Important Dates & Observances — National & Banking Calendar
Free study material · concepts, shortcuts & solved questions
Why This Chapter Matters
This is the closest thing this book offers to sitting in the actual exam hall. Every earlier chapter taught you one slice of the General Awareness syllabus at a time, banking history in one chapter, polity in another, science in a third. The real IBPS and SBI Clerk paper never works that way. It throws a banking question, then a history question, then a computer question, then a static GK question, all mixed together with no warning, and your brain has to switch gears in under thirty seconds each time. That gear-switching is a skill on its own, separate from knowing the facts, and it only builds through mixed practice, which is exactly what this chapter gives you: 40 original questions spanning the entire syllabus of this book, arranged the way a real paper would mix them, not grouped by topic.
The biggest mistake aspirants make with a mixed practice set is treating it as a content quiz instead of a speed drill. Do not stop to look up an answer you're unsure of. Mark it, guess if you have a strong hunch, skip if you don't, and keep moving, exactly as you should in the real exam. Time yourself: 40 questions in 20 minutes is the pace a strong GA-section performer needs, roughly 30 seconds per question. Attempt the full set once under that clock before you check the answer key. Then review every question you got wrong or skipped, not just to learn the fact, but to notice why you missed it: did you not know it, did you know it but panic, or did you misread the question? Each of those three failure modes needs a different fix, and only an honest post-mortem after a timed attempt will tell you which one is happening to you.
Instructions
Attempt all 40 questions before checking the Answer Key. Questions are deliberately mixed across banking awareness, economy, history, geography, polity, science, computer knowledge, static GK, and current affairs, in no fixed topic order, exactly as a real paper would present them. Give yourself 20 minutes.
Q1. The Reserve Bank of India was established under which Act? (a) Banking Regulation Act, 1949 (b) Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934 (c) Companies Act, 1956 (d) SEBI Act, 1992
Q2. Which Mughal emperor built the Red Fort in Delhi? (a) Akbar (b) Jahangir (c) Shah Jahan (d) Aurangzeb
Q3. In computing, what does "RAM" stand for? (a) Read Access Memory (b) Random Access Memory (c) Rapid Access Module (d) Read Allocation Memory
Q4. Which Indian state has the longest coastline? (a) Tamil Nadu (b) Andhra Pradesh (c) Gujarat (d) Maharashtra
Q5. The Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) must be maintained by banks in which form? (a) Government bonds (b) Cash with RBI (c) Foreign currency (d) Gold
Q6. Who is regarded as the "Father of the Indian Constitution" for chairing its Drafting Committee? (a) Jawaharlal Nehru (b) Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (c) Dr. B.R. Ambedkar (d) Rajendra Prasad
Q7. Which gas is most abundant in the Earth's atmosphere? (a) Oxygen (b) Carbon dioxide (c) Nitrogen (d) Argon
Q8. NABARD, the apex rural credit institution in India, was established in which year? (a) 1969 (b) 1982 (c) 1990 (d) 2005
Q9. The Quit India Movement was launched by Mahatma Gandhi in which year? (a) 1930 (b) 1942 (c) 1947 (d) 1920
Q10. Which of the following is a volatile form of computer memory, losing data when power is switched off? (a) ROM (b) RAM (c) Hard disk (d) SSD
Q11. Which Indian city is known as the "Silicon Valley of India"? (a) Hyderabad (b) Pune (c) Bengaluru (d) Chennai
Q12. Under which Article of the Indian Constitution is the Finance Commission constituted? (a) Article 280 (b) Article 370 (c) Article 356 (d) Article 32
Q13. Deposit Insurance in India, through DICGC, currently covers deposits up to what amount per depositor per bank? (a) ₹1 lakh (b) ₹2 lakh (c) ₹5 lakh (d) ₹10 lakh
Q14. Which vitamin deficiency causes the disease scurvy? (a) Vitamin A (b) Vitamin B12 (c) Vitamin C (d) Vitamin D
Q15. The Battle of Plassey, a turning point establishing British political control in Bengal, was fought in which year? (a) 1757 (b) 1764 (c) 1857 (d) 1600
Q16. Which of these is India's apex regulator for the securities and stock markets? (a) RBI (b) IRDAI (c) SEBI (d) PFRDA
Q17. Which Indian river is known as the "Sorrow of Bihar" due to its history of devastating floods? (a) Ganga (b) Kosi (c) Brahmaputra (d) Yamuna
Q18. What does the abbreviation "HTTP" stand for in computer networking? (a) HyperText Transfer Protocol (b) High Transfer Text Protocol (c) HyperText Terminal Process (d) High Text Transmission Program
