WBCS Preliminary Examination 2024 — General Studies

Answer: (D) Memories of objects collected because of their links with people or events

'Memorabilia' (from Latin memorabilis, 'worth remembering') means objects that are kept or collected because of their association with memorable people, places or events, such as autographs, match-worn jerseys, old concert tickets or wartime medals. Option D is the only choice that carries this 'objects linked to people or events' sense: A is too general, B wrongly restricts the word to war, and C describes memories instead of objects. Related words often tested: memento and souvenir (a single keepsake), relic (an object surviving from the past), memoir (a written account of one's own life) and memorandum (a written note).

Answer: (D) by

'Close by' is the fixed adverbial phrase meaning 'near, at a short distance', as in 'There is a book shop close by'. 'Close up' means to shut (a shop) or to move nearer together, 'close in' means to surround or approach (night closes in, the enemy closes in), and 'close now' is not a phrase of place at all. Remember the grammar point too: 'close to' must be followed by an object (close to the station), whereas 'close by' can end a sentence. Similar expressions of nearness are 'nearby', 'at hand' and 'round the corner'.

Answer: (B) He took up more work than he could handle.

'To bite off more than one can chew' means to take on a task or responsibility that is bigger than one can manage, which is exactly option B. Option A reads the idiom literally (eating and digestion), while C (explaining what one does not understand) and D (endurance) are unrelated to the idea of over-commitment. Idioms with a similar sense are 'to have too much on one's plate', 'to spread oneself too thin' and 'to be out of one's depth'; the opposite idea is expressed by 'to cut one's coat according to one's cloth'.

Answer: (C) conform

The blank is followed by the preposition 'to', and among the four verbs only 'conform' takes it: we conform to rules or standards. The other verbs need different prepositions: abide by (the rules), comply with (the rules) and concur with (a person) or concur in (an opinion), so they fail on collocation even though 'abide' and 'comply' fit the meaning. Fixed verb + preposition pairs are a regular WBCS item, so learn them together: adhere to, conform to, accede to, comply with, abide by, concur with, acquiesce in.

Answer: (D) unbelievable or unreasonable

'Preposterous' means utterly absurd, contrary to reason or common sense, so 'unbelievable or unreasonable' (D) is the right meaning. The word comes from Latin prae (before) + posterus (coming after), literally 'back to front'. 'Debatable' (B) only means open to argument, which is far weaker; 'unacceptable' (C) means not satisfactory and 'improper judgment' (A) is a misjudgment, and neither carries the sense of absurdity. Synonyms: absurd, ludicrous, outrageous, nonsensical. Antonyms: sensible, reasonable, rational.

Answer: (B) Politeness is a virtue that pays in long run.

The proverb sets the small 'cost' of being polite against the large 'yield' it brings, so its point is that courtesy is a cheap investment that pays off over time, which is option B. Option A (politeness is desirable) is true but misses the cost-benefit idea, C (politeness is powerful) overstates it, and D distorts the meaning altogether. Proverbs with the same message are 'Courtesy costs nothing', 'A soft answer turneth away wrath' and 'You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar'.

Answer: (A) although

Two full clauses with a contrast between them ('I want to go' and 'the weather is bad') must be joined by a concessive conjunction, and 'although' is the only one offered. 'In spite of' also expresses contrast but it is a preposition, so it must be followed by a noun or gerund (in spite of the bad weather) or by 'the fact that'. 'When' expresses time and 'as' expresses time or reason, which would make the sentence illogical. Note for error-spotting questions: 'although' or 'though' is paired with 'yet', never with 'but', and 'despite' is never followed by 'of'.

Answer: (B) The impossible was made possible by Napoleon.

The active sentence has the pattern subject + verb + object + object complement (Napoleon / made / the impossible / possible). In the passive the object becomes the subject, the verb becomes 'was made' in the same tense, and the complement stays next to the verb: 'The impossible was made possible by Napoleon' (B). Option D changes the tense from simple past to present perfect, and A and C mix up the subject, object and complement. Rule to remember: voice change never alters the tense; simple past active (made) always becomes was/were + past participle.

Answer: (D) makes arrangements for funerals.

An 'undertaker' is a person whose business is preparing the dead for burial or cremation and arranging funerals; the modern terms are 'funeral director' and (in American English) 'mortician'. The word looks like it should mean 'one who undertakes projects' (A), which is why it is a popular one-word-substitution trap. A person who hears confessions in a church (C) is a 'confessor', and there is no single common word for option B beyond 'bribe-taker'. Related vocabulary: pallbearer (carries the coffin), sexton (looks after a churchyard), coroner (officer who inquires into unnatural deaths), epitaph (words on a tomb) and obituary (death notice).

Answer: (C) wired or offbeat

'Outlandish' means strange, bizarre or strikingly unconventional (originally 'from an outland', i.e. foreign-looking). The intended answer was clearly option C, but the booklet prints it as 'wired or offbeat' instead of 'weird or offbeat', and 'wired' (tense, or connected by wires) is not a meaning of outlandish. With no option strictly correct, PSC's final answer key marks this question '*' and awards 1 mark to every candidate irrespective of attempt. For revision: synonyms are eccentric, bizarre, freakish and offbeat; antonyms are ordinary and conventional. 'Antique' (A) means old and valuable, 'old school' (B) means traditional, and 'unavailable' (D) means not obtainable.

Answer: (C) compliment

'Compliment' (with an i) is an expression of praise, respect or admiration, so a book written in honour of one's teacher is 'a compliment to' the teacher. 'Complement' (with an e) is something that completes or goes well with another thing, 'supplement' is something added to make up a deficiency, and 'debt' does not fit the pattern 'is a ... to'. The same pair gives two more confusables: 'complimentary' (given free, or praising) and 'complementary' (completing each other, as in complementary angles that add up to $90^\circ$). Memory aid: I give a compliment; an e completes a complement.

Answer: (C) If people are curious beyond a point, they may invite trouble.

The proverb warns that being too inquisitive about things that do not concern you can land you in trouble, which is what option C says. Option A is only a phrase, not a meaning; B takes the cat literally; and D exaggerates the idea into something 'deadly' and 'beyond any man's reach'. The saying began in the 16th century as 'Care killed the cat' (care meaning worry), used by Ben Jonson and Shakespeare, and today it is often capped with the reply 'but satisfaction brought it back'. A proverb with a similar warning is 'Let sleeping dogs lie'.

Answer: (C) can

'Can' is the modal auxiliary that expresses ability or capacity, exactly what the hint [Ability] asks for; its past form is 'could' and its near-equivalent is 'be able to'. 'Should' expresses advice or duty, 'must' expresses necessity or strong obligation, and 'don't' is the negative of the auxiliary 'do', not a modal. Quick chart of modal functions for the exam: can/could = ability, may/might = permission or possibility, must = compulsion or logical certainty, should/ought to = advice, will/would = willingness or habit, need not = absence of necessity.

Answer: (A) Could

A question beginning with 'Could you ...?' is the standard polite request form, so 'Could' matches the hint [Request]. 'Should you be more careful?' asks about advisability, 'Must you ...?' expresses compulsion or irritation, and 'Have you be ...' is ungrammatical because 'have' needs a past participle (been). The usual request modals are can, could, will and would, with 'could' and 'would' sounding more polite than 'can' and 'will'; 'may' and 'might' are used when asking permission for oneself (May I come in?).

Answer: (A) near

'Round (or around) the corner' means very near, either in place (the shop is just round the corner) or in time (the Pujas are round the corner). It has nothing to do with leaving, hiding or falling. Expressions with the same sense are 'at hand', 'in the offing' and 'on the horizon'. Do not confuse it with other 'corner' idioms: 'to cut corners' is to do something cheaply or carelessly, 'to drive someone into a corner' is to put them in a difficult position, and 'to turn the corner' is to pass the worst point of a crisis.

Answer: (B) though

The two clauses stand in contrast (a holiday is planned, yet the destination is not fixed), so the concessive conjunction 'though' is required. 'While' can show contrast but mainly means 'during the time that', 'when' expresses time, and 'which' is a relative pronoun, not a conjunction, so it cannot join these clauses. 'Though', 'although' and 'even though' are interchangeable here; 'though' is the only one that can also be placed at the end of a sentence in informal use (They haven't decided, though).

Answer: (B) filial

'Filial' (Latin filius, son; filia, daughter) describes the duty, love or respect that children owe to their parents, so 'filial duty' is the fixed phrase. 'Parental' would mean the duty parents owe to children, 'fraternal' (frater, brother) relates to brothers, and 'ancestral' relates to forefathers or inherited property. Other relationship adjectives asked in exams: maternal and paternal (mother's and father's side), sororal (of a sister), avuncular (like an uncle), conjugal (of marriage) and sibling (brother or sister).

Answer: (B) Anthology

An 'anthology' is a collection of selected poems, stories or other writings, usually by different authors, published in one volume; the word comes from Greek anthos (flower) + legein (to gather), literally 'a gathering of flowers'. An 'epilogue' is the closing section of a book or play (opposite: prologue), a 'manuscript' is a handwritten or unpublished text, and a 'lexicon' is a dictionary or the vocabulary of a language. Related one-word substitutions: omnibus (several works of one author in a volume), compendium (a concise collection of information), glossary (list of difficult terms) and bibliography (list of books consulted).

Answer: (D) The person who takes the earliest opportunity to do something will gain advantage over others.

The proverb teaches that whoever acts first or seizes an opportunity earliest gains an advantage over those who delay, which option D states completely. Option A shifts the idea to 'good habits', B takes the bird and worm literally, and C narrows it to standing first in a queue. Proverbs on the same theme of timely action are 'Strike while the iron is hot', 'Make hay while the sun shines', 'A stitch in time saves nine' and 'First come, first served'; the humorous counter-saying is 'The second mouse gets the cheese'.

Answer: (D) continuous

'Afoot' means in progress, under way, going on. 'The game is afoot' therefore says that something has begun and is currently happening, and among the options this is best matched by 'continuous', the answer in PSC's final key. Option A is the tempting distractor because Sherlock Holmes uses the line when a new case starts, but the word 'afoot' itself does not mean a case or an investigation; B and C are unrelated. The expression is from Shakespeare (Henry V), where 'game' is the hunted animal, and Conan Doyle later made it famous. Similar adverbs: under way, in motion, astir.

Answer: (D) burn the midnight oil

'To burn the midnight oil' means to work or study late into the night (from the days of oil lamps), so it fits a candidate preparing late for an examination. 'Go haywire' means to go out of control or stop working properly, 'run amok' means to behave in a wild, violent way (from Malay amuk), and 'sit tight' means to stay where you are and wait patiently. A close relative with a different meaning is 'to burn the candle at both ends', which is to exhaust oneself by doing too much, early and late.

Answer: (A) once

'Once' used as a conjunction means 'as soon as' or 'after', so the sentence says the call will be made after the chores are finished. 'Because' would make the chores the reason for calling, 'so' introduces a result, and 'as' (while or because) does not give the 'after completion' sense. Grammar point often tested in error-spotting: in time clauses beginning with once, when, after, before, until or as soon as, the present tense is used for future meaning (once I am done, not once I will be done).

Answer: (B) A state of pain, distress or grief

'Affliction' is a state of pain, suffering, distress or grief, or the thing that causes it, so option B is correct. It is wider than a 'deadly disease' (A): poverty, blindness or bereavement can all be afflictions. Options C and D are invented meanings. Synonyms: suffering, misery, tribulation, woe, adversity; antonyms: comfort, relief, blessing. Usage trap: the verb is 'afflict' (to be afflicted with a disease), which must not be confused with 'inflict', meaning to impose something unpleasant on someone else (to inflict a wound or a penalty).

Answer: (D) extremely large and huge

'Humongous' (also spelt humungous) is an informal word, originally American slang, meaning extremely large; it is probably a blend of 'huge' and 'monstrous'. So a humongous building is a gigantic one, option D. The other options describe instability, weakness or emotion, none of which the word suggests. Synonyms worth learning in ascending order of size: big, huge, enormous, gigantic, colossal, mammoth, gargantuan. Antonyms: tiny, minute, minuscule, diminutive.

Answer: (D) Represent something as being less important than it really is

To 'underplay' something is to make it seem less important, serious or impressive than it really is, which is option D word for word. 'Intrigue' and 'conspire' (A, B) both mean to plot secretly, and option C describes complicating a matter, the opposite of playing it down. Synonyms: downplay, play down, understate, soft-pedal, make light of. Antonyms: overplay, exaggerate, overstate, blow out of proportion. The same prefix gives 'underestimate' (judge too low), 'undermine' (weaken gradually) and 'underscore' (emphasise).

Answer: (B) Sarojini Naidu

Sarojini Naidu described Gandhi and Viceroy Lord Irwin as 'the Two Mahatmas' during the talks that produced the Gandhi-Irwin (Delhi) Pact of 5 March 1931, a comment on the deeply religious, conscience-driven character of both men. Under the Pact the Congress suspended Civil Disobedience and agreed to attend the Second Round Table Conference, while the Government released non-violent political prisoners and allowed salt-making for personal use in coastal villages. Naidu, the 'Nightingale of India', was the first Indian woman President of the Congress (Kanpur, 1925). Among the other options, Nehru was unhappy with the Pact, Mirabehn (Madeleine Slade) was Gandhi's English disciple, and Tagore is credited with popularising the title 'Mahatma' for Gandhi.

Answer: (A) Chelsea

Chelsea won the first expanded, 32-team FIFA Club World Cup, beating Paris Saint-Germain 3-0 in the final at MetLife Stadium, New Jersey (USA) on 13 July 2025; Cole Palmer scored twice and won the Golden Ball. The new tournament replaced the old annual seven-club competition and is to be held every four years. Of the other options, Real Madrid lost to PSG in the semi-final, Manchester City (winner of the last old-format edition in 2023) went out in the round of 16, and Barcelona did not qualify. Chelsea thus hold the title under both formats, having also won the 2021 edition.

Answer: (B) 36

24, 72 and 168 are all multiples of 24 ($24 \times 1$, $24 \times 3$, $24 \times 7$), but 36 is not ($36 \div 24 = 1.5$), so 36 is the odd one out. A second test gives the same answer: 36 is the only perfect square ($6^2$) in the list. In odd-number-out questions, check in this order: divisibility by a common factor, squares and cubes, prime or composite, and sum of digits, then pick the option that fails a property shared by the other three.

Answer: (B) Local Communities and the Forest Department.

Joint Forest Management (JFM) is a partnership in which village communities, organised as Forest Protection Committees, protect and regenerate forest land together with the State Forest Department and in return get a share of the produce. It grew out of the National Forest Policy, 1988 and the Government of India circular of 1 June 1990. West Bengal link: the model was pioneered at Arabari in Paschim Medinipur in the early 1970s by forest officer Ajit Kumar Banerjee, where villagers protecting degraded sal forest were given 25% of the timber revenue. The other options name partners that are not part of the JFM design; the community-and-department pairing is its defining feature.

Answer: (B) digital, paperless census using electronic data collection methods.

Answer as of 2024 — this may have changed since.

Census 2027, India's 16th census and the 8th since Independence, is the first to be conducted by digital means: enumerators record data on a mobile app and households can self-enumerate through an online portal. It has two phases, the Houselisting and Housing Census (April to September 2026) and Population Enumeration (February 2027), with the reference date 00:00 hours of 1 March 2027 (1 October 2026 for Ladakh and the snow-bound areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand). It will also record caste for the first time since 1931. The census is taken under the Census Act, 1948 by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner (Ministry of Home Affairs); the last one was in 2011, the 2021 round having been postponed. Options A, C and D describe methods that are not being used, since enumerators still visit households but with phones instead of paper schedules.

