SSC CHSL Tier 1 2016 General Awareness Questions with Solutions

Explanation

Cryogenics is the branch of physics and engineering that deals with the production and effects of very low temperatures. The term originates from the Greek words kryos, meaning frosty or cold, and genes, meaning born or producing. In scientific terms, cryogenics typically refers to temperatures below -150°C (123 K) or -238°F, where the physical properties of materials change significantly, allowing the study of phenomena like superconductivity and superfluidity.

Explanation

The Constitution of India, adopted on November 26, 1949, and brought into effect on January 26, 1950, originally contained 395 articles organized into 22 parts and 8 schedules. Subsequent amendments have added new articles using alphabetical suffixes, but the last numbered article of the Constitution of India remains Article 395.

Explanation

Article 31A of the Indian Constitution is located within Part III, which defines and governs the Fundamental Rights of Indian citizens. Inserted by the First Constitutional Amendment Act in 1951, this article provides immunity to certain classes of laws—such as those relating to the acquisition of estates or the takeover of property management—from being challenged on the grounds of violating fundamental rights, specifically those guaranteed under Article 14 and Article 19. By limiting the judicial review of these specific socio-economic reforms against fundamental rights, Article 31A directly shapes and regulates the scope of the fundamental rights of Indian citizens.

Explanation

Sachin Tendulkar's full name is Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. He was named after the legendary music director, Sachin Dev Burman, by his father, Ramesh Tendulkar, who was a well-known Marathi novelist and academician. In Maharashtra, it is a traditional practice to use the father's first name as one's middle name.

Explanation

Jhumpa Lahiri is the author of the novel "The Lowland," which was published in 2013. The story is a family drama set largely in Calcutta and Rhode Island, framed against the backdrop of the Naxalite movement in West Bengal during the late 1960s and 1970s. The book, which explores the lives of two brothers, Subhash and Udayan, received critical acclaim and was shortlisted for both the 2013 Man Booker Prize and the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction.

Explanation

The Group of Monuments at Pattadakal is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Karnataka, built during the 7th and 8th centuries CE under the patronage of the Chalukya dynasty, specifically the Badami Chalukyas. Serving as the primary site for royal coronation ceremonies (Pattadakisuvolal) for Chalukya kings, this complex features a cluster of Hindu and Jain temples. These structures represent a highly sophisticated and harmonious blend of northern Nagara and southern Dravidian styles of architecture. Key temples in this group, such as the Sangamesvara built by King Vijayaditya and the Virupaksha Temple built by Queen Lokamahadevi, are renowned masterpieces that demonstrate the artistic excellence of Chalukya temple architecture.

Explanation

At the 81st Academy Awards held in 2009, A. R. Rahman won two Oscars for his work on the movie "Slumdog Millionaire". He won in the category of Best Original Score for composing the film's background soundtrack. He also won a second Oscar in the category of Best Original Song for the track "Jai Ho", which he shared with lyricist Gulzar.

Explanation

The liver is the primary site of the urea cycle, where harmful ammonia is converted into urea. Therefore, blood leaving the liver via the hepatic vein to travel towards the heart has a higher concentration of urea than blood in other parts of the circulatory system.

Explanation

A bulb is a specialized underground storage structure that represents a highly condensed, reduced, disc-like stem. This modified stem bears a terminal bud and is surrounded by fleshy, scale-like leaves that store food and nutrients. Adventitious roots develop from the lower surface of this disc-like stem, while the shoot and foliage leaves emerge from the upper surface. Common examples of plants with bulbous stems include onions, garlic, and tulips.

Explanation

Arteries are muscular, thick-walled blood vessels that carry oxygenated blood, with the exception of the pulmonary artery, away from the heart to various tissues and organs throughout the body. Their elastic walls are specifically structured to withstand and sustain the high pressure of blood generated by the pumping action of the heart.

Explanation

Water is a covalent compound made up of hydrogen and oxygen atoms. Each water molecule contains two hydrogen atoms bonded to one oxygen atom, which is represented by the chemical formula H₂O.

Explanation

Aluminium has an atomic number of 13. Phosphorus, represented by the chemical symbol P, has an atomic number of 15. The atomic number of an element corresponds to the number of protons in its nucleus. Since Phosphorus has 15 protons in its nucleus, its atomic number is greater than that of Aluminium.

Explanation

Linux is an open-source operating system kernel originally developed by Linus Torvalds in 1991. It manages system hardware and resources, providing the foundational platform upon which other software programs and applications are executed, rather than being an application used for retrieving and presenting information resources on the World Wide Web.

Explanation

Dzongkha is the national and official language of the Kingdom of Bhutan. It belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family and is written using the Tibetan script, specifically in the Uchen style. The name Dzongkha literally translates to the language spoken in the dzongs, which are the fortress-like administrative and monastic centers situated across Bhutan.

