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: (C) the
‘All the students of this school’ is a definite group, known to both speaker and listener, so it takes the definite article ‘the’.
Correct answer: (B) an
‘Actress’ begins with a vowel sound, so it takes ‘an’. The article is chosen by the sound of the word, not by its letter.
Correct answer: (A) Bay of Bengal
The Godavari and the Ganga are rivers, while the Bay of Bengal is part of the sea. So the one that is not a river is the Bay of Bengal.
Correct answer: (D) More than one of the above
Correct answer: (B) Friday
If today is Sunday, yesterday was Saturday and the day before that Friday. ‘The day before yesterday’ means two days back, so the answer is Friday.
Correct answer: (E) None of the above
November comes after October. None of the options—September, December or January—is October, so the answer is ‘None of the above’.
Correct answer: (C) brother-in-law
The husband's brother is called a brother-in-law in English. Relations made by marriage take ‘in-law’ in English.
Correct answer: (B) maternal grandparents
A mother's parents are called maternal grandparents in English; a father's parents are paternal grandparents.
Correct answer: (B) Overwhelmed
‘झुकाव’ carries the suffix ‘आव’ and ‘उल्लेखनीय’ the suffix ‘ईय’. ‘भावविह्वल’ has no suffix—it is a compound of ‘भाव’ and ‘विह्वल’.
Correct answer: (C) Language is a means of expressing thoughts or feelings
Language is the means by which a person conveys thoughts and feelings to others and understands theirs. A script is only a way of writing language down, not the language itself.
Correct answer: (A) Two
By the time taken to say them, Hindi vowels are mainly of two kinds—short (अ, इ, उ) and long (आ, ई, ऊ). A third kind, प्लुत, survives in Sanskrit but is not current in modern Hindi.
Correct answer: (A) अ
Vowels taking the least time to pronounce are short—अ, इ, उ, ऋ. ‘आ’ and ‘ई’ are long vowels, taking about twice as long.
Correct answer: (C) Eight
By place of articulation consonants fall into eight groups—guttural, palatal, retroflex, dental, labial, labio-dental, gutturo-palatal and gutturo-labial.
Correct answer: (B) च
Sounds made with little breath are unaspirated—the first, third and fifth letter of each group. ‘च’ is the first of its group and so is unaspirated; ‘ख’ and ‘छ’ are aspirated.
Correct answer: (D) More than one of the above
Sounds made with the vocal cords vibrating are voiced—the third, fourth and fifth letter of each group. ‘ग’, ‘ज’ and ‘ध’ are all voiced, so more than one option is correct.
Correct answer: (D) More than one of the above
The twenty-five consonants from ‘क’ to ‘म’ are stops, because the tongue touches some part of the mouth to make them. ‘प’, ‘फ’ and ‘म’ all belong to the प group, so all three are stops.
Correct answer: (B) आग्नेय
'अग्नि' से बना विशेषण 'आग्नेय' है, जैसे आग्नेय अस्त्र, आग्नेय चट्टान। 'आग्नेयी' स्त्रीलिंग रूप है और 'आग्निक' प्रचलित शब्द नहीं है।
Correct answer: (C) र
‘र’ is made with the tongue vibrating, which is what a trill is. ‘श’ and ‘स’ are fricatives.
Correct answer: (D) More than one of the above
‘य’ and ‘व’ are semivowels, pronounced between a vowel and a consonant. ‘ड़’ is a flapped consonant. Two options being correct, the answer is ‘More than one of the above’.
Correct answer: (D) More than one of the above
The च group contains च, छ, ज, झ and ञ. Of the options ‘छ’, ‘ज’ and ‘झ’ all belong to it, so more than one is correct.
Correct answer: (B) (ख) and (ग)
‘विहंग’ and ‘खग’ both mean bird, so they are the synonymous pair. ‘केकी’ means peacock and ‘पिक’ means cuckoo.
Correct answer: (D) More than one of the above
Correct answer: (E) None of the above
Correct answer: (A) Clause
By structure a sentence is simple, compound or complex. A clause is not a type of sentence but a part sitting inside a complex one.
Correct answer: (A) Diminutive words
Words conveying smallness or insignificance are diminutives—डिबिया, लुटिया, पहाड़ी. A word with one meaning is एकार्थी and one with several is अनेकार्थी.
Correct answer: (C) Uninvited
The single word for one who has not been invited is ‘अनाहूत’ (uninvited). ‘अनासक्त’ means detached and ‘अदेय’ means not to be given.