Answer: (C) International year of Women Farmers

The UN General Assembly has declared 2026 the International Year of the Woman Farmer, to highlight the role of women in agrifood systems and the gaps they face in land rights, credit and technology; FAO is the lead agency. 2026 is also the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists and the International Year of Volunteers for Sustainable Development, but those titles are not among the options, and options A, B and D are not UN observances for this year. Recent international years asked in exams: 2023 Millets (on India's proposal), 2024 Camelids, and 2025 Cooperatives, Quantum Science and Technology, and Glaciers' Preservation.

Answer: (A) It is near the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant on the west coast of Finland

Finland's ONKALO repository (the name means 'cavity' in Finnish) is on Olkiluoto island in Eurajoki municipality on the west coast, beside the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant, and is built by Posiva Oy, a company owned by power producers TVO and Fortum. Spent fuel is sealed in copper and cast-iron canisters, packed in bentonite clay and placed about 400 to 450 m deep in ancient bedrock. It is the world's first deep geological repository for spent nuclear fuel to reach the operating-licence stage: the Finnish regulator STUK cleared its safety case in August 2026 and Posiva aims to begin disposal by the end of 2026. Option B mixes it up with the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Norway), and Suomenlinna (C) is a UNESCO-listed sea fortress off Helsinki.

Answer: (C) Krishnanagar

The Tropic of Cancer ($23^\circ 26'$ N, roughly $23.5^\circ$ N) crosses West Bengal through Purulia, Bankura, Bardhaman and Nadia, passing just north of Krishnanagar (about $23.4^\circ$ N), which makes it the closest of the four towns. Durgapur (about $23.5^\circ$ N) is also near the line but slightly farther from it, Baharampur lies well to the north (about $24.1^\circ$ N) and Chandannagar well to the south (about $22.9^\circ$ N). The Tropic passes through eight Indian states from west to east: Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura and Mizoram; the Mahi is the only Indian river that crosses it twice.

Answer: (D) Tomahawk

Israel's multi-layered air and missile defence consists of Iron Dome (short-range rockets and shells), David's Sling (medium-range rockets and cruise missiles) and Arrow-2 and Arrow-3 (long-range ballistic missiles, the latter intercepting outside the atmosphere), with the Iron Beam laser being added. THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) is an American system, but a US battery has been deployed in Israel since October 2024, so it does operate within Israel's defensive shield. Tomahawk is entirely different: it is a US long-range, subsonic land-attack cruise missile launched from ships and submarines, an offensive weapon and not an interceptor. India's comparable systems are the S-400 (from Russia), Akash and the indigenous ballistic missile defence programme.

Answer: (A) $50h$

The energy of a photon is given by Planck's relation $E = h\nu$, where $\nu$ is the frequency. Putting $\nu = 50$ Hz gives $E = 50h$ joules, option A. Option C is the trap: $E = \frac{hc}{\lambda}$ is the form of the same relation in terms of wavelength, so $\frac{hc}{50}$ would be right only if 50 were the wavelength in metres; options B and D are dimensionally wrong. Facts to remember: $h = 6.626 \times 10^{-34}$ J s, photon energy rises with frequency (gamma rays highest, radio waves lowest), and 50 Hz is also the frequency of India's AC mains supply.

Answer: (A) CZPYQX

Compare the letters of APPLES and BORJHP position by position: A to B (+1), P to O (-1), P to R (+2), L to J (-2), E to H (+3), S to P (-3). The rule is therefore +1, -1, +2, -2, +3, -3. Applying it to BANANA: B+1 = C, A-1 = Z, N+2 = P, A-2 = Y, N+3 = Q, A-3 = X, giving CZPYQX (A). Options B and C keep Z in several places because they apply only a -1 shift to every A. Tip: write A = 1 to Z = 26 and remember that the alphabet wraps around, so one step back from A is Z.

Answer: (B) 30

The terms are products of consecutive numbers, $n(n+1)$: $1 \times 2 = 2$, $2 \times 3 = 6$, $3 \times 4 = 12$, $4 \times 5 = 20$, so the next is $5 \times 6 = 30$. The differences confirm it: 4, 6, 8, and therefore 10 next ($20 + 10 = 30$). Such numbers ($n^2 + n$) are called pronic or oblong numbers, and the series continues 42, 56, 72. In any number series, first write down the differences; if they form a simple pattern (here, consecutive even numbers) the answer follows at once.

Answer: (B) Chapati

In the early months of 1857 chapatis were passed from village to village across North India, usually by village watchmen, each village baking more and sending them on; British officers took this unexplained circulation as a sign of coming trouble. The other symbol associated with the revolt is the red lotus, said to have been passed among sepoy regiments. Swords, scarves and coins are not recorded as such symbols. Key facts: the immediate cause was the greased cartridge of the Enfield rifle; Mangal Pandey's outbreak took place at Barrackpore (Bengal) on 29 March 1857 and the revolt proper began at Meerut on 10 May 1857, with Bahadur Shah Zafar proclaimed emperor at Delhi.

Answer: (A) National Highway Development Project

The Golden Quadrilateral is the roughly 5,846 km network of four- and six-lane national highways linking Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. It formed Phase I of the National Highways Development Project (NHDP), launched under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee around 1999-2001 and executed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). Phase II was the North-South Corridor (Srinagar to Kanyakumari) and the East-West Corridor (Silchar to Porbandar), which cross at Jhansi. Do not confuse it with the Diamond Quadrilateral (proposed high-speed rail network), National Waterway 1 (Prayagraj to Haldia on the Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly), Sagarmala (ports) or UDAN (regional air connectivity).

Answer: (A) AIIMS, New Delhi

AIIMS, New Delhi launched 'Never Alone', an AI-based mental health and wellness programme for students, on World Suicide Prevention Day (10 September 2025). It works through a web and WhatsApp based platform that offers round-the-clock screening and links to counsellors at very low cost, and it was rolled out at the same time at AIIMS Bhubaneswar and IHBAS, Delhi. Other government mental-health initiatives worth remembering are Tele-MANAS (the national tele-counselling helpline 14416, run with NIMHANS) and Manodarpan of the Ministry of Education. DRDO (defence research), IIT Madras and NITI Aayog (policy think tank) had no role in this app.

Answer: (C) Germany

After escaping from house arrest in Calcutta in January 1941 and travelling through Kabul and Moscow, Subhas Chandra Bose reached Berlin, where he set up the Free India Centre and, in early 1942, the Azad Hind Radio, broadcasting to India in several languages. It was in Germany that he raised the Indian Legion, was first called 'Netaji' and adopted 'Jai Hind' as the greeting. In 1943 he went by submarine to East Asia; the radio's headquarters later shifted to Singapore and Rangoon. Japan (B) is where he took charge of the INA and formed the Provisional Government of Azad Hind at Singapore (21 October 1943); Austria (A) is linked with his stay in Vienna in the 1930s, when he wrote 'The Indian Struggle'.

Answer: (C) Mahakasyapa

The First Buddhist Council met at the Saptaparni cave, Rajagriha, soon after the Buddha's death (c. 483 BCE) under the patronage of Ajatashatru, with Mahakasyapa presiding; Ananda recited the Sutta Pitaka and Upali the Vinaya Pitaka, which is why both appear as distractors. The remaining councils: Second at Vaishali (c. 383 BCE, king Kalashoka, president Sabakami), where the Sthaviravadin-Mahasanghika split began; Third at Pataliputra (c. 250 BCE, Ashoka, president Moggaliputta Tissa), which compiled the Abhidhamma Pitaka; Fourth in Kashmir (Kundalvana) under Kanishka, with Vasumitra presiding and Ashvaghosha as deputy, after which Buddhism divided into Hinayana and Mahayana.

Answer: (C) She suffers a loss of 1%

When two articles are sold at the same selling price, one at a gain of $x\%$ and the other at a loss of $x\%$, there is always an overall loss of $\frac{x^2}{100}\%$. Here $\frac{10^2}{100} = 1\%$ loss. Check with numbers: if each goat sells for Rs 99, the cost prices are $\frac{99}{1.1} = 90$ and $\frac{99}{0.9} = 110$, total cost 200 against total sale 198, a loss of 2 on 200, i.e. $1\%$. The trap is option A: 'no profit, no loss' is true only when the two cost prices (not the selling prices) are equal.

Answer: (B) Mohan Singh

The first and most famous INA trial at the Red Fort (November 1945 to January 1946) was of three officers, Shah Nawaz Khan, Prem Kumar Sahgal and Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, a Muslim, a Hindu and a Sikh, remembered in the slogan 'Lal Qile se aayi awaaz: Sahgal, Dhillon, Shah Nawaz'. They were defended by the INA Defence Committee of Bhulabhai Desai, Tej Bahadur Sapru, K.N. Katju, Asaf Ali and Jawaharlal Nehru; their sentences were remitted by Commander-in-Chief Auchinleck. Mohan Singh had founded the first INA in 1942 with Japanese help but was arrested by the Japanese after differences with them that December, well before Bose reorganised the army, and he was not among the Red Fort accused.

Answer: (B) 15-20%

Answer as of 2024 — this may have changed since.

Ordinary commercial solar panels made of crystalline silicon convert roughly 15 to 20% of the sunlight falling on them into electricity (the best current modules reach a little over 22%), so option B is the accepted range. A single-junction silicon cell cannot exceed about 33% in theory (the Shockley-Queisser limit); efficiencies above 40% have been reached only by multi-junction cells in laboratories and on satellites, and 80 to 90% is impossible for photovoltaics. Solar cells work on the photovoltaic effect and are made mainly of silicon, a semiconductor. Related facts: the International Solar Alliance is headquartered at Gurugram, and India aims at 500 GW of non-fossil power capacity by 2030.

Answer: (D) Vinoba Bhave

After the Congress rejected the August Offer (1940), Gandhi launched the limited Individual Satyagraha to assert the right to speak against India being dragged into the Second World War. Acharya Vinoba Bhave was the first satyagrahi (17 October 1940, at Paunar near Wardha), Jawaharlal Nehru the second and Brahma Datt the third; its slogan was 'Delhi Chalo'. Achyut Patwardhan and Aruna Asaf Ali belong to a later phase, as underground leaders of the Quit India Movement of 1942 (Aruna Asaf Ali hoisted the flag at Gowalia Tank, Bombay). Vinoba later began the Bhoodan movement at Pochampally in 1951.

Answer: (D) None of the above

A vehicle currency is one used as the go-between in foreign-exchange deals, for example converting rupees to dollars and then dollars to pesos, because direct markets between most currency pairs are thin. That role is played overwhelmingly by the US dollar, which is on one side of nearly 90% of all foreign-exchange transactions and is also the leading reserve and trade-invoicing currency. As the dollar is not listed, the answer is 'None of the above'; the euro, yen and pound rank second, third and fourth. Related terms: hard currency (stable and widely accepted), hot money (short-term speculative flows) and the IMF's SDR basket (US dollar, euro, Chinese renminbi, Japanese yen and pound sterling).

Answer: (A) Bats

Fruit bats of the genus Pteropus (flying foxes) are the natural reservoir of the Nipah virus, an RNA virus of the genus Henipavirus. It reaches humans through infected pigs, through fruit or raw date-palm sap contaminated by bats, or from person to person, and causes fever and encephalitis with high fatality; there is no licensed vaccine. It was first identified in Malaysia in 1998-99 (named after Sungai Nipah village). India's outbreaks include Siliguri (2001) and Nadia (2007) in West Bengal, repeated outbreaks in Kerala since 2018, and two cases in West Bengal in January 2026. Horses (D) are the intermediate host of the related Hendra virus in Australia, and migratory birds (C) are linked with avian influenza.

Answer: (D) it has nodes and inter-nodes.

Ginger is a rhizome, an underground stem, and the proof is that it bears nodes and internodes with scale leaves and buds, features that only stems have. The other options are true of ginger but are not what makes it a stem: roots such as sweet potato and carrot also grow in soil, store food and lack chlorophyll. Underground stem modifications to remember: rhizome (ginger, turmeric), tuber (potato, whose 'eyes' are nodes), corm (colocasia, gladiolus, saffron) and bulb (onion, garlic). Storage roots, by contrast, include sweet potato, carrot, radish, turnip and beet.

Answer: (C) Birsa Munda

Birsa Munda (born 15 November 1875 at Ulihatu, Khunti) proclaimed himself a prophet, founded the Birsait faith and was revered by the Mundas as 'Dharti Aba' (Father of the Earth) and Bhagwan. He led the Ulgulan ('Great Tumult') of 1899-1900 in Chotanagpur against landlords, moneylenders, missionaries and the British, and died in Ranchi jail on 9 June 1900; the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act, 1908 followed. His birthday is observed as Janjatiya Gaurav Divas and is also Jharkhand's foundation day. Kanhu Murmu (A) led the Santhal Hul of 1855-56 with his brother Sidhu, while Rupa (Rup Singh) Naik and Joria Bhagat (B, D) were leaders of the Naikda tribal movement in Gujarat in 1868.

Answer: (B) 2

This is a derangement problem: arrangements in which no object occupies its own place. For three letters and three envelopes there are $3! = 6$ arrangements in all, and only two of them, (2, 3, 1) and (3, 1, 2), put every letter in a wrong envelope. The general formula is $D_n = n!\left(1 - \frac{1}{1!} + \frac{1}{2!} - \frac{1}{3!} + \dots \pm \frac{1}{n!}\right)$, which gives $D_2 = 1$, $D_3 = 2$, $D_4 = 9$ and $D_5 = 44$, values worth memorising. Option D (6) counts all arrangements, and option A (1) is the number in which every letter is correctly placed.

Answer: (C) 80%

Use alligation on the averages: boys 52, girls 42, combined 50. Boys : girls $= (50 - 42) : (52 - 50) = 8 : 2 = 4 : 1$, so boys are $\frac{4}{5} = 80\%$ of the class. Algebra gives the same result: if $b$ is the fraction of boys, $52b + 42(1 - b) = 50$, so $b = 0.8$. Option D is the trap, since the actual numbers are not needed; a ratio is enough to give a percentage. Common-sense check: the combined average (50) lies much closer to the boys' average, so boys must be the large majority.

Answer: (C) Jawaharlal Nehru

The Interim Government was sworn in on 2 September 1946 under the Cabinet Mission Plan. Technically it was the Viceroy's Executive Council: the Viceroy (Lord Wavell, later Mountbatten) remained its President and Jawaharlal Nehru was designated Vice-President, also holding External Affairs and Commonwealth Relations. Vallabhbhai Patel held Home and Information and Broadcasting; Liaquat Ali Khan became Finance Member when the Muslim League joined on 26 October 1946 (his 1947 'poor man's budget' is often asked); and Sir Claude Auchinleck was the Commander-in-Chief, not a member. Other portfolios to remember: Baldev Singh, Defence; Rajendra Prasad, Food and Agriculture; Jagjivan Ram, Labour; C. Rajagopalachari, Education; Jogendra Nath Mandal, Law.

Answer: (C) Olchiki

Ol Chiki (Ol Chemet) is the script of the Santhali language, devised in 1925 by Pandit Raghunath Murmu of Mayurbhanj (Odisha); it has 30 letters. Santhali, an Austroasiatic language of the Munda family spoken in Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar and Assam, was added to the Eighth Schedule by the 92nd Amendment Act, 2003 together with Bodo, Dogri and Maithili, and West Bengal recognises it as an additional official language. Tirhuta (Mithilakshar) is the traditional script of Maithili and Devanagari is used for Hindi, Marathi, Nepali and others. Other tribal scripts: Warang Citi (Ho) and Tolong Siki (Kurukh, the language of the Oraons).

Answer: (C) Depreciation

Net Domestic Product is Gross Domestic Product minus depreciation, i.e. the consumption of fixed capital (wear and tear of machinery and buildings): $NDP = GDP - \text{Depreciation}$. The same gap separates GNP and NNP. The other adjustments in national income accounting are different: net factor income from abroad converts 'domestic' to 'national' ($GNP = GDP + NFIA$), and net indirect taxes (indirect taxes minus subsidies, option B) convert market price to factor cost. NNP at factor cost is what is called National Income. Government revenue and foreign aid do not enter these identities.

