Teaching GK Questions 2026

The Lancet is wrong because the study was not carried in it, although it is among the best known medical journals and therefore a tempting distractor.

Participants were randomly assigned to receive either this standardised aqueous extract or a matching placebo, and the assignment was double-blind, meaning neither the participants nor the assessors knew which arm a person belonged to.

The randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial enrolled that many apparently healthy adults between eighteen and seventy years of age, each of whom had already received a first, second or booster dose of the COVISHIELD vaccine, across seven study sites in India.

Mulching means covering the bare ground between plants with straw, dry leaves or crop waste, so that the soil holds moisture and raindrops cannot beat the topsoil loose.

Marble is a metamorphic rock, formed when limestone is changed deep inside the earth by great heat and pressure; the Taj Mahal is built of it.

Coniferous forests grow in the cold northern belt of Asia, Europe and North America and are made of softwood evergreen trees such as pine, fir and spruce, whose light wood is used for paper and furniture.

Human beings are ureotelic, which means the main nitrogen waste they pass out is urea. When the body breaks down extra amino acids, ammonia is produced, and ammonia is highly poisonous even in small amounts.

India's village iron smelters were ruined by two pressures at once. Cheap iron and steel made in British factories was brought into India in large quantities from the middle of the nineteenth century, and local smiths could not match its price, so demand for their metal fell away.

The Seventh Schedule of the Constitution divides subjects into three lists. The Union List holds subjects only Parliament can legislate on, such as defence, foreign affairs, currency and railways.

A mansabdar was an officer who held a mansab, a rank that fixed his position at court, his pay and the number of horsemen he had to keep ready.

The lead body — WHO for the health days, UNESCO for education and language, the FAO for food, UNEP for the environment, or a United Nations office where the General Assembly named no agency — publishes the theme, the campaign material and the programme for the year.

UNESCO proclaimed the day in 1999 and it has been observed since 2000, to promote linguistic diversity and mother-tongue education; the date recalls the language movement of 1952 in what is now Bangladesh.

The Food and Agriculture Organization was founded on 16 October 1945 at Quebec in Canada, and the day has been observed in its memory since 1981; the FAO has its headquarters at Rome and leads the campaign every year.

The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was signed on 16 September 1987, and the General Assembly later fixed that date as the ozone day.

The Governing Council of the United Nations Development Programme began the observance in 1989, taking the date from Five Billion Day, 11 July 1987, when the world’s population was estimated to have crossed five billion; the United Nations Population Fund now leads the campaign.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization proclaimed the day in 1966, and it was first observed in 1967; UNESCO also leads International Mother Language Day on 21 February and World Teachers’ Day on 5 October.

The General Assembly declared the day in 2007 and set it on the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, so that the date honours the leader whose method of non-violent resistance the resolution names.

WHO became a specialised agency of the United Nations on 7 April 1948, and the first World Health Day was observed in 1950; the organisation announces a theme for the day each year and its headquarters are at Geneva.

The General Assembly adopted it on 10 December 1948 at Paris, and the observance of the anniversary began in 1950; the Declaration has thirty articles and is the most translated document in the world.

The General Assembly established the day after the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment of 1972, and it has been observed since 1974 under the lead of the UN Environment Programme, with a different country hosting the main event each year.