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.
The Duncan Passage lies between which two islands?
The Duncan Passage is the stretch of sea that separates Little Andaman from South Andaman, that is from the southern end of Great Andaman.
Read the full explanation →Havelock Island of the Andaman group was renamed in 2018 as:
In 2018 three islands of the Andaman group were given Indian names to mark the hoisting of the tricolour by Subhas Chandra Bose in these islands: Havelock Island became Swaraj Dweep.
Read the full explanation →Which is the capital of the Union Territory of Lakshadweep?
Kavaratti is the administrative headquarters of Lakshadweep and the seat of its administrator.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following statements about the origin of India's island groups is correct?
I. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are of coral origin.
II. The Lakshadweep Islands are of coral origin.
Statement II is correct: the Lakshadweep Islands are atolls, each a ring of coral enclosing a lagoon, raised on a submarine ridge in the Arabian Sea, and they are the only coral island group of India.
Read the full explanation →Saddle Peak, the highest point of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, is situated in which island?
Saddle Peak rises to about 732 metres in North Andaman and is the highest point of the whole union territory; a national park of the same name surrounds it.
Read the full explanation →India's only active volcano is located on which island?
Barren Island lies in the Andaman Sea to the east of Middle Andaman and carries the only active volcano in India and in South Asia; it has erupted several times in recent decades.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following is the southernmost point of Indian territory?
Indira Point stands at the southern end of Great Nicobar in the Nicobar group and is the southernmost point of the territory of India; it was known earlier as Pygmalion Point and as Parson Point.
Read the full explanation →The Ten Degree Channel separates which two islands?
The Ten Degree Channel runs along the tenth parallel of north latitude and is the dividing line between the Andaman group and the Nicobar group; Little Andaman is the southernmost island of the Andaman group and Car Nicobar the northernmost of the Nicobar group, so the channel lies between them.
Read the full explanation →Which statement about a semiconductor that has been doped is correct?
Doping replaces a few host atoms with impurity atoms, and each impurity atom brings its own nucleus along with its electrons, so the total positive and negative charge in the crystal stays balanced.
Read the full explanation →The transistor was invented in 1947 at Bell Laboratories by:
John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley built the first working transistor at Bell Laboratories in 1947 and shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956 for the discovery of the transistor effect.
Read the full explanation →If the input to a full-wave rectifier has a frequency of 50 Hz, the ripple frequency of its output will be:
A full-wave rectifier conducts during both halves of the input cycle, since one pair of diodes handles the positive half and the other pair the negative half.
Read the full explanation →Which pair of logic gates is called universal gates?
They are called universal gates because either one of them, used repeatedly, can build every other logic gate, including NOT, AND, OR, XOR and XNOR.
Read the full explanation →In a bipolar junction transistor, which region is the thinnest and the most lightly doped?
The base of a transistor is made very thin and only lightly doped so that most of the carriers injected by the emitter pass straight through it to the collector instead of recombining in it.
Read the full explanation →Which diode is operated in the reverse breakdown region and is used as a voltage regulator?
A Zener diode is heavily doped so that breakdown occurs at a low and sharply defined reverse voltage. Beyond that point the voltage across it stays almost constant even when the current through it changes a great deal, which is precisely the property a voltage regulator needs.
Read the full explanation →A p-n junction diode is chiefly used in an electronic circuit as a:
A p-n junction conducts freely in forward bias, where the potential barrier is reduced, and blocks current in reverse bias, where only a tiny leakage current flows.
Read the full explanation →The forbidden energy gap of silicon at room temperature is approximately:
Silicon is the most widely used semiconductor and its forbidden energy gap, the separation between the top of the valence band and the bottom of the conduction band, is about 1.1 electron volts at room temperature.
Read the full explanation →In a p-type semiconductor, the majority charge carriers are:
A p-type semiconductor is made by adding a trivalent impurity such as boron, aluminium, gallium or indium.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following impurities, when added to pure silicon, produces an n-type semiconductor?
An n-type semiconductor is made by doping with a pentavalent element, that is one with five valence electrons, such as phosphorus, arsenic, antimony or bismuth.
Read the full explanation →With a rise in temperature, the electrical resistance of a semiconductor:
A semiconductor has a small forbidden energy gap, so heating supplies thermal energy that pushes more electrons from the valence band into the conduction band, creating more electron-hole pairs.
Read the full explanation →Under which law are national parks and wildlife sanctuaries notified in India?
This Act provides for the declaration of national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, lists protected species in its schedules, and, after the amendment of 2002, added two further categories, conservation reserves and community reserves.
Read the full explanation →