Explanation

In a perfectly competitive market, individual firms are price takers because they are extremely small relative to the size of the overall market and sell identical products. Since no single firm has the market power to influence the prevailing market price, any firm can sell as much output as it wants at this market-determined price, but nothing at any higher price. Consequently, the demand curve faced by an individual firm is a horizontal line at the market price, which signifies that the demand is perfectly elastic.

Explanation

Neelam Sanjiva Reddy served as the Speaker of the Lok Sabha twice, including during the sixth Lok Sabha from March 1977 to July 1977. He resigned from the position of Speaker in July 1977 to contest the presidential election and went on to become the sixth President of India, serving from 1977 to 1982. He remains the only Lok Sabha Speaker to have been elected as the President of India.

Explanation

The Mariana Trench, located in the western Pacific Ocean, is the deepest oceanic trench on Earth. Its deepest known point is the Challenger Deep, which reaches a depth of approximately 10,994 meters below sea level. This depth is significantly greater than the height of Mount Everest, the world's tallest mountain. The trench was formed by the geological process of subduction, where the massive Pacific Plate is thrust beneath the smaller Mariana Plate.

Explanation

The Ten Degree Channel is a wide maritime passage in the Bay of Bengal that separates the Andaman Islands from the Nicobar Islands. It lies along the 10° N latitude line, specifically dividing Little Andaman in the north from Car Nicobar in the south. The channel has a width of approximately 150 kilometers.

Explanation

The Kalinga War was fought in 261 BC between the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka and the state of Kalinga, which was located in modern-day Odisha. This significant conflict took place in the eighth year of Ashoka's coronation. The immense bloodshed, loss of life, and suffering caused by the war deeply affected Ashoka, leading him to renounce military conquest. Following this war, he embraced Buddhism and adopted the policy of Dhamma-vijaya, focusing on peaceful propagation and righteousness instead of expansion through violence.

Explanation

Tipu Sultan ruled the Kingdom of Mysore from 1782 until his death in 1799. He is widely celebrated for his fierce resistance against the British East India Company during the Anglo-Mysore Wars. He famously adopted the tiger as his personal emblem, incorporating its motifs into his military uniforms, weapons, coins, and royal throne. The title Sher-e-Mysore, which is commonly translated as the Tiger of Mysore or the Lion of Mysore, reflects his bravery, military prowess, and refusal to submit to British colonial rule.

Explanation

Josephine Cochrane invented the first commercially successful hand-powered dishwasher in 1886. Driven by the desire to wash her fine china faster and without chipping it, she designed a machine that used high water pressure instead of scrubbers to clean dishes. She received a patent for her invention on December 28, 1886, and constructed the machine with the help of mechanic George Butters. She went on to showcase her invention at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where she won the highest award for mechanical construction. She later founded the Garis-Cochran Dish-Washing Machine Company, which eventually evolved into the well-known appliance brand KitchenAid.

Explanation

Faraday's Law of Electromagnetic Induction states that the magnitude of the induced electromotive force (e.m.f.) in a conductor is directly proportional to the rate of change of magnetic flux linkage over time.

Mathematically, Faraday's law is represented as:

E = -N (dΦ / dt)

In this formula, E is the induced electromotive force, N represents the number of turns in the coil, and dΦ / dt is the rate of change of magnetic flux linkage. When a conductor moves relative to a magnetic field, it cuts through the magnetic flux lines. The rate at which these flux lines are cut directly determines the magnitude of the electrical potential difference generated across the conductor.

Explanation

Rotational equilibrium of a rigid body or system is defined as the state in which the vector sum of all external torques acting on the system is zero. Mathematically, this is expressed as ∑τ = 0. According to Newton's second law of rotation, the net torque is equal to the product of the moment of inertia and the angular acceleration, expressed as τ = Iα. When the net torque is zero, the angular acceleration of the system is also zero (α = 0). Consequently, the body either remains at rest or continues to rotate at a constant angular velocity.

Explanation

The original handwritten copies of the 1950 Constitution of India, written in both Hindi and English, are preserved in the library of the Parliament House in New Delhi. To protect the delicate parchment sheets and ink from environmental damage, humidity, and oxidation, the historical documents are kept inside specially designed, hermetically sealed, helium-filled glass cases. This preservation technology maintains a controlled micro-environment that prevents the degradation of the paper over time.

Explanation

Article 231 of the Indian Constitution, which empowers Parliament to establish a common High Court for two or more States, is located within Part VI of the Indian Constitution. Part VI, spanning Articles 152 to 237, is titled The States and specifically governs the structure, organs, and administration of the State Government. This includes the state executive, the state legislature, and the state judiciary consisting of the High Courts and subordinate courts. Since Article 231 is situated in Chapter V of Part VI dealing with High Courts in the States, it falls under the constitutional provisions concerning the State Government.

