General Science Questions (MCQs) for Competitive Examinations

Notes:
Chemical weapons are called “poorman’s bomb”. These cause catastrophic damage, and are easy to produce. Sarin is a colorless and odourless agent, and is extremely potent. It was used in Damascus in 2013. Mustard Gas is possibly the most commonly used chemical agent and gets its name from the distinctive odour of rotten mustard. It is less potent and usually only 5 to 10 percent people exposed to it usually die. It was widely used during Second World War. VX is a nerve agent which is odourless and appears as brownish oily substance.

Notes:
Antiseptics are applied to the living tissues such as wounds, cuts, ulcers and diseased skin surfaces. Examples of antiseptics are furacine, soframicine, etc

Notes:
Plasma consists of freely moving ions and electrons. It forms when energy supplied to a gas causes ionization. Plasma is present in stars, including the Sun. It conducts electricity and responds to magnetic fields. Irving Langmuir coined the term “plasma” in 1928. Plasma is different from solids, liquids, and gases due to its unique electrical properties.

Notes:
Sublimation describes a phase transition where a substance changes from a solid directly to a gas, bypassing the liquid state. This physical transformation is distinct from chemical changes like oxidation or reduction. Sublimation happens under certain combinations of pressure and temperature. Examples include dry ice (solid CO2), which sublimates at room temperature, and solid water, or ice, which sublimates under low pressure conditions.

Notes:
Flowers emit fragrance to attract pollinators which are mainly insects. The fragrance plays a prominent role in the localization and selection of flowers by insects, especially moth-pollinated flowers, which are detected and visited at night. If they have become infested with herbivores like caterpillars, they attract beneficial insects like parasitic wasps with the help of scent signals from their leaves.

Notes:
Intensive farming is an agricultural intensification and mechanization system that aims to maximize yields from available land through various means, such as heavy use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. It is characterized by a low fallow ratio, higher use of inputs such as capital and labour, and higher crop yields per unit land area.

Notes:
Mitochondria is an organelle found in large numbers in most cells, in which the biochemical processes of respiration and energy production occur. It is for this reason that mitochondria are often referred to as the powerhouses of the cell mitochondria also play a key role in the ageing process as well as in the onset of degenerative disease.

Notes:
Ecological succession is unidirectional progressive process of development in an ecosystem or biome. Grass ecosystems are an early stage of succession in regions where the mature ecosystems are forests. However, grass ecosystems are climax ecosystems in grassland regions, where there is not enough rainfall to support a forest. Due to limiting factors such as water scarcity and forest fire, a grassland ecosystem changes to a desert ecosystem. The ecological succession of grassland is desert.

Notes:
Plant wilting occurs after excessive loss of water by transpiration and lesser absorption. i.e. rate of transpiration exceeds rate of water absorption. On a hot day, plants transpire heavily and cannot absorb water speedily to keep pace with transpiration loss, even when there is enough water.

Notes:
Newton’s Law of Cooling states that the rate of temperature of the body is proportional to the difference between the temperature of the body and that of the surrounding medium. When a body cools by radiation, then rate of cooling depends on: Nature of the radiating surface, that is, emissivity; Area of the radiating surface; Mass of the radiating surface; Specific heat of the radiating body; Temperature of radiating body and Temperature of the surrounding.