OPSC OAS Prelims Paper 1 Practice Test - 7 - OPSC OCS (Odisha) MCQ

MRPL was recognized with the Greentech Pollution Control Waste Management Award in the Circular Economy Leadership category for its exemplary hazardous waste management and achieving zero waste disposal to landfills. This award highlights the importance of sustainable waste management practices in the petrochemical industry, contributing to environmental conservation.

V. Vedachalam was honored with the V Venkayya Epigraphy Award for 2024, recognizing his significant contributions to the fields of epigraphy, numismatics, and temple art through his extensive research and publications. He has authored over 25 books and has had a notable career in archaeology.

The Central Water Commission was awarded the title of 'Water Department of the Year' at the Global Water Tech Summit 2024, recognizing its efforts in hydro-meteorological data collection, flood forecasting, and various initiatives aimed at improving water management in India.

Shah Rukh Khan was the first actor to receive customized gold coins featuring his likeness from the Grevin Museum in Paris. This honor reflects his significant contributions to cinema and his status as a global icon in the film industry.

The nomination titled 'Human Rights, Liberation Struggle and Reconciliation: Nelson Mandela Legacy Sites' was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List, emphasizing the historical significance of sites linked to Nelson Mandela and the broader struggle for human rights in South Africa.

The Indian Institute of Spices Research was awarded the best technology award for its innovative work in horticultural sciences, specifically for developing a process for instant soluble turmeric enriched spice-flavored milk powder, which has been commercialized successfully.

Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh was conferred the Lifetime Achievement Award at an international medical meet for his exemplary dedication to the advancement of diabetology, diabetes care, and research, highlighting the importance of leadership in medical fields.

The 'Floodwatch India' initiative is part of the CWC's efforts in hydro-meteorological data collection and flood forecasting, aimed at enhancing the country's preparedness for flood events and improving water resource management.

Rigoberta Menchú Tum was honored with the Gandhi Mandela Award 2020 on the occasion of Nelson Mandela's 106th birth anniversary, recognizing her lifelong advocacy for Indigenous rights and her contributions to promoting the values of Gandhi and Mandela in community service and social development.

The team from Nirma University clinched the title at the DD-Robocon India 2024 held in New Delhi. Their success at this national competition enables them to represent India at the international Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union Robocon 2024, showcasing their technical skills and teamwork.

Roshni Nadar Malhotra was awarded the Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur, France's highest civilian honor, acknowledging her contributions to business and her efforts to promote economic ties between France and India, highlighting the significance of cross-cultural collaboration.

The International Olympic Committee announced that Abhinav Bindra would receive the Olympic Order at an award ceremony held in Paris on August 10, recognizing his outstanding achievements as an Olympic gold medalist, marking him as only the second Indian to receive this prestigious honor.

• Sangam literature Some of the earliest works in Tamil, known as Sangam literature, were composed around 2300 years ago. These texts were called Sangam because they were supposed to have been composed and compiled in assemblies (known as sangams) of poets that were held in the city of Madurai.

• The period in which the Sangam literature was composed is called Sangam Age. The three kingdoms Chera, Chola and Pandya flourished during this period. There were three Sangams which created a literary movement. The Sangam literature consists of Tolkappiyam, Ettutogai, Pattuppattu, Pathinenkilkanakku and the two epics Silappathigaram and Manimegalai. Among these, the Tolkappiyam authored by Tolkappiyar was the earliest work which provides the information on Social, Economic and political conditions of the Sangam Age along with the Tamil grammar.

• It was composed in the second Sangam. The third Sangam created Patthupattu, (Ten Idylls or poetries), Ettuthokai (The eight Anthologies), Padinenkilkanakkyu (The Eight Minor Didactic Poems), the Rural and Jivaka Chintamani etc. The Sangam literature speaks of the worship of Vishnu, Siva and Indra.

• Abul Fazl’s Akbarnamah and Ain-e- Akbari are fine piece of literature. From there we get a good deal of information about Akbar and his times.

• Minhaj-us-Siraj was a historian who was patronized by Slave Sultan Nasir- ud-din Mahmud to whom he dedicated his magnum opus Tabaqat- i-Nasiri.

1. Kumbhandas

2. Surdas

3. Krishnadas (Shudra by caste)

4. Parmanand Das

5. Govindswami

6. Cheetswami

7. Nand Das

8. Chaturbhuj Das

The Viharas found in western India were found to be dug out in hills.

