Uttar Pradesh 2023 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 A, the north-east monsoon. As the monsoon retreats in October and November the wind direction reverses and air moves from the land towards the sea. Crossing the Bay of Bengal it picks up moisture and strikes the Coromandel coast, giving Tamil Nadu and coastal Andhra Pradesh their main rainy season. This is why Tamil Nadu is the one large part of India whose farming calendar depends on winter rather than summer rain.

Option B, local air circulation, produces land and sea breezes that are too small to give a season of rain. Option C, temperate cyclones, are the western disturbances, and they bring winter rain to the north-west of India, not to the far south. Option D, the south-west monsoon, leaves Tamil Nadu dry because the state lies in the rain shadow of the Western Ghats during those months.

The correct answer is A, The Calcutta High Court. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands come under the Calcutta High Court, which has a permanent circuit bench at Port Blair. The Constitution allows Parliament to extend a high court’s jurisdiction to a union territory, so several union territories are attached to the high court of a neighbouring state rather than having one of their own. Calcutta, set up in 1862, is the oldest high court in India, along with Bombay and Madras of the same year. Option B is wrong because the Delhi High Court covers only the National Capital Territory of Delhi. Option C is wrong because the Madras High Court covers Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, though the islands lie nearer to it. Option D is wrong because the Andhra Pradesh High Court, created in 2019 when the Telangana High Court was separated, covers only that state. Exam tip: Andaman and Nicobar under Calcutta, Lakshadweep under Kerala, Puducherry under Madras.

The correct answer is B, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. This law makes the right to work a legal guarantee: every rural household whose adult members are willing to do unskilled manual work is entitled to at least 100 days of wage employment in a financial year. The Act was passed in 2005 as NREGA, came into force from 2 February 2006 in 200 districts, was extended to the whole country by 2008 and renamed after Mahatma Gandhi in 2009. If work is not given within fifteen days, the worker is paid an unemployment allowance, and one third of the days are reserved for women. Option A is wrong because the IIM Act of 2017 only gives those management institutes the power to grant degrees. Option C is wrong because the Payment of Wages amendment merely allowed wages by cheque or bank transfer. Option D is wrong because the Citizenship Act deals with who is a citizen. Exam tip: NREGA 2005, in force 2 February 2006, 100 days of work.

The correct answer is C, Insulin. The pancreas is both an exocrine gland, pouring digestive enzymes into the intestine, and an endocrine gland. Its endocrine part is made of small clusters of cells called the islets of Langerhans. The beta cells in these islets release insulin, which lowers blood sugar by helping body cells take in glucose and by making the liver store extra glucose as glycogen. When the body makes too little insulin, or cannot use it properly, blood sugar stays high, which is diabetes mellitus. Insulin was discovered in 1921 by Frederick Banting and Charles Best. Option A is wrong because adrenaline, the ‘fight or flight’ hormone, comes from the medulla of the adrenal gland. Option B is wrong because glucagon is made by the alpha cells of the same islets, and it raises blood sugar, the opposite of insulin. Option D is wrong because aldosterone comes from the adrenal cortex and helps the kidneys keep back sodium and water. Exam tip: alpha cells make glucagon and raise sugar; beta cells make insulin and lower it.

The correct answer is A, Only 1. Statement 1 is correct: the Ramganga rises in the Garhwal hills of Uttarakhand, flows through Corbett National Park, where the Kalagarh dam stands on it, then passes through Moradabad and Bareilly districts and joins the Ganga on its left bank near Kannauj. Statement 2 is wrong: the Betwa, the ancient Vetravati, rises in the Vindhyan region of Madhya Pradesh, flows past Orchha and through the Jhansi area of Bundelkhand, and joins the Yamuna near Hamirpur in Uttar Pradesh, not near Prayagraj. At Prayagraj it is the Yamuna itself that meets the Ganga, at the Sangam. Option B is wrong because statement 2 puts the Betwa’s confluence in the wrong place. Option C is wrong because it accepts the wrong statement and rejects the right one. Option D is wrong because statement 1 is correct. Exam tip: Ramganga into the Ganga at Kannauj, Betwa into the Yamuna at Hamirpur, Yamuna into the Ganga at Prayagraj.

