GK & Language - 2018 - Paper-1

Seeds or fruits of some plants have spongy or fibrous outer coat. This helps them float on water. Thus, they can be dispersed by water to far away places. E.g. coconut

Beriberi is a non-communicable disease. Common cold, measles and chicken pox are communicable diseases. Beriberi is usually caused by poor diet or alcoholism. It is a disease caused by the deficiency of vitamin B-1, also known as thiamine deficiency.

The rabies virus is carried by dogs. Rabies is caused by a virus that affects the central nervous system, particularly causing inflammation in the brain. Domestic dogs, cats, and rabbits, and wild animals, such as skunks, raccoons, and bats, are able to transfer the virus to humans via bites and scratches.

Milk turning sour is a chemical change. A chemical change (chemical reaction) is a change of materials into other, new materials with different properties, and one or more new substances are formed. When milk is turned sour, it cannot be reversed back, as the properties of the milk change.

Soil erosion is defined as the wearing away of topsoil by the action of water or wind. Topsoil is the top layer of soil and is the most fertile because it contains the most organic, nutrient-rich materials. Therefore, this is the layer that farmers want to protect for growing their crops and ranchers want to protect for growing grasses for their cattle to graze on.

Whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals, walruses, and many other marine animals are mammals. Mammals are vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia, and characterised by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding their young, a neocortex, fur, or hair.

The working of the internal organs of our body is controlled by the nervous system. The human brain is the body's control centre, receiving and sending signals to other organs through the nervous system and through secreted hormones. The brain sends messages via the spinal cord to the body's peripheral nerves, which control the muscles and internal organs.

Fainting occurs when one's blood pressure suddenly drops, resulting in a decrease of blood flow to the brain. Oxygen deprivation to the brain has many possible causes, including hypotension, or low blood pressure.

The upward push of water on a floating object is called buoyant force. Because pressure increases as the depth increases, the pressure on the bottom of an object is always larger than the force on the top, hence the net upward force. The buoyant force is present whether the object floats or sinks.

The first artificial satellite launched by India in 1975 was Aryabhata. It was named after the famous Indian astronomer of the same name. It was launched by India on 19^th April, 1975, from Kapustin Yar, a Russian rocket launch and development site in Astrakhan Oblast, using a Kosmos-3M launch vehicle. It was built by the Indian Space Research Organisation.

Those who study earthquakes are called seismologists. Seismologists are Earth scientists, specialised in geophysics, who study the genesis and the propagation of seismic waves in geological materials. These geological materials can range from a laboratory sample to the Earth as a whole, from its surface to its core.

Oxygen is not a greenhouse gas. The primary greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. Oxygen is a clean gas because we need it to survive.

A globe is a spherical model of Earth, of some other celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve similar purposes to maps but, unlike maps, do not distort the surface that they portray except to scale it down. A globe of Earth is called a terrestrial globe.

Mountains have a thin soil cover. Therefore, agriculture cannot be practised on mountains on a large scale.
These regions are also thinly populated. This is due to an unsuitable climate, shortage of flat land, and difficulty in transportation; but these are not the reasons that agriculture is not practised on mountains on a large scale.

The condition of the atmosphere at a given place and time is called weather.
Weather is the state of the atmosphere at a given time and place, with respect to variables such as temperature, moisture, wind velocity, and barometric pressure.

The Highway of Central Africa is another name of River Congo.
River Congo is known as the Highway of Central Africa because the entire river is readily navigable. Central Africa is the core region of the African continent which includes Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda.

Most of the grasslands of the world are found in the temperate zone. Temperate grasslands are located north of the Tropic of Cancer (23.5 degrees North) and south of the Tropic of Capricorn (23.5 degrees South). The major temperate grasslands include the veldts of Africa, the pampas of South America, the steppes of Eurasia, and the plains of North America.

Any sound louder than 90 decibels can cause loss of hearing. Normal conversation is about 60 dB, a lawn mower is about 90 dB, and a loud rock concert is about 120 dB. In general, sounds above 85 dB are harmful, depending on how long and how often one is exposed to them and whether he wears any hearing protector, such as earplugs or earmuffs.

Aligarh Muslim University is associated with Syed Ahmad Khan. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan established the MAO College, which eventually became the Aligarh Muslim University. His objective was to build a college in line with the British education system but without compromising its Islamic values.

Syed Ahmad Taqvi bin Syed Muhammad Muttaqi KCSI, commonly known as Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, was an Indian Muslim pragmatist, Islamic reformist, and philosopher of the nineteenth century.

