APPSC Group I · Past-year questions with answers

Option a: the Preamble secures to all citizens liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship. The Preamble resolves to secure to all its citizens 'LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship'. The list has five elements, and option a is the only choice that gives all five. Each of the other options leaves one out.

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The answer is (a), Tropical Moist Forests. Warm temperatures and heavy rain all year support the greatest number of plant and animal species. Tropical moist (rain) forests receive heavy rainfall and stay warm through the year, with no cold season to limit growth. This gives a long growing season and many layers of vegetation, from forest floor to canopy. These layers offer many different habitats (niches). As a result, tropical moist forests hold more species per area than any other terrestrial biome, even though they cover only a small part of Earth's land. Temperate forests, taiga, deserts and savannas have colder or drier conditions that support fewer species.

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Option b. The Constitution gives the Rajya Sabha no power to let State Legislatures make laws on Union List subjects. The Rajya Sabha has two special powers that protect the federal balance. Under Article 249, it can pass a resolution by a two-thirds majority of members present and voting, allowing Parliament to make laws on a State List subject in the national interest. Under Article 312, it can pass a similar resolution allowing Parliament to create a new All India Service. On a Money Bill (Article 109), it can only make recommendations and must return the Bill within 14 days. Nothing in the Constitution lets the Rajya Sabha hand Union List subjects to State Assemblies, so option b is not one of its powers.

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The answer is (c). A diode lets current flow in only one direction, so it is used as a rectifier to convert AC into DC. A semiconductor diode is a p-n junction. It conducts when forward biased and almost blocks current when reverse biased. With alternating current (AC), which keeps changing direction, the diode passes only one half of each cycle. This one-way output is direct current (DC), and the process is called rectification. Two or four diodes (full-wave and bridge rectifiers) use both halves of the cycle.

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Option c is correct. Jhansi, Satara and Nagpur were taken under the Doctrine of Lapse. Under the Doctrine of Lapse, Dalhousie annexed a state when its ruler died without a natural heir and the Company refused to accept an adopted son. Satara went in 1848, Jhansi in 1854 and Nagpur in 1854. Awadh was annexed in 1856 on the charge of misgovernment, not lapse. Sindh was conquered by force in 1843 under Charles Napier, in the Amirs' time.

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Option d: banks hold SLR in cash, gold and unencumbered approved securities. Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR) is the share of a bank's net demand and time liabilities that it must keep in safe, liquid form with itself. Under Section 24 of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, this can be held in cash, gold, or unencumbered investments in specified (approved) securities such as government securities. Priority sector loans are a separate lending target and are not liquid assets, so IV is wrong. The correct set is I, II and III.

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Option b: the Humboldt (Peru) Current is a cold current. The other three are warm currents. The Humboldt, or Peru, Current carries cold water from the Southern Ocean northwards along the west coast of South America, past Chile and Peru. Upwelling along this coast brings nutrient-rich water to the surface. The Agulhas Current (off south-east Africa), the Brazil Current (off eastern South America) and the Kuroshio Current (off Japan) are all warm currents. They flow poleward along the eastern coasts of continents, carrying water from the tropics.

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The answer is (b) Mahalanobis. His two-sector model (1953), developed into the four-sector model on which the Second Plan was based, put the weight on heavy and capital-goods industry. P. C. Mahalanobis, the statistician who founded the Indian Statistical Institute, built a growth model in 1953 that divided the economy into a capital-goods sector and a consumer-goods sector. He argued that raising the share of investment going to capital goods (steel, machinery, power) would build the capacity to produce more of everything later. He developed this into a four-sector model, which was the basis of the Second Five Year Plan (1956-61). That plan's stress on heavy industry is why the approach is called the Heavy Sector Strategy.

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The answer is (c): items I, II, III and V are in the Eleventh Schedule; slum improvement is in the Twelfth Schedule. The Eleventh Schedule lists 29 subjects for Panchayats. Libraries (item 20), markets and fairs (item 22), women and child development (item 25) and the public distribution system (item 28) are all in it. Slum improvement and upgradation is item 10 of the Twelfth Schedule, which lists the 18 functions of urban local bodies (Municipalities). So IV is the odd one out and option (c) is correct.

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Option a: Reprieve – IV, Respite – III, Remission – I, Commutation – II. Article 72 (President) and Article 161 (Governor) name several forms of clemency, each with its own meaning. A reprieve is a temporary stay of execution of a sentence, especially a death sentence, so that the convict can seek a pardon or commutation: IV. A respite is the award of a lesser sentence than the one originally passed, because of a special fact such as the physical disability of the convict or the pregnancy of a woman offender: III. Remission reduces the amount of a sentence without changing its character, for example from two years' rigorous imprisonment to one year's rigorous imprisonment: I. Commutation substitutes a lighter form of punishment for the original one, for example death to rigorous imprisonment: II. The code is IV, III, I, II, which is option a.

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Option b. Statements I, II and III are correct. Statement IV is wrong because duns lie between the Lesser Himalaya and the Shiwaliks, not between the Greater and Lesser Himalaya. The Himalayas are young fold mountains formed by the collision of the Indian and Eurasian plates. They are about 400 km wide in Kashmir and narrow to about 150 km in Arunachal Pradesh. The Greater Himalaya (Himadri) has asymmetrical folds and a granite core. Duns are flat-floored longitudinal valleys between the Lesser Himalaya (Himachal) and the outer Shiwaliks, for example Dehradun, Kotli Dun and Patli Dun. Statement IV places them in the wrong belt.

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Option (d): all three events took place while Lord Irwin was Viceroy (April 1926 to April 1931). Lord Irwin was Viceroy of India from April 1926 to April 1931. The Simon Commission arrived in India in February 1928. The Lahore session of the Congress passed the Purna Swaraj (complete independence) resolution in December 1929. Gandhi began the Dandi March on 12 March 1930. All three dates fall inside Irwin's term, so I, II and III are all correct.

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The answer is (c). The Vijayanagara rulers kept large stretches of cultivated land inside the fortified area, so the people could be fed during a long siege. The Vijayanagara capital was defended by several concentric lines of walls. Visitors' accounts, such as that of Abdur Razzaq (who visited in the 1440s), described seven lines of fortification, with cultivated fields, gardens and houses lying between the first, second and third walls. Because farmland lay inside the outer defences, the city could grow food even while an enemy army stayed outside. This is why the practice of including agricultural tracts within the fortified area is the one associated with protecting inhabitants from starvation during sieges.

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Option a: if P is true then Q and R are both true, and statement III then forbids S, so S must be false. Suppose P is true. By I, Q is true; by II, R is then true. Statement III says that if S is true, at least one of Q and R is false. With Q and R both true, S cannot be true (contrapositive of III), so S is false. Hence 'If P is true, then S is false' must hold. The other options reverse an implication or claim something the conditions do not force, and each can be refuted by an assignment that satisfies I, II and III.

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The answer is (b) 63. The mean of the first five terms is the 3rd term (59), and the mean of all nine is the 5th term, two steps of 2 higher. Consecutive odd numbers differ by 2, so they form an arithmetic progression. The mean of any odd count of evenly spaced terms is the middle term. For the first five terms the middle is the 3rd term, so the 3rd term is 59. The terms are then 55, 57, 59, 61, 63, 65, 67, 69, 71 (all two-digit odd numbers). Check: the first five (55 to 63) sum to 295, and 295 / 5 = 59. For all nine terms the middle one is the 5th term, which is 63. Check by sum: 55 + 57 + 59 + 61 + 63 + 65 + 67 + 69 + 71 = 567, and 567 / 9 = 63. Shortcut: the 5th term is two steps of 2 above the 3rd, so 59 + 4 = 63.

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The answer is (b). Shifting central transfers from grants to tax devolution raises the share of unconditional (untied) transfers to States. Tax devolution is a share of the divisible pool of central taxes that goes to States under Article 270, as recommended by the Finance Commission under Article 280. States can spend it as they choose, so it is an unconditional transfer. Grants, by contrast, are often tied to a scheme or purpose. The Fourteenth Finance Commission raised States' share of the divisible pool from 32% to 42%. When the mix moves from grants towards devolution, the untied share of total transfers rises. That is exactly option b.

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Option a: Samudragupta, Chandragupta II, Kumaragupta I, Skandagupta, which is (iii), (i), (iv), (ii). These four rulers succeeded one another in this order. Samudragupta reigned c. 335–375 CE, his son Chandragupta II c. 375–415, Chandragupta II's son Kumaragupta I c. 415–455, and Kumaragupta I's son Skandagupta c. 455–467. Written with the code numbers this is (iii), (i), (iv), (ii), which is option a.

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The incorrect statement is (d). The black soil region of the Deccan is suitable for wheat. Wheat is the second most important cereal in India after rice. It is a rabi crop sown in winter and needs a cool growing season with a warm, dry harvest period. Its main belt is the Ganga-Satluj plains in the north-west, and the black soil region of the Deccan is the second major wheat zone. So saying black soil is not suitable for wheat is wrong. The other three statements are correct.

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The answer is (b). The National Action Plan on Climate Change (2008) set up eight national missions. The National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) was released on 30 June 2008 by the Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change. It set up eight national missions: the National Solar Mission, National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency, National Mission on Sustainable Habitat, National Water Mission, National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem, National Mission for a Green India, National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture, and National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change.

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The answer is (a) calcium sulphate. Sulphates (and chlorides) of calcium and magnesium stay dissolved on boiling, so they cause permanent hardness. Hard water contains dissolved calcium and magnesium salts, which form a scum with soap. Temporary hardness comes from their bicarbonates, which boiling turns into insoluble calcium carbonate or magnesium hydroxide: Ca(HCO3)2 gives CaCO3 + H2O + CO2, and Mg(HCO3)2 gives Mg(OH)2 + 2CO2. Permanent hardness comes from the chlorides and sulphates of calcium and magnesium. These do not break down on boiling, so boiling cannot remove them. Calcium sulphate is the one such salt among the options.

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