Answer: (A) Andaman

The Jarawas are a Negrito hunter-gatherer tribe living on the western side of South and Middle Andaman; the Andaman Trunk Road runs along their reserve. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands have six Scheduled Tribes, five of them Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups: the Great Andamanese, Onge, Jarawa and Sentinelese (Negrito groups of the Andamans) and the Shompen (a Mongoloid group of Great Nicobar), besides the Nicobarese. Majuli (B) is the Brahmaputra river island of Assam, home of the Mising tribe and of Vaishnavite satras; Sagar (C) is the island in South 24 Parganas where the Gangasagar Mela is held; Lakshadweep (D) has a largely Muslim Scheduled Tribe population.

Answer: (B) Bicycle

Car, bus and train are driven by engines or motors, while a bicycle is moved by human muscle power, so the bicycle is the odd one out, as in PSC's key. A second possible grouping exists (car, bus and bicycle run on roads, the train on rails), which is why such questions should be answered by the most basic difference: here, the source of power. Bicycle is also the only two-wheeler and the only vehicle in the list that needs no fuel or electricity.

Answer: (B) General Insurance

Insurance is of two broad kinds: life insurance, which covers the risk to human life, and general (non-life) insurance, which covers loss of or damage to property and wealth through fire, marine, motor, theft, health and liability policies. Hence loss of wealth relates to general insurance. Crop insurance (for example PM Fasal Bima Yojana, 2016) is only one branch of general insurance, and social insurance means State-backed schemes such as ESI and provident fund. Facts: general insurance was nationalised in 1972-73 under the General Insurance Corporation with four companies, National (Kolkata), New India (Mumbai), Oriental (New Delhi) and United India (Chennai); LIC was set up in 1956; the regulator IRDAI (1999) is based in Hyderabad.

Answer: (B) 24 m/s

When equal distances are covered at speeds $v_1$ and $v_2$, the average speed is the harmonic mean $\frac{2v_1v_2}{v_1 + v_2} = \frac{2 \times 20 \times 30}{20 + 30} = 24$ m/s. Option C (25 m/s) is the simple average, which would be correct only if equal times, not equal distances, were spent at each speed; the true value is lower because the body spends longer on the slower half. Option A confuses average speed with average velocity in a round trip. Check with a distance of 120 m: time $= \frac{60}{20} + \frac{60}{30} = 5$ s, so speed $= \frac{120}{5} = 24$ m/s.

Answer: (B) Agathocles

Agathocles, an Indo-Greek (Bactrian) king of about 190-180 BCE, issued bilingual coins found at Ai-Khanoum (Afghanistan) showing Samkarshana-Balarama with plough and mace and Vasudeva-Krishna with wheel and conch, the earliest known images of these deities. Menander (A) is the Milinda of the Buddhist text Milindapanho, who ruled from Sakala (Sialkot) and conversed with the monk Nagasena; Heliocles and Archebius were later, minor rulers. Also remember Heliodorus, ambassador of King Antialcidas, who set up the Garuda pillar at Besnagar (Vidisha) in honour of Vasudeva. The Indo-Greeks were the first in India to issue gold coins and coins bearing the names and portraits of kings.

Answer: (B) Rowlat Act

The Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act, passed in March 1919 on the recommendations of the Sedition Committee chaired by Justice Sidney Rowlatt, was popularly called the Rowlatt Act or the 'Black Act' (no dalil, no vakil, no appeal). It allowed detention without trial for up to two years and trial of political cases without juries. Gandhi's Rowlatt Satyagraha (hartal of 6 April 1919) followed, leading on to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 13 April 1919. The Defence of India Act, 1915 (A) was the wartime measure whose powers the Rowlatt Act sought to continue; the Indian Penal Code (C) dates from 1860; and the Lex Loci Act, 1850 (D) protected the inheritance rights of converts.

Answer: (B) High taxation

The unorganised (informal) sector, which employs around nine-tenths of India's workforce, suffers from low productivity, poor technology, low and irregular wages, job insecurity and no social security. High taxation is not one of its problems: its units are small, mostly unregistered and largely outside the direct tax net, so B is the odd one. Government measures to know: the Unorganised Workers' Social Security Act, 2008, the e-Shram portal (2021) for a national database of such workers, PM Shram Yogi Maandhan (pension), and the Code on Social Security, 2020. The Arjun Sengupta Commission (NCEUS) studied this sector.

Answer: (B) MirJumla

Mir Jumla (Mir Muhammad Said), a Persian merchant who had risen to be wazir of Golconda and controlled its diamond mines, went over to the Mughals and presented the Kohinoor to Shah Jahan in 1656. He later became Aurangzeb's governor of Bengal and died in 1663 after his Assam campaign. Journey of the diamond: Mughals, then Nadir Shah (1739, who gave it the name Koh-i-Noor, 'Mountain of Light'), Ahmad Shah Abdali, Shah Shuja, Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1813), and the British after the annexation of Punjab (1849). Murad, Aurangzeb and Dara Shikoh were Shah Jahan's sons (the fourth being Shuja), who fought the war of succession of 1657-58.

Answer: (A) Alipurduar district

The Totos live almost entirely in Totopara, a village near Madarihat in Alipurduar district, beside the Torsa river and the Bhutan border, on the edge of Jaldapara National Park. Numbering only about 1,600, they are among India's smallest tribes; their Tibeto-Burman language got its own script through Dhaniram Toto (Padma Shri, 2023). West Bengal has three Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups: Toto (Alipurduar), Birhor (Purulia) and Lodha (Jhargram and Paschim Medinipur). Alipurduar became the state's 20th district on 25 June 2014, carved out of Jalpaiguri. The districts in options B, C and D are home to Santhal, Munda, Lodha and Sabar communities but not the Totos.

Answer: (B) Sher Shah

Sher Shah Suri (1540-45) built or restored the Sadak-e-Azam from Sonargaon in Bengal to the Indus near Peshawar, with shade trees and about 1,700 sarais (rest houses, set roughly two kos apart) that also served as dak-chaukis (postal stations); the British later renamed it the Grand Trunk Road. His other roads ran from Agra to Burhanpur, Agra to Jodhpur and Chittor, and Lahore to Multan. Also remember his silver rupiya and copper dam, land measurement with patta and qabuliyat, and his tomb at Sasaram. He defeated Humayun at Chausa (1539) and Kannauj (1540) and died at the siege of Kalinjar (1545). Humayun, Akbar and Jahangir used and maintained the road but did not lay it out.

Answer: (B) Algae

Agar-agar is a jelly-like polysaccharide obtained from the cell walls of red algae (Rhodophyceae) such as Gelidium and Gracilaria. It is used as the solid culture medium for growing microbes in laboratories and as a vegetarian substitute for gelatin in food. Other algal products: carrageenan from red algae, algin and iodine from brown algae (kelps such as Laminaria), and protein-rich food supplements from Chlorella and Spirulina. The other groups give different products: bryophytes, peat (Sphagnum moss); fungi, antibiotics such as penicillin, and yeast; pteridophytes (ferns), ornamentals and biofertiliser (Azolla).

Answer: (B) Bhagirath Manjhi

The Kherwar or Sapha Hor ('pure people') movement arose among the Santhals of the Santhal Parganas in the 1870s under Bhagirath Manjhi. It began as a religious reform preaching worship of one God and pure living, and turned into resistance against revenue settlement, rent and moneylenders, a sequel to the Santhal Hul of 1855-56. The other names belong to different movements: Birsa Munda led the Munda Ulgulan (1899-1900); Baba Ramchandra organised the Awadh Kisan Sabha (1920); and Madari Pasi led the Eka movement of Hardoi and neighbouring districts (1921-22).

Answer: (D) 1 km West

Opposite moves cancel out: 500 m North-East and 500 m South-West cancel each other, and 1 km South and 1 km North cancel each other. The only move left is the 1 km walked after 'turning right' while facing South, and a right turn from South faces West. So he ends 1 km West of the start (D). With coordinates: (354, 354), then (354, -646), then (-646, -646), then (-1000, -1000), and finally (-1000, 0). Tip: in direction-sense problems, pair off equal and opposite legs before doing any calculation, and remember that turning right means clockwise (N to E to S to W).

Answer: (A) Russia and China

On 7 April 2026 Russia and China vetoed a draft resolution, sponsored by Bahrain with Gulf backing, that encouraged states to coordinate defensive efforts for safe navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran had largely closed during the 2026 conflict. The vote was 11 in favour and 2 against, with Pakistan and Colombia abstaining. Elimination trick: only the five permanent members (USA, UK, France, Russia, China) have a veto, so any option naming the Netherlands, Ukraine, Pakistan or Colombia is impossible. A Security Council resolution needs 9 of 15 votes and no permanent-member veto (Article 27 of the UN Charter). The Strait links the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman, between Iran and Oman/UAE, and carries about one-fifth of the world's oil trade.

Answer: (A) the number of females per 1000 males.

The Census of India defines sex ratio as the number of females per 1,000 males, so option A is correct. Census 2011 figures: India 943, Kerala highest at 1,084, Haryana lowest among states at 879, and West Bengal 950. Option C resembles the child sex ratio, which is girls per 1,000 boys in the 0-6 age group (919 for India in 2011); option B is closer to a fertility measure; and option D is just a difference in numbers. Note that the UN and many countries express sex ratio the other way round, as males per 100 females. Laws to link: the PCPNDT Act, 1994 and the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao scheme (2015).

Answer: (C) Mangrove forest as found in Sunderbans

Per hectare, mangroves store more carbon than any land forest, typically three to five times as much, because besides the trees themselves their waterlogged, oxygen-poor mud locks away large amounts of organic carbon to a depth of several metres. This is called 'blue carbon'. So the Sundarbans mangrove outranks the dry sal forest of Paschim Medinipur, the moist deciduous forest of Buxa and the temperate evergreen forest of Lava. Exam links: blue carbon ecosystems are mangroves, salt marshes and seagrass meadows; the Indian Sundarbans is a National Park, World Heritage Site (1987), Biosphere Reserve and Ramsar site (2019); West Bengal has the largest mangrove cover in India (over 40% of the total), followed by Gujarat; the MISHTI scheme (Budget 2023) promotes mangrove plantation.

Answer: (A) zero

Work done is $W = Fs\cos\theta$, where $\theta$ is the angle between the force and the displacement. In a circular orbit the gravitational pull acts along the radius towards the Sun while the planet moves along the tangent, so $\theta = 90^\circ$ at every instant and the work done is zero over any part of the path, including half the circumference. That is also why the planet's speed and kinetic energy stay constant in a circular orbit. Options B, C and D wrongly multiply the force by the path length or the diameter. General rule: a centripetal force never does work. (In an elliptical orbit gravity does work over parts of the path, but the total over one full revolution is still zero.)

Answer: (C) Fatehpur

Firoz Shah Tughlaq (1351-88), the great builder among the Delhi Sultans, founded Firozabad (Firoz Shah Kotla, Delhi), Fatehabad, Hissar (Hisar-i-Firoza), Jaunpur (named after his cousin Muhammad bin Tughlaq, whose earlier name was Jauna Khan) and Firozpur. Fatehpur is not among his foundations; the best-known Fatehpur, Fatehpur Sikri, was built by Akbar from 1571. Other Firoz facts for the exam: canals from the Yamuna and Sutlej, an irrigation tax (haqq-i-sharb), Diwan-i-Khairat (charity) and Diwan-i-Bandagan (department of slaves), jizya extended to Brahmins, two Ashokan pillars brought to Delhi from Topra and Meerut, and his autobiography Futuhat-i-Firozshahi.

Answer: (B) The leaf contains green chlorophyll but it remains hidden under other pigments.

Leaves that look red, purple or yellow still contain chlorophyll; its green colour is simply masked by larger amounts of other pigments such as anthocyanins (red and purple, dissolved in the cell sap) and carotenoids (yellow and orange). Photosynthesis therefore goes on normally, as in Coleus, croton, red amaranth and red cabbage. Option A is wrong because heat cannot replace the light reactions of photosynthesis, and option C is fiction. Carotenoids act as accessory pigments that pass absorbed light energy on to chlorophyll a. Plants that truly lack chlorophyll, such as the parasite Cuscuta (dodder), cannot make food and draw it from a host through haustoria.

Answer: (B) Muhammad Iqbal

Muhammad Iqbal, the Urdu and Persian poet-philosopher, attended the Second (1931) and Third (1932) Round Table Conferences in London as a Muslim delegate. He is remembered for 'Saare Jahan Se Achchha' (Tarana-e-Hind, 1904), the collection Bang-e-Dara, and his Allahabad address to the Muslim League in 1930 proposing a consolidated Muslim state in north-west India. The three conferences: First (1930-31, Congress absent), Second (1931, Gandhi the sole Congress representative) and Third (1932, Congress absent); B.R. Ambedkar and Tej Bahadur Sapru attended all three. Firaq Gorakhpuri (Jnanpith winner), Josh Malihabadi ('Shayar-e-Inquilab') and Faiz Ahmad Faiz were major Urdu poets but were not delegates.

Answer: (A) Part V

Part V of the Constitution, 'The Union' (Articles 52 to 151), opens with Chapter I, The Executive (Articles 52 to 78): the President, Vice-President, Council of Ministers and Attorney-General. Its later chapters cover Parliament (79 to 122), the President's ordinance power (123), the Supreme Court (124 to 147) and the CAG (148 to 151). Part III (Articles 12 to 35) contains the Fundamental Rights; Part VI (152 to 237) deals with the States, including the State Executive, which makes it the closest distractor; and Part XI (245 to 263) covers Union-State relations. Others worth knowing: Part IV, Directive Principles; Part IVA, Fundamental Duties; Part XVIII, Emergency provisions; Part XX, Amendment.

Answer: (A) Finance Commission – Article 324

The Finance Commission is constituted under Article 280, not Article 324; Article 324 provides for the Election Commission, so pair A is the wrong match while D is correct. Article 148 deals with the Comptroller and Auditor-General and Article 315 with the Public Service Commissions for the Union and the States. More body-article pairs to memorise: Attorney-General, 76; Advocate-General, 165; State Finance Commission, 243-I; State Election Commission, 243K; Inter-State Council, 263; GST Council, 279A; National Commissions for SCs, STs and Backward Classes, 338, 338A and 338B. The Finance Commission is appointed by the President every five years to recommend how central taxes are shared with the States.

Answer: (C) 1920

The Chamber of Princes (Narendra Mandal) was created by a royal proclamation of King George V following the Montagu-Chelmsford Report and is dated to 1920; it was formally inaugurated at the Red Fort, Delhi, on 8 February 1921 by the Duke of Connaught. It was a consultative body of about 120 members in which the rulers could discuss matters of common interest, presided over by the Viceroy, with an elected Chancellor (the first was Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner). It lasted until 1947. The other years: 1858, the Queen's Proclamation promising no further annexation of states; 1915, Gandhi's return to India; 1947, the lapse of British paramountcy. Also linked: the Butler Committee (1927) on relations between the states and the paramount power.

Answer: (A) Deflation

Deflation is a sustained fall in the general price level, i.e. negative inflation. Disinflation (B) is only a fall in the rate of inflation, with prices still rising but more slowly; stagflation (C) is stagnant growth and high unemployment together with high inflation, as in the oil shocks of the 1970s; and depression (D) is a severe, prolonged fall in output and employment, like the Great Depression of 1929. Related terms: reflation (deliberate stimulus to pull an economy out of deflation), hyperinflation (runaway price rise) and core inflation (excluding food and fuel). In India inflation is measured by the CPI, and the RBI's target is 4% with a band of plus or minus 2%.

Answer: (B) Viruses neither have cell walls nor their own metabolic machinery that can be targeted by antibiotics.