Correct answer: (B) Quantitative
An adjective giving the measure or quantity of a noun is quantitative—‘a little milk’, ‘two kilos of rice’. One that gives a count is numeral.
Correct answer: (A) रूढ़ word
A word whose parts yield no meaning when separated is रूढ़. The ‘ज’ and ‘ल’ of ‘जल’ mean nothing on their own, so it is a रूढ़ word.
Correct answer: (D) More than one of the above
A quantitative (मात्रिक) metre is one whose syllabic instants are counted—दोहा and सोरठा are both of this kind. इन्द्रवज्रा counts letters instead, so more than one option is correct.
Correct answer: (A) Metaphor
Rama is called ‘बाल पतंग’, the rising sun, outright—the image is imposed on the subject with no separation between them, which is metaphor (रूपक). A simile would keep a comparing word such as ‘सा’ or ‘सम’.
Correct answer: (A) ₹850, ₹125
Take the price of a bat as b and of a ball as c: 5b + 18c = 6500 and 2b + 20c = 4200. Test the options—with b = 850 and c = 125, 4250 + 2250 = 6500 and 1700 + 2500 = 4200, so both equations hold.
Correct answer: (B) 33.33%
Profit = 820 − 615 = ₹205. Profit per cent is worked on the cost price: (205 ÷ 615) × 100 = 1/3 × 100 = 33·33%.
Correct answer: (C) 720
Correct answer: (C) 7 cm
Let the third side be x and use Heron's formula. With x = 9 cm the semi-perimeter is s = 13, and the area = √(13 × 5 × 4 × 4) = 12√5 cm², which matches the condition given.
Correct answer: (A) 56.5
Each number was subtracted from 53, so the mean of the new values is 53 − (mean of the original numbers). That is given as −3·5, so 53 − mean = −3·5, and the original mean is 56·5.
Correct answer: (A) 24, 18
Take the ages as 4x and 3x. The elder is 6 years older, so 4x − 3x = x = 6. The ages are therefore 4 × 6 = 24 years and 3 × 6 = 18 years.
Correct answer: (B) 1/n
Each bracket is (1 − 1/n) = (n − 1)/n, so the product becomes (1/2) × (2/3) × (3/4) × … × ((n−1)/n). Every middle term cancels and only 1/n is left.
Correct answer: (A) x² − 3x − 4 = 0
A quadratic equation with roots α and β is (x − α)(x − β) = 0. Here the roots are −1 and 4, so (x + 1)(x − 4) = 0, that is x² − 3x − 4 = 0.
Correct answer: (A) L1
Aditya-L1 has been placed in a halo orbit about the L1 Lagrange point of the Sun–Earth system. From there the Sun can be watched continuously, with no eclipse in the way.
Correct answer: (B) it has nodes and internodes
Ginger has nodes and internodes, and on them scale leaves and buds as well—all marks of a stem. Storing food cannot be the test, since roots store food too.
Correct answer: (C) convex lens of fL > 10 cm
The focal length of a lens depends on the medium. Water has a higher refractive index than air, so the difference between the indices of the glass and the medium falls and the lens converges less strongly. It stays convex, but its focal length grows beyond 10 cm.
Correct answer: (B) most of the light is scattered to create apparent opacity
In fog the fine drops of water scatter the light in every direction, so the rays from an object do not reach us straight and distant things cannot be seen.
Correct answer: (A) Frequency
Correct answer: (C) c/137
In the ground state of the hydrogen atom the speed of the electron is c/137, where 1/137 is the fine structure constant.
Correct answer: (C) E/81
By Stefan's law the energy radiated by a blackbody is proportional to the fourth power of the temperature: E ∝ T⁴. Reducing the temperature to one third divides the energy by 3⁴ = 81, giving E/81.
Correct answer: (B) C₆H₈O₇
The purple colour of acidic KMnO₄ fades only when a reducing agent reduces it. Citric acid (C₆H₈O₇) is such a reducing agent, while acetic and propanoic acid do not reduce it under these conditions.
Correct answer: (B) Rabindranath Tagore
Correct answer: (A) Bimal Patel
The new Parliament building of India was designed by Bimal Patel, chief architect of the Central Vista redevelopment project.
Correct answer: (D) More than one of the above
At the 76th Cannes Film Festival in May 2023 both Anurag Kashyap's ‘Kennedy’ and Kanu Behl's ‘Agra’ were screened, so more than one option is correct.
Correct answer: (C) Comoros