April 04 2024 Prelims Practice Questions (PPQs)

Correct

Explanation

Statement 1 is correct

• A tornado is a land-based vertical column of violently rotating air that forms from a thunderstorm to the ground.
• According to the National Weather Service (NWS) of the United States, it can have wind speeds in the range of 105-322 kilometres per hour.
• Tornadoes require warm, humid air and a triggering rotation. When cool northeast winds intersect with warm, moist ocean air, tornadoes can form.

Statement 2 is incorrect

• Tornadoes are the most common in the United States, Argentina and Bangladesh.
• The weak background winds during the pre-monsoon season, allow tornadoes to persist and lower speeds of vertical winds, which allow them to grow.
• In India, there is no official monitoring of tornadoes.

Statement 3 is correct

• The system itself can be stationary or can move at a speed of around 97 km/hr.
• These extreme storms are rare in India and have mostly been reported in the eastern states of West Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand during the pre-monsoon period.
• There is also evidence of some of them having formed in northwest India as well.

Answer: (a) Only one; Difficulty Level: Medium

Correct

Explanation

Statement 1 is correct

• Sea of Japan is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean.
• It is located in Eastern Asia and is bounded by Japan and Sakhalin Island to the east and by Russia and Korea on the Asian mainland to the west.

  

• The sea itself lies in a deep basin, separated from the East China Sea to the south by the Tsushima and Korea straits and from the Sea of Okhotsk to the north by the La Perouse and Tatar straits.
• To the east, it is also connected to the Inland Sea of Japan by the Kanmon Strait, and to the Pacific by the Tsugaru Strait.
• It influences the climate of Japan because of its relatively warm waters.
• It serves as the meeting point of the cold currents from the north and the warm currents from the south.

Statement 2 is incorrect

• Mauna Loa is the largest active volcano on the planet.
• Meaning “long mountain” in Hawaiian, it is the quintessential shield volcano in its shape, signified by broad, rounded slopes.
• The volcano makes up roughly 51% of Hawaiʻi Island and stands 13,681 feet (4,170 m) above sea level.

Answer: (b) 2 only; Difficulty Level: Medium

Correct

Explanation

• Archaeologists excavated a site called Padta Bet, it was 1.5 km from the mass burial ground of Juna Khatiya, an Early Harappan necropolis.
• In 2018, archaeologists had unearthed a mass burial site with 500 graves on the outskirts of Khatiya village in Gujarat’s Kutch district.
• In the recent excavations, the finding of the skeleton, along with pottery artefacts and animal bones, from, nearby Padta Bet site, point to the presence of a 5,200-year-old Harappan settlement that was nearby the mass burial ground of Juna Khatiya, an Early Harappan necropolis (a cemetery, especially a large one belonging to an ancient city).
• The latest find supports the theory that the graveyard site may have served as a common facility for a cluster of several such smaller settlements.
• A network of such small Harappan settlements around the necropolis might have played a significant role in the cultural formation of Early Harappan and subsequent occupations in this arid area.

Answer: (c) Gujarat; Difficulty Level: Medium

Correct

Explanation

Statement 1 is correct

• Probing ReionizATion of the Universe using Signal from Hydrogen (PRATUSH) is a radio telescope to be sited on the moon’s far side.
• It will be able to detect signals from the first stars and galaxies, reveal the cosmic dawn of the universe, answering the question when the first stars formed, the nature of the first stars and what was the light from the first stars.
• It will carry a wideband frequency–independent antenna, a self-calibrating analog receiver and a digital correlator to catch radio noise in the all-important signal from the Dark Ages.

Statement 2 is correct

• It is being built by the Raman Research Institute (RRI) in Bengaluru with active collaboration from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
• Initially, ISRO will place PRATUSH into orbit around the earth. After some fine-tuning, the space agency will launch it moon wards.

Answer: (c) Both 1 and 2; Difficulty Level: Medium

Correct

Explanation

Statement I is correct

• A tidally locked planet is a fascinating celestial body where one side perpetually faces its parent star, while the other side remains in perpetual darkness.
• A tidally locked planet is a captivating world where perpetual day and night coexist, creating a unique environment ripe for scientific exploration and imaginative storytelling.
• The region directly facing the star is known as the sub-stellar point.
• Here, sunlight is intense and continuous, resulting in higher temperatures.
• Water on the day side may exist as vapor, while the night side could be frozen into ice.

Statement II is correct

• Tidal locking occurs due to gravitational interactions between the planet and its star.
• Over millions of years, these interactions slow down the planet’s rotation until it becomes tidally locked.
• As a result, the planet takes the same amount of time to spin once about its axis as it does to orbit once around its star.
• A tidally locked planet is like a cosmic Janus, with one face perpetually sunlit and the other shrouded in darkness.
• It presents a stark dichotomy: scorching heat on one side and frigid cold on the other.

Answer: (a) Both Statement-I and Statement-II are correct and Statement-II is the correct explanation for Statement-I; Difficulty Level: Medium

Correct

Explanation

Statement 1 is incorrect

• These are prokaryotic microorganisms that are capable of transforming nitrogen gas from the atmosphere into “fixed nitrogen” compounds, such as ammonia, that are usable by plants. The most common type of the prokaryotes is bacteria.
• Bacteria are prokaryotic and unicellular organisms.
• The cell wall of bacteria is made up of peptidoglycan layer, and they lack membrane-bound organelles.
• The bacterial cell has a simpler organisation of structure.