Enrich Your Learning: Viharas The monasteries build as a permanent shelter for monks (they used to travel for teachings) were known as Viharas. Many supporters of the monks and nuns, and monk themselves felt the need for more permanent shelters and so monasteries were built. The earliest Viharas were made of wood, and then of brick. Some of the Viharas were even in caves that were dug out in hills, especially in western India. The land on which the vihara was built was donated by a rich merchant or a landowner, or the king. The local people came with gifts of food, clothing and medicines for the monks and nuns. In return, they taught the people.

Example: Cave in Karle present in Maharashtra.

In 305 B.C., Chandragupta Maurya marched against Selukas Niketar, who was Alexander’s General controlling the north western India. Chandragupta Maurya defeated him and a treaty was signed. By this treaty, Selukas Niketar ceded the trans-Indus territories – namely Aria, Arakosia and Gedrosia – to the Mauryan Empire. He also gave his daughter in marriage to the Mauryan prince. Chandragupta made a gift of 500 elephants to Selukas. Chandragupta Maurya was the founder of the Mauryan Empire. He, at a young age, captured Pataliputra from the last ruler of the Nanda dynasty, Dhanananda. In this task, he was assisted by Kautilya, who was also known as Chanakya or Vishnugupta wherein the latter then became his most trusted advisor.

• Option (b) is correct: In 1757, Robert Clive led the Company’s army against Sirajuddaulah at Plassey. One of the main reasons for the defeat of the Nawab was that the forces led by Mir Jafar, one of Siraj Ud Daulah's commanders, never fought the battle. Clive had managed to secure his support by promising to make him nawab after crushing Siraj Ud Daulah. The Battle of Plassey became famous because it was the first major victory the Company won in India.

• Option (a) is incorrect: Warren Hastings served as a volunteer in Clive forces as they retook Calcutta in January 1757.

• Option (c) is incorrect: Lord William Bentinck served as Governor-General of India from 1828 to 1835. Option (d) is incorrect. Charles Cornwallis was appointed in February 1786 to serve as both Commander-in-Chief of British India and Governor of the Presidency of Fort William, also known as the Bengal Presidency

• Sri Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Movement, also known as Ezhava Movement was started by Sri Narayana Guru against the Brahmin dominance.

• He formed a programme of action known as the ‘SNDP Yogam’. The Yogam took up several issues, including the right of admission to public schools, recruitment to government employment, entry into temples, on roads and political represen­tation.

• Jotiba Phule was an Indian social activist, thinker, anti-caste social reformer and writer from Maharashtra. He fought for the cause of caste discrimination.

• He wrote ‘Gulamgiri’ and ‘Sarvajanik Satyadharma Pustak’.

• Nathaniel Halhed, Henry Thomas Colebrooke and Willam Jones together set up the ‘Asiatic Society of Bengal’, and started a journal called ‘Asiatick Researches’.

• William Jones arrived in Calcutta and had an appointment as a junior judge at the Supreme Court that the Company had set up. In addition to being an expert in law, Jones was a linguist.

• He had studied Greek and Latin at Oxford, knew French and English, had picked up Arabic from a friend, and had also learnt Persian. At Calcutta, he began spending many hours a day with pandits who taught him the subtleties of Sanskrit language, grammar and poetry. Soon he was studying ancient Indian texts on law, philosophy, religion, politics, morality, arithmetic, medicine and the other sciences. Jones discovered that his interests were shared by many British officials living in Calcutta at the time. Englishmen like Henry Thomas Colebrooke and Nathaniel Halhed were also busy discovering the ancient Indian heritage, mastering Indian languages and translating Sanskrit and Persian works into English. Jones and Colebrooke came to represent a particular attitude towards India.

• They shared a deep respect for ancient cultures, both of India and the West. Indian civilisation, they felt, had attained its glory in the ancient past, but had subsequently declined. In order to understand India it was necessary to discover the sacred and legal texts that were produced in the ancient period. For only those texts could reveal the real ideas and laws of the Hindus and Muslims, and only a new study of these texts could form the basis of future development in India. So Jones and Colebrooke went about discovering ancient texts, understanding their meaning, translating them, and making their findings known to others. This project, they believed, would not only help the British learn from Indian culture, but it would also help Indians rediscover their own heritage, and understand the lost glories of their past. In this process the British would become the guardians of Indian culture as well as its masters.