Antibiotics act on structures and processes found only in bacteria: the peptidoglycan cell wall (penicillin), the 70S ribosome (streptomycin, tetracycline) or bacterial enzymes for copying DNA (ciprofloxacin). A virus is just nucleic acid inside a protein coat; it has no cell wall, ribosomes or metabolism of its own and multiplies by using the host cell's machinery, so an antibiotic has nothing to attack. Option C is a true statement about viruses but explains why vaccines and antiviral drugs lose effect, not why antibiotics fail; option A is false. Viral infections are handled with antivirals (acyclovir, oseltamivir) and prevented by vaccines. Needless antibiotic use promotes antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928.

Answer: (C) Ramsar Site

The East Kolkata Wetlands, about 12,500 hectares of sewage-fed fish ponds (bheris), farms and garbage gardens on the eastern edge of the city, were declared a Ramsar site (Wetland of International Importance) on 19 August 2002. Known as the 'kidneys of Kolkata', they treat much of the city's wastewater naturally while producing fish and vegetables; ecologist Dhrubajyoti Ghosh brought them to notice, and they are protected by the East Kolkata Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Act, 2006. West Bengal's second Ramsar site is the Sundarban Wetland (2019), the largest in India. The Ramsar Convention was signed in Iran in 1971 and India joined in 1982; World Wetlands Day is 2 February. West Bengal's World Heritage Sites (option B) are Sundarbans National Park, the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway and Santiniketan.

Answer: (A) Respiratory roots

Pneumatophores are 'breathing roots' that grow vertically upward out of the mud (negative geotropism) in mangrove plants such as Avicennia, Sonneratia and Heritiera (sundari). Waterlogged saline mud has almost no oxygen, so these roots take in air through pores called lenticels or pneumathodes. Mangroves of the Sundarbans also show stilt roots (Rhizophora) and vivipary, where seeds germinate while still on the tree. The other options describe different modifications: photosynthetic (assimilatory) roots occur in Tinospora and Trapa; food-storing roots in carrot, radish and sweet potato; and the spongy velamen of epiphytic orchid roots absorbs moisture from the air.

Answer: (A) Proton + Neutron

Nearly all the mass of an atom lies in its nucleus, which contains protons and neutrons; the mass number is $A = Z + N$ (protons plus neutrons). An electron is about $\frac{1}{1836}$ as heavy as a proton, so its contribution is ignored, which rules out options B, C and D. Related facts: the atomic number $Z$ (number of protons) fixes the identity of an element; isotopes have the same $Z$ but different $A$; isobars have the same $A$ but different $Z$; isotones have the same number of neutrons. Discoveries: electron, J.J. Thomson (1897); proton, Rutherford; neutron, James Chadwick (1932); nucleus, Rutherford's gold-foil experiment (1911).

Answer: (D) Rubisco

RuBisCO (ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase-oxygenase) is the enzyme that fixes atmospheric carbon dioxide in the first step of the Calvin ($C_3$) cycle in the chloroplast stroma. Because it works slowly, green plants and algae make it in huge quantities, and it is regarded as the most abundant enzyme, indeed the most abundant protein, on Earth. It can also bind oxygen, which causes wasteful photorespiration; $C_4$ plants such as maize and sugarcane avoid this by first fixing carbon dioxide with PEP carboxylase. The distractors: lipase digests fats, DNase breaks down DNA, and zymase is the yeast enzyme complex that ferments sugar to alcohol. The most abundant protein in animals is collagen.

Answer: (B) Judicial Activism

Public Interest Litigation (PIL) is the best-known product of judicial activism in India. In the late 1970s and 1980s Justices P.N. Bhagwati and V.R. Krishna Iyer relaxed the rule of locus standi so that any public-spirited person, even by a letter, could move the Supreme Court (Article 32) or a High Court (Article 226) on behalf of those unable to do so. Landmark cases: Hussainara Khatoon v. State of Bihar (1979, undertrial prisoners), often called the first PIL, and S.P. Gupta v. Union of India (1981). Judicial review (A) is the older and wider power of courts to test the constitutionality of laws and executive acts; PIL is a procedure that widened access to it. Federalism and NITI Aayog are unrelated.

Answer: (A) B. G. Tilak

At its Delhi session (December 1918) the Congress named B.G. Tilak, Gandhi and Syed Hasan Imam as its delegates to the Paris (Versailles) Peace Conference. Tilak, who was already in England for his libel suit against Valentine Chirol, was the one who pressed the case: he sent a memorandum to the conference president Georges Clemenceau and appealed to US President Woodrow Wilson for Indian self-determination, but the British government refused him a passport to Paris. India was officially represented there by Secretary of State Edwin Montagu, S.P. Sinha and Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner. Annie Besant led the Home Rule League, C.R. Das later founded the Swaraj Party (1923), and Surendranath Banerjee had by then left the Congress with the Moderates.

Answer: (C) California

Answer as of 2024 — this may have changed since.

California became the third US state to make Diwali an official state holiday when Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 268 in October 2025, effective 1 January 2026; Pennsylvania (2024) and Connecticut (2025) had done so earlier, and neither is among the options. In New York, Diwali is a school holiday in New York City's public schools, not a statewide state holiday; Texas has no such holiday; and Boston is a city (capital of Massachusetts), not a state. The question's word 'Province' is loose usage, since the USA has states. Related current affairs: in December 2025 UNESCO inscribed Deepavali on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Answer: (C) 2:1

Let cows $= x$ and crows $= y$. Heads: $x + y = 30$. Legs: $4x + 2y = 100$. Subtracting twice the first equation from the second gives $2x = 40$, so $x = 20$ cows and $y = 10$ crows, a ratio of $20 : 10 = 2 : 1$. Shortcut: if all 30 were crows there would be 60 legs; the 40 extra legs come from cows at 2 extra legs each, so there are 20 cows. The trap is option A (1 : 2), which is the ratio of crows to cows; always check the order asked in the question.

Answer: (B) Ratan Mani

The Reang (Bru) uprising of 1942-43 in the princely state of Tripura was led by Ratanmani Noatia, a religious teacher with a large following among the Reangs, against heavy taxes, forced levies during the Second World War and the oppression of state-appointed chiefs. It was put down by the forces of Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya (option D), the ruler from 1923 to 1947 who is remembered as the architect of modern Tripura. Parikshit Jamatia (A) led the earlier Jamatia revolt of 1863 in Tripura, and Birsa Munda (C) belongs to Chotanagpur. The Reangs are Tripura's only Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group.

Answer: (B) Sailor

Sailor is a Japanese fountain-pen maker founded in 1911 in Hiroshima prefecture; with Pilot and Platinum it forms Japan's 'big three'. Other famous fountain-pen brands are Parker, Sheaffer and Waterman (Lewis Waterman patented the first practical fountain pen in 1884), Montblanc, Pelikan and Lamy of Germany, and in India Camlin and the Swadeshi-era Sulekha ink of Kolkata. The distractors are well-known companies in other fields: Voltas (Tata group, air-conditioners), Hyundai (South Korean cars, misspelt in the booklet) and Kirloskar (pumps and engines, Pune). Graham Greene was the English novelist of 'The Power and the Glory' and 'The Quiet American'.

Answer: (D) (I) and (III)

Only pairs I and III are right. Rihand Dam (Govind Ballabh Pant Sagar) is on the Rihand, a tributary of the Son, in Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh, and Rana Pratap Sagar Dam is on the Chambal at Rawatbhata, Rajasthan. Massanjore (Canada) Dam on the Mayurakshi stands in Dumka district of Jharkhand, although it was built with Canadian aid in 1955 mainly to irrigate Birbhum and is operated by West Bengal, a favourite trap in WBCS papers. Hirakud, the world's longest earthen dam, is on the Mahanadi near Sambalpur in Odisha, not Chhattisgarh. Chambal project sequence: Gandhi Sagar (Madhya Pradesh), Rana Pratap Sagar, Jawahar Sagar and Kota Barrage (Rajasthan).

Answer: (C) Akbar

Akbar abolished the pilgrim tax on Hindu pilgrims in 1563 and the jizya (poll tax on non-Muslims) in 1564, early steps in his policy of sulh-i-kul (peace with all). Timeline of his religious policy: 1562, ban on enslaving prisoners of war; 1575, Ibadat Khana at Fatehpur Sikri; 1579, the Mahzar (so-called infallibility decree); 1582, Tauhid-i-Ilahi (Din-i-Ilahi). Jizya was reimposed by Aurangzeb in 1679. Of the other options, Humayun and Sher Shah made no such change, and Jahangir is remembered for his chain of justice and twelve ordinances rather than tax reform.

Answer: (A) is 16 m/s.

For two equal distances the average speed is the harmonic mean: $\frac{2 \times 10 \times 40}{10 + 40} = \frac{800}{50} = 16$ m/s. It does not depend on the total distance (option D), because the distance cancels out: for a total distance $2d$, time $= \frac{d}{10} + \frac{d}{40} = \frac{d}{8}$, and speed $= \frac{2d}{d/8} = 16$. Option C (25 m/s) is the arithmetic mean, valid only when equal times are spent at each speed. Notice how strongly the slow half pulls the average down: the answer is much nearer 10 than 40.

Answer: (A) Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger

On 22 September 2025 the military-led governments of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, which form the Alliance of Sahel States and had already left ECOWAS in January 2025, jointly announced their withdrawal from the Rome Statute, calling the International Criminal Court an instrument of neo-colonial repression. Under Article 127 a withdrawal takes effect one year after it is notified to the UN Secretary-General. ICC basics: created by the Rome Statute (1998), in force from 2002, seated at The Hague; it tries individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggression; India, the USA, China and Russia are not members. Do not confuse it with the International Court of Justice, the UN court that settles disputes between states. Earlier exits: Burundi (2017) and the Philippines (2019).

Answer: (B) Alauddin Hussain Shah

Rupa and Sanatana were high officials of Sultan Alauddin Husain Shah of Bengal (1493-1519), founder of the Husain Shahi dynasty: Sanatana bore the title Sakar Mallik and Rupa was Dabir-i-Khas (private secretary). After meeting Sri Chaitanya at Ramkeli near Gaur (Malda) they gave up office and became leaders of the Six Goswamis of Vrindavan, who shaped Gaudiya Vaishnava theology. Husain Shah's reign is regarded as a golden age of the Bengal Sultanate, tolerant in religion and a patron of Bengali literature (the Mahabharata was rendered into Bengali under his officers Paragal Khan and Chhuti Khan). Ilyas Shah founded the Ilyas Shahi dynasty (1342), and his son Sikandar Shah built the Adina Mosque at Pandua.

Answer: (C) Sher Shah

Malik Muhammad Jaisi, a Sufi poet from Jais in Awadh, completed 'Padmavat' in 1540, when Sher Shah Suri was on the throne of Delhi; the poem itself praises Sher Shah as the reigning Sultan. Written in Awadhi, it is a Sufi allegorical romance about Ratansen of Chittor, Princess Padmavati of Simhala and Alauddin Khalji's siege of Chittor (1303). That is why Alauddin Khalji (A) is the tempting wrong answer: he is a character in the story, not the contemporary ruler. Jaisi's other works are Akhravat and Akhiri Kalam. Other Sufi premakhyan poems: Mulla Daud's Chandayan and Qutban's Mrigavati.

Answer: (D) Tilak

The Age of Consent Act, 1891 raised the age of consent for girls from 10 to 12 years; it followed Behramji Malabari's campaign and the death of the child-wife Phulmoni Dasi in Bengal. Bal Gangadhar Tilak opposed the Bill, not in defence of child marriage as such but on the ground that a foreign government had no right to legislate on Hindu social and religious customs and that reform must come from within society. Ranade, Gokhale and other reformers supported it; W.C. Bonnerjee was the first Congress President (1885). Follow-up law: the Child Marriage Restraint (Sarda) Act, 1929 fixed the marriage age at 14 for girls and 18 for boys.

Answer: (B) P

Each letter is three places ahead of the previous one: A (1), D (4), G (7), J (10), M (13), so the next is the 16th letter, P. The letter after that would be S (19). Option A (O) is a jump of only two and option C (Q) a jump of four. Handy aid for letter positions: EJOTY marks the 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th and 25th letters, so P, coming just after O (15), is the 16th.

Answer: (A) Customs Duties

Customs duty is the tax on goods entering or leaving the country (import and export duties), levied by the Union under the Customs Act, 1962 and administered by the CBIC. Excise duty (B) is a tax on the manufacture of goods within the country; after GST it survives mainly on petroleum products and tobacco (Central) and on liquor for human consumption (State excise). VAT (C) was the state-level tax on sale of goods, now largely limited to petroleum and liquor. GST (D), introduced on 1 July 2017 by the 101st Constitutional Amendment, is a destination-based tax on the supply of goods and services. Basic customs duty was not subsumed in GST, although IGST is charged on imports in addition to it.

Answer: (C) Skandagupta

Skandagupta (c. 455-467 CE) repelled the first Huna invasion, an achievement recorded in his Bhitari pillar inscription; his Junagadh rock inscription records the repair of the Sudarshana lake. Among the distractors, Samudragupta is known from Harishena's Allahabad pillar inscription for his conquests of other Indian kings ('Napoleon of India'); Chandragupta II Vikramaditya defeated the Western Kshatrapas (Shakas) and is linked with the Mehrauli iron pillar and Fa-Hien's visit; and Bhanugupta is mentioned in the Eran inscription (510 CE), the earliest epigraphic record of sati. In the next century the Huna chiefs Toramana and Mihirakula overran north India until Yashodharman of Malwa defeated Mihirakula (Mandsaur inscription).

Answer: (A) Kandla — Maharashtra

Kandla, officially Deendayal Port since 2017, lies on the Gulf of Kutch in Gujarat, not Maharashtra; it is a tidal port developed after Partition to make up for the loss of Karachi. The other pairs are correct: Paradip (Odisha, near the mouth of the Mahanadi), Tuticorin, now V.O. Chidambaranar Port (Tamil Nadu), and Cochin, a natural harbour on the Vembanad backwaters (Kerala). Maharashtra's major ports are Mumbai and Jawaharlal Nehru Port (Nhava Sheva), with Vadhavan approved as a new major port. West Bengal has the Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port (Kolkata-Haldia), India's only riverine major port.

Answer: (D) Silicon

Silicon is a semiconductor: its conductivity lies between that of conductors and insulators and rises with temperature or when small amounts of impurities are added (doping). Germanium is the other elemental semiconductor; both belong to Group 14 and are metalloids, while gallium arsenide is a compound semiconductor. Doping with phosphorus or arsenic gives n-type and with boron or aluminium gives p-type material, the basis of diodes, transistors, integrated circuits and solar cells. Iron and zinc are ordinary metallic conductors, and mercury, the only metal that is liquid at room temperature, also conducts electricity.

Answer: (D) The Nizam of Hyderabad

The Subsidiary Alliance was the system used by Lord Wellesley (1798-1805) under which an Indian ruler kept a British force in his territory and paid for it (in cash or by ceding land), accepted a British Resident, employed no other Europeans and gave up independent foreign relations. The Nizam of Hyderabad was the first to accept it, in 1798. Others followed: Mysore and Tanjore (1799), Awadh (1801), Peshwa Baji Rao II by the Treaty of Bassein (1802), then the Bhonsle and Scindia (1803). So options A and C are later entrants. Do not confuse it with Dalhousie's Doctrine of Lapse (Satara, 1848).

Answer: (B) Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore criticised the bonfires of foreign cloth during the Non-Cooperation Movement as a wasteful and negative act when the poor lacked clothing, and questioned the cult of the charkha, in his essay 'The Call of Truth' (1921); Gandhi answered him in 'The Great Sentinel' in Young India. The disagreement was about method, not about freedom: Tagore had himself renounced his knighthood after Jallianwala Bagh in 1919. The other three do not fit: C.R. Das gave up his legal practice and led the movement in Bengal, Subhas Chandra Bose resigned from the ICS in 1921 to join it, and Tilak died on 1 August 1920, the very day the movement was launched.