Statement 2 is correct

• There are two main types of nitrogen-fixing bacteria:
• Symbiotic or mutualistic: These species live in root nodules of certain plants. Plants of the pea family, known as legumes which are some of the most important hosts for nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
• For example, Rhizobium, which is associated with plants in the pea family and various Azospirillum species, which are associated with cereal grasses.
• Other nitrogen-fixing bacteria are free-living and do not require a host. They are commonly found in soil or in aquatic environments.
• For example, Cyanobacteria Anabaena and Nostoc and genera such as Azotobacter, Beijerinckia, and Clostridium.
• Recently, researchers have discovered nitrogen-fixing symbiotic organisms exhibiting behaviors similar to organelles.

Answer: (b) 2 only; Difficulty Level: Medium

Correct

Explanation

Statement 1 is correct

• The Ring of Fire is also referred to as the Circum-Pacific Belt.
• It is a path along the Pacific Ocean characterized by a string of hundreds of active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes.
• It is a semicircle or horse shoe in shape and stretches nearly 40,250 kilometres.
• The majority of Earth’s volcanoes and earthquakes take place along the Ring of Fire.
• It traces boundaries between several tectonic plates, including the Pacific, Juan de Fuca, Cocos, Indian–Australian, Nazca, North American, and Philippine Plates.

  

Statement 2 is incorrect

• Along much of the Ring of Fire, plates overlap at convergent boundaries called subduction zones.
• That is, the plate that is underneath is pushed down, or subducted, by the plate above.
• As rock is subducted, it melts and becomes magma.
• The abundance of magma so near to Earth’s surface gives rise to conditions ripe for volcanic activity.
• A significant exception is the border between the Pacific and North American Plates.
• This stretch of the Ring of Fire is a transform boundary, where plates move sideways past one another.
• This type of boundary generates a large number of earthquakes as tension in Earth’s crust builds up and is released.

  

Answer: (a) 1 Only; Difficulty Level: Medium

Correct

Explanation

• Israeli war jets attacked an Iranian consulate building in Damascus, Syria, killing at least 13 people, including General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, who was a senior leader of the Iranian Quds Force.
• IRCG – The Quds Force is the paramilitary and intelligence wing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG).
• Islamic Revolution – The IRCG was set up by the leader of the Islamic Revolution and Iran’s first Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1979.
• After the 1979 Islamic Revolution dislodged the ruling Shah from power, a theocratic state was established in Iran.
• For its protection, the IRCG was created to deal with both domestic and external threats.
• Parallel Force – IRCG remains a force parallel to that of Iran’s regular armed forces.
• It has army, naval, and air force wings, and its total membership numbers around 125,000.
• In 2019, the United States designated the IRGC (and the Quds Force as part of it) a terrorist organisation.
• Role – The Quds forces are a specialized unit within the IRGC responsible for carrying out unconventional warfare and extraterritorial operations.
• The IRGC is also involved particularly in supporting proxy groups and conducting intelligence activities abroad.

Answer: (c) Iran; Difficulty level: Medium

Correct

Explanation

• Articles (324-329) in Part XV of the Constitution deals with Election.
• The Election Commission of India is a three-member body, with one Chief Election Commissioner and two Election Commissioners.
• The President of India appoints the Chief Election Commissioner and the Election Commissioners.
• The Selection Committee, chaired by the prime minister, leader of the opposition and a Union Minister nominated by the Prime Minister make recommendations to the President for appointment of CEC and other ECs.
• They are appointed with a majority vote of Prime Minister and a Minister chosen by him in the selection committee.
• The Chief Election Commissioner and the two other Election Commissioners have equal powers and in any case of difference of opinion, the matter is decided by the Commission by majority.
• The Constitution has not prescribed the qualifications (legal, educational, administrative or judicial) of the members of the Election Commission.
• The Constitution has not specified the term of the members of the Election Commission.
• The Constitution has not debarred the retiring election commissioners from any further appointment by the government.

Answer: (a) A Search Committee, comprising the Prime minister, Leader of Opposition and a Union Minister nominated by Prime Minister, recommends the Election Commissioner; Difficulty level: Easy

Correct

Explanation

• Inflection-2.5 is an upgraded in-house model that is competitive with all the world’s leading Large Language Models like GPT-4 and Gemini.
• Inflection AI recently launched Inflection 2.5, an upgraded version of its language model powering Pi.
• Inflection-2.5 achieves competitive performance with GPT-4 while using 40% less computing power for training.
• It excels in IQ-oriented tasks, outperforming its predecessors and achieving significant milestones in areas like the Massive Multitask Language Understanding (MMLU) benchmark and Physics GRE.

• Pi Chatbot
  • Pi Chatbot is an AI chatbot developed by Inflection AI, designed to engage in deep and meaningful conversations with users.
  • It aims to be empathetic, helpful, and safe, offering a unique persona compared to other chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini.

Answer: (a) Upgraded in-house model that is competitive with all the world’s leading LLMs like GPT-4 and Gemini; Difficulty Level: Medium