The correct answer is A, Devprayag. At Devprayag in the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand, the Bhagirathi, coming from the Gangotri glacier, meets the Alaknanda, and from this confluence onwards the river is called the Ganga. Devprayag is the last of the five sacred confluences on the Alaknanda, known as the Panch Prayag. Going downstream, the Alaknanda meets the Dhauliganga at Vishnuprayag, the Nandakini at Nandprayag, the Pindar at Karnaprayag, the Mandakini at Rudraprayag and finally the Bhagirathi at Devprayag. Setters often mix up these pairs, so learning them in order helps. Option B is wrong because Vishnuprayag is where the Dhauliganga joins the Alaknanda. Option C is wrong because Rudraprayag is where the Mandakini, flowing down from Kedarnath, joins the Alaknanda. Option D is wrong because Karnaprayag is where the Pindar joins the Alaknanda. Exam tip: Vishnu, Nand, Karna, Rudra, Dev is the Panch Prayag order from upstream to downstream, ending with the Bhagirathi at Devprayag.

The correct answer is B, Khan Bahadur Khan. When the sepoys at Bareilly rose on 31 May 1857, Khan Bahadur Khan, a grandson of the Rohilla chief Hafiz Rahmat Khan, took charge of the town and of much of Rohilkhand. He had served as a judge under the Company and was living on a British pension, yet he set up his own government, raised an army of several thousand men and ruled in the name of the Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, who recognised him as governor. The British recaptured Bareilly in May 1858; Khan Bahadur Khan fled to Nepal, was handed over and was hanged at Bareilly in 1860. Option A is wrong because Nana Saheb, the adopted son of Peshwa Baji Rao II, led the revolt at Kanpur. Option C is wrong because Begum Hazrat Mahal led the rising at Lucknow in the name of her son Birjis Qadr. Option D is wrong because Kunwar Singh led the revolt at Jagdishpur near Arrah in Bihar. Exam tip: Kanpur–Nana Saheb, Lucknow–Hazrat Mahal, Bareilly–Khan Bahadur Khan, Jhansi–Lakshmibai, Arrah–Kunwar Singh.

The correct answer is D, San Francisco. The Ghadar Party was formed in 1913 by Indian immigrants on the Pacific coast of the USA and Canada, most of them Punjabi Sikh farmers and workers. Sohan Singh Bhakna was its president and Lala Har Dayal its leading thinker. Its office, called the Yugantar Ashram, was in San Francisco, and from there it brought out the weekly paper ‘Ghadar’ from 1 November 1913 in Urdu and Punjabi, calling for armed revolt against British rule. When the First World War began, thousands of members sailed home, but the planned rising of February 1915 was betrayed, and many were tried in the Lahore Conspiracy Cases. Option A is wrong because Delhi became the capital of British India in 1911 but was never the party’s base. Option B is wrong because Lahore is linked to the trials of the Ghadar revolutionaries, not to their headquarters. Option C is wrong because Calcutta was the base of Bengal groups such as the Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar. Exam tip: Ghadar Party, 1913, Yugantar Ashram, San Francisco; president Sohan Singh Bhakna.

The correct answer is B, Nagasena. The Pali text Milindapanho, ‘The Questions of King Milinda’, records a long question-and-answer session between the Buddhist monk Nagasena and King Milinda. Milinda is the Indo-Greek king Menander I, who ruled in the second century BCE from Sakala, today’s Sialkot. Nagasena answers his doubts on the soul, rebirth and karma with simple examples; the best known is the chariot, which is only a name for its parts, just as a ‘self’ is only a name for changing parts. Buddhist tradition says Menander became a follower of the Buddha. Option A is wrong because Nagarjuna was the Mahayana thinker of about the second century CE who founded the Madhyamika school. Option C is wrong because Kumarila Bhatta was a Mimamsa philosopher of the seventh or eighth century who defended Vedic ritual. Option D is wrong because Nagabhata was a king, the founder of the Gurjara-Pratihara dynasty, not a monk. Exam tip: Milinda = Menander (Indo-Greek, capital Sakala); his teacher in the text = Nagasena.