Static general knowledge is the larger part of every UPSC general studies paper. The notices name the same areas again and again: the history of India and the national movement, Indian and world geography, polity and the Constitution, the economy and social development, and general science with environment and ecology. The balance shifts from exam to exam. NDA puts about half of its General Knowledge part on Physics, Chemistry and General Science. CSE favours polity, modern history, environment and the economy. CAPF adds security and human rights, and CDS spreads its questions across polity, history, geography, the economy and school science.
GK24's GK notes are written topic by topic in English and Hindi, as short, fact-first chapters that are easy to revise. They cover Indian Polity, Indian History, Geography, Indian Economy, General Science, Environment and Ecology, Art and Culture, Computer, and the fact lists of awards, sports, books and days. A new chapter is added in each subject as the series grows. Each note carries practice questions, and those that have appeared in an exam say which exam and year. Start with Polity and modern history, then Geography, the Economy and Science. Read a note, take its topic quiz, and come back to it in your monthly revision.
Which is the only hill station of Haryana?
It is the one place in Haryana developed as a hill station, and the twin Tikkar Taal lakes lie below it.
Read the full explanation →The Pinjore Garden, also called the Yadavindra Garden, is located in which district of Haryana?
Pinjore lies on the Shivalik slope in Panchkula district, and the garden there is a Mughal charbagh laid out in descending terraces by Nawab Fidai Khan, the foster brother of Aurangzeb.
Read the full explanation →The Kabuli Bagh mosque at Panipat was built by which ruler?
He raised the Kabuli Bagh mosque and the garden around it at Panipat to mark his victory in the first battle of Panipat in 1526, in which Ibrahim Lodi, the last Lodi sultan, was killed.
Read the full explanation →Jyotisar, believed to be the place where the Bhagavad Gita was delivered, is in which district?
Jyotisar lies a few kilometres from Kurukshetra town, and tradition identifies it as the spot on the battlefield where Krishna gave the Gita sermon to Arjuna.
Read the full explanation →Which novel by Phanishwar Nath Renu began the regional or anchalik tradition in Hindi fiction?
Renu, born at Aurahi Hingna in the Purnia country of north east Bihar, set the novel in a village called Meriganj just after independence, and made the village itself the hero, with its castes, quarrels, politics, superstitions and hopes.
Read the full explanation →Ramdhari Singh Dinkar received the Jnanpith Award for which of his works?
Dinkar, born at Simaria in Begusarai district and honoured as Rashtrakavi for his nationalist verse, received the Jnanpith Award for Urvashi, a long poem that treats the love of Pururava and the apsara Urvashi as a meeting of the earthly and the divine.
Read the full explanation →The Angika dialect of Bihar is spoken mainly in which region?
The dialect takes its name from that region, and a demand for its recognition is made alongside the demand for Bhojpuri.
Read the full explanation →The Magahi language of Bihar is traced back to which ancient Prakrit?
The name itself preserves the link: Magadha gives Magadhi, and Magadhi gives Magahi. Ardhamagadhi, a close relative, is the language in which the Jain canon preserves the sermons of Mahavira, and Pali, the language of the Buddhist scriptures, grew out of the same eastern speech.
Read the full explanation →Bhikhari Thakur, known as the Shakespeare of Bhojpuri, is the author of which folk play?
Bhikhari Thakur of Kutubpur in Saran district wrote, composed and staged plays with his own travelling troupe, and Bidesiya, on the suffering of a wife whose husband has migrated for work, became the name of a whole style of Bhojpuri theatre.
Read the full explanation →Which script was traditionally used for writing the Maithili language?
This is the traditional script of the Mithila region, used for Maithili manuscripts, panjis of genealogy and ritual texts, and it is related to the eastern group of scripts that also produced Bengali and Assamese letters.
Read the full explanation →Which of these languages spoken in Bihar is NOT included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution?
Bhojpuri is spoken by crores of people in western Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh and the Indian diaspora of Mauritius, Fiji, Suriname and Trinidad, and it has a rich folk theatre, yet it has not been added to the Eighth Schedule.
Read the full explanation →Varna Ratnakara, regarded as the first prose work in Maithili, was written by whom?
His Varna Ratnakara, a fourteenth century work, is counted as the earliest prose composition in Maithili and indeed one of the earliest in any modern Indian language.
Read the full explanation →By which title is the poet Vidyapati of Mithila remembered?
Vidyapati was the poet of the Mithila court in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and his Maithili padavali of songs about Radha and Krishna is still sung in north Bihar.
Read the full explanation →Maithili was included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution by which amendment?
This amendment added four languages to the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, namely Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali, and raised the total number of scheduled languages from eighteen to twenty-two.
Read the full explanation →Who was the first Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh?
Pant headed the government of the United Provinces from 1937 and continued as the first Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh when the state took its present name in 1950, holding the office until 1954, after which he became Union Home Minister.
Read the full explanation →Begum Akhtar, honoured as Mallika-e-Ghazal, belonged to which city of Uttar Pradesh?
Begum Akhtar was born at Faizabad in 1914 and made her name at Lucknow as a singer of ghazal, dadra and thumri; she was called Mallika-e-Ghazal, the queen of the ghazal, and her voice shaped the way Urdu poetry is sung in the subcontinent.
Read the full explanation →Birju Maharaj, the celebrated Kathak dancer, belonged to which gharana?
Birju Maharaj belonged to the Kalka and Bindadin line of the Lucknow gharana of Kathak, the school that grew under the patronage of the Nawabs of Awadh and is known for expression, abhinaya and grace rather than for sheer footwork.
Read the full explanation →Who was the first woman Chief Minister of an Indian state, heading the government of Uttar Pradesh from 1963?
Sucheta Kripalani became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1963 and held the office until 1967, which made her the first woman to head the government of any Indian state.
Read the full explanation →Major Dhyan Chand, born at Allahabad, won Olympic gold medals with the Indian hockey team in which years?
Dhyan Chand was born at Allahabad on 29 August 1905, grew up at Jhansi and played in the Indian teams that won the hockey gold at Amsterdam in 1928, Los Angeles in 1932 and Berlin in 1936, the last as captain.
Read the full explanation →Chandra Shekhar Azad died in a gunfight with the police at which place?
Azad, the leader of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association after the Kakori case, was surrounded by the police at Alfred Park in Allahabad on 27 February 1931 and died fighting there.
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