UPSC Civil Services 2025 Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is C, Both I and II. Both statements are correct about the Non-Cooperation Movement of 1920-22.

The special Calcutta session of the Congress in September 1920 accepted Gandhi's programme of non-cooperation, and the Nagpur session in December 1920 confirmed it and changed the Congress creed: its goal became the attainment of Swaraj by all peaceful and legitimate means, replacing the earlier aim of self-government within the Empire by constitutional means. The movement was planned in stages: first the boycott of titles, councils, courts, schools and foreign cloth, and later, if Swaraj did not come within a year and the government turned to repression, civil disobedience including non-payment of taxes. Gandhi withdrew it after the Chauri Chaura incident in February 1922.

A is wrong: statement II is also correct.

B is wrong: statement I is also correct.

D is wrong: both statements are true.

Exam tip: Calcutta (Sept 1920) adopted non-cooperation; Nagpur (Dec 1920) made Swaraj by peaceful and legitimate means the goal.

The correct answer is B, district-level administration. The Pradeshika, the Rajuka and the Yukta were officers of district-level administration in the Mauryan empire.

Ashoka's Third Major Rock Edict orders the Yuktas, the Rajukas and the Pradeshikas to go on tours of inspection every five years to teach dhamma along with their regular work. The Pradeshika was the head of the district, in charge of revenue and order. The Rajuka handled land measurement and also had judicial powers, which Ashoka widened (Pillar Edict IV). The Yukta was a subordinate officer who kept accounts and records and assisted them. Together they formed the link between the provinces and the villages.

A is wrong: villages were run by the gramika (village headman), not these officers.

C is wrong: provinces were headed by princes called kumaras or aryaputras.

D is wrong: the central level had the mantriparishad and heads of departments such as the samaharta and sannidhata.

Exam tip: Pradeshika, Rajuka, Yukta = district officers, named in Major Rock Edict III; gramika = village headman.

The correct answer is D, Lahore. Vishnu Digambar Paluskar founded the first Gandharva Mahavidyalaya at Lahore on 5 May 1901.

Paluskar, a Hindustani vocalist trained in the Gwalior gharana, wanted to take classical music out of the closed world of court patronage and teach it openly to ordinary students. The Lahore school was among the first to teach music to the public in a planned, institutional way, with fixed courses, fees and examinations. He later moved his main school to Bombay in 1908, and the Akhil Bharatiya Gandharva Mahavidyalaya Mandal, set up in 1931, continues his work. He also set the bhajan 'Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram' to its well-known tune.

A is wrong: the first school was not opened in Delhi.

B is wrong: Gwalior is the gharana Paluskar trained in, not the site of the school.

C is wrong: Ujjain has no link with the founding of the Mahavidyalaya.

Exam tip: Gandharva Mahavidyalaya = V.D. Paluskar, Lahore, 1901; V.N. Bhatkhande = thaat system and Marris College, Lucknow.

The correct answer is B, Only two. Only pairs I (Asmaka : Godavari) and IV (Kosala : Sarayu) are correct.

Asmaka was the only mahajanapada in the south, lying on the banks of the Godavari, with Potana (Paudanya) as its capital. Kosala, with Shravasti and Ayodhya as its great centres, lay along the Sarayu (Ghaghara). Avanti in western Malwa had Ujjayini and Mahishmati as its capitals and was watered by the Shipra and the Narmada, not the Mahanadi, which flows through Chhattisgarh and Odisha. Kamboja lay in the far north-west, around the Hindu Kush and the Kabul valley, far from the Vipas (Beas) of Punjab.

A is wrong: two pairs, not one, are correct.

C is wrong: pairs II and III are wrong, so three cannot be correct.

D is wrong: Kamboja is not on the Vipas and Avanti is not on the Mahanadi.

Exam tip: Asmaka = Godavari (only southern mahajanapada); Kosala = Sarayu; Avanti = Narmada and Shipra; Vipas = Beas.

The correct answer is C, Rajendra I (Chola). Around 1025 CE Rajendra Chola I sent a naval expedition that raided Kadaram (Kedah) and other ports of the Srivijaya kingdom.

