Explore topic-wise InterviewSolutions in Current Affairs.

Correct Answer is: (a) Mesopotamia

Correct Answer is: (c) Egypt

Correct Answer is: (a) 24

The fire is not used in the kitchen on the seventh day of the dark fortnight of the month ‘Shravan’, which is known as ‘Shitla Satam’.

If we are not allowed the use of fire in today’s world, the following things will not be available to us:

1. Delicious cooked food
2. The trains running with steam engines and different industries
3. Thermal electricity
4. Electricity in houses, roads and public places
5. Minerals from mines and
6. Heaters protecting against cold.

No, it is not possible to cook food without fire, in our kitchens. Our diet will be in raw state without fire.

The vehicles like bullock-cart, horse-carriage and camel-cart would not have existed, if the wheel was not invented. Modern vehicles of transportation like railways, motor car, bus, truck, aeroplane, etc. would not have been seen. Small or big machines would not have been manufactured. Speedy travel and transportation of goods would not have been possible. Our life would not have been easy in the absence of wheel.

Answer is B. Bhutan

(1 – 2), 

(2 – 4), 

(3 – 1), 

(4 – 3).

No, the vehicles would not have existed without wheel in modern times.

The fire to cook food in the kitchen today is obtained from fuel, coal, cow-dungs, cooking gas (LPG), etc.

The animals are useful to us today for farming, transportation of goods, travelling and for getting milk, leather and wool.

1. (d) avoided

2. (a) blessed

3. (c) hindmost

4. (c) prevented

5. (a) helpfulness

1. (c) sensible

2. (a) imprisoned

3. (b) different

4. (c) excludes

Correct answer is (a) plane

i. The speaker feels not only the ache from the ladder on his foot, which would be natural to feel later in the day. He also feels the continuing pressure of the ladder, as if he were still standing on it. Thus the speaker can feel the pressure of the ladder on the bottom of his foot, and the ‘swaying’ of the ladder against the bending branches of the apple tree.

ii. He has been picking apples.

iii. He hears the rambling sound of barrels of apples being unloaded into a bin for sorting.

iv. He states, in the most direct terms, that he is sick of picking apples and he has had too many apples.

v. The ladder sways against the bending branches of the apple tree as there are too many apples.

‘Sleep’ in the poem operates at two levels – natural sleep and death. The hoary grass and winter suggest death. But the narrator does not know if the death will be renewed by spring in a few months or if everything will stay buried under mindless snow for all eternity. In other words, the speaker doesn’t know whether his life is coming to an end or whether it is the usual weariness of physical work.

The ladder brings in religious connotation to the poem as it is said that it is pointing toward heaven. The religious overtone alludes to the story of Jacob’s ladder in the Book of Genesis.

Physical fatigue, mental emptiness and death.

A woodchuck is an animal that hibernates during the winter and then reawakens during the spring. The speaker is saying that his sleep will be longer than that because he will actually be dead and never reawake.

The speaker finds that the large harvest for which he had wished has become excessive: He has “had too much/ Of apple picking.” He recalls the details of the work with pleasure, but he is half afraid of the sleep he feels coming on. On the edge of sleep, he remembers not only the ripe apples successfully picked but also those that fell and were considered damaged and had to be sent to the cider mill.

He knows that his sleep will be troubled by the failures more than by the successes. He is not sure about the nature of the sleep he is about to drop into – whether it will be ordinary steep, more like a hibernation, or more like death. All the sensory images are pleasant, but they have become distorted, as if the pleasant dream could become a nightmare. Thus we see that even the bumper crop is at the cost of considerable physical and mental exhaustion.

The apple picker still feels the ache in his foot as if he is standing on a ladder.

Though Robert Frost insists that the poem is written purely in context of a rural aspect and it shows nothing more than the beauty of nature prevailing upon human mind, intellect and will, yet the poem does allude to certain extended meanings. Hence when the speaker says that his sleep will trouble his dreams, it leads to multiple interpretations. The sleep of the peasant could either be related to death or to intoxication since the apple picker is ‘drowsing’ under the appeasing influence of mighty nature, if it is the human sleep, it is relief from physical exhaustion. But if it is death, apple-picking which is not complete can refer to unfulfilled promises, tasks, dreams and talents.

The narrator sees the harvest in his dream.

The speaker states that he is going to stop picking apples.

The instep arch of his feet.

barrel – a large round container, made of wood or metal

stick through – opening up against the tree

essence – fundamental, quality

cider – juice made from apples

pane – sheet of glass

done with – tired of

drowsing off – feeling sleepy

rub off strangeness – make one feel uncomfortable

skim – remove the substance floating on the surface of the liquid

drinking trough – a long narrow open container, used for holding food or water for animals

hoary – white or grey due to snow on it 

magnify – to make bigger than the actual

fleck – a very small area of colour 

russet – reddish brown; used here for the colour of apples

arch – the curved part of the bottom of one’s foot 

sway – swinging movement 

cherish – to hold dear

D) All of the above.

The empty barrel as well as the ‘magnified apples’ refer to human desires which may never be satiated to their fill. Sometimes, one may even have achieved lifelong goals and targets, but life does not stay longer to support one to relish the fruits of one’s labour. However, if the empty barrel implies only the unfulfilled desire, the magnified apples could also imply the lust of man which can never be satisfied.

Charles Babbage is known as the father of the computer.

Joseph Mary Jacquard invented Jacquard loom.

Answer is (A) Second

(C) Designing

Plebiscite is the term given to the process where the direct vote is done, and all the people of that particular region are asked to accept or to reject this direct vote proposal. It is a suitable option for smaller countries like Switzerland where the costs and time won’t be an issue.

The term Nationalism refers to develop sentiments or views towards one’s own country. It is the knowledge regarding the social, political and economic aspect of the society or of the nation to promote its interests or beliefs. Some factors which gave rise to Nationalism were: 

• Films, novels, Symbols, folklore, history, and songs motivated people and generated such feelings which inspired them to know their true identity and evoke the sentiments for their nation. 
• Some images or figures, for example – the image of a female figure not as a woman of real life but as a figure with physical existence and in concrete form. Also, Germania, the female figure personified as the German nation. In this figure, she wears the crown of oak leaves which stands for Heroism. She is also shown with the sword protecting the Rhine River. All this inspired the citizens of the country. 
• Many nationalists groups emerged when they saw incidents which made other countries attaining their goals and independence. For example – the events at Balkan which eventually became the major factor of the First World War inspired others to fight for their own rights. 
• Nationalists began to travel to different regions to collect folktales and to preserve those so that the individual could identify his national identity and generate the pride for its nation. 
• At the end of the 19th century, the reinterpretation of history gave rise to the nationalism.

Frederic Sorrieu, was a French artist who prepared a series of four prints visualising his dreams of a world. It was made of ‘democratic and social republics’ and called them first Print. It showed the people of Europe and America paying homage to the statue of Liberty as the cross or march in a long train.

Primitive: Of early times, of long ago, original, first of kind.

A) Truths of nature

C) Geneticist

B) Distribution of fossils

Answer is (D) Latin

C) Experimentation

Answer is (C) i, iii

In the words of Karl Popper,” Science is a history of corrected mistakes”.

D. Both ‘A’ and ‘B’

A. Onomatopoeia

D. Both ‘A’ and ‘B’

Colonialism: Colonialism is a practice by which a powerful country directly controls less powerful countries and uses its resources to increase its own power and wealth.

The Dutch were successful in colonizing Indonesia. They ruled till the end of World War II.

Electrostatic force between an electron and nucleus provides centripetal force for the revolution of the electron in its orbit.