Answer: (C) 115

With $c$ correct, $u$ unattempted and the rest wrong ($c + u \le 30$), the score is $4c + u$. Scores of 113 ($c = 28$, $u = 1$), 114 ($c = 28$, $u = 2$) and 117 ($c = 29$, $u = 1$) are all possible. For 115 we would need $c = 28$ with $u = 3$ (31 questions) or $c = 29$ with $u = -1$, both impossible, so 115 cannot be scored. In fact, near the maximum of 120 the unattainable scores are 119, 118 and 115. Method for such questions: fix the number of correct answers at the highest value that does not overshoot, then see whether the remaining marks fit into the remaining questions.

Answer: (C) Hydrogen bonding

A hydrogen bond forms when hydrogen is attached to a small, highly electronegative atom: fluorine, oxygen or nitrogen. Water and HF therefore have hydrogen bonding between their molecules, but $\mathrm{H_2S}$ does not, because sulphur is larger and much less electronegative. This explains why water boils at $100^\circ$C while $\mathrm{H_2S}$ is a gas, why HF has a far higher boiling point than HCl, and why ice is lighter than water (an open cage-like structure). All three molecules have covalent bonds within the molecule, so A does not distinguish them, and none is ionic or metallic. Hydrogen bonds also hold together the two strands of DNA and give proteins their shape.

Answer: (C) 30

Since the installments are equal and interest-free, 18 installments correspond to 60% of the loan, so the total number is $\frac{18}{0.60} = 30$. Each installment is therefore $\frac{100}{30} = 3\frac{1}{3}\%$ of the loan, and 12 installments (40%) remain. Unitary check: 60% is 18 installments, so 10% is 3 installments and 100% is 30. The other options fail the same check, since 60% of 22, 24 and 33 is 13.2, 14.4 and 19.8, not 18.

Answer: (B) Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Act, 2025

The SHANTI Act, 2025, the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India Act, was passed by Parliament in the Winter Session and received the President's assent in December 2025. It replaces the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010 with a single law, opens nuclear power generation to private companies for the first time, and gives statutory status to the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board; sensitive activities such as enrichment and reprocessing stay with the Government. It supports the target of 100 GW of nuclear capacity by 2047 and the Nuclear Energy Mission for small modular reactors announced in the 2025-26 Budget. Options A and C are invented expansions of the acronym.

Answer: (B) decrease by 4%.

New area $= (0.8L) \times (1.2B) = 0.96\,LB$, i.e. 96% of the original, a decrease of 4%. General rule: when one dimension increases by $x\%$ and the other decreases by $x\%$, the area always falls by $\frac{x^2}{100}\%$; here $\frac{20^2}{100} = 4\%$. For unequal changes of $a\%$ and $b\%$ the net change is $a + b + \frac{ab}{100}$, which gives $20 - 20 - \frac{400}{100} = -4\%$. Option A is the usual trap of assuming that equal percentage increase and decrease cancel out. The same $\frac{x^2}{100}$ rule gives the net loss when two articles are sold at one price with equal profit and loss percentages.

Answer: (A) Murshidabad

Murshidabad is the historic home of Bengal's silk industry: mulberry silkworm rearing and reeling around Kasimbazar, Jiaganj and Islampur, which drew the English, Dutch and French trading companies in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Baluchari sari originated at Baluchar in Murshidabad (it is woven today mainly at Bishnupur in Bankura), and Malda is the state's other big producer of mulberry raw silk. The distractors are known for other things: Purulia for lac, tasar and Chhau masks; Nadia (Shantipur, Phulia) for cotton handloom 'tant' saris; and Howrah for engineering and jute. Karnataka is India's leading silk-producing state.

Answer: (C) Zygotene

Synapsis, the pairing of homologous chromosomes to form bivalents, takes place in zygotene, the second stage of prophase I of meiosis, with the help of the synaptonemal complex. The five stages in order: leptotene (chromosomes condense into thin threads), zygotene (synapsis), pachytene (crossing over between non-sister chromatids), diplotene (the synaptonemal complex dissolves and chiasmata become visible) and diakinesis (terminalisation of chiasmata, nuclear membrane disappears). Memory aid: 'Lazy Zebra Pulls Down Dates'. The commonest confusion is with pachytene (D), which is the stage of crossing over, not of pairing.

Answer: (A) Thiruvalluvar was a celebrated Tamil poet and philosopher. He wrote Tirukkural, a classical Tamil text of 1,330 short couplets (kurals).

Thiruvalluvar is the Tamil poet-philosopher who wrote the Tirukkural (Kural), 1,330 couplets arranged in 133 chapters of ten couplets each and grouped into three books: Aram (virtue), Porul (wealth and statecraft) and Inbam (love). It is a secular ethical work, often called the 'Tamil Veda', and has been translated into many languages. His 133-foot statue stands on a rock off Kanyakumari beside the Vivekananda Rock Memorial, and Thiruvalluvar Day is observed in Tamil Nadu in January during Pongal. The other options are fabrications: the Chola kings who conquered Sri Lanka were Rajaraja I and Rajendra I, and he had nothing to do with Assamese literature.

Answer: (C) Article 9

Article 9 says that a person who voluntarily acquires the citizenship of a foreign state ceases to be a citizen of India, which is why India does not permit dual citizenship. Part II of the Constitution (Articles 5 to 11) in order: Article 5, citizenship at the commencement of the Constitution; 6, migrants from Pakistan to India; 7, migrants to Pakistan; 8, persons of Indian origin living abroad; 9, voluntary acquisition of foreign citizenship; 10, continuance of citizenship rights; 11, Parliament's power to regulate citizenship, used to pass the Citizenship Act, 1955. That Act provides five ways of acquiring citizenship (birth, descent, registration, naturalisation, incorporation of territory) and three of losing it (renunciation, termination, deprivation).

Answer: (D) Construction

In national income accounting the secondary sector turns raw materials into finished goods and structures: manufacturing, construction, and electricity, gas and water supply. Construction is therefore the answer. Trade, transport and communication are services and belong to the tertiary sector, together with banking, insurance, real estate, hotels and public administration. The primary sector covers agriculture, forestry, fishing and mining. In India the tertiary sector contributes more than half of gross value added, while agriculture, with under a fifth of output, still employs the largest share of the workforce.

Answer: (C) 13

This is the pigeonhole principle: with 12 months (pigeonholes), 12 members could all have different birth months, but a 13th member must share a month with someone. So the minimum that guarantees a match is $12 + 1 = 13$. Option B (12) is the largest group that can still avoid a match, and option D (24) is a distractor based on 'two per month'. Extension often asked: to guarantee that at least three members share a birth month you need $2 \times 12 + 1 = 25$; to guarantee two people with the same birthday you need 367 people.

Answer: (B) Frezerganj

West Bengal's wind energy demonstration project was set up at Frazerganj on the Bay of Bengal coast in Namkhana block, South 24 Parganas, by the state renewable energy agency WBREDA; the place is named after Sir Andrew Fraser, a Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. Sagar Island nearby is known for its solar and wind-diesel hybrid systems. Bakkhali (A) is the adjoining beach resort, Digha (C) is the seaside resort of Purba Medinipur and Haldia (D) is the port and petrochemical centre. Nationally, wind power is concentrated in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu (the Muppandal wind farm near Kanyakumari).

Answer: (B) Cauvery (Kaveri)

Both dams are on the Kaveri. Krishna Raja Sagar (KRS) Dam is in Mandya district near Mysuru, Karnataka, built between 1911 and 1931 under engineer M. Visvesvaraya, with the Brindavan Gardens below it; Mettur Dam (Stanley Reservoir) is in Salem district, Tamil Nadu, completed in 1934. The Kaveri rises at Talakaveri in the Brahmagiri hills of Kodagu, forms the Shivanasamudra falls and builds a fertile delta around Thanjavur before entering the Bay of Bengal. Dams on the other rivers: Krishna, Nagarjuna Sagar, Srisailam and Almatti; Mahanadi, Hirakud; Godavari, Jayakwadi and Polavaram. The name 'Krishna Raja' refers to the Mysore ruler Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV, not the river Krishna.

Answer: (B) $x = 6$, $y = 8$

From $\frac{x}{y} = \frac{3}{4}$, $x = \frac{3y}{4}$. Substituting in $2x - 3y = -12$: $\frac{3y}{2} - 3y = -12$, so $-\frac{3y}{2} = -12$, giving $y = 8$ and $x = 6$. The quickest exam method is to test the options: only $x = 6$, $y = 8$ satisfies both conditions ($12 - 24 = -12$ and $\frac{6}{8} = \frac{3}{4}$). Option A fails the ratio ($\frac{6}{9} = \frac{2}{3}$), and options C and D give a ratio greater than 1.

Answer: (D) Thorium

India has small uranium reserves but some of the world's largest reserves of thorium, found in the monazite sands of the Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh coasts. Thorium-232 is 'fertile': in a reactor it absorbs a neutron and turns into fissile uranium-233. Homi Bhabha's three-stage nuclear programme is built around this: Stage 1, pressurised heavy water reactors using natural uranium; Stage 2, fast breeder reactors using plutonium (Kalpakkam); Stage 3, thorium-based reactors. Actinium and neptunium are scarce radioactive elements not available in quantity, and copper is not a nuclear fuel. Uranium is mined at Jaduguda (Jharkhand) and Tummalapalle (Andhra Pradesh).

Answer: (C) 44

Molecular weight of $\mathrm{MCl_4} = M + 4 \times 35.5 = 154$, so the atomic weight of M is $154 - 142 = 12$, i.e. carbon, and the chloride is carbon tetrachloride. The formula $\mathrm{MCl_4}$ shows that M has valency 4, so its oxide is $\mathrm{MO_2}$, with molecular weight $12 + 2 \times 16 = 44$ (carbon dioxide). The other options are the weights of familiar oxides and act as traps: 64 is $\mathrm{SO_2}$, 72 is FeO and 40 is MgO. Two-step method for such questions: first find the atomic weight from the given compound, then use the valency to write the formula of the compound asked.

Answer: (C) Mahatma Gandhi

The Congress boycotted the official Hunter Committee and appointed its own Punjab Inquiry Committee in November 1919. Its commissioners were M.K. Gandhi, C.R. Das, Abbas Tyabji and M.R. Jayakar (Motilal Nehru stepped aside on being elected President of the Amritsar Congress), with K. Santhanam as secretary, and the report, published in 1920, was drafted by Gandhi. It put the death toll far above the official figure of 379 and condemned General Dyer and Lieutenant-Governor Michael O'Dwyer. Das and Motilal Nehru (A, B) were associated with the committee but did not write the report, and Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew (D), with Dr Satyapal, was the Amritsar leader whose arrest led to the protest meeting of 13 April 1919.

Answer: (B) Alauddin

Alauddin Khalji (1296-1316) was the first Sultan of Delhi to keep a large permanent standing army paid in cash from the royal treasury instead of by iqta (land assignments); a trooper with one horse received 234 tankas a year. To make this pay sufficient he fixed prices through his market regulations, and to prevent fraud he introduced dagh (branding of horses) and chehra (descriptive rolls of soldiers). The others are known for different things: Iltutmish organised the iqta system and issued the silver tanka and copper jital; Balban created the Diwan-i-Arz (military department) and followed a policy of 'blood and iron'; Muhammad bin Tughlaq tried token currency and shifted the capital to Daulatabad.

Answer: (B) Sonam Wangchuk & Gitanjali J. Angmo. HIAL desires to address the educational and developmental challenges unique to Ladakh's exceptional geographical and cultural context.

The Himalayan Institute of Alternatives, Ladakh (HIAL), at Phyang near Leh, was founded by engineer-educator Sonam Wangchuk with Gitanjali J. Angmo as an alternative university where mountain youth learn by doing and work on problems of high-altitude regions such as water, energy, farming and tourism. Wangchuk earlier founded SECMOL (1988), invented the Ice Stupa artificial glacier and won the Ramon Magsaysay Award (2018); he has lately been in the news for the movement demanding statehood and Sixth Schedule status for Ladakh. 'Phunsukh Wangdu' (C) is the fictional character played by Aamir Khan in '3 Idiots', inspired by Wangchuk. Tenzing Norgay (A) climbed Everest with Edmund Hillary in 1953 and was the first Director of Field Training at the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, Darjeeling.

Answer: (B) Main Central Thrust

The Main Central Thrust (MCT) is the great fault along which the crystalline rocks of the Greater Himalaya (Himadri) have been pushed over the Lesser Himalaya (Himachal). The Himalayan divisions and their boundaries from north to south: Trans-Himalaya, Indus-Tsangpo Suture Zone, Greater Himalaya, MCT, Lesser Himalaya, Main Boundary Thrust (MBT), Shiwalik, Main Frontal Thrust (MFT, also called the Himalayan Frontal Fault), and the Ganga plain. So option A divides the Lesser Himalaya from the Shiwaliks and option D divides the Shiwaliks from the plains. 'Main Mantle Thrust' (C) is not a boundary within the Indian Himalayan sequence.

Answer: (A) Nandikar, Ek Theke Baro

According to PSC's final key, the recent Bengali stage adaptation is 'Ek Theke Baro' ('One to Twelve', for the twelve jurors) by Nandikar. The story began as Reginald Rose's 1954 teleplay 'Twelve Angry Men'; Sidney Lumet's 1957 film starred Henry Fonda, and Basu Chatterjee's Hindi version 'Ek Ruka Hua Faisla' (1986) featured Pankaj Kapur. Nandikar, founded in Kolkata in 1960 by Ajitesh Bandopadhyay and long led by Rudraprasad Sengupta, is known for Bengali adaptations of world classics such as 'Tin Poyshar Pala' and 'Football', and for its annual National Theatre Festival. 'Rudali' (C) is a real and celebrated production of Usha Ganguli's group Rangakarmee, based on Mahasweta Devi's story; Sayak (B) is the group led by Meghnad Bhattacharya.

Answer: (C) Madari Pasi

The Eka (Unity) movement of 1921-22 spread through Hardoi, Bahraich, Sitapur and Barabanki in Awadh. Peasants took a religious vow to pay only the recorded rent and no more, to refuse forced labour (begar) and to stay united against extra levies by landlords and their agents (thekedars). It began with Congress and Khilafat support, but leadership passed to Madari Pasi and other low-caste leaders, and it was suppressed by March 1922. Linked UP movements: the UP Kisan Sabha (1918) and the Awadh Kisan Sabha (1920) of Baba Ramchandra. The distractors: Birsa Munda (Munda Ulgulan), Annie Besant (Home Rule League) and Anugrah Narayan Sinha (Bihar leader associated with the Champaran Satyagraha).

Answer: (D) 2070

Answer as of 2024 — this may have changed since.

At the COP26 summit in Glasgow (November 2021) Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that India will reach net-zero emissions by 2070, as part of the five 'Panchamrit' pledges: 500 GW of non-fossil power capacity by 2030; half of energy requirements from renewables by 2030; a cut of one billion tonnes in projected emissions by 2030; a 45% reduction in the emissions intensity of GDP from 2005 levels by 2030; and net zero by 2070. Compare the other years: 2050 is the target of the USA, EU, UK and Japan, and 2060 that of China, Russia and Saudi Arabia. Indian Railways has a separate net-zero target of 2030, and Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) was launched alongside.

Answer: (B) $2n$

Equal numbers of moles contain equal numbers of molecules. 14 g of $\mathrm{N_2}$ (molar mass 28) is $\frac{14}{28} = 0.5$ mole and contains $n$ molecules, so 1 mole contains $2n$ molecules. 46 g of $\mathrm{NO_2}$ (molar mass $14 + 32 = 46$) is exactly 1 mole and therefore contains $2n$ molecules. Option A assumes equal masses mean equal molecules, the usual mistake. One mole of any substance contains Avogadro's number of particles, $6.022 \times 10^{23}$, and one mole of any gas occupies 22.4 litres at STP.

