachiv with letters and Sumant with foreign states.

The correct answer is D, the Treaty of Mandeshwar. The Third Anglo-Maratha War of 1817 to 1818 was settled by a set of separate treaties with the Maratha houses, and the one with the Holkar chief of Indore was signed at Mandsaur, or Mandeshwar, in January 1818. It placed Holkar territory under the Company and ended Holkar independence. Option A is wrong because the Treaty of Purandar of 1665 was signed by Shivaji with Mirza Raja Jai Singh, long before the Company mattered in the Deccan. Option B is wrong because the Treaty of Gwalior of 1817 was signed with Daulat Rao Scindia, not with Holkar, and students often swap the two houses. Option C is wrong because the Treaty of Surat of 1775 was made with Raghunath Rao and actually began the First Anglo-Maratha War.

The correct answer is D, lower. A geothermal plant takes steam or hot water from a natural underground reservoir, whose temperature is set by the rock and rarely approaches what a furnace can produce, so both the temperature and the pressure at the turbine are well below those of a coal-fired steam plant, and the thermal efficiency is correspondingly lower. Options B and C are wrong for the same reason: no natural reservoir is hotter than a boiler fired deliberately, and quoting higher values confuses the depth of the source with its temperature. Option A is wrong because the two are not comparable either; the gap is large enough that geothermal turbines are designed differently, often working on a separate fluid that boils at a low temperature. What geothermal loses in efficiency it gains in fuel cost, which is nil, and in emissions.

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 B, Karnataka. Article 168 says a State legislature consists of the Governor and either one House or two Houses. Where there are two, the upper House is the Legislative Council or Vidhan Parishad, and Karnataka is one of the few States that has kept it. Article 169 allows Parliament to create or abolish a Council if the Legislative Assembly of that State passes a resolution by a special majority, which is why the list of such States is short and changes only by law. Option A, Jharkhand, has only a Legislative Assembly; so does option C, Odisha, although proposals for a Council have been discussed there; and option D, Gujarat, also has a single House. Under Article 171 one-sixth of a Council is nominated by the Governor from persons distinguished in literature, science, art, the cooperative movement and social service, which is the link between this chapter and the State Executive.

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, Nizamuddin Auliya. Amir Khusrau served as a poet at the courts of several Delhi Sultans, but his spiritual allegiance was to Nizamuddin Auliya, and he was buried beside his master. He is called the Tuti-i-Hind, the parrot of India, wrote works such as the Khazain-ul-Futuh and the Nuh Sipihr, composed in the early Hindavi speech from which Hindi and Urdu grew, and tradition credits him with shaping qawwali. Option A, Fariduddin Ganjshakar, was the master of Nizamuddin Auliya himself and belongs to an earlier generation at Ajodhan. Option C, Shaikh Salim Chishti, lived in the sixteenth century at Sikri, where Akbar built Fatehpur Sikri near his hospice, three centuries after Khusrau. Option D does not belong to the line of Chishti masters that examiners test.

The correct answer is D, Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya. Mahbub-i-Ilahi means the beloved of God, and it is the title by which this Chishti master of Delhi has been known for seven centuries. He kept his distance from the Sultans, refused their grants, and his hospice at Ghiyaspur became the most visited centre of the order; Amir Khusrau was his best-known disciple. Option A, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, brought the Chishti order to India and settled at Ajmer, where he is remembered as Gharib Nawaz, the helper of the poor. Option B, Baba Fariduddin Ganjshakar, taught at Ajodhan in Punjab, wrote in the local language, and a number of his verses were later included in the Sikh scripture. Option C, Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki, was the successor of Moinuddin Chishti at Delhi and the master of Baba Farid, so the four names form a single line of succession.

The correct answer is A, 1992. SEBI first appeared in April 1988 as an administrative arrangement with no legal powers, and it became a statutory regulator when the Securities and Exchange Board of India Act was passed in 1992; the words quoted in the question are taken from the preamble of that Act, which speaks of protecting investors, promoting the development of the securities market and regulating it. Because the statutory body dates from the Act, 1992 is the year every examination expects. Option B, 1999, is the year the Central Depository Services Limited was set up, the second depository in India. Option C, 1987, and option D, 1985, come before even the administrative body existed. Keep the sequence in mind: the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act of 1956, SEBI as an administrative body in 1988, the SEBI Act in 1992 and the Depositories Act in 1996.

