UPSC GK Questions 2026

A leaf from a sunny day is full of starch made by photosynthesis, and iodine turns starch blue-black. This is the standard school test for starch in a leaf.

A body moving faster than sound outruns its own sound waves, which pile up into a shock wave heard on the ground as a sonic boom.

The Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan is a campaign to make places, transport and information accessible; it is run by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities and has no pension component.

Xylem carries water along with the minerals dissolved in it from the roots up to the stem and leaves. Plants have two kinds of conducting tissue.

Olivine is a silicate of magnesium and iron that forms greenish crystals and is common in basalt. Olivine takes its name from its olive-green colour.

Under First Past the Post, the candidate with the most votes wins, even if that is far less than half of all votes cast.

Bacteria have a cell wall and human cells do not, so a drug that attacks the cell wall harms only the bacteria.

Buried organic waste rots without air in a landfill, and bacteria that work without oxygen release methane. Food scraps, paper and garden waste make up a large share of city garbage.

Each nucleotide of DNA is made of these three parts, and many nucleotides joined together form the polynucleotide chain. In a DNA strand, the sugar of one nucleotide is linked to the phosphate of the next by a phosphodiester bond, making a sugar-phosphate backbone.

With an area of about 7.86 lakh sq km, New Guinea is the world's second-largest island, after Greenland. New Guinea lies just north of Australia and is shared by two countries: its western half belongs to Indonesia and its eastern half is the mainland of Papua New Guinea.

A magnesium atom sits at the centre of every chlorophyll molecule, so a plant cannot make chlorophyll without it. Chlorophyll is built around a ring-shaped structure called a porphyrin, with a single magnesium ion held at its centre.

A carbonate reacts with an acid at room temperature to give carbon dioxide, and only carbon dioxide turns limewater milky.

Nominal GDP values each year's output at that year's own (current) prices, not at constant prices, so this statement is not correct.

The body's weight stays the same, but standing puts it on the small area of the feet, so the pressure is greater.

Silver is the best conductor, nichrome is an alloy with high resistivity, and glass is an insulator with enormous resistivity.

Incorporated in 1920 and later taken over by the government, SCCL is India's oldest government-owned coal mining company. Coal was found in the Godavari valley near Yellandu in the 1870s, and the Hyderabad (Deccan) Company began mining there in 1886.

During a hard sprint the muscles run short of oxygen and switch to anaerobic respiration, which leaves lactic acid behind.

Gravitational force varies inversely as the square of the distance, so halving the distance makes the force 2 × 2 = 4 times larger.

Man Kautuhal was compiled under the patronage of Raja Man Singh Tomar, who ruled Gwalior from 1486 to 1516. Man Singh Tomar was a great patron of music, and his court is closely linked with the growth of the Dhrupad style of Hindustani singing.

Plants need magnesium in fairly large amounts, so it is a macronutrient, not a micronutrient. Plant nutrients are grouped by how much of them a plant needs.