After getting a stronghold in India, the merchant rulers of the East India Company realised the necessity of dividing the ruled. The unceasing wave of mass struggle against the Company Raj proved the fact that Hindu-Muslim masses could raise together arms against foreign rulers. So from the very beginning, the British rulers became active to poison the society by its policy of 'divide and rule'. In fact, Hindu-Muslim rivalry or communal attitude to each other of both the communities was a deliberately created phenomenon. In other words, the Britishers wanted to suppress nationalism using this policy.

The Purna Swaraj declaration, or Declaration of the Independence of India, was promulgated by the Indian National Congress on 19^th December, 1929, resolving the Congress and Indian nationalists to fight for Purna Swaraj, or complete self-rule independent of the British Empire.

Maximum strength of the House is 552 members; 530 members to represent the States, 20 members to represent the Union Territories, and 2 members to be nominated by the President from the Anglo-Indian Community.

The League of Nations (abbreviated as SDN) was an intergovernmental organisation founded on 10^th January, 1920, as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. Its primary goals, as stated in its Covenant, included preventing wars through collective security and disarmament, and settling international disputes through negotiation and arbitration.

The world has been made smaller due to fast means of transport. The world is becoming smaller due to the advances in technology and transport. Many natural barriers divided the world before advances in transport were made; the barriers included seas, mountains, deserts, forests and jungles.

Internet has become the most important information source for those who use the Internet. It contains information on any topic, ranging from education to science and technology, and much more. There is so much information on the Internet that it can seem like a university library; it is actually more like a huge open-air market. However, judging the reliability of sources found on the Internet is crucial because there is no regulating body that monitors the reliability of what is on the Internet.

The passage mentions that Horace Denby was about fifty years old and unmarried.

It is mentioned in the passage that Horace Denby lived with a housekeeper, who worried over his health.

The passage states, ''Fifteen years ago, Horace had served his first and only sentence in prison for stealing jewels.''

The passage states, ''He made expensive locks and was successful enough at his business to have two helpers', which means he was a 'locksmith'.

''Expensive'' means ''costing a lot of money, or costly'', whereas ''cheap'' means ''low in price, or inexpensive''.

'Bachelor' means ''a man who is not and has never been married''.

A group of elephants is called 'a herd'.
A group of birds is called 'a flock'.

The sentence already mentions 'my', which means 'ours' and 'our' will be incorrect because 'our' includes 'my'.
Now, since there is no object after the blank, we will use 'yours', as we use 'your' before a noun and 'yours' in place of a noun.

The sentence has two subjects, which means plural form of verb (are) should be used.

'Have' is also the plural form of verb, but is used to show possession but the sentence is about their general state of being.

We do not use 'do' or 'does' with 'been'.
And since the subject is plural, 'have' must be used.

The subject is singular, which means we shall use 'verb + s'.
'verb + ing' is used with a helping verb, which is not there.

Options 2 and 3 make for a grammatically incorrect sentence.
Out of options 1 and 4, 4 is correct because the sentence mentions 'for three weeks', which means it is not continuing.

The sentence mentions 'these days', which hints at a continuing activity in the present, for which we use 'present continuous tense'.

We use 'as + adjective/adverb + as' to make comparisons when the things we are comparing are equal in some way.

The sentence contains 'the' right before the blank and 'the' is only used with the superlative degree of adjective.

Out of the given options, ''anonymous'' is the word which means ''not identified by name or of an unknown name''.

Out of the given options, ''theist'' is used to refer to a person who has a belief in the existence of the supreme being or God.

In a question tag, we use the same helping verb as in the original sentence. If the given sentence is assertive, we use negative form of helping verb and if the given sentence is negative, we use the helping verb in positive form.

The given sentence is negative and is in simple present tense. We use the same helping verb in the question tag as given in the sentence, which is 'does'.
If the given sentence is assertive, we use negative form of helping verb and if the given sentence is negative, we use the helping verb in positive form.

The given parts can be rearranged in sequence BADC to form the sentence: ''My grandma and grandpa love each other too much.''

The given parts can be rearranged in sequence CADB to form the sentence: ''My grandma was very pretty and beautiful in her childhood.''

The correct spelling is ''address'', which means ''the particulars of a place where someone lives or an organisation is situated''.

Plural form of 'book' is 'books', similarly plural form of 'ship' is 'ships'.

Plural form of 'kid' is 'kids', similarly plural form of 'child' is 'children'.