Q19. Who was the first woman to become the President of India? (a) Sarojini Naidu (b) Pratibha Patil (c) Droupadi Murmu (d) Meira Kumar
Q20. In the 1969 bank nationalization, how many major commercial banks were nationalized? (a) 6 (b) 14 (c) 20 (d) 12
Q21. The Tropic of Cancer passes through how many Indian states? (a) Six (b) Seven (c) Eight (d) Nine
Q22. Which committee's recommendations led directly to the creation of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) and CPI-based inflation targeting in India? (a) Narasimham Committee (b) Urjit Patel Committee (c) Nachiket Mor Committee (d) Kelkar Committee
Q23. Photosynthesis in green plants primarily occurs in which cell organelle? (a) Mitochondria (b) Nucleus (c) Chloroplast (d) Ribosome
Q24. India's Goods and Services Tax (GST) was implemented nationwide with effect from which date? (a) April 1, 2016 (b) July 1, 2017 (c) January 1, 2018 (d) November 8, 2016
Q25. Which of these organizations issues India's currency notes? (a) Ministry of Finance (b) Reserve Bank of India (c) State Bank of India (d) NITI Aayog
Q26. Who founded the Indian National Congress in 1885? (a) Mahatma Gandhi (b) A.O. Hume (c) Bal Gangadhar Tilak (d) Subhas Chandra Bose
Q27. Which of the following best describes a "compiler" in computer science? (a) Translates source code line by line during execution (b) Translates the entire source code into machine code before execution (c) Only checks for syntax errors, does not translate code (d) Converts machine code into source code
Q28. Which Indian state shares a border with the maximum number of other Indian states? (a) Madhya Pradesh (b) Uttar Pradesh (c) Assam (d) Rajasthan
Q29. The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), meant to speed up bad-debt resolution, was enacted in which year? (a) 2014 (b) 2016 (c) 2018 (d) 2020
Q30. Which Indian classical dance form originated in Tamil Nadu? (a) Kathak (b) Bharatanatyam (c) Odissi (d) Kuchipudi
Q31. In banking, what does the abbreviation "KYC" stand for? (a) Keep Your Cash (b) Know Your Customer (c) Key Yield Certificate (d) Know Your Credit
Q32. Which Indian Prime Minister launched the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) for financial inclusion? (a) Manmohan Singh (b) Atal Bihari Vajpayee (c) Narendra Modi (d) I.K. Gujral
Q33. Chandrayaan-3 achieved a successful soft landing near the Moon's south pole in which year? (a) 2019 (b) 2021 (c) 2023 (d) 2024
Q34. The pH value of a neutral solution, such as pure water, is: (a) 0 (b) 7 (c) 14 (d) 10
Q35. Who among the following served as RBI Governor during the November 2016 demonetization? (a) Raghuram Rajan (b) Urjit Patel (c) D. Subbarao (d) Shaktikanta Das
Q36. Which Indian mountain peak is the highest, and also the world's third-highest? (a) Nanda Devi (b) Kanchenjunga (c) Mount Everest (d) K2
Q37. India's fiscal year, used for budget and accounting purposes, runs from which dates? (a) January 1 to December 31 (b) April 1 to March 31 (c) July 1 to June 30 (d) October 1 to September 30
Q38. Which of these payment systems, launched by NPCI, enables real-time mobile-based fund transfer in India and became the dominant retail digital payment method? (a) NEFT (b) RTGS (c) UPI (d) IMPS
Q39. The Constitution of India was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on which date? (a) August 15, 1947 (b) January 26, 1950 (c) November 26, 1949 (d) December 9, 1946
Q40. As of the post-April 2020 banking consolidation, how many Public Sector Banks operate in India? (a) 27 (b) 21 (c) 12 (d) 6
Answer Key
| Q | Answer | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | (b) | RBI was set up under the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934, and began operations April 1, 1935; the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 governs banking companies generally, a separate law. |
| 2 | (c) | Shah Jahan, also the builder of the Taj Mahal, commissioned the Red Fort as his new capital's centerpiece in Shahjahanabad, present-day Old Delhi. |
| 3 | (b) | RAM stands for Random Access Memory, the volatile memory a computer uses for actively running programs and data. |
| 4 | (c) | Gujarat has India's longest coastline among states, exceeding 1,600 km, ahead of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. |
| 5 | (b) | CRR must be parked purely as cash with RBI, earning zero interest, unlike SLR, which allows approved securities and gold. |
| 6 | (c) | Dr. B.R. Ambedkar chaired the Constituent Assembly's Drafting Committee and is credited as the chief architect of the Constitution's text. |
| 7 | (c) | Nitrogen makes up about 78% of Earth's atmosphere by volume, far more than oxygen's roughly 21%. |
| 8 | (b) | NABARD was established in 1982 as the apex institution for agricultural and rural development credit. |