Srivijaya, based in Sumatra, controlled the Strait of Malacca and the sea trade between India and China. Rajendra I, son of Rajaraja I, launched the expedition probably to protect Chola merchants and trade routes. His inscriptions list the places taken, including Kadaram, Palembang, Malaiyur and Ilamuridesam, and the capture of the Srivijaya king Sangrama Vijayottunggavarman. Rajendra also marched to the Ganga, took the title Gangaikonda and built a new capital, Gangaikonda Cholapuram. He is also called Kadaram Kondan, the conqueror of Kadaram.

A is wrong: Amoghavarsha was a 9th-century Rashtrakuta king known for the Kavirajamarga, not for overseas wars.

B is wrong: Prataparudra was the last Kakatiya king of Warangal, defeated by the Delhi Sultanate.

D is wrong: Vishnuvardhana was a 12th-century Hoysala king who built the Chennakeshava temple at Belur.

Exam tip: Rajendra I = Gangaikonda, Kadaram Kondan, Srivijaya expedition (c. 1025); Rajaraja I = Brihadeeswara temple and Sri Lanka.

The correct answer is B, Chandragupta II. Fa-hien was in India from about 399 to 414 CE, when Chandragupta II Vikramaditya ruled the Gupta empire.

Faxian was a Chinese Buddhist monk who set out overland to collect Buddhist texts, especially rules of monastic discipline. He visited Buddhist sites such as Kapilavastu, Bodh Gaya, Sarnath and Pataliputra, and went home by sea via Sri Lanka. His account, known in English as A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, describes the Madhya-desha as peaceful and prosperous, with light taxes, rare use of the death penalty, free hospitals in Pataliputra, and Chandalas who lived outside towns. Oddly, he never names the king.

A is wrong: Samudragupta, father of Chandragupta II, ruled before Fa-hien arrived.

C is wrong: Kumaragupta I came to the throne around 415 CE, after Fa-hien had left.

D is wrong: Skandagupta ruled in the mid-5th century and faced the Huna invasions.

Exam tip: Fa-hien = Chandragupta II (Guptas); Hiuen Tsang = Harshavardhana; I-tsing = visited Nalanda in the late 7th century.

The correct answer is A, Mahendravarman I. The Pallava king who ruled in the early 7th century took these titles, and they appear in the inscriptions of the cave temples he cut.

Mahendravarman I, son of Simhavishnu, was a poet, musician and builder. He wrote the Sanskrit farce Mattavilasa Prahasana, which gave him the title Mattavilasa. Vichitrachitta, meaning curious-minded, reflects his love of new ideas: his Mandagapattu inscription boasts that he built a shrine without brick, timber, metal or mortar, marking the start of rock-cut temples in Tamil country. Gunabhara is another of his many birudas. Tradition holds that he moved from Jainism to Shaivism under the influence of Appar, and he fought the Chalukya Pulakeshin II.

B is wrong: Simhavishnu founded the line's power and was known as Avanisimha.

C is wrong: Narasimhavarman I was called Mamalla and Vatapikonda after he took Vatapi.

D is wrong: Simhavarman was an earlier Pallava ruler with none of these titles.

Exam tip: Mahendravarman I = Mattavilasa Prahasana and Mandagapattu cave; Narasimhavarman I = Mamalla, Mahabalipuram and Vatapikonda.

The correct answer is B, a large wheel with earthen pots tied to the outer ends of its spokes. The araghatta was a water-lifting wheel that carried a chain or ring of pots down into a well and brought them up full.

Early medieval Sanskrit texts and inscriptions mention the araghatta as a common device for irrigating fields from wells. As the wheel turned, each pot dipped into the water, rose with it and emptied into a channel at the top. It is the ancestor of the Persian wheel (rahat) that later spread widely in north India under the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals, when gearing worked by bullocks was added.

A is wrong: a leather bag drawn over a pulley is the charsa or mot, a different device.

C is wrong: a single large pot driven by bullocks does not describe a wheel with many pots.

D is wrong: a bucket pulled up by hand on a rope is the simplest well-lift, not the araghatta.

Exam tip: araghatta = wheel with a ring of pots; charsa or mot = leather bag; dhenkuli or shaduf = lever-and-bucket lift.

The correct answer is C, Only three. Items I, II and IV were part of the Non-Cooperation programme, but item III was not: Indians were asked to give up their titles, not keep them quietly.

The programme was approved at the special Congress session in Calcutta in September 1920 and confirmed at the Nagpur session in December 1920. Its negative side included surrender of titles and honorary posts, boycott of government schools and colleges, law-courts, legislatures under the 1919 reforms and foreign cloth. Its constructive side included national schools and colleges, panchayats to settle disputes in place of British courts, spread of khadi and spinning, Hindu-Muslim unity and removal of untouchability. Strict non-violence was the basic condition, which is why Gandhi withdrew the movement in February 1922 after the violence at Chauri Chaura.

A is wrong: three items, not one, were part of the programme.

B is wrong: three items, not two, were part of the programme.

D is wrong: item III contradicts the actual call to surrender titles; Gandhi himself returned the Kaisar-i-Hind medal.

Exam tip: Non-Cooperation 1920-22 = surrender titles, boycott courts, schools, councils and foreign cloth; panchayats and khadi; ended after Chauri Chaura.

The correct answer is C, Both I and II. Ram Mohan Roy respected the philosophical heritage of the East while urging Indians to adopt reason, science and social equality.

Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833), often called the father of the Indian Renaissance, studied the Upanishads and translated parts of them into Bengali and English to show that they taught the worship of one God; he also knew Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit thought deeply. At the same time he wanted a modern, rational outlook: he supported English and scientific education, campaigned against sati, which was banned in 1829, and argued for women's property rights. He founded the Atmiya Sabha in 1815 and the Brahmo Sabha in 1828, and opposed idol worship and caste rigidity.

A is wrong: it leaves out statement II, his call for reason and equality.

B is wrong: it leaves out statement I, his deep regard for Eastern philosophy.

D is wrong: both statements describe his outlook correctly.

Exam tip: Ram Mohan Roy = Atmiya Sabha 1815, Brahmo Sabha 1828, sati abolished 1829; Upanishads plus modern reason.

The correct answer is A, I and II only. Capital receipts either add to liabilities or reduce assets, and borrowings and disinvestment are typical examples; interest received is a revenue receipt.

In the Union Budget, a receipt is a capital receipt if it creates a liability (as with market borrowings, small savings and other debt, which must be repaid) or reduces an asset (as with disinvestment, where the government sells part of its stake in public sector enterprises, or recovery of loans it gave earlier). Revenue receipts do neither: tax revenue and non-tax revenue such as interest received, dividends, profits and fees simply come in. So interest earned on loans given by the government is non-tax revenue and creates no liability.

B is wrong: it includes statement III, which is false.

C is wrong: it includes the false statement III and leaves out the true statement II.

D is wrong: statement III is false, so all three cannot be correct.

Exam tip: capital receipt = liability up or asset down (borrowing, disinvestment, loan recovery); interest and dividends = revenue receipts.

The correct answer is A. Both Statement II and Statement III are true, and each one is a reason why a circular economy cuts greenhouse gas emissions.

A linear economy follows "take, make, dispose". A circular economy keeps products and materials in use through reuse, repair, remanufacturing and recycling. Because fewer virgin raw materials have to be mined, refined and transported, the energy and emissions of extraction fall; this is Statement II explaining Statement I. Because less material is wasted in production and fewer goods end up in landfills and incinerators, emissions from manufacturing and waste disposal also fall; this is Statement III explaining Statement I. So both reasons independently lead to lower emissions.

B is wrong: it says only one of the two explains Statement I, but both do.

C is wrong: both Statements II and III are correct, not just one.

D is wrong: reducing raw material use and production waste is the core aim of the circular model.

Exam tip: circular economy = reduce, reuse, recycle, so lower resource use and lower waste both mean lower emissions.