General Science Questions (MCQs) for Competitive Examinations

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All metal carbonates and hydrogen carbonates react with acids to give a corresponding salt, carbon dioxide and water. Limestone, chalk and marble are different forms of calcium carbonate.

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Keratin is a family of fibrous structural proteins involved in making up the outer layer of human skin. It is also the key structural component of hair and nails. Cells in the epidermis contain a structural matrix of keratin, which makes this outermost layer of the skin almost waterproof, and along with collagen and elastin, gives skin its strength. It also makes up fish scales and crustacean shells, bird feathers and beaks, animal horns and hooves.

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Holstein Friesian cows are world’s highest-production dairy animals and dominate the global dairy industry. These cows originated in Dutch provinces of North Holland and Friesland, and Schleswig-Holstein in Northern Germany. They are known as Holsteins in North America and Friesians in UK and Ireland.

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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.

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Nitrogen-fixing bacteria are microorganisms capable of transforming atmospheric nitrogen into fixed nitrogen. Rhizobium is one such bacteria that is associated with leguminous plants (e.g., various members of the pea family). It invades the root hairs of host plants and convert free nitrogen to ammonia, which the host plant utilizes for its development.

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Veins carry the deoxygenated blood from different parts of the body to the heart. There are two main veins that carry out this job. The superior vena cava carries deoxygenated blood from head, neck, thorax and hands to the right atrium of our heart. The inferior vena cava carries deoxygenated blood from legs, pelvic region and abdominal organs to the right atrium of our heart. Among the veins, only pulmonary vein carries oxygenated blood.

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These types of mechanism have been termed seismonastic movements. The movement occurs when specific regions of cells lose turgor pressure, which is the force that is applied onto the cell wall by water within the cell vacuoles and other cell contents.

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Panthera pardus is the scientific name of leopard, one of the five “big cats” in the genus Panthera. It is a member of the family Felidae with a wide range in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia. It belongs to the Chordata phylum, Mammalia class and Carnivora order.

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Swedish naturalist Carlous Linnaeus established the binomial system of naming living organisms, setting a format and a structured process for classifying the interrelationships between plants (among which he included all fungi), and between animals. The binomial system that Linnaeus devised enables an author to refer to a species confident that it will mean the same thing to informed readers anywhere else in the world.

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Crown gall is a disease caused by the bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens (synonym Rhizobium radiobacter), which enters the plant through wounds in roots or stems and stimulates the plant tissues to grow in a disorganized way, producing swollen galls. As the disease progresses, plants lose vigour and may eventually die. In science of Biotechnology, it is considered as natural engineer.