UPSC GK Questions 2026

The India State of Forest Report 2021, published by the Forest Survey of India, Dehradun, put the forest cover of Arunachal Pradesh at about 79 per cent of its geographical area, the highest among the four Himalayan states listed.

A reducing agent is the substance that is itself oxidised while it reduces something else. In hydrazine, N₂H₄, nitrogen has an oxidation number of −2; in nitrogen gas, N₂, it is 0.

All three statements describe composite volcanoes, also called stratovolcanoes. Their lava is cooler and more viscous than basalt, so gas cannot escape easily and pressure builds up until the volcano erupts explosively.

World Humanitarian Day is marked every year on 19 August to honour aid workers who have been killed or injured while helping others, and to draw attention to people affected by crises.

A p-type semiconductor is made by adding a small amount of a trivalent impurity, such as boron, aluminium, gallium or indium, to pure silicon or germanium.

A stack is a landform made by erosion, not by deposition. Waves attack a headland and open cracks into caves; when caves on both sides meet, a sea arch forms, and when the roof of the arch collapses, the seaward part is left standing as an isolated rock pillar called…

Friction acts along the surfaces in contact, opposite to the direction of motion, not along the line joining the centres of two bodies, so it is non-central.

The Panama Canal cuts across the narrow Isthmus of Panama in Central America and joins the Caribbean Sea, an arm of the Atlantic, with the Gulf of Panama on the Pacific.

An angle of incidence of zero means the ray falls along the normal, that is, perpendicular to the surface. By Snell's law, n₁ sin i = n₂ sin r; if i is zero, sin i is zero, so sin r is also zero and the angle of refraction is zero.

Lime water is a clear solution of calcium hydroxide, Ca(OH)₂. When carbon dioxide is passed through it, insoluble calcium carbonate, CaCO₃, forms as a fine white precipitate, which makes the lime water turn milky.

In the early sculpture at sites such as Sanchi, Bharhut and Amaravati, the Buddha was not carved as a man; his presence was suggested through symbols, each tied to an event of his life.

Bronze is made by mixing copper (Cu) with tin (Sn), usually about nine parts copper to one part tin. Adding tin makes the metal harder, stronger and more resistant to corrosion than pure copper, which is why bronze was used for tools, weapons, bells, coins and statues.

Fungi have no chlorophyll, so they cannot make their own food by photosynthesis.

Neap tides come when the Sun and the Moon pull on the Earth at right angles to each other, and that happens at the first and third (last) quarter of the Moon.

Statements 1 and 2 are correct, while statement 3 is wrong. The Satluj rises in the Rakas Tal near Lake Mansarovar in Tibet, at about 4,555 m, and is known there as Langchen Khambab.

The offshore oil terminal at Vadinar, on the Gulf of Kachchh in Gujarat, was built to ease the load on Kandla Port.

Sulphur dissolves completely in carbon disulphide, so the two form a true solution, and a solution is a homogeneous mixture.

Only the third statement is right: the crust is the outermost solid shell of the Earth and it is brittle in nature, which is why it cracks and faults during earthquakes.

Light, small and dry pollen is a feature of wind-pollinated plants, not of plants that depend on insects. Insect-pollinated (entomophilous) flowers have to attract a visitor and then make the pollen travel on its body.

The review covered claims received and disposed of under this law, the titles distributed, Community Forest Resource Rights and habitat rights for Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups, all of which flow from this statute.