GS: Hindi / English · Language questions stay in their original language.
150 questions · 150 marks · 2 hours 30 minutes
Choose one option per question.
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Correct answer: (B) a
The sentence speaks of some unspecified month, so it needs the indefinite article. ‘Month’ begins with a consonant sound, so it takes ‘a’—‘a month’.
Correct answer: (B) an
‘Engineer’ begins with a vowel sound, so it takes ‘an’—‘an engineer’. The article is chosen by sound, not by letter.
Correct answer: (D) More than one of the above
A pillow, a table lamp and curtains all belong to a bedroom, so more than one option is correct.
Correct answer: (D) More than one of the above
A window, a ceiling and a floor are all parts of a room, so no single option can be picked. When more than one of the choices is right, ‘More than one of the above’ is the answer.
Correct answer: (A) winter
The seasons run summer, rainy, autumn and then winter. Winter follows the rains directly, so the answer is ‘winter’. Spring comes after winter, and summer before the rains.
Correct answer: (E) None of the above
The eighth month of the year is August—counting from January, July is seventh and August eighth. August is not among the options, so the answer is ‘None of the above’.
Correct answer: (D) More than one of the above
In English ‘sister-in-law’ covers all three relations—the husband's sister, the wife's sister and the brother's wife. All three being right, the answer is ‘More than one of the above’.
Correct answer: (D) More than one of the above
Cousins are the children of one's uncles and aunts on either side—maternal as well as paternal. One's own brothers and sisters are siblings, not cousins, so two of the options are right.
Correct answer: (A) Material noun
A material noun names something that is measured rather than counted—silver, gold, milk, oil. Silver is one of these, so it is a material noun.
Correct answer: (B) Shadow
‘हस्ताक्षर’ and ‘आँसू’ are always plural in Hindi, while ‘छाया’ is singular. So the singular word is ‘छाया’, shadow.
Correct answer: (C) After क
In a Hindi dictionary ‘क्ष’ is treated not as a separate conjunct but as क् + ष, and so is placed within the ‘क’ group—its order falls after ‘क’.
Correct answer: (B) Relative
‘Whom’ and ‘the person’ tie the two clauses together. A pronoun that makes that link is a relative pronoun.
Correct answer: (A) Non-pronominal adjective
Adjectives have four principal types—qualitative, quantitative, numeral and pronominal. There is no type called ‘non-pronominal’.
Correct answer: (A) वीभत्स
The correct spelling is ‘बीभत्स’, not ‘वीभत्स’. ‘लगान’ and ‘आगामी’ are both correct, so the misspelt word is the first.
Correct answer: (A) क्षत्रिय
‘क्षत्रिय’ and ‘उज्ज्वल’ are both correctly spelt; only ‘क्षत्रीय’ is wrong. Since more than one option is correct, that is the answer.
Correct answer: (B) स्नेह
A tatsama word is one that has come into Hindi from Sanskrit unchanged. ‘स्नेह’ is the Sanskrit form itself, while ‘घर’ (from गृह) and ‘छेद’ (from छिद्र) changed on the way and are therefore tadbhava.
Correct answer: (C) चाय
‘बाघ’ is a tadbhava word and ‘परीक्षा’ a tatsama one. ‘चाय’ came into Hindi from Chinese, so it is the word of foreign origin.
Correct answer: (A) रूढ़ (non-derived)
Hindi classifies words three ways by formation. A word whose parts carry no meaning of their own is रूढ़, such as ‘नाक’ or ‘घर’. A word built from two meaningful words is यौगिक, and one whose combination has settled into a special sense is योगरूढ़.
Correct answer: (B) The girl feels shy.
An intransitive verb needs no object; its action stops with the doer. In ‘बालिका लजाती है’ the shyness rests on the girl alone. The other sentences carry objects—in ‘गागर भरता है’, गागर is the object.
Correct answer: (C) परवल
A deshaj word belongs to no outside language family but grew out of local speech. ‘परवल’ is such a word, whereas ‘आवारा’ came from Persian.
Correct answer: (D) More than one of the above
A रूढ़ word is one whose parts yield no meaning when separated. ‘जलधारा’ (जल + धारा) and ‘महर्षि’ (महा + ऋषि) are both compounds, not रूढ़, so more than one option is correct.
Correct answer: (A) Arabic
‘खारिज’ came into Hindi from Arabic and means to reject or dismiss. Court and administrative vocabulary carries many such Arabic and Persian words.
