Static general knowledge is six of the seven lines of the General Studies Paper-I syllabus in the UPSC CSE notice: History of India and the Indian National Movement; Indian and World Geography; Indian Polity and Governance; Economic and Social Development; Environmental Ecology, Bio-diversity and Climate Change; and General Science. The Commission tests understanding rather than recall, through statements to be judged correct or incorrect, pairs to be matched and assertion-reason items, and it likes the edges of a topic: a lesser-known provision of the Constitution, a river's tributary, a species' conservation status, the mandate of a statutory body. This page holds GK24's topic-wise GK notes for UPSC, written as short facts and tables, in English and Hindi, with each note linked to the current affairs and previous-year questions on the same topic. Start with Polity and Modern History, which carry the most questions, then Geography, the Economy, Environment, Ancient and Medieval culture and Science. Read a note, solve its PYQs, take its quiz, and come back to it in your monthly revision. A candidate who knows these notes and reads the daily current affairs has covered the syllabus the notice prescribes for Paper-I.
Which one of the following pairs of City and Lake is not correctly matched ?
Detroit stands on the Detroit River, which links Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie, and is far from Lake Superior.
Read the full explanation →Who was the author of the book of travels, called Rihla, written in Arabic, providing extremely rich and interesting details about India?
The Rihla, meaning journey, is the Arabic travel book of Ibn Battuta, the Moroccan traveller from Tangier who reached India in 1333.
Read the full explanation →'Altitude sickness' is caused at high altitude due to
As one climbs, air pressure falls, so each breath delivers oxygen at a lower partial pressure and less of it passes from the lungs into the blood.
Read the full explanation →Which one of the following is not a characteristic of a compound?
A compound always has a fixed composition by mass, so a variable composition is a property of mixtures, not compounds.
Read the full explanation →Which European ruler had observed, "Bear in mind that the commerce of India is the commerce of the world ... he who can exclusively command it is the dictator of Europe"?
The remark that the commerce of India is the commerce of the world, and that whoever commands it exclusively is the dictator of Europe, is attributed to Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia from 1682 to 1725.
Read the full explanation →Greta Thunberg, a teenaged environment activist who was in news recently, hails from
Greta Thunberg, born in Stockholm in 2003, is a Swedish climate activist who became the face of the youth climate movement.
Read the full explanation →Which one of the following statements in relation to Panchayats is not correct?
Under Article 243D, seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in every Panchayat are reserved in proportion to their share of the population of that Panchayat area, so the statement that reservation has nothing to do with population is wrong.
Read the full explanation →Who among the following was popularly known as 'Lokahitwadi' ?
Gopal Hari Deshmukh (1823–1892) of Maharashtra wrote under the pen name Lokahitawadi, meaning one who works for the good of the people, and the name stuck to him.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following statements is/are correct with respect to Time Zone in India ? 1. There is one standard time for the whole country. 2. Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep Islands have different Time Zones. 3. Indian Standard Time (IST) is five and half hours behind GMT. Select the correct answer using the code given below:
India follows a single standard time, Indian Standard Time, for the whole country, and it is ahead of GMT, not behind it.
Read the full explanation →Which one of the following is not a resultant of the El Nino effect ?
During El Nino the trade winds of the Pacific weaken or even reverse, so a steady flow of these winds is not one of its results.
Read the full explanation →What was a munjaniq in medieval period ?
The munjaniq, also written manjaniq, was a siege engine that hurled heavy stones at fort walls, that is, a catapult.
Read the full explanation →Which is the only country in the world to officially proclaim the Gross National Happiness (GNH) as the measure of the country's progress ?
Bhutan is the country that officially adopted Gross National Happiness, rather than economic output alone, as the measure of its progress.
Read the full explanation →Amsterdam-St. Paul Plateau is located in which one of the following oceanic regions ?
The Amsterdam-St. Paul Plateau is a raised area of the ocean floor in the southern Indian Ocean, named after the French islands of Amsterdam and Saint-Paul that rise from it.
Read the full explanation →Consider the following statements about the Gupta administrative system : 1. The Gupta kings assumed imperial titles such as Maharajadhiraja, Parama-bhattaraka and Parameshvara. 2. The Gupta kings also connected themselves with the Gods through epithets such as Parama-daivata and Parama-bhagavata. Which of the statements given above is/are correct ?
Gupta inscriptions show the kings using grand imperial titles and also religious epithets that linked them with the gods.
Read the full explanation →A positively charged particle (alpha-particle) is projected towards west in a horizontal plane. It is deflected towards north in the same plane by a magnetic field. Which one among the following is the direction of the magnetic field?
The magnetic force on a moving charge is F = q(v × B), and only an upward field turns a westward-moving positive charge towards the north.
Read the full explanation →Chemical weathering of rocks is much greater in a place with
Chemical weathering is the breakdown of rocks through reactions such as solution, oxidation, carbonation and hydration, and all of these need water.
Read the full explanation →Which one of the following ocean currents is a cold current?
The South Atlantic Drift is part of the West Wind Drift, the cold eastward flow that circles Antarctica in the belt of the westerlies, around 40° to 50° south.
Read the full explanation →The United Nations Charter was signed by 51 original members of the United Nations in 1945 at the
The Charter of the United Nations was drawn up at the United Nations Conference on International Organization held in San Francisco, USA, from April to June 1945, and was signed there on 26 June 1945.
Read the full explanation →The Parliament of India is primarily based on the model of
India adopted the parliamentary form of government from Britain, often called the Westminster model.
Read the full explanation →Which one of the following is the narrow belt parallel to the Shiwalik foothills where streams and rivers coming from the mountains deposit heavy materials of rocks and boulders ?
As rivers come down from the mountains onto the plains, their slope suddenly drops and they can no longer carry their heaviest load.
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