Explanation

The first official cricket Test match was played from March 15 to March 19, 1877, between Australia and England at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Australia. The match resulted in a victory for Australia by 45 runs, and Australian batsman Charles Bannerman scored the first-ever century in Test cricket history during this match.

Explanation

Our Impossible Love is a popular romance novel written by the bestselling Indian author Durjoy Datta, published in January 2016. The book follows the story of its main characters, Aisha Paul and Danish Roy, exploring themes of personal growth, self-discovery, relationships, and the complexities of finding love.

Explanation

The Nanda Devi and Valley of Flowers National Parks, situated in the high-altitude West Himalayan region of Uttarakhand, form a UNESCO World Heritage site. This unique biodiverse transition zone between the Zanskar and Great Himalayan ranges provides an ideal habitat for several rare and endangered mountain wildlife species. Among these, the Asiatic black bear and the snow leopard are two prominent key species found in this protected area, alongside others like the Himalayan brown bear, musk deer, and blue sheep.

Explanation

Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 in recognition of her decade-long efforts to help suffering humanity. As the founder of the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata, she dedicated her life to serving the poorest of the poor, the homeless, the sick, and the dying. The Nobel Committee honored her work for bringing help to suffering humanity, emphasizing that her self-sacrificing humanitarian efforts and respect for the individual worth of every human being contributed significantly to the promotion of peace and brotherhood among nations.

Explanation

BCG, which stands for Bacillus Calmette-Guérin, is a vaccine primarily used against tuberculosis (TB). It is prepared from an attenuated live strain of Mycobacterium bovis, a bacterium closely related to Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which causes tuberculosis in humans. The vaccine is typically administered to infants and young children in countries with a high prevalence of tuberculosis to protect them against severe forms of the disease, such as tuberculous meningitis and disseminated tuberculosis.

Explanation

Monocotyledonous plants, commonly referred to as monocots, are characterized by seeds containing a single cotyledon. A prominent morphological feature of monocots is the parallel arrangement of veins in their leaves, known as parallel venation. In this venation pattern, the veins run parallel to one another from the leaf base to the tip, rarely intersecting or forming a network. This trait is highly characteristic of monocot plants, such as grasses, maize, wheat, bamboo, banana, and lilies, and serves as a key identifying feature in angiosperm taxonomy.

Explanation

Tooth enamel is the hardest substance in the human body. It is a highly mineralized tissue consisting of approximately 96% inorganic material, which is primarily composed of crystalline calcium phosphate known as hydroxyapatite. This dense mineral structure provides tooth enamel with its remarkable hardness and strength, enabling it to protect the sensitive inner layers of the teeth and withstand the significant mechanical forces exerted during mastication.

Explanation

Ammonium sulfate is an inorganic salt formed by the combination of ammonium ions and sulfate ions. The ammonium ion (NH₄⁺) carries a charge of +1, while the sulfate ion (SO₄²⁻) carries a charge of -2. To achieve electrical neutrality in the ionic compound, two ammonium cations are required to balance the charge of a single sulfate anion. Criss-crossing these valencies yields the chemical formula (NH₄)₂SO₄.

Explanation

Galena is the natural mineral form of lead (II) sulfide, which has the chemical formula PbS. It serves as the primary and most abundant ore of lead, recognized by its distinct metallic luster, lead-gray color, and characteristic cubic crystal structure.

Explanation

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is the standard application-layer protocol used for transmitting electronic mail across internet protocol (IP) networks. Mail servers and message transfer agents use SMTP to send, receive, and relay outgoing mail messages. Originally defined in RFC 821 in 1982, it operates over Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and typically uses port 25 for communication. SMTP handles the process of moving email from one server to another until it reaches its destination.

Explanation

The surbahar is a plucked string instrument of the lute family used primarily in Hindustani classical music. Often described as a bass sitar, it features a much larger resonator gourd, a wider neck, and thicker metal strings, which collectively enable it to produce deep, resonant, and low-pitched tones ideal for playing slow melodic expansions.

Explanation

Gross Domestic Product using the expenditure approach is calculated using the formula:

GDP = C + I + G + (X - M)

Here, C is consumer spending equal to 900 million, I is business investment equal to180 million, G is government spending equal to 250 million, X is exports equal to85 million, and M is imports equal to 100 million.

Substituting these values into the formula:

GDP = 900 + 180 + 250 + (85 - 100) GDP = 1330 - 15 GDP = 1315 million

Explanation

An increase in demand shifts the entire demand curve to the right along a stable, upward-sloping supply curve. This shift creates a temporary shortage at the initial equilibrium price, as the quantity demanded now exceeds the quantity supplied. To resolve this shortage, buyers compete for the available goods, which bids up the market price. As the price rises, producers are incentivized to increase their quantity supplied. This process continues until a new equilibrium is reached at both a higher market price and a higher quantity traded.

