some useful gk- anupdynamic

1. (a) Answer the following questions.(any ten)

(I) What is bloodless revolution?
Called also the Glorius Revolution in England, it marked the end of the despotic rule of the Stuarts and gave way to parliamentary rule there in 1688.

(II) Which is the city of sky scrappers?
New York.

(III) Which language is written from top to bottom and from left to right?
Japanese.

(IV) What is drindle?
A kind of dress. 

(V) What is a planlmeter?
An instrument of measuring area, used by engineers.

(VI) What is a concordance?
An index of words or topics in a book.

(VII) Who discovered Law of Floating bodies?
Archimedes.

(VIII) What is the significance of the Corsica Island in history?
Birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte. 

(IX) Who is Hercule Poirot?
The famous detective character in the novels of Agatha Christie.

(X) What is Durand cup?
Trophy for football matches instituted by Sir Mortimer Durand.

(b) Name the authors of

(1) War and peace: Leo Tolstoy 
(2) Dr Zhivago: Boris Pasternak
(3) Shahnama: Firdausi
(4) Return of the native: Thomas Hardy
(5) The Prince: Machiavelli
(6) Pride and Prejudice: Jane Austen
(7) Faust: J.W. Goethe
(8) Apple Cart: G.B. Shaw
(9) Don Quixote: Migenl De Cerventes
(10) India wins freedom: Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
(11) Les Miserable: Victor Hugo
(12) The Prologue: Geoffery Chaucer
(13)The Odyssey: Homer
(14) For whom the bell tolls: Ernest Hemingway
(15) Good earth: Pearl S. Buck 

2. What do you understand by the following terms?

1. blockade: Blockade, naval operation conducted by a country at war, with the object of closing to foreign commerce the vital ports of an enemy country and thereby aiding in the military defeat of that country by denying it access to supplies and communications from without.

2. bourgeoisie: The term was first applied to those inhabitants of medieval towns in France who occupied a position somewhere between the peasants and the landowning nobility; soon it was extended to the middle class of other nations.

3. buffer state: Small State between two larger ones, regarded as reducing friction.

4. détente: Détente, policy toward a rival nation or bloc of nations characterized by increased diplomatic, commercial, and cultural contact and a desire to reduce tensions, as through negotiations or talks.

5. Gentelman’s agreement: Agreement binding in honour but not enforceable.

6. Fillbustering: Filibuster, in legislative procedure, term denoting the means employed by members of a legislative assembly to delay or prevent action on a measure to which they are opposed. Such means may include the introduction of dilatory motions, intentional absence from the assembly in order to prevent the existence of a quorum, or the presentation of abnormally long, often meaningless speeches. 

7. deflation: Deflation involves a sustained decline in the aggregate level of prices, such as occurred during the Great Depression of the 1930s; it is usually associated with a prolonged erosion of economic activity and high unemployment. Widespread price declines have become rare, however, and inflation is now the dominant variable affecting public and private economic planning.

8. tout: Spy out the movements and conditions of racehorses in training. 

9. Camouflage: Camouflage (military) (French camoufler, ”to disguise”), word introduced by the French at the beginning of World War I to designate scientific disguise of objects through imitation of natural surroundings.

10. Palliative: Aiming to make the patient as comfortable as possible for as long as possible.

11. Caucus: Caucus, meeting of members of a political party at which the party conducts its business, discusses policies, and begins the process of nominating candidates for public office. The caucus method of choosing candidates is usually contrasted with the primary election. In most primary elections, voters select the party’s candidates directly at polling places. 

12. Ammesia: Amnesia, loss or impairment of memory. Amnesia is usually associated with some form of brain damage, but it may also be caused by severe psychological trauma.

13. lynching: Lynching, hanging or other types of executions, in punishment of a presumed criminal offense, carried out by self-appointed commissions or mobs, without due process of law. The term lynching is generally believed to be derived from the name of a Virginia justice of the peace, Charles Lynch, who ordered extralegal punishment for Tory acts during the American Revolution (1775-1783).

14. Ignition point: Ignition, process or means of igniting a combustible substance. Ignition occurs when the temperature of a substance is raised to the point at which its molecules will react spontaneously with oxygen, and the substance begins to burn. This temperature is called the ignition temperature or ignition point.