Answer: (D) Increase in money supply

Inflation is controlled by reducing the amount of money chasing goods, so increasing the money supply (D) would feed inflation, not fight it. The real anti-inflationary tools are monetary (the RBI raises the repo rate, CRR and SLR and sells securities in open market operations), fiscal (lower government spending, higher or better-targeted taxes, which is how curbing disposable income and tax reform work) and administrative (action against hoarding and black marketing under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, stock limits, imports and the public distribution system). Since 2016 the RBI's Monetary Policy Committee has followed flexible inflation targeting of 4% with a band of plus or minus 2%.

Answer: (B) South-East

A navigation map in heading-up mode always shows the direction of travel at the top of the screen. If the North arrow points to the bottom-right corner, North lies $135^\circ$ clockwise from the car's heading, so the car is heading $135^\circ$ anticlockwise from North, i.e. South-West. A $90^\circ$ left (anticlockwise) turn from South-West gives South-East (B). Quick check: when you face South-West, your left hand points South-East and your right hand North-West, so option D is what a right turn would give, the common trap. In compass bearings: South-West is $225^\circ$, and $225^\circ - 90^\circ = 135^\circ$, which is South-East.

Answer: (C) Brazil, Russia, India, China & South Africa. It is an intergovernmental organization comprising of eleven countries.

Answer as of 2024 — this may have changed since.

BRICS takes its name from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The term 'BRIC' was coined by economist Jim O'Neill in 2001, the first summit was held at Yekaterinburg in 2009, and South Africa joined in 2010. With Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the UAE and Saudi Arabia (expansion effective 1 January 2024) and Indonesia (January 2025) it now has 11 full members, besides a 'partner country' category created at the Kazan summit (2024). Its bank is the New Development Bank, headquartered in Shanghai (Fortaleza Declaration, 2014). India held the 2026 chairship, its fourth after 2012, 2016 and 2021, and hosted the 18th Summit in New Delhi in September 2026. Options A and B give invented expansions and wrong member counts.

Answer: (A) 10:10 am

The cars move towards each other, so their relative speed is $50 + 30 = 80$ km/h. Time to meet $= \frac{160}{80} = 2$ hours, and 2 hours after 8:10 am is 10:10 am. They meet $50 \times 2 = 100$ km from A and $30 \times 2 = 60$ km from B. Rule: for bodies moving in opposite directions add the speeds; for the same direction subtract them. If the two cars were travelling in the same direction, the faster one would close a 160 km gap in $\frac{160}{20} = 8$ hours.

Answer: (B) The Elephant Whisperers

'The Elephant Whisperers', directed by Kartiki Gonsalves and produced by Guneet Monga, won Best Documentary Short Film at the 95th Academy Awards (March 2023), the first Indian production to win in that category. It follows Bomman and Bellie, a tribal couple who raise orphaned elephant calves at the Theppakadu Elephant Camp in Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, Tamil Nadu. At the same ceremony 'Naatu Naatu' from RRR (composer M.M. Keeravani, lyricist Chandrabose) won Best Original Song. Earlier Indian Oscar winners: Bhanu Athaiya (costume, 'Gandhi'), Satyajit Ray (Honorary Award, 1992), and A.R. Rahman, Gulzar and Resul Pookutty ('Slumdog Millionaire'). Options A and C are unrelated film titles.

Answer: (B) Pulmonary veins

Arteries normally carry oxygenated blood and veins deoxygenated blood, and the pulmonary vessels are the exception. The four pulmonary veins bring oxygenated blood from the lungs to the left atrium, while the pulmonary artery (D) carries deoxygenated blood from the right ventricle to the lungs. The hepatic portal vein (A) carries nutrient-rich but deoxygenated blood from the intestine to the liver, and the renal veins (C) carry deoxygenated blood, low in urea, from the kidneys. In the foetus the umbilical vein also carries oxygenated blood. Humans have double circulation (pulmonary and systemic); the circulation of blood was discovered by William Harvey.

Answer: (A) A valley between Lesser Himalaya and Shivalik

A 'dun' (doon) is a flat-floored longitudinal valley lying between the Lesser Himalaya and the Shiwalik range. Duns formed when the rising Shiwaliks blocked rivers and created temporary lakes, which later filled with gravel and alluvium and drained; so option D describes how a dun originated, but the word itself means the valley, option A. Examples: Dehra Dun (the largest), Patli Dun and Kotli Dun; the corresponding features in the eastern Himalaya are called 'duars' (Dooars of North Bengal and Assam). Dehradun is the winter capital of Uttarakhand, Gairsain (Bhararisain) being the summer capital.

Answer: (A) Warren Hastings

The Asiatic Society was founded in Calcutta on 15 January 1784 by Sir William Jones, a judge of the Supreme Court, when Warren Hastings was Governor-General of Bengal (1774-85, the first to hold that title under the Regulating Act, 1773); Hastings declined the presidency and became its patron. Its scholars include Charles Wilkins (first English translation of the Bhagavad Gita, 1785), Jones himself (Abhijnanasakuntalam, 1789) and James Prinsep, who deciphered Brahmi in 1837. Other institutions and their periods: Calcutta Madrasa, 1781 (Hastings); Sanskrit College, Benares, 1791 (Jonathan Duncan, under Cornwallis); Fort William College, 1800 (Wellesley). Clive (D) was Governor of Bengal, never Governor-General.

Answer: (A) Article 17

Article 17 abolishes untouchability and forbids its practice in any form; it is one of the few Fundamental Rights enforceable against private individuals as well as the State. Parliament gave effect to it through the Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955, renamed the Protection of Civil Rights Act in 1976, and later the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. The Right to Equality runs from Article 14 to 18: 14, equality before law; 15, no discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth; 16, equality of opportunity in public employment; 17, abolition of untouchability; 18, abolition of titles (option C). Article 19 guarantees the six freedoms and Article 21 protects life and personal liberty.

Answer: (C) Russia

Russia became the first country to formally recognise the Taliban government (the 'Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan') on 3 July 2025, when it accepted the credentials of the Taliban's ambassador in Moscow; it had removed the Taliban from its list of banned terrorist organisations in April 2025. The Taliban returned to power in Kabul on 15 August 2021. The other options: China and Iran keep embassies and have accepted Taliban envoys without formal recognition, and India, which reopened a technical mission in 2022, upgraded it to an embassy in October 2025 but has not announced formal recognition. During the first Taliban regime (1996-2001) only Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE recognised it.

Answer: (B) Jalpaiguri

Jalpaiguri town stands on the Teesta, and the smaller Karala (Karola) river flows through the middle of the town before joining the Teesta; it is fondly called the 'Thames of Jalpaiguri'. The other towns: Malda (English Bazar) is on the Mahananda, Baharampur on the Bhagirathi, and Darjeeling on a hill ridge with no river flowing through it. More West Bengal town-river pairs for revision: Siliguri, Mahananda; Cooch Behar, Torsa; Alipurduar, Kaljani; Balurghat, Atrai; Raiganj, Kulik; Krishnanagar, Jalangi; Suri, Mayurakshi; Bankura, Gandheswari and Dwarakeswar; Medinipur, Kangsabati; Durgapur and Asansol, Damodar.

Answer: (C) 1966-1969

The 'Plan Holiday' is the gap of 1966-69 between the Third Plan (1961-66) and the Fourth Plan (1969-74), when the government ran three Annual Plans (1966-67, 1967-68, 1968-69) instead of a five-year plan. The causes were the wars with China (1962) and Pakistan (1965), two successive droughts, high inflation and the devaluation of the rupee in June 1966; the Green Revolution strategy was introduced in these years. Other breaks in planning: the Rolling Plan of 1978-80 and the Annual Plans of 1990-92. The Twelfth Plan (2012-17) was the last, and the Planning Commission was replaced by NITI Aayog on 1 January 2015.

Answer: (A) Cervical cancer in women

The Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine prevents cervical cancer, nearly all cases of which are caused by persistent infection with high-risk HPV types, chiefly 16 and 18. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the nationwide drive from Ajmer, Rajasthan, on 28 February 2026: a free single dose of the quadrivalent vaccine Gardasil for about 1.15 crore girls aged 14 every year, given at government health facilities. Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer among Indian women. Also remember CERVAVAC, India's indigenous HPV vaccine from the Serum Institute; Sikkim, the first state to run a statewide HPV programme (2018); and the WHO '90-70-90' targets for eliminating cervical cancer by 2030. HPV is not a cause of prostate, lung or breast cancer.

Answer: (B) Textile

A 'sunrise sector' is a new or fast-growing industry with high future potential, usually technology-driven. In India the term is applied to food processing, artificial intelligence and IT, space technology, semiconductors, electric vehicles, green hydrogen, renewable energy, drones and biotechnology. Textiles is one of India's oldest, mature industries, with the first cotton mills dating from the 1850s, so it is not classed as a sunrise sector (only its 'technical textiles' segment is sometimes described that way). The opposite term, 'sunset industry', refers to an old industry in decline. Many sunrise sectors are supported by Production Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes.

Answer: (B) Circle

Square, triangle and rectangle are polygons, closed figures made of straight sides meeting at vertices, whereas a circle is a curved figure with no sides or corners, so the circle is the odd one out. A second pattern might be tried (the triangle has three sides while the square and rectangle have four), but it does not separate one figure from the other three, because the circle fits neither group. Always choose the property that isolates exactly one option.

Answer: (C) Hyderabad

Operation Polo was the 'police action' of 13 to 18 September 1948 by which the Indian Army, led by Major General J.N. Chaudhuri, ended the rule of the Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan, and integrated Hyderabad; the Razakar militia of Qasim Razvi was disbanded. The other states were integrated differently: Junagadh by a plebiscite in February 1948 after its Nawab fled to Pakistan; Kashmir by Maharaja Hari Singh's Instrument of Accession on 26 October 1947; and Jodhpur by negotiation, through the efforts of Sardar Patel and V.P. Menon. Other operation names worth knowing: Operation Vijay (Goa, 1961; also Kargil, 1999) and Operation Meghdoot (Siachen, 1984).

Answer: (D) 44th Amendment

The 44th Amendment Act, 1978, passed by the Janata government to prevent a repeat of the 1975-77 Emergency, provides that the President can proclaim a National Emergency under Article 352 only on the written advice of the Union Cabinet. It also replaced 'internal disturbance' with 'armed rebellion', required parliamentary approval within one month by a special majority and renewal every six months, protected Articles 20 and 21 from suspension, and removed the right to property from the Fundamental Rights (now Article 300A). The distractors: the 42nd Amendment (1976), the 'mini-Constitution' that added Socialist, Secular and Integrity to the Preamble and the Fundamental Duties; the 52nd (1985), the anti-defection law; the 86th (2002), the right to education (Article 21A).

Answer: (B) Jyotirindranath Tagore

The Bharatiya Sangit Samaj (Indian Sangita Samaj) was founded in Calcutta in 1897 by Jyotirindranath Tagore, elder brother of Rabindranath and a playwright, composer and pioneer of Bengali musical notation, to promote music and drama. The tempting distractor is Raja Sourindro Mohun Tagore of the Pathuriaghata family, the musicologist who founded the Bengal Music School (1871) and the Bengal Academy of Music (1881). Rajanikanta Sen ('Kantakabi') and Dwijendralal Roy (composer of 'Dhana Dhanya Pushpa Bhara') were celebrated song-writers of the Swadeshi period, counted with Rabindranath, Atulprasad Sen and Nazrul Islam among the five great poet-composers of Bengali song, but neither founded this Samaj.

Answer: (C) Numismatics

Numismatics is the study and collection of coins, paper money and medals. Epigraphy is the study of inscriptions, calligraphy is the art of beautiful handwriting, and 'coinography' is not an accepted term. Related studies: palaeography (old scripts), philately (postage stamps), sigillography (seals) and archaeology (material remains). Coin facts for Indian history: the earliest coins were punch-marked silver coins (about 6th century BCE); the Indo-Greeks issued the first coins with rulers' names and portraits; the Kushanas issued gold coins on a large scale; the Guptas issued the largest number of gold coins; Sher Shah introduced the silver rupiya.

Answer: (D) Gateway of India

The Gateway of India in Mumbai (completed in 1924 to commemorate the 1911 visit of King George V; architect George Wittet) is a protected monument but is not on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The other three are inscribed: Ellora Caves (1983), Kaziranga National Park (1985) and the Churches and Convents of Goa (1986). Mumbai's World Heritage Sites are the Elephanta Caves, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and the Victorian Gothic and Art Deco Ensembles. India's 44th site, the Maratha Military Landscapes, was added in 2025. West Bengal has three: Sundarbans National Park (1987), the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (1999, part of the Mountain Railways of India) and Santiniketan (2023).

Answer: (B) 500 m

60 km/h is 1 km per minute, so in 2 minutes the train travels 2 km. To pass completely through a tunnel a train must cover the length of the tunnel plus its own length, so its length is $2 - 1.5 = 0.5$ km $= 500$ m. The same rule applies to bridges and platforms: distance covered equals the length of the object plus the length of the train, whereas for passing a pole or a standing man it is the train's length alone. Useful conversion: 1 km/h $= \frac{5}{18}$ m/s, so 60 km/h $= 16\frac{2}{3}$ m/s.

Answer: (C) Only three

PSC's final answer key gives (C), 'Only three'. Two pairs are beyond doubt: sal (Shorea robusta) is the dominant natural tree of the lateritic forests of Bankura, and sundari (Heritiera fomes) is the mangrove that gives the Sundarbans of South 24 Parganas its name. Pine, however, is naturally a tree of the Darjeeling-Kalimpong hills and not of the Cooch Behar plains, and the baobab (Adansonia) is an African species found in India only as an introduced tree, so by standard forest geography only two pairs look correct; the PSC has not said which third pair it accepts. For revision: North Bengal plains, sal, sissoo, khair and simul; hills, oak, pine, rhododendron and magnolia; Sundarbans, sundari, garan, gewa, keora and hental; coastal Purba Medinipur, casuarina (jhau).

Answer: (C) Tej Bahadur Sapru

The Liberal leaders Tej Bahadur Sapru and M.R. Jayakar (with V.S. Srinivasa Sastri) acted as go-betweens for Gandhi and Viceroy Lord Irwin. After Gandhi's release in January 1931 the talks led to the Gandhi-Irwin (Delhi) Pact of 5 March 1931, under which Civil Disobedience was suspended and the Congress agreed to attend the Second Round Table Conference. The Pact was ratified at the Karachi Congress (March 1931, President Vallabhbhai Patel), which also passed the resolutions on Fundamental Rights and the National Economic Programme. Motilal Nehru (A) died on 6 February 1931 before the Pact, Annie Besant (B) played no part in it, and Chintamani Panigrahi (D) was an Odisha politician of a later generation.

Answer: (A) Ten Degree Channel

The Ten Degree Channel, about 150 km wide and lying along $10^\circ$ N latitude, separates the Andaman group (Little Andaman) from the Nicobar group (Car Nicobar). Other channels to remember: Duncan Passage, between South Andaman and Little Andaman; Coco Channel, between North Andaman and Myanmar's Coco Islands; the Great Channel (Six Degree Channel), between Great Nicobar and Sumatra; the Eight Degree Channel, between Minicoy and the Maldives; and the Nine Degree Channel, between Minicoy and the rest of Lakshadweep. Options B and D are not real channels. Related facts: Saddle Peak is the highest point of the islands, Indira Point the southernmost tip of India, and Barren Island India's only active volcano.

Answer: (B) Thomas Munro

The Ryotwari system, in which the government settled land revenue directly with each cultivator (ryot) and not through zamindars, was first tried by Captain Alexander Read in the Baramahal district (1792) and was developed and extended across the Madras Presidency by Thomas Munro, Governor of Madras from 1820. In Bombay it was introduced under Mountstuart Elphinstone (D). The three settlements: Permanent or Zamindari (1793, Cornwallis; Bengal, Bihar, Orissa), Ryotwari (Madras, Bombay, Assam) and Mahalwari (1822, Holt Mackenzie; North-Western Provinces, Punjab). Charles Metcalfe (A) is known as the liberator of the Indian press (1835), and John Malcolm (C) for the settlement of Central India.