| 9 | (b) | The Quit India Movement, demanding an immediate end to British rule, was launched in August 1942. |
| 10 | (b) | RAM is volatile; its contents vanish when power is cut. ROM and storage drives like hard disks and SSDs retain data without power. |
| 11 | (c) | Bengaluru, home to India's largest concentration of IT and software companies, is popularly called the Silicon Valley of India. |
| 12 | (a) | Article 280 of the Constitution provides for the constitution of a Finance Commission every five years to recommend Centre-state tax devolution. |
| 13 | (c) | DICGC's insurance cover on bank deposits was raised from ₹1 lakh to ₹5 lakh per depositor per bank in 2020. |
| 14 | (c) | Vitamin C deficiency causes scurvy, marked by bleeding gums and poor wound healing; the body cannot store Vitamin C, requiring regular intake. |
| 15 | (a) | The Battle of Plassey was fought in 1757, establishing the East India Company's political foothold in Bengal under Robert Clive. |
| 16 | (c) | SEBI, established with statutory powers under the SEBI Act, 1992, regulates India's securities and stock markets; RBI regulates banking, IRDAI insurance, PFRDA pensions. |
| 17 | (b) | The Kosi river, notorious for shifting course and causing severe floods in Bihar, is called the "Sorrow of Bihar." |
| 18 | (a) | HTTP stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol, the foundational protocol for transmitting web page data between browser and server. |
| 19 | (b) | Pratibha Patil became India's first woman President in 2007; Droupadi Murmu, elected in 2022, is the second woman and first tribal President. |
| 20 | (b) | 14 major commercial banks were nationalized on July 19, 1969; a further 6 were nationalized in 1980, taking the total to 20. |
| 21 | (c) | The Tropic of Cancer passes through eight Indian states, from Gujarat in the west to Mizoram in the east. |
| 22 | (b) | The Urjit Patel Committee (2014) recommended CPI-based flexible inflation targeting and the creation of the Monetary Policy Committee. |
| 23 | (c) | Photosynthesis occurs in the chloroplast, the organelle containing chlorophyll that captures light energy for converting carbon dioxide and water into glucose. |
| 24 | (b) | GST rolled out nationwide from July 1, 2017, replacing a patchwork of central and state indirect taxes with one unified tax structure. |
| 25 | (b) | The Reserve Bank of India holds the sole authority to issue currency notes in India, under powers granted by the RBI Act, 1934. |
| 26 | (b) | A.O. Hume, a retired British civil servant, played the key organizing role in founding the Indian National Congress in 1885; W.C. Bonnerjee was its first president. |
| 27 | (b) | A compiler translates the entire source code into machine code before the program runs, unlike an interpreter, which translates and executes line by line. |
| 28 | (b) | Uttar Pradesh shares borders with the highest number of other Indian states, bordering eight states plus one union territory (Delhi). |
| 29 | (b) | The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code was enacted in 2016 to create a time-bound framework for resolving corporate insolvency and bad debt. |
| 30 | (b) | Bharatanatyam originated in the temples of Tamil Nadu; Kathak is from North India, Odissi from Odisha, and Kuchipudi from Andhra Pradesh. |
| 31 | (b) | KYC stands for Know Your Customer, the mandatory identity-verification process banks follow before opening accounts, aimed at curbing fraud and money laundering. |
| 32 | (c) | Narendra Modi launched PMJDY on August 28, 2014, aiming to bring at least one bank account into every household. |
| 33 | (c) | Chandrayaan-3 achieved its historic soft landing near the Moon's south pole in August 2023, a first for any nation in that specific polar region. |
| 34 | (b) | A pH of 7 is neutral; values below 7 are acidic, values above 7 are alkaline, on the standard 0-14 pH scale. |
| 35 | (b) | Urjit Patel was RBI Governor when demonetization of ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes was announced on November 8, 2016. |
| 36 | (b) | Kanchenjunga, located in Sikkim, is India's highest peak and the world's third-highest mountain after Everest and K2. |
| 37 | (b) | India's fiscal year for government budgeting and most financial accounting runs from April 1 to March 31. |
| 38 | (c) | UPI, launched by NPCI in 2016, enables instant mobile-based fund transfers and has become India's dominant digital retail payment rail, ahead of NEFT, RTGS, and IMPS in transaction volume. |
| 39 | (c) | The Constituent Assembly adopted the Constitution on November 26, 1949; it came into full force on January 26, 1950, celebrated as Republic Day. |
| 40 | (c) | Following the April 2020 mega-merger of ten banks into four, India's Public Sector Bank count stands at 12. |