• Statement 1 is correct: After the Battle of Buxar (1764), the Company appointed Residents in Indian states. They were political or commercial agents and their job was to serve and further the interests of the Company.

• Statement 2 is correct: Through the Residents, the Company officials began interfering in the internal affairs of Indian states. They tried to decide who was to be the successor to the throne, and who was to be appointed in administrative posts. Residents acted as a supra-authority which resulted in diminishing power of Indian rulers and slowly all the states lost their sovereignty to East India Company and later to British Empire.

  • The Residency system has its origins in the system of subsidiary alliances devised by the British after the Battle of Plassey in 1757, to secure Bengal from attack by deploying East India Company troops of the Bengal Army within friendly Native States. Through this system, the Indian Princes of these Native States were assured of protection from internal and external aggression, through deployment of company troops. In return they had to pay for the maintenance of those troops and also accept a British Resident in their Court. The Resident was a senior British official posted in the capital of these Princely States, technically a diplomat but also responsible for keeping the ruler to his alliance.

The famines of 1899-1900 was followed by a commission under the presidency of Sir Anthony Mac Donnell(1901). It emphasized on the policy of ‘Moral Strategy’ and advocated the appointment of a famine commissioner in s province where relief operations were expected to be extensive

• Statement 1 is correct: The argument for practical education was strongly criticised by the Christian missionaries in India in the nineteenth century. The missionaries felt that education should attempt to improve the moral character of the people, and morality could be improved only through Christian education.

• Statement 2 is incorrect: Until 1813, the East India Company was opposed to missionary activities in India. It feared that missionary activities would provoke reaction amongst the local population and make them suspicious of British presence in India. Unable to establish an institution within British-controlled territories, the missionaries set up a mission at Serampore in an area under the control of the Danish East India Company. A printing press was set up in 1800 and a college established in 1818.

• The Paris Agreement (also known as the Conference of Parties 21 or COP 21) was adopted in 2015. It replaced the Kyoto Protocol which was an earlier agreement to deal with climate change. Hence, statement 1 is correct.

• It is a global treaty wherein some 200 countries agreed to cooperate to reduce Green House Gas (GHG) Emissions and rein in climate change. It seeks to limit global warming to well below 2°C, preferably to 1.5°C, compared to pre-industry levels. Hence, statement 2 is not correct.

• A front is that sloping boundary which separates two opposing air masses having contrasting characteristics in terms of air temperature, humidity, density, pressure, and wind direction. An extensive transitional zone between two converging air masses is called the frontal zone or frontal surface which represents a zone of discontinuity in the properties of opposing contrasting air masses. Frontal zone is neither parallel nor vertical to the ground surface, rather it is inclined at a low angle.

• Though fronts differ from each other in terms of their location, types, and the areal extent they are characterized by the following common characteristics e.g. large difference in air temperature across a front, bending isobars, the abrupt shift in wind direction, cloudiness and precipitation.

Hence, option (d) is the correct answer.

• The earth is made up of three different layers: the crust, the mantle and the core.

• The Crust:

  • This is the outside layer of the earth and is made of solid rock, mostly basalt and granite. There are two types of crust; oceanic and continental. Oceanic crust is denser and thinner and mainly composed of basalt. Continental crust is less dense, thicker, and mainly composed of granite.

• In between the crust and the mantle there is Mohorovicic discontinuity.

• The Mantle:

  • The portion of the interior beyond the crust is called the mantle. The mantle extends from Moho’s discontinuity to a depth of 2,900 km. The upper portion of the mantle is called asthenosphere. The word astheno means weak. It is considered to be extending upto 400 km. The crust and the uppermost part of the mantle are called lithosphere. The lower mantle extends beyond the asthenosphere.

• The Core:

  • The core-mantle boundary is located at the depth of 2,900 km. It is called the Gutenberg Discontinuity. The outer core is in liquid state while the inner core is in solid state. The core is made up of very heavy material mostly constituted by nickel and iron. It is sometimes referred to as the nife layer.

  • The Core consists of two sub-layers i.e. the inner core and the outer core. The inner core is in solid state and the outer core is in the liquid state (or semi-liquid). The discontinuity between the upper Core and the lower Core is called as Lehmann Discontinuity.

Hence the correct order is 2-3-1.