Answer: (C) BAG

RABBIT has the letters R, A, B, B, I, T. RAT (R, A, T), BAT (B, A, T) and BIT (B, I, T) can all be made from these, but BAG needs the letter G, which is not in RABBIT. Method: tick off each letter of the option against the key word, remembering that a letter can be used only as many times as it occurs (here only B occurs twice). Other words that can be formed from RABBIT include BAR, RIB, TAB, BRAT and RABBI.

Answer: (B) Alipurduar district

Jaldapara National Park, on the flood plain of the Torsa river with its entry point at Madarihat, lies in Alipurduar district, the district carved out of Jalpaiguri on 25 June 2014; older books place it in Jalpaiguri, which is the basis of the distractors. A wildlife sanctuary since 1941 and a national park since 2012, it holds the largest population of the one-horned rhinoceros in West Bengal and the second largest in India after Kaziranga. West Bengal's six national parks: Sundarban (South 24 Parganas), Singalila (Darjeeling), Neora Valley (Kalimpong), Gorumara (Jalpaiguri), Buxa (Alipurduar) and Jaldapara (Alipurduar).

Answer: (B) K2

K2 (Godwin-Austen, 8,611 m), the second highest mountain in the world, stands in the Karakoram Range in Gilgit-Baltistan, not in the Himalaya; the Karakoram, with the Ladakh and Zaskar ranges, belongs to the Trans-Himalaya and contains the Siachen and Baltoro glaciers. The other three are Himalayan peaks: Kangchenjunga (8,586 m, on the Sikkim-Nepal border), the third highest in the world and the highest peak in India; Nanda Devi (7,816 m, Uttarakhand), the highest peak lying wholly within India; and Kamet (7,756 m, Garhwal, Uttarakhand). Mount Everest (8,849 m) is on the Nepal-China border.

Answer: (A) E. V. Chinnaiah Vs. State of Andhra Pradesh

On 1 August 2024 a seven-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud held by 6:1 (Justice Bela Trivedi dissenting) that States may sub-classify Scheduled Castes so as to give preference to the more backward among them. The judgment was delivered in State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh and overruled the five-judge decision in E.V. Chinnaiah v. State of Andhra Pradesh (2004), which had treated the Scheduled Castes notified under Article 341 as one homogeneous class; hence PSC's answer (A), Chinnaiah being the litigation whose correctness the larger bench examined. Four judges also favoured applying a 'creamy layer' test to SCs and STs. Indra Sawhney v. Union of India (1992) is the Mandal case (OBC reservation, 50% ceiling), and Association for Democratic Reforms v. Union of India (2024) struck down the Electoral Bonds scheme; option D is a made-up title.

Answer: (D) Apex financial institution of industrial credit

NABARD (National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development) was set up on 12 July 1982 on the recommendation of the B. Sivaraman Committee, taking over the agricultural credit functions of the RBI and the ARDC; its head office is in Mumbai. It is the apex institution for agricultural and rural credit: it refinances cooperative banks and Regional Rural Banks, lends to State governments (including long-term loans for share capital of cooperatives), runs the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund and pioneered the SHG-Bank Linkage Programme, so A, B and C are all its functions. Industrial credit (D) is not its field: IDBI (1964) was the apex body for industrial finance and SIDBI (1990, Lucknow) serves MSMEs. Also note EXIM Bank (1982) and the National Housing Bank (1988).

Answer: (C) low pressure and high temperature.

An ideal gas is assumed to have molecules of negligible volume with no forces between them. A real gas comes closest to this at low pressure, when the molecules are far apart, and at high temperature, when they move too fast for intermolecular attraction to matter, so option C is correct. The opposite conditions, high pressure and low temperature (B), are exactly those used to liquefy gases, where deviation from ideal behaviour is greatest. The ideal gas equation is $PV = nRT$; real gases are described by the van der Waals equation $\left(P + \frac{an^2}{V^2}\right)(V - nb) = nRT$, in which $a$ corrects for intermolecular attraction and $b$ for molecular volume.

Answer: (A) Abdur Rahim Khan-I-Khanan

Babur wrote his memoirs, the Tuzuk-i-Baburi or Baburnama, in Chagatai Turki, his mother tongue. They were translated into Persian in 1589-90 on Akbar's orders by Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khanan, son of Bairam Khan, one of Akbar's 'nine gems' and himself a famous Hindi poet (Rahim's dohas). The distractors and their works: Badauni wrote Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh and translated the Ramayana into Persian; Faizi, Abul Fazl's brother, translated Lilavati and wrote Nal-Daman; Gulbadan Begum, Babur's daughter, wrote the Humayun-nama. Abul Fazl wrote the Akbarnama and Ain-i-Akbari, and the Mahabharata was translated into Persian as the Razmnama.

Answer: (B) 1028

The Rigveda, the oldest of the four Vedas, has 1,028 hymns (suktas) with about 10,600 verses arranged in 10 mandalas; the figure is made up of 1,017 regular hymns plus 11 Valakhilya hymns added to the eighth mandala, which is why 1,017 appears as a distractor. Mandalas II to VII (the 'family books') are the oldest, and I and X the latest. Mandala III contains the Gayatri mantra, Mandala IX is devoted to Soma, and Mandala X has the Purusha Sukta (first mention of the four varnas) and the Nasadiya Sukta (hymn of creation). Indra is the most frequently invoked deity, followed by Agni.

Answer: (D) Anguttara Nikaya

The standard list of the sixteen Mahajanapadas comes from the Anguttara Nikaya, one of the five Nikayas of the Sutta Pitaka; the Jain Bhagavati Sutra gives a somewhat different list. The sixteen are Anga, Magadha, Kashi, Kosala, Vajji, Malla, Chedi, Vatsa, Kuru, Panchala, Matsya, Surasena, Assaka, Avanti, Gandhara and Kamboja; Assaka on the Godavari was the only one south of the Vindhyas. 'Tripitaka' (A) is the name of the whole Pali canon (Vinaya, Sutta and Abhidhamma Pitakas) and is too broad an answer; the Dipavamsa (B) is a Sri Lankan chronicle; and the Digha Nikaya (C) is the collection of long discourses. The five Nikayas: Digha, Majjhima, Samyutta, Anguttara and Khuddaka.

Answer: (D) Abscisic acid

Abscisic acid (ABA) is the main growth-inhibiting plant hormone. It induces dormancy of seeds and buds, closes stomata during water shortage (hence 'stress hormone') and promotes ageing and shedding of leaves, acting against gibberellins. The other three are growth promoters: auxin (IAA) causes cell elongation, apical dominance and phototropism, and is used for rooting cuttings; gibberellin causes stem elongation and bolting and breaks dormancy (first found in the fungus Gibberella, which causes the 'foolish seedling' disease of rice); cytokinin promotes cell division and delays ageing. The fifth major hormone, ethylene, is a gas that ripens fruits.

Answer: (A) Aurobindo Ghosh

Aurobindo Ghosh started the English weekly 'Karmayogin' in June 1909, soon after his acquittal in the Alipore Bomb Case (in which C.R. Das defended him), together with the Bengali weekly 'Dharma'. Earlier he had edited 'Bande Mataram', the English daily founded by Bipin Chandra Pal. In 1910 he left politics, moving first to Chandernagore and then to Pondicherry. The distractors and their papers: Sisir Kumar Ghosh, Amrita Bazar Patrika (which turned from Bengali to English overnight in 1878 to escape the Vernacular Press Act); Tilak, Kesari (Marathi) and Mahratta (English); Gandhi, Indian Opinion, Young India, Navajivan and Harijan.

Answer: (B) Louis Fischer

The American journalist Louis Fischer wrote 'The Life of Mahatma Gandhi' (1950), the biography on which Richard Attenborough's film 'Gandhi' (1982) was largely based; he also wrote 'A Week with Gandhi'. The other Americans knew Gandhi but were not his biographers: Richard Gregg wrote 'The Power of Nonviolence', and Webb Miller was the United Press correspondent whose report of the Dharasana salt raid (1930) shocked the world. Other biographies: Joseph Doke (the first, 1909), Romain Rolland ('Mahatma Gandhi', 1924), D.G. Tendulkar ('Mahatma', eight volumes), Pyarelal ('The Last Phase') and B.R. Nanda. Gandhi's own autobiography is 'The Story of My Experiments with Truth', written in Gujarati and translated by Mahadev Desai.

Answer: (C) Both (I) and (II)

Both statements are correct. A constitutional body is created by the Constitution itself: the Finance Commission is provided for in Article 280. A statutory body is created by an Act of Parliament: the National Commission for Women was set up in January 1992 under the National Commission for Women Act, 1990. More examples: constitutional, Election Commission (324), UPSC (315), CAG (148), National Commissions for SCs (338), STs (338A) and Backward Classes (338B), GST Council (279A); statutory, NHRC (1993 Act), Central Information Commission (RTI Act, 2005), Central Vigilance Commission (2003 Act), Lokpal (2013 Act) and the National Green Tribunal (2010 Act). NITI Aayog is neither, being created by an executive resolution.

Answer: (B) Inayatullah Khan Mashriqi

The Khaksar movement was founded at Lahore in 1931 by Allama Inayatullah Khan Mashriqi, a Cambridge-educated mathematician. 'Khaksar' means humble (like dust); its volunteers wore khaki, carried a belcha (spade) as their symbol and practised drill and social service. It clashed with the Punjab government in 1940 and opposed both the Muslim League and the partition of India. Swami Shraddhanand (C) led the Shuddhi movement and founded Gurukul Kangri; M.R. Jayakar (printed in the booklet as M.A. Jayakar) was a Liberal and Hindu Mahasabha leader; Jinnah led the Muslim League. Compare other Muslim movements: the Ahrar movement (1929) and the Khudai Khidmatgars or Red Shirts of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan.

Answer: (B) B.G. Tilak

Bal Gangadhar Tilak formed the Congress Democratic Party in April 1920 to contest the elections under the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms on a programme of 'responsive cooperation'; he died on 1 August 1920 and the Congress then boycotted those elections under the Non-Cooperation programme. Do not confuse it with the Swaraj Party (Congress-Khilafat Swarajya Party) founded by C.R. Das and Motilal Nehru on 1 January 1923. Annie Besant started her Home Rule League in September 1916 (Tilak's own League came in April 1916), and Jinnah led the Muslim League and the Independent Party in the Central Legislative Assembly.

Answer: (B) there is co-existence of public sector and private sector.

A mixed economy is one in which the public sector (state-owned enterprises and planning) and the private sector (privately owned firms working through the market) exist side by side. India adopted this model after Independence through the Industrial Policy Resolutions of 1948 and 1956, which reserved the 'commanding heights' for the public sector, and has moved towards a larger role for the private sector since the reforms of 1991. It stands between capitalism (private ownership, market decisions) and socialism (state ownership, central planning). Options A, C and D describe sectoral balance, foreign investment and a form of government, none of which defines a mixed economy.

Answer: (B) Jatindra Nath Mukherjee

Jatindra Nath Mukherjee, 'Bagha Jatin', leader of the Jugantar group, planned an armed uprising with German arms during the First World War (the Indo-German Conspiracy). While waiting for the arms ship on the Odisha coast he and four comrades were surrounded by police on the bank of the Buribalam river near Balasore on 9 September 1915; he died of his wounds the next day. Among his companions, Chittapriya Ray Chaudhuri fell in the fight. The distractors: Vasudev Balwant Phadke (printed as V.S. Phadke) led an armed revolt in Maharashtra in 1879; Rani Gaidinliu led the Naga resistance of the 1930s; and 'Ajay Samanta' recalls Ajoy Mukherjee and Satish Samanta of the Tamluk Jatiya Sarkar (1942).

Answer: (C) Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

The Disorders Inquiry Committee, known as the Hunter Committee after its chairman Lord William Hunter, was appointed in October 1919 to inquire into the Punjab disturbances and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 13 April 1919. It had three Indian members, Chimanlal Setalvad, Jagat Narayan and Sultan Ahmed Khan, who wrote a separate minority report. The report (1920) censured General Dyer, who was relieved of his command, though he was not punished further. The Congress boycotted it and set up its own inquiry, whose report was drafted by Gandhi. Do not confuse it with the Hunter Education Commission of 1882 under Sir W.W. Hunter. In protest against the massacre Tagore gave up his knighthood, and Michael O'Dwyer was shot by Udham Singh in London in 1940.

Answer: (B) Capillary water

Soil water is classed as gravitational, capillary and hygroscopic. Capillary water, held in the fine pores between soil particles by surface tension, is the water that roots can absorb, so it is the 'available water' (roughly the water between field capacity and the permanent wilting point). Gravitational water drains down quickly to the water table; hygroscopic water forms a thin film held too tightly on soil particles to be absorbed; and chemically combined water is part of the mineral crystals. 'Mineral water' is not a category of soil water. Loam holds the most available water; sand drains too fast and clay holds much of its water too tightly.

Answer: (A) Survey of India

The Survey of India, founded in 1767 and headquartered at Dehradun under the Department of Science and Technology, is the national mapping agency; it prepares the topographical sheets (toposheets) on scales such as 1:50,000 and 1:25,000. It carried out the Great Trigonometrical Survey under Lambton and George Everest, during which the Bengali mathematician Radhanath Sikdar computed the height of Mount Everest. The Geological Survey of India (1851), headquartered in Kolkata, makes geological maps and explores minerals; ISRO supplies satellite imagery; the UGC regulates universities. Also note NATMO, Kolkata, which publishes thematic maps and the National Atlas.

Answer: (A) Rajendra Prasad

Subhas Chandra Bose was elected Congress President at Haripura (1938) and re-elected at Tripuri (1939) by defeating Pattabhi Sitaramayya, the candidate backed by Gandhi, by 1,580 votes to 1,377. Unable to form a Working Committee because of opposition from the Gandhian wing, he resigned in April 1939 at Calcutta, and Rajendra Prasad was chosen as President; Bose then founded the Forward Bloc (May 1939). Later Presidents: Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (1940-46, the longest continuous term), Jawaharlal Nehru briefly in 1946, and Acharya J.B. Kripalani (Meerut session, President at Independence). Rajagopalachari never held the office.

Answer: (D) Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

'Asato ma sadgamaya, tamaso ma jyotirgamaya, mrityor ma amritam gamaya' (lead me from untruth to truth, from darkness to light, from death to immortality) is the Pavamana mantra of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (1.3.28), which belongs to the Shukla Yajurveda and also contains the dialogues of Yajnavalkya with Gargi and Maitreyi. Sources of other well-known phrases: 'Satyameva Jayate' (national motto), Mundaka Upanishad, which is why it is offered as a distractor; 'Tat Tvam Asi', Chandogya Upanishad; 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam', Maha Upanishad; the Gayatri mantra, Rigveda; the story of Nachiketa and Yama, Katha Upanishad; 'Yato Dharmastato Jayah' (motto of the Supreme Court), Mahabharata.

Answer: (D) All of the above

During the Quit India Movement British authority collapsed in several areas and parallel governments were set up: at Ballia in eastern Uttar Pradesh under Chittu Pandey (August 1942, lasting about a week); at Satara in Maharashtra, the 'Prati Sarkar' of Nana Patil and Y.B. Chavan, the longest-lived (1943 to 1945-46); and at Talcher in Odisha. All three options are correct, so the answer is D. The most important example for West Bengal is not listed: the Tamralipta Jatiya Sarkar at Tamluk, Medinipur (December 1942 to September 1944), led by Satish Chandra Samanta with Ajoy Mukherjee and Sushil Dhara; Matangini Hazra was shot there on 29 September 1942 while leading a procession.

