UPSC 2011 Prelims Questions with Answers

The passage says the mother may fast for up to eight months but does not state the cause as non-availability of prey. It also mentions triplets only as a possible case, not as an always condition.

The mother is protective but ignores rivalry over food, so the cubs compete among themselves for access to milk. In that sense she lets them fend for themselves.

In spring the mothers emerge with three-month-old cubs. Counting back three months means the cubs were born in winter.

At the end, he has to carry the toothbrush to the railway station wrapped in his pocket-handkerchief. Therefore it is finally in his handkerchief.

The passage says the toothbrush haunts him when travelling and makes his life a misery. The misery comes from the fear or habit of forgetting the toothbrush.

The narrator calls the toothbrush thought a "horrible idea" and describes anxiety about forgetting it. Thus the idea was unpleasant.

He received food from cottagers and farmers and slept in a meadow, so he was walking through the countryside. But he felt cold and hungry at night, so he was not given enough food.

The passage says he soon fell asleep because he was much tired with his long walk. That means he was exhausted.

The passage says he slept under a haystack lying in a meadow. A haystack is a pile of dry grass, so option B is correct.

Mr. X is 14th from the front. Mr. Y is 17th from the end, so his position from the front is 48 - 17 + 1 = 32. Z is midway between positions 14 and 32, i.e. position 23. Persons between X and Z = 23 - 14 - 1 = 8.

Females not in favour means females who voted against the proposal. Total against = 1226, of whom 796 were males, so females against = 430.

Total undecided = 2878 - 1226 - 1425 = 227. Since 196 females were undecided, undecided males = 227 - 196 = 31.

Total females = 2878 - 1652 = 1226. Females against = 1226 - 796 = 430. Female undecided = 196, so females for = 1226 - 430 - 196 = 600.

The teacher is the wife of a lawyer. From the family clues, the lawyer is B, the son of the doctor. Therefore the teacher is B's wife.

The family has two females. E is explicitly not male and not the wife of a professional; the remaining female must be A under the professional-wife relationship. Thus the females are E and A.

The clues require D to be the eldest male professional and E to be the non-professional female wife. Therefore D is E's husband.

The passage repeatedly emphasizes that childhood is time-bound and that education missed then cannot serve the same purpose later. Hence there is no sufficient substitute for education received in childhood.

The passage stresses that children, especially girls, cannot secure their own right to education and that missed childhood education cannot be compensated later. Its key message is that the Right to Education of the girl child must be safeguarded.

The passage treats education as a constitutional right and does not reduce it to a mere legal right. It also never says India must copy developed-country education systems. Therefore neither statement is supported.

The passage identifies social attitudes toward girls, prejudice against their intellectual potential and failure of the education system to address that prejudice. It does not make parents' inability to fight legal battles the traditional obstacle.

The passage says adult society must act on behalf of children; it does not say adult society never acts. It also questions implementation, but does not state that the law cannot be enforced. Hence neither statement follows.

A and B start from houses facing each other on opposite sides of a north-south road and make the same left-right movement from opposite starting orientations. Their final points C and D are separated by less than 20 km, making option C the valid statement.

Take 100 persons: 70 males and 30 females. Married males = 2/7 of 70 = 20; total married = 30, so married females = 10. Single females = 30 - 10 = 20, which is 20/30 = 2/3 of females.

Total score for the first three tests is 3N. The fourth score is N+20, so total is 4N+20. Average over four tests is (4N+20)/4 = N+5.

All teachers are college graduates, and no college graduate is poor, so teachers are not poor. All poets are poor, so poets cannot be teachers; since some mathematicians are poets, some mathematicians are not teachers. But nothing proves that some teachers are not mathematicians.

The passage supports that keystone species influence food webs and that removal can drastically reduce diversity, effectively destabilizing the ecosystem. It does not say keystone species are specific only to aquatic ecosystems.

The passage says keystone species influence energy and material flows, and Pisaster affects species composition through predation. It does not imply mussels are competitors for sea stars or that sea stars have reached evolutionary climax.

The passage discusses one rocky intertidal ecosystem and does not claim mussels are generally dominant everywhere. It also says mussels are preferred prey, not that sea-star survival is generally determined by their abundance.

The passage shows that Pisaster controls mussel dominance and thereby allows many other species to coexist. The central idea is that a keystone species maintains species diversity.

Tank volume = 20 x 15 x 6 = 1800 cubic metres = 18,00,000 litres. Daily requirement = 4000 x 150 = 6,00,000 litres, so the tank lasts 3 days.

Students playing at least one game = 60 + 30 - 10 = 80. Therefore students playing neither game = 100 - 80 = 20.

The bus covers 160/4 = 40 km per hour and the train covers 320/5 = 64 km per hour. The ratio is 40:64 = 5:8.

The distance must be the LCM of 40, 42 and 45 cm. LCM = 2^3 x 3^2 x 5 x 7 = 2520 cm = 25 m 20 cm.

Let the number of Rs. 2 coins be x; then Rs. 1 coins are 50-x. Total value is 2x + (50-x) = 75, so x = 25 and the number of Rs. 1 coins is also 25.

Let the square be split into widths and heights that are natural numbers. The given areas 15 and 48 can be matched as 3 x 5 and 8 x 6, giving total side 3+8 = 11 and 5+6 = 11. Hence each side is 11.

The figure contains mutually adjacent regions that require three different colours, and a three-colour arrangement is sufficient without adjacent regions sharing a colour. Therefore the minimum is 3.

Two reflections from perpendicular plane mirrors reverse both perpendicular components of the light direction. The emergent ray is therefore parallel to the incident ray but in the opposite direction.

The penalties form an arithmetic progression: 200, 250, 300, ..., for 10 days. Sum = 10/2 x [2(200) + 9(50)] = 5 x 850 = Rs. 4,250.

For each of the 4 routes from A to B, there are 6 possible routes from B to C. By the multiplication rule, total routes from A to C are 4 x 6 = 24.

Effective treatment is shown when the number of bacteria starts falling and the person improves. That corresponds to region E on the downward/recovery part of the curve.

Symptoms begin once bacterial numbers have risen enough to affect the person. This is represented by the rising region B, after the initial incubation stage.

The incubation phase is the period after exposure but before symptoms appear, when bacteria are present at a low early level. On the curve this corresponds to the initial region A.

The final lines say crisis and torture arise when the external life and internal life diverge instead of meeting in equilibrium. Therefore the cause is lack of balance between outer and inner life.

The passage focuses on how oppressed, poor or subject peoples escape into past greatness or other-worldliness, and how imbalance between outer and inner life creates crisis. Its central theme is the state of mind of oppressed people.

The passage argues that spiritual greatness cannot be founded on starvation, misery or lack of freedom, and that subject peoples may become other-worldly. It does not say a dominated country cannot pursue spirituality at all.

In context, "them" refers to the poor and unfortunate for whom this world offers starvation and misery. The passage distinguishes them from those who become revolutionaries, so only statement 2 is correct.

Counting triangles by size and orientation in the subdivided triangular grid gives 23 total triangles. The official key confirms option C.

From A to B in a 2 by 2 grid, the person must make two right moves and two down moves in some order. The number of distinct arrangements is 4!/(2!2!) = 6.

In each grid, the bottom-left number is 40 times the top-left number, and the bottom-right number is 4 times the missing/top-right number. Since 36 divided by 4 is 9, the missing number is 9.

The graph plots time against distance, so the athlete with lower time at the finish wins. A finishes before B, and B is ahead of A up to about 25 km; C is not slow from the beginning in the sense required by the statements.