General Science Questions (MCQs) for Competitive Examinations

Notes:
Heavy water is water that contains heavy hydrogen or deuterium. Deuterium differs from the hydrogen usually found in water, protium, in that each atom of deuterium contains a proton and a neutron. Heavy water may be deuterium oxide, D2O or it may be deuterium protium oxide, DHO.

Notes:
The Moon has been bombarded with large quantities of Helium-3 by the solar wind. It is thought that this isotope could provide safer nuclear energy in a fusion reactor, since it is not radioactive and would not produce dangerous waste products.

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:
The right pulmonary artery is longer and larger and runs horizontally outward in front of right main bronchus and behind the superior vena cava, to the base of the right lung where it divides in two branches. The left pulmonary artery is shorter and runs horizontally over the left upper division bronchus, to the base of the left hilum where it divides into two branches.

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:
Bacteriophage refers to any of a group of viruses that infect bacteria. Bacteriophages were discovered independently by Frederick W. Twort in Great Britain (1915) and Felix d’Herelle in France (1917). D’Herelle coined the term Bacteriophage, meaning “bacteria eater”.

Notes:
The Taungya system involves growing agricultural crops between rows of planted trees (sal, teak, etc). Along with jhum cultivation, it is one of the well-known systems of agro forestry programmes in practice in our country.

Notes:
The urinary bladder is a hollow muscular organ that collects and stores urine from the kidneys before disposal by urination. In humans, the bladder is a hollow muscular organ situated at the base of the pelvis. Urine enters the bladder via the ureters and exits via the urethra.

Notes:
Typhoid fever, also known simply as typhoid, is a bacterial infection due to Salmonella typhi, also known as Salmonella enterica serotype typhi, that grows in the intestines and blood. Typhoid is spread by eating or drinking food or water contaminated with the feces of an infected person.

Notes:
The word “protoplasm” comes from the Greek protos for first, and plasma for thing formed, and was originally used in religious contexts. It was first used for living cells by J. E. Purkinje, a Czech anatomist and physiologist, in 1839. He used protoplasm for the fluid substance of a cell.