Answer: (B) Price Index

The Human Development Index, published by the UNDP since 1990 and devised by Mahbub ul Haq with Amartya Sen, is the geometric mean of three dimension indices: Health (life expectancy at birth), Education (mean years and expected years of schooling) and Income (GNI per capita in PPP terms). A price index such as the CPI or WPI measures inflation and has no place in it, so B is the answer. Countries are grouped into very high, high, medium and low human development; India is in the medium category (ranked 130th in the 2025 report). Other UNDP indices: Inequality-adjusted HDI, Gender Inequality Index, Gender Development Index and the Multidimensional Poverty Index.

Answer: (C) Some white X-brand cars with radial tyres are parked here.

Statement 1 says every X-brand car parked here is white, and statement 2 says some of these cars have radial tyres; together they give 'some white X-brand cars with radial tyres are parked here' (C). The statements say nothing about the tyres of other brands, so A and D (which are identical in the booklet) cannot be concluded, and they say only that the X-brand cars here are white, so B ('only white cars are parked here') does not follow, since cars of other brands and colours may also be parked. 'All cars are not X-brand' simply means that some cars are of other brands. Rule: a valid conclusion must not go beyond the group the statements actually speak about.

Answer: (D) All of the above

All three halogens have radioactive isotopes although none belongs to the natural radioactive decay series (the uranium, thorium and actinium series), so PSC's answer is 'All of the above'. Fluorine-18 is the positron emitter used in PET scans; iodine-131 is used to diagnose and treat thyroid disorders and iodine-129 is a long-lived fission product; chlorine-36 (half-life about 3 lakh years) is used to date old groundwater. In fact almost every element has at least one radioisotope, for example carbon-14 (radiocarbon dating), potassium-40, phosphorus-32, cobalt-60 (cancer radiotherapy) and tritium, which is why choosing iodine alone would be incomplete. The halogens are fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine and astatine, the last having no stable isotope at all.

Answer: (A) Congress passed laws allowing the President to impose tariffs unilaterally for national security reasons.

Answer as of 2024 — this may have changed since.

The US Constitution (Article I, Section 8) gives the power to 'lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises' to Congress, not to the President, so options B and C are wrong. A President can impose tariffs only under powers delegated by laws passed by Congress, the classic one being Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, 1962, which permits tariffs on imports that threaten national security (used for steel, aluminium and automobiles); hence option A. Others are Section 301 (unfair trade practices) and Section 122 (a surcharge of up to 15% for 150 days for balance-of-payments problems) of the Trade Act, 1974. In Learning Resources v. Trump (20 February 2026) the US Supreme Court held 6-3 that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, 1977 does not authorise tariffs, striking down the 'reciprocal' tariffs, after which a temporary global tariff was imposed under Section 122.

Answer: (C) India has a quasi-federal system with a strong Centre.

India's Constitution is federal in form with a strong unitary bias, which K.C. Wheare described as 'quasi-federal'; Article 1 calls India a 'Union of States'. Federal features: a written Constitution, division of powers through the Union, State and Concurrent Lists of the Seventh Schedule, an independent judiciary and a bicameral Parliament. Unitary features: single citizenship, an integrated judiciary, All-India Services, Governors appointed by the Centre, residuary powers with Parliament (Article 248), Parliament's power to alter state boundaries (Article 3) and the emergency provisions. So it is neither completely federal (A) nor completely unitary (B), and the States are not stronger than the Centre (D). In S.R. Bommai v. Union of India (1994) the Supreme Court held federalism to be part of the basic structure.

Answer: (A) Behramji Malabari

Behramji Merwanji Malabari, a Parsi journalist and reformer of Bombay who edited the 'Indian Spectator', published his 'Notes on Infant Marriage and Enforced Widowhood' in 1884 and circulated them to officials and Indian leaders. His campaign in India and England led to the Age of Consent Act, 1891, which Tilak opposed; he also co-founded the Seva Sadan in 1908. The distractors and their work: Jyotiba Phule wrote 'Gulamgiri' and founded the Satyashodhak Samaj (1873); M.G. Ranade led the Prarthana Samaj and founded the Indian National Social Conference (1887); Dadoba Pandurang founded the Paramahansa Mandali (1849).

Answer: (C) It is a fundamental right confirmed by the Supreme Court of India.

In Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India (24 August 2017) a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court unanimously held that the right to privacy is a fundamental right, part of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 and of the freedoms in Part III. It overruled M.P. Sharma (1954) and Kharak Singh (1962) to the extent that they had denied such a right, so option B states the old position. Any restriction must satisfy the tests of legality, legitimate aim and proportionality. It is not merely statutory (A): the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 regulates data protection, but the right itself flows from the Constitution. Other rights read into Article 21 include livelihood, a clean environment, speedy trial and legal aid.

Answer: (D) Crimea has been taken over by Russian forces from Ukraine during the current war

Answer as of 2024 — this may have changed since.

Statement D is the incorrect one: Russia seized and annexed Crimea in February-March 2014, after the fall of the Yanukovych government, eight years before the present war. The full-scale invasion began on 24 February 2022 (B is correct); Russia holds large parts of Luhansk and Donetsk, together called the Donbas (A is correct), and in September 2022 proclaimed the annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson; and stopping Ukraine's movement towards NATO and the EU is among Russia's stated motives (C is correct). Geography to note: Crimea lies between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, with the naval base of Sevastopol; Finland (2023) and Sweden (2024) joined NATO after the invasion.

Answer: (C) Eastern part of Peninsular India

From October to December the south-west monsoon withdraws from North India. The retreating winds, now blowing from the north-east, pick up moisture over the Bay of Bengal and bring rain to the eastern side of the Peninsula: the Tamil Nadu (Coromandel) coast, southern Andhra Pradesh and the adjoining interior. Tamil Nadu receives about half of its annual rainfall in this season, which is also the season of Bay of Bengal cyclones. North-west India (A) gets its winter rain from western disturbances; the North-East (B) receives its heavy rain from the Bay of Bengal branch of the advancing monsoon; and the western coast (D) is drenched by the Arabian Sea branch from June to September. West Bengal's pre-monsoon thunderstorms are the Kalbaisakhi (Nor'westers).

Answer: (A) S.A. Dange

Shripad Amrit Dange wrote the pamphlet 'Gandhi vs. Lenin' in 1921, comparing the two leaders' ideas and methods and arguing the case for socialism; it marks the beginning of Marxist writing in India. Helped by the Bombay businessman R.B. Lotvala (option B), he started 'The Socialist' (1922), the first Marxist journal in India. Dange was convicted in the Kanpur Bolshevik Conspiracy Case (1924) along with Muzaffar Ahmad, Shaukat Usmani and Nalini Gupta, and again in the Meerut Conspiracy Case (1929), in which R.S. Nimbkar (option C) was also an accused. Related: M.N. Roy wrote 'India in Transition', and Muzaffar Ahmad pioneered the communist movement in Bengal with the paper 'Langal'.

Answer: (D) Horse

Harappan seals, mostly square and made of steatite, show the 'unicorn' (the most common motif), humped bull, elephant, rhinoceros, tiger, buffalo, goat and ram, but not the horse. The absence of the horse (and of the lion and cow) from the seals is a standard point of contrast with Vedic culture, in which the horse is central; the horse bones reported from Surkotada remain disputed. The famous 'Pashupati' seal from Mohenjodaro shows a seated horned figure surrounded by an elephant, tiger, rhinoceros and buffalo, with two deer below. Sheep and goats were domesticated by the Harappans and horned rams appear in their art, so option C is not the answer.

Answer: (D) Manas Biosphere Reserve

Manas is in Assam, along the Bhutan border: a National Park, Tiger Reserve, Biosphere Reserve and UNESCO World Heritage Site (1985), known for the pygmy hog, golden langur and Bengal florican. The other three are in the hills and Dooars of North Bengal: Singalila National Park in Darjeeling district (Sandakphu, the highest point of West Bengal, and the red panda); Chapramari Wildlife Sanctuary in Jalpaiguri district near Gorumara; and Namthing Pokhari near Kurseong, a Biodiversity Heritage Site protecting the Himalayan salamander. West Bengal's only biosphere reserve is the Sundarban Biosphere Reserve (1989).

Answer: (C) Articles 20 and 21

Article 359 empowers the President, during a National Emergency, to suspend the right to move courts for the enforcement of Fundamental Rights named in the order, except Articles 20 (protection in respect of conviction for offences) and 21 (life and personal liberty). This exception was added by the 44th Amendment, 1978, in reaction to ADM Jabalpur v. Shivkant Shukla (1976), in which the Supreme Court had upheld the suspension of habeas corpus during the Emergency. Compare Article 358, under which Article 19 is suspended automatically, but only when the emergency is declared on the ground of war or external aggression. So Articles 19, 32, 14 and 15 (options A, B) can all be affected, and D is wrong.

Answer: (C) Chhattisgarh

West Bengal shares its boundary with five states, Sikkim, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha, and three countries, Bangladesh (the longest border), Nepal and Bhutan. Chhattisgarh lies further west, separated from West Bengal by Jharkhand and Odisha. District pointers: Darjeeling and Kalimpong touch Sikkim; Alipurduar and Cooch Behar touch Assam; Purulia, Jhargram, Paschim Bardhaman, Birbhum, Murshidabad and Malda touch Jharkhand. Darjeeling district meets Nepal, and Kalimpong, Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar meet Bhutan. West Bengal is the only Indian state that stretches from the Himalaya to the sea.

Answer: (A) $\frac{1}{10}\ \Omega$ cm

Resistance $R = \rho \frac{L}{A}$, so resistivity $\rho = \frac{RA}{L}$. Working in centimetres, $L = 1$ m $= 100$ cm and $A = 1\ \mathrm{cm^2}$: $\rho = \frac{10 \times 1}{100} = \frac{1}{10}\ \Omega$ cm. The trap is to forget the conversion of 1 m into 100 cm, which gives $10\ \Omega$ cm (option C). In SI units the answer is $10^{-3}\ \Omega$ m. Resistivity depends only on the material and its temperature, not on the length or thickness of the wire; its reciprocal is conductivity. Silver has the lowest resistivity among metals, and alloys such as nichrome, with high resistivity, are used in heating elements.

Answer: (A) (II) only

Statement I is acceptable: a cyclone is a system of winds converging on a low-pressure centre, so it is driven by a difference in air pressure. Statement II is correct: tropical cyclones form over seas warmer than about $27^\circ$C, mostly between $5^\circ$ and $20^\circ$ latitude. Statement III is wrong: the eye is a calm, largely cloud-free area of sinking air with the lowest pressure and a relatively high temperature, while the densest clouds, strongest winds and heaviest rain are in the surrounding eyewall. The correct combination, (I) and (II), is not among the options, so PSC's final key marks this question '*' and gives 1 mark to all candidates. Extras: cyclones rotate anticlockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern, do not form within about $5^\circ$ of the Equator, and are called hurricanes in the Atlantic and typhoons in the north-west Pacific; the Bay of Bengal produces more cyclones than the Arabian Sea.

Answer: (B) Strict data localization regulations (DPDP Act 2023)

Answer as of 2024 — this may have changed since.

PSC's answer 'B' is the regulatory push for storing Indian data in India. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (with its Rules notified in November 2025), together with sectoral mandates such as the RBI's 2018 direction that payment data be stored only in India, obliges companies to build or rent local data-centre capacity. Other drivers are rapidly growing data use (5G, UPI, cloud and AI), 'infrastructure status' given to data centres in 2022 and state incentive policies; Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Noida are the main hubs. The other options are not recognised reasons: power and water availability are concerns for data centres, not attractions, and neither weak environmental enforcement nor India-US relations is driving the growth.

Answer: (C) Jatra Oraon

The Tana Bhagat movement began in 1914 among the Oraons of Chotanagpur (Gumla and Ranchi) under Jatra Oraon, also called Jatra Bhagat. It started as a religious reform, giving up animal sacrifice, liquor and belief in spirits, and grew into a no-rent, no-forced-labour movement against landlords and the British. Its followers later became devoted Gandhians, taking up khadi and joining the Non-Cooperation and Civil Disobedience movements. The distractors: Sidhu Murmu (with Kanhu) led the Santhal Hul of 1855-56, and Birsa Munda led the Munda Ulgulan of 1899-1900. Tribal movements are a favourite WBCS area, so revise the Santhal Hul, Kherwar, Munda and Tana Bhagat movements together.

Answer: (A) Chimpanzee and Bonobo

Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus) are the closest living relatives of humans, sharing nearly 99% of our DNA; the human line separated from theirs about 6 to 7 million years ago. Next in closeness come the gorilla, then the orangutan, and last the gibbons, which are 'lesser apes'. Humans and the great apes together form the family Hominidae. A related fact: humans have 46 chromosomes while the great apes have 48, because two ancestral chromosomes fused to form human chromosome 2. India's only ape is the hoolock gibbon of the North-East.

Answer: (A) A quadrilateral cannot be square unless it has four equal sides, but having four equal sides doesn't guarantee a quadrilateral to be a square.

A necessary condition is one without which the result cannot happen; a sufficient condition is one that by itself guarantees the result. Every square has four equal sides (necessary), but four equal sides do not make a square, because a rhombus also has four equal sides; right angles are needed as well (so the condition is not sufficient). Option A says exactly this. Options B and C reverse the meaning by denying that squares have equal sides, and D denies any connection. In symbols, 'P is necessary for Q' means Q implies P, and 'P is sufficient for Q' means P implies Q.

Answer: (C) Booker Prize is for the books written in English while 'International Booker Prize' is for the books written in other languages and translated in English.

The Booker Prize (established 1969) goes each year to the best novel written in English and published in the UK or Ireland; David Szalay won it in 2025 for 'Flesh'. The International Booker Prize (started 2005; in its present annual form since 2016) goes to a work of fiction translated into English, and its prize money is shared equally between author and translator; in 2025 it went to 'Heart Lamp', short stories by the Kannada writer Banu Mushtaq translated by Deepa Bhasthi, the first Kannada work and the first short-story collection to win. Geetanjali Shree's 'Tomb of Sand' (translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell) won it in 2022. Indian winners of the Booker Prize: Arundhati Roy (1997), Kiran Desai (2006) and Aravind Adiga (2008). Options A, B and D are baseless.

Answer: (C) Ratio of Non-working Age Population to Working Age Population.

The dependency ratio is the number of dependants, children aged 0-14 and the elderly aged 65 and above, per 100 persons of working age (15-64): $\frac{\text{population aged 0-14} + \text{population aged 65+}}{\text{population aged 15-64}} \times 100$. It can be split into the young (child) and old-age dependency ratios. A falling ratio means a growing share of workers, the 'demographic dividend' that India is currently experiencing, while ageing societies such as Japan have a rising old-age ratio. Options A, B and D describe import intensity, the share of FDI in investment and the size of government spending, which are unrelated economic ratios.

Answer: (D) 6

The rows form an arithmetic progression with common difference 3. If the front (largest) row has $a$ children and there are $n$ rows, the total is $na - \frac{3n(n-1)}{2} = 630$, so $a = \frac{630}{n} + \frac{3(n-1)}{2}$, which must be a whole number. For $n = 3$, $a = 213$; for $n = 4$, $a = 162$; for $n = 5$, $a = 132$; but for $n = 6$, $a = 105 + 7.5 = 112.5$, which is impossible. Check for $n = 5$: $132 + 129 + 126 + 123 + 120 = 630$. Shortcut: with an odd number of rows the middle row equals the average ($\frac{630}{n}$), so $n$ need only divide 630; with an even number of rows the average must end in .5, which fails for 6 ($\frac{630}{6} = 105$).

Answer: (D) All persons with high education has good earnings.

The statement has the form 'if P then Q' (highly educated implies earns well). Option D, 'all highly educated persons have good earnings', is the same statement in other words, so it must be true. Options A and C are the converse ('if Q then P'), the error called affirming the consequent, since a person may earn well without being highly educated. Option B is the inverse ('if not P then not Q'), which also does not follow. The only other statement that is logically equivalent to the original is its contrapositive: 'a person who does not earn well is not highly educated'.