World GK and International Bodies for CUET General Aptitude

AnswerB · 51

1. Fifty-one states were original members, having taken part at San Francisco or signed the earlier Declaration by United Nations.

2. India was among them, and signed while still under British rule, which is why it counts as a founder rather than as a later entrant.

3. Membership then grew in waves, most sharply through the decolonisation of the 1960s.

AnswerD · The League of Nations

1. The League of Nations was set up after the First World War and had failed to prevent the second.

2. The United Nations was designed to replace it, with a Security Council able to take binding decisions — the power the League most obviously lacked.

3. The League was formally wound up in 1946, after the United Nations was already in operation.

AnswerC · New York

1. The UN headquarters stands in Manhattan, New York, on land beside the East River.

2. Geneva hosts the UN's second-largest office, and many agencies are based there.

AnswerA · San Francisco

1. Delegates of 50 countries signed the Charter on 26 June 1945 at the end of the San Francisco conference; Poland signed later as the 51st original member.

2. The Charter came into force on 24 October 1945, now kept as United Nations Day.

AnswerD · the Charter came into force

1. The Charter was signed on 26 June 1945, at the close of the United Nations Conference on International Organization at San Francisco.

2. It came into force four months later, on 24 October 1945, once enough states had ratified it.

3. The anniversary that is kept is the second one, because an organisation begins when its founding treaty takes effect rather than when it is drafted.

AnswerD · South Sudan

1. South Sudan became independent in July 2011 and was admitted to the United Nations the same month, taking the membership to 193.

2. No state has been admitted since, which is why the figure has held for well over a decade.

3. The others named all joined earlier: Switzerland and Timor-Leste in 2002, Montenegro in 2006.

AnswerC · Six

1. The official languages are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish — six in all.

2. Five were official from the start; Arabic was added later.

3. Of the six, English and French are the working languages of the Secretariat, which is a narrower category than official.

AnswerB · Trygve Lie

1. Trygve Lie of Norway served as the first Secretary-General from 1946 to 1952.

2. Dag Hammarskjöld of Sweden was the second, and U Thant of Burma the third.

AnswerD · The General Assembly

1. All member states sit in the General Assembly, and each has one vote regardless of size.

2. Important questions need a two-thirds majority there; the Security Council has only fifteen members.

AnswerC · 15

1. The Court has fifteen judges, each elected for nine years by the General Assembly and the Security Council voting separately.

2. No two judges may be of the same nationality.

AnswerD · The World Health Organization

1. The six principal organs are the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice and the Secretariat.

2. All six were established by the Charter itself in 1945.

3. The World Health Organization is a specialised agency: a separate organisation with its own membership and constitution that works with the United Nations rather than forming part of it.

AnswerC · The Hague

1. The Court sits at the Peace Palace in The Hague, in the Netherlands.

2. It is the only one of the six principal organs not located in New York.

3. That single exception is why the seat is asked about at all: the rest of the answer is simply New York.

AnswerB · Five permanent and ten elected for two-year terms

1. Five members — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — hold permanent seats and the veto.

2. The other ten are elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms, with seats distributed by region.

3. A retiring non-permanent member is not immediately re-eligible, which is what keeps the seats circulating.

AnswerB · The Security Council

1. Under Article 25 of the Charter, members agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council.

2. Under Chapter VII it can order sanctions or the use of force to deal with threats to peace.

3. General Assembly resolutions on most matters are recommendations, not binding orders.

AnswerD · It suspended operation in 1994 but remains a principal organ

1. The Council supervised eleven Trust Territories as they moved towards self-government.

2. The last of them, Palau, became self-governing, and the Council suspended operation on 1 November 1994.

3. Suspending is not abolishing: it still exists under the Charter and can meet if the need arises, so it is still counted among the six.

AnswerD · the General Assembly, on the recommendation of the Security Council

1. The Charter gives the appointment to the General Assembly.

2. But the Assembly acts on a recommendation from the Security Council, and that recommendation is subject to the veto.

3. So the Council decides in practice who is available to be appointed, while the formal appointment is the Assembly's.

AnswerC · 1948

1. The WHO was founded in 1948, three years after the United Nations itself.

2. Its constitution, of the same year, opens by defining health as more than the absence of disease.

3. World Health Day is kept on the day that constitution came into force.

AnswerD · fight hunger by providing food assistance

1. The WFP is the UN's food-assistance agency, delivering food in emergencies and to people facing hunger.

2. It is based in Rome, alongside the FAO and IFAD, and won the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize.

AnswerA · refugees

1. UNHCR, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, was set up in 1950 and is based in Geneva.

2. It protects and assists refugees and other people forced from their homes, and has twice won the Nobel Peace Prize.

AnswerA · 7 April

1. The WHO's constitution came into force on 7 April 1948, and the day is kept each year with a health theme.

2. 1 December is World AIDS Day and 24 October is United Nations Day.

AnswerB · The International Labour Organization

1. The International Labour Organization was created in 1919, written into the Treaty of Versailles that ended the First World War.

2. Its founding idea was that lasting peace has to rest on social justice, which is why labour standards were treated as a peace question.

3. It began under the League of Nations and became a United Nations specialised agency after 1945, making it older than the United Nations itself.

AnswerB · help children at risk after the Second World War, regardless of which side their country fought on

1. UNICEF was set up in the aftermath of the Second World War, when children across Europe and beyond were in immediate danger.

2. Its brief deliberately made no distinction between the children of victors and of the defeated.

3. The mandate has been children's welfare ever since, and today it runs the largest humanitarian warehouse in the world.

AnswerA · UNESCO

1. The World Heritage Convention of 1972 is a UNESCO instrument, and the World Heritage Committee operates under it.

2. UNESCO's remit is education, science and culture, which is what puts heritage inside it.

3. The IUCN and ICOMOS advise the Committee on natural and cultural nominations respectively, but neither keeps the list.

AnswerD · employers and workers sit alongside governments

1. It is the only tripartite agency in the system: governments, employers and workers are all represented.

2. Each has a voice in setting labour standards, rather than the standards being negotiated between governments alone.

3. Everywhere else in the United Nations, only governments vote.

AnswerB · 1944

1. Delegates of 44 Allied nations met at Bretton Woods in New Hampshire, United States