• The Savanna landscape is typified by tall grass and short trees. The trees are deciduous, shedding their leaves in the cool, dry season to prevent excessive loss of water through transpiration, e.g. acacias.

• The grass is tall and coarse, growing 6 to 12 feet high. The elephant grass may attain a height of even 15 feet. The grass tends to grow in compact tufts and has long roots which reach down in search of water.

• The vegetative luxuriance reaches its peak in the rainy season when trees renew their foliage and flower. Due to the presence of trees along with the luxuriant tall grass this landscape is also known as 'parkland' or 'bush-veld'. Hence option (a) is the correct answer.

• In tropical monsoon forests, the ecosystems which develop are very similar to the true rainforests which develop in equatorial climates, but are more open, less luxuriant & contains far fewer species. The natural vegetation of tropical monsoon land depends on the amount of summer rainfall. Trees are normally deciduous, because of the marked dry period, during which they shed their leaves to withstand drought.

• China Type climate supports luxuriant vegetation. The lowlands carry both evergreen broad-leaved forests and deciduous trees. On the highlands, are various species of conifers such as pines and cypresses which are important softwoods. Perennial plant growth is not checked by either a dry season or a cold season.

• Steppes occur in temperate climates, which lie between the tropics and polar regions. A steppe is a dry, grassy plain. Steppes are semi-arid, meaning they receive 25 to 50 centimetres (10-20 inches) of rain each year. This is enough rain to support short grasses, but not enough for tall grasses or trees to grow. Many kinds of grasses grow on steppes, but few grow taller than half a meter.

• A Shield volcano is characterized by gentle upper slopes and somewhat steeper lower slopes. Shield volcanoes are composed almost entirely of relatively thin lava flows built up over a central vent. They are formed by low viscosity basaltic magma that flows easily down slope away from the summit vent. Hence statement 1 is correct.

• The low viscosity of the magma allows the lava to travel down slope on a gentle slope, but as it cools and its viscosity increases, its thickness builds up on the lower slopes giving a somewhat steeper lower slope. Most shield volcanoes have a roughly circular or oval shape in map view. Calderas are a common feature on shield volcanoes. Hence statement 2 is correct.

• Very little pyroclastic material is found within a shield volcano, except near the eruptive vents, where small amounts of pyroclastic material accumulate as a result of fire fountaining events.

• The best known shield volcanoes are the ones that make up the Hawaiian Islands, especially Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. Hence statement 3 is correct.

• The amount of insolation received at the earth’s surface varies due to angle of the sun’s radiation, length of the day, the distance between the sun and the earth, sunspots and effects of the atmosphere. Hence, all of the options given above are correct.

• The solar energy radiated from the outer surface of the sun in the form of electromagnetic radiation, which travels at the speed of 3,00,000 km per second. The solar energy received at the earth’s surface is called insolation or solar radiation. The amount of insolation received at the earth’s surface varies significantly (decreases) from the equator towards poles due to certain astronomical and geographical factors viz.

  • Angle of the sun’s radiation: The angle between the rays of the sun and the tangent to the surface of the earth at a given place largely determines the amount of insolation to be received at that place.

  • Length of day: If all the other conditions are favourable and equal then the longer duration of sunshine and shorter duration of night enables the ground surface to receive a larger amount of insolation. On the other hand, the shorter the duration of sunshine and longer the period of the night, the lesser the amount of insolation received at the earth’s surface. The length of the day varies at all places except at the equator due to inclination of the earth’s axis, it’s parallelism and the earth’s rotation and revolution.

  • Distance between the sun and the earth: As per rule, the earth at the time of perihelion, when it is nearest to the sun, should receive maximum insolation while it should receive minimum insolation at the time of aphelion when the earth is at the greatest distance from the sun.

  • Sunspots: Sunspots are created in the solar outer surface due to periodic disturbances and explosions. The number of sunspots varies from year to year. The energy radiated from the sun increases when the number of sunspots increases and therefore the amount of insolation received at the earth’s surface also increases. On the other hand, the amount of insolation received at the earth’s surface decreases when the number of sunspots decreases.

  • Effects of the atmosphere: The electromagnetic solar radiation or the incoming shortwave solar radiation has to pass through a thick layer of the earth's atmosphere and hence it is partly absorbed, partly reflected and partly scattered by the atmosphere and partly transmitted to the earth’s surface.