The correct answer is B, Kunchikal Falls. Formed by the Varahi river in the Shivamogga district of Karnataka, it is counted as the highest waterfall in India, falling in a long series of steps through rocky terrain; because it lies within the catchment of the Mani dam, its full flow is seen mainly in the monsoon. Option A, Jog Falls on the Sharavathi, is the most famous and most visited waterfall in the country and is often given as the answer by students who confuse fame with height, but it is lower than Kunchikal. Options C and D, Rakim Kund and Kevti, are both falls of the Kaimur range in Bihar and are much smaller. Two more superlatives are worth learning: Nohkalikai in Meghalaya is the tallest plunge waterfall, and Chitrakote on the Indravati in Chhattisgarh is the broadest.

The correct answer is B, Karnataka. Jog Falls is formed by the Sharavathi river where it drops off the edge of the Western Ghats in the Shivamogga district of Karnataka, and it falls in four separate streams traditionally named Raja, Rani, Rocket and Roarer. It is a segmented fall rather than a single plunge, and its flow depends on releases from the Linganamakki reservoir upstream. Option A, Uttarakhand, is a Himalayan state whose famous water features are glaciers and the sources of the Ganga and Yamuna rather than plateau-edge falls. Option C, Jharkhand, does have falls such as Hundru and Dassam on the Chota Nagpur plateau, but not Jog. Option D, Sikkim, has small Himalayan cascades. Remember that Karnataka also has Kunchikal on the Varahi, which is counted as the highest waterfall in India.

The correct answer is D, the Pancheshwar Main Dam. It is the centrepiece of the Pancheshwar Multipurpose Project, planned on the Mahakali river, which forms part of the boundary between India and Nepal, and it is to be built and operated jointly by the two countries under the Mahakali Treaty for power, irrigation and flood control. Option A, the Tehri Dam, stands on the Bhagirathi in Uttarakhand and is the tallest dam in India, but it lies well inside Indian territory. Option B is wrong because the Son is a tributary of the Ganga flowing through Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar, nowhere near the Nepal border. Option C, the Rajghat Dam, is on the Betwa river on the border of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, an interstate rather than an international project.

The correct answer is D, copper and zinc. Brass takes the workability of copper and the hardness of zinc, resists corrosion and is easy to cast, which is why it is used for utensils, locks, taps, fittings and wind instruments. Option A, copper and tin, is bronze, and the brass and bronze pair is the single most frequently confused item in this chapter, so fix zinc with brass and tin with bronze. Option B, copper and nickel, is cupronickel, used in coins and in condenser tubes. Option C, copper and iron, is not a standard alloy of this kind, though iron and copper occur together in the ore copper pyrites. Related alloys are worth learning with these: German silver is copper, zinc and nickel; gun metal is copper, tin and zinc; and bell metal is copper with a larger proportion of tin.

The correct answer is A, gold. Ductility is the property of being drawn into a wire, and gold is the most ductile metal known; it is also the most malleable, so a very small quantity can be beaten into an extremely thin sheet or drawn into a very long wire. Option C, silver, is the next most ductile and is the best conductor of both heat and electricity, which is why it is easy to confuse the two superlatives; remember that silver leads in conduction while gold leads in ductility and malleability. Option B, copper, is ductile enough to be drawn into the wires used in household wiring, but far less so than gold. Option D, iron, is ductile when hot but comparatively hard and is valued for strength rather than for being drawn out.

The correct answer is C, zinc. Calamine is zinc carbonate, and since it is a carbonate ore it is converted to the oxide by calcination, that is by heating in the absence of air, before being reduced to the metal. The other important ore of zinc is zinc blende, which is the sulphide and is roasted rather than calcined. Option A is wrong because the chief ore of tin is cassiterite, the oxide. Option B is wrong because magnesium is obtained from magnesite, dolomite and from sea water as its chloride. Option D is wrong because copper comes mainly from copper pyrites, also called chalcopyrite, and from cuprite. A pair of definitions is worth keeping ready for this topic: calcination is heating a carbonate ore without air, while roasting is heating a sulphide ore in air, and both give the oxide.

The correct answer is A, Marble. Marble is a non-metallic mineral: no metal can be drawn out of it, and it is used as a building and sculpting stone, the Makrana marble of Rajasthan being the stone of the Taj Mahal. Minerals are first divided into metallic and non-metallic. A metallic mineral yields a metal when smelted and is either ferrous, containing iron, or non-ferrous. A non-metallic mineral has no metal content of that kind, and limestone, mica, gypsum, dolomite, marble and rock salt are the common examples; marble itself is limestone changed by heat and pressure. B is wrong because manganese is a ferrous metallic mineral, used to harden steel and to make dry cells and paints. C is wrong because silver is a non-ferrous metallic mineral, used in jewellery, coins and electrical contacts. D is wrong because lead too is a non-ferrous metal, used in batteries and sheeting. Exam tip: metallic – ferrous such as iron and manganese, non-ferrous such as copper, lead, zinc and silver; non-metallic – limestone, mica, gypsum, marble.