General Science Questions (MCQs) for Competitive Examinations

Notes:
As per the Mohs scale of mineral hardness, the soft metals are: Lead, gold, silver, tin, zinc, aluminium, thorium, copper, brass and bronze. Diamond is one of the hardest known metals on earth.

Notes:
Biofortification is the breeding crops to increase their nutritional value. This can be done either through conventional selective breeding or genetic engineering. Biofortification differs from ordinary fortification because it focuses on making plant foods more nutritious as the plants are growing, rather than having nutrients added to the foods when they are being processed.

Notes:
Radioactive materials are first encased in resin or concrete and sealed in steel drums. The drums are then packed into concrete casks and placed in concrete trenches up to 18 metres deep.

Notes:
The petiole is the stalk-like structure which connects the leaf blade to the stem. The petiole has tiny tubes, that connect the veins on the leaf blade to the stem. Few of these enable water transport to the leaf while the other carry food away from the leaf to other parts of the plant.

Notes:
Multicellular organisms are made up of more than one cell. The development of multicellular organisms is accompanied by cellular specialization and division of labor; cells become efficient in one process and are dependent upon other cells for the necessities of life. Paramecium is single-celled protists naturally found in aquatic habitats. Paramecium is the only genus in the family Parameciidae, which resides within the phylum Ciliophora.

Notes:
Calyptrogen is a layer of rapidly dividing cells at the tip of a plant root, from which the root cap is formed. It occurs in grasses and many other plants. The root cap is formed by several layers of cells that envelop the root tip externally. This covering of cells, of which the outermost ones are dead, envelops and protects the growing tip of root.

Notes:
The wings of insects, bats and birds, that evolved independently in each lineage separately after diverging from an ancestor without wings, are examples of analogous organs. Analogous organs are the opposite of homologous organs, which have similar functions but different origins.

Notes:
Smallpox was one of the world’s most devastating diseases known to humanity. The last known natural case was in Somalia in 1977. It was declared eradicated in 1980 following a global immunization campaign led by the World Health Organization. Smallpox is caused by infection with the variola virus.

Notes:
Enzymes are defined as biological catalysts. Chemically all enzymes are globular proteins. Each enzyme catalyses only one chemical reaction. Protein part of enzyme is known as Apoenzyme. It forms an active enzyme system by combination with a coenzyme and determines the specificity of this system for a substrate.

Notes:
While fertilization is necessary for organisms that reproduce sexually, individuals that reproduce asexually?do so without the need for fertilization. These organisms produce genetically identical copies of themselves through?binary fission, budding, fragmentation, parthenogenesis, or other forms of asexual reproduction.