Correct answer: (E) None of the above
Correct answer: (A) उज्ज्वल
The correct spelling is ‘उज्ज्वल’, with ‘व’ following the conjunct ज्ज. ‘उज्वल’ and ‘उज्जवल’ are both common but incorrect.
Correct answer: (A) Cursor
The small blinking mark on a screen showing where the next character will appear is the cursor. A chip is an electronic component, and a command is an instruction given to the computer.
Correct answer: (E) None of the above
‘Kurukshetra’ was written by Ramdhari Singh ‘Dinkar’. All three names given—Hariaudh, Shridhar Pathak and Maithilisharan Gupt—are wrong, so the answer is ‘None of the above’.
Correct answer: (C) Parental affection
Yashoda is rocking Krishna in his cradle and fondling him—a mother's love for her child, which is vātsalya rasa.
Correct answer: (C) 1000 CE
Hindi is taken to have emerged from Apabhramsha around 1000 CE, after which come the Adikal, Bhaktikal, Ritikal and modern periods.
Correct answer: (B) धीरोदात्त
Indian poetics recognises four kinds of hero. One who is forgiving, serious, composed, self-respecting and resolute is धीरोदात्त—Rama, for instance. धीरललित is pleasure-loving and धीरप्रशांत quiet by nature.
Correct answer: (C) Uninflected
Words untouched by gender, number or case are called अविकारी, the indeclinables. The declinable kinds—noun, pronoun, adjective and verb—do change with them.
Correct answer: (C) 6 meters
Correct answer: (B) Every integer is a whole number.
Correct answer: (C) 23
The average of consecutive numbers is always the middle one. With seven numbers averaging 20, the fourth is 20 and the numbers are 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. The largest is 23.
Correct answer: (B) b² − 4ac > 0
The nature of the roots of a quadratic is settled by the discriminant D = b² − 4ac. If D > 0 there are two distinct real roots, if D = 0 the roots are equal, and if D < 0 there are no real roots.
Correct answer: (B) 11 days
Correct answer: (D) More than one of the above
X = a² − b² = (a + b)(a − b), and a + b = 15, so X = 15(a − b). If a = b then X = 0, which is less than Y = 30—so the first statement holds. In that same case Y > X holds too—so the third does as well. The second is not always true, since even with a > b, a − b = 1 gives X = 15 < 30. More than one statement being correct, that is the answer.
Correct answer: (A) 1/7
An ordinary year has 365 days—52 full weeks and 1 day over. A 53rd Sunday comes only if that odd day is a Sunday, and it may be any one of the seven days. So the probability is 1/7.
Correct answer: (A) 3
Write 49 as 7², so the right-hand side becomes 7^(2(3x+12)) = 7^(6x+24). With the bases equal the exponents match: 12x + 6 = 6x + 24, giving 6x = 18 and x = 3.
Correct answer: (A) distant objects clearly
In myopia, short-sightedness, the image of a distant object forms in front of the retina, so far things look blurred while near ones are clear. It is corrected with a concave lens.
Correct answer: (C) genetics
Heredity is the passing of characters from parent to offspring, and the study of it is genetics. Anatomy studies structure, and meiosis is a cellular process.
Correct answer: (B) zinc is more reactive than tin
Zinc stands above tin in the reactivity series, that is, it is the more reactive. A coating of zinc would react with the acids in the food and spoil it, so the less reactive tin is used instead.
Correct answer: (B) reduction
In photosynthesis hydrogen is added to carbon dioxide to make carbohydrate. Adding hydrogen, or removing oxygen, is reduction—so this is a reduction reaction.
Correct answer: (C) dots per inch
The printing quality of a printer is measured in dots per inch (dpi)—the more dots printed in an inch, the sharper the image.
Correct answer: (C) eyes
Trachoma is an infectious disease of the eyes, caused by the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis. Left untreated it can lead to blindness.
Correct answer: (D) More than one of the above
In archery the string pushes the bow back while the arrow goes forward; in a space rocket the gas goes backward and the rocket forward—both are examples of Newton's third law, action and reaction. A venturimeter works on Bernoulli's principle. So more than one option is correct.
Correct answer: (A) neutrons
Correct answer: (B) Martin Grasser
Correct answer: (A) Christopher Nolan
Correct answer: (C) Victoria, Australia
Correct answer: (A) Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance