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.
According to the Industrial Policy Resolution 1956, in how many categories were the industries classified in India?
The Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956 placed every industry in one of three schedules.
Read the full explanation →Sudbury, one of the most important mining centres of the world, is known for which mineral?
Sudbury in Ontario, Canada, works a nickel and copper deposit of the Canadian Shield formed in an ancient impact structure, and it is the first name in any question on nickel, with Norilsk in Russia and New Caledonia in the Pacific as the others.
Read the full explanation →Cocoa, the raw material of chocolate, is produced mainly in which region of the world?
Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria grow most of the world's cocoa, on small farms under shade trees in the hot, wet equatorial belt along the Gulf of Guinea.
Read the full explanation →The Prairies of North America, the Pampas of South America and the Downs of Australia are all famous for the commercial cultivation of which crop?
All three are temperate grasslands with 50 to 75 centimetres of rain, a cool moist growing season and a warm dry harvest, which is exactly what wheat needs, and all three are farmed on large mechanised holdings for export.
Read the full explanation →The Corn Belt of the United States, the great maize-growing region, is centred on which states?
The Corn Belt lies in the central lowland of the United States, where warm summer nights, 50 to 100 centimetres of summer rain and deep well-drained loam suit maize, and most of the crop is fed to pigs and cattle, so the belt is also a livestock and meat region.
Read the full explanation →Hevea brasiliensis, the tree from which natural rubber is tapped, is native to which region?
The rubber tree is native to the equatorial forests of Brazil, and the boom of the nineteenth century made Manaus a wealthy city.
Read the full explanation →Shifting cultivation is known as ladang in which country?
The practice means clearing a patch of forest, burning the slash for ash, cropping it for two or three years until the soil is exhausted and then moving to a fresh patch.
Read the full explanation →The Mesabi Range, the leading iron ore area of the United States, lies close to which of the Great Lakes?
The Mesabi Range in Minnesota lies on the western side of Lake Superior, and the ore is carried by lake steamer to the steel towns of the lower lakes, among them Gary, Cleveland and Pittsburgh, where it meets Appalachian coal.
Read the full explanation →Which city is known as the Manchester of Japan because of its cotton textile industry?
Osaka, in the Kansai industrial region, became the leading cotton textile centre of Japan, helped by a humid climate suited to spinning, a good harbour, cheap labour drawn from the countryside and a large home market, and the comparison with Manchester in England, the original Cottonopolis, is standard in textbooks.
Read the full explanation →The Witwatersrand region of South Africa is famous for the mining of which mineral?
The Witwatersrand basin near Johannesburg has produced a large share of all the gold ever mined, from conglomerate reefs that dip deep underground, and the city of Johannesburg itself grew out of the gold rush of 1886.
Read the full explanation →The Chuquicamata mine is associated with which mineral and country?
Chuquicamata, in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, is one of the largest open-pit copper mines in the world, and Escondida, in the same desert, is the other name to remember.
Read the full explanation →Ghawar, the largest conventional oil field known in the world, lies in which country?
Ghawar, discovered in 1948 in the eastern province of the kingdom, has been the largest conventional oil field known anywhere, and it is the field most often named in exams along with Safaniya, the biggest offshore field, also Saudi.
Read the full explanation →Kiruna, one of the most famous iron ore mining centres of the world, is located in which country?
Kiruna lies in Swedish Lapland, inside the Arctic Circle, and works a high-grade magnetite deposit of the Baltic Shield. Its ore is carried by rail to Narvik in Norway, an ice-free port warmed by the North Atlantic Drift, and to Lulea on the Gulf of Bothnia.
Read the full explanation →In plant cells, the turgidity and rigidity is provided by
A large central vacuole filled with sap presses the cytoplasm against the cell wall, keeping the cell firm, or turgid.
Read the full explanation →In which of the following phylum, would you place an animal with a true internal cavity (coelom) ?
Annelids such as the earthworm, leech and Nereis are the first coelomates in the usual sequence: their body cavity is lined on all sides by mesoderm.
Read the full explanation →Which one of the following is not a breakdown product of glucose during respiration?
No pathway of respiration in living cells turns glucose into methanol. Glucose is first split in the cytoplasm into two molecules of pyruvate; this step, glycolysis, is common to all cells.
Read the full explanation →Which one is the most abundant of all the elements on Earth ?
Of the four options, oxygen is by far the most plentiful element; it makes up about 46% of the Earth's crust by mass.
Read the full explanation →Which one among the following statements about matter is NOT correct ?
The melting point is the minimum temperature at which a solid melts to become a liquid at atmospheric pressure, not the maximum.
Read the full explanation →If the amplitude of oscillation of a simple pendulum is very small, then its time period of oscillation 1. depends on the length of the pendulum, L 2. depends on the acceleration due to gravity, g 3. depends upon the mass of the bob of the pendulum, m 4. does not depend upon the amplitude of the pendulum, A Select the correct answer using the code given below.
For small swings the time period is T = 2π√(L/g), which contains the length and gravity but neither the mass nor the amplitude.
Read the full explanation →The increase in length of stems and roots in plants is due to
Apical meristem sits at the growing tips of stems and roots, and its dividing cells make them longer. Meristems are groups of cells that keep dividing throughout a plant's life.
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