Rajasthan 2020 Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is C, Water Conservation. Tarun Bharat Sangh works on water conservation, and its base is at Bhikampura in Alwar district of Rajasthan. Led by Rajendra Singh, known as the waterman of India, villagers of the area built and repaired thousands of johads, the traditional earthen check dams that hold rainwater and let it sink into the ground. Wells filled again, fields came back under crops and streams such as the Arvari, dry for years, began to flow, which is why the body is studied as a model of community-led water harvesting. Rajendra Singh received the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2001 and the Stockholm Water Prize in 2015. A is wrong because women's groups are part of the work but not its field. B is wrong because fighting corruption is not its subject. D is wrong because it is not a tribal youth organisation, and Alwar is not a tribal belt. Exam tip: Tarun Bharat Sangh, Rajendra Singh, johads of Alwar and the revived Arvari river.

The correct answer is D, Shriganganagar - Hanumangarh. Sem is the local word for waterlogging with salt, and it hurts Sriganganagar and Hanumangarh the most because these districts lie in the command area of the Gang Canal and the Indira Gandhi Canal. Years of canal water spread by flood irrigation, without drains and over a hard layer below the soil, have raised the water table until it reaches the root zone. As the water stands and evaporates it leaves salt behind, white patches appear on the surface and yields fall. Lined channels, surface and sub-surface drains, sprinkler irrigation and the planting of eucalyptus are used against it. A is wrong because Bharatpur and Dhaulpur face flooding of a different kind in the eastern plain. B is wrong because Banswara and Dungarpur are hilly, high-rainfall tribal districts. C is wrong because Jalore and Sirohi face salinity of groundwater and drought. Exam tip: sem means canal-fed waterlogging, remember the Indira Gandhi Canal command.

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 C, 18% Tungsten. High-speed steel is named 18-4-1 after the three metals added to it in that order: 18 per cent tungsten, 4 per cent chromium and 1 per cent vanadium, with iron making up the rest along with a little carbon. Tungsten is the heart of the alloy because it keeps the steel hard even when the cutting edge glows red hot, so drills, milling cutters and lathe tools made from it can cut at high speed without losing their edge. Chromium adds hardness and resistance to rust, and vanadium refines the grain and improves wear resistance. A is wrong because chromium in this grade is 4 per cent, not 1. B is wrong because the 18-4-1 grade has no nickel; nickel goes into stainless steel and into invar. D is wrong because vanadium is the 1 per cent part of the name. Exam tip: 18-4-1 means tungsten 18, chromium 4, vanadium 1.

The correct answer is C, Marwar. The Marwar school, the painting of the Jodhpur region, is the one credited with the illustrated Panchatantra series, a set painted at Pali in the early eighteenth century in which the animal fables are told frame by frame. Marwar work is known for its folk strength rather than courtly polish: bold flat colours, large staring eyes, sturdy figures and plenty of horses and camels. Alongside the Panchatantra, the school also illustrated the Dhola Maru romance and the Ragamala series. A is wrong because Bundi painting is famous for lush green landscapes, monsoon skies, lotus tanks and elephant scenes. B is wrong because Kota, which grew out of Bundi, is best known for its hunting scenes set in thick forest. D is wrong because Dhundhar, the Jaipur and Amber school, is known for large portraits, court scenes and its Ragamala and Bihari Satsai sets. Exam tip: Panchatantra and Dhola Maru go with Marwar, monsoon and greenery with Bundi, shikar with Kota.

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 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.

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, 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.