Explanation

Escherichia coli, commonly abbreviated as E. coli, is a species of rod-shaped, Gram-negative bacteria belonging to the family Enterobacteriaceae. While most strains of E. coli are harmless and constitute a normal part of the healthy intestinal microflora of humans and warm-blooded animals, certain pathogenic strains produce dangerous toxins. For instance, Shiga toxin-producing E. coli strains can cause severe food-borne and water-borne illnesses characterized by diarrhea, abdominal cramps, and vomiting. Water-borne E. coli infections typically occur when water systems become contaminated with human or animal feces containing these pathogenic bacteria, which are then ingested through drinking or recreational contact.

Explanation

Absolute humidity represents the actual mass of water vapor present in a given volume of air, reflecting the precise moisture content of the atmosphere. It is directly measured as the partial pressure exerted solely by the water vapor molecules, which is referred to as vapor pressure and typically expressed in millibars or hectopascals. This measurement describes the exact amount of water vapor in the air sample without being relative to the air's temperature-dependent carrying capacity.

Explanation

Under Section 10(1) of the Income Tax Act, 1961, agricultural income earned in India is fully exempt from central income tax. Under the Constitution of India, the power to levy taxes on agricultural income is vested exclusively in the State governments under Entry 46 of the State List (List II), meaning the Central Government has no authority to tax it. Consequently, agricultural income does not form a source of tax revenue for the Union Government.

Explanation

Ranchi is the capital city of the Indian state of Jharkhand, which was formed on 15 November 2000 by carving out the southern region of Bihar. Known as the City of Waterfalls, Ranchi is a major political, commercial, and educational hub in eastern India, located on the southern part of the Chota Nagpur Plateau.

Explanation

Athens is the capital and largest city of Greece. It is one of the oldest named cities in the world, with a recorded history spanning over 3,400 years, and is globally recognized as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy.

Explanation

Denmark was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany in April 1940. Throughout World War II, Denmark maintained its status as an occupied country rather than a member of the military alliance of the Axis Powers. Although the Danish government initially adopted a policy of limited cooperation to protect its citizens and retain internal autonomy, rising civil unrest and sabotage led the German military to establish direct control in August 1943, after which the Danish resistance movement actively worked to aid the Allied cause.

Explanation

Raja Todar Mal served as the Finance Minister, known as the Diwan-i-Ashraf, in the court of Emperor Akbar. He was one of the Navaratnas (nine jewels) of Akbar's durbar. Todar Mal is highly celebrated for introducing the Dahsala system in 1580, which was a revolutionary land revenue and taxation system. Under this system, the revenue was calculated based on the average yield and prices of crops over the preceding ten years. He also standardized land measurement systems using the Jarib and reorganized the accounting and tax administration, which laid the financial foundation of the Mughal Empire.

Explanation

The lawnmower was invented by Edwin Beard Budding, an English engineer from Stroud, Gloucestershire, in 1830. He was granted a patent for his innovative device on August 31, 1830. Budding conceived the idea after observing a rotary cylinder mechanism, known as a napping machine, which was used in local textile mills to shear excess fibers and smooth out newly woven woollen cloth. He realized that a similar cylinder with helical blades could be adapted to cut grass evenly and efficiently, replacing the laborious use of scythes.

Explanation

The force F experienced by a current-carrying conductor of length L carrying a current I placed in a magnetic field of flux density B at an angle θ to the field is given by the relation:

F = B I L sin(θ)

When the wire is placed at right angles to the magnetic field, the angle θ is 90°, which makes sin(90°) equal to 1. Under this condition, the equation simplifies to:

F = B I L

By rearranging this formula to solve for B, we get:

B = F / (I L)

This defines magnetic flux density as the force acting per unit current per unit length of a conductor placed perpendicular to the magnetic field. The SI unit for magnetic flux density is the tesla (T), which is equivalent to newtons per ampere-meter (N/(A·m)).

Explanation

In pure rotational motion of a rigid body about a fixed line, every constituent particle of the body moves in a circular path. The planes of these circular paths are perpendicular to this line, and the centres of all these circles lie on this line. This straight line containing the centres of all the circular paths of the constituent particles is defined as the axis of rotation of the body.

Explanation

According to the Table of Precedence of India, which establishes the hierarchy and protocol of state and constitutional officials, the Office of the Vice President of India ranks second. The President of India occupies the first position as the head of state, while the Vice President holds the second most senior office and acts as the ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha.

Explanation

Article 187 of the Indian Constitution, which provisions for the Secretariat of State Legislature, is located in Part VI of the Constitution. Part VI of the Constitution, spanning from Article 152 to Article 237, deals comprehensively with the State Government, including the executive, the state legislature, and the state judiciary. Therefore, Article 187 is a constituent part of the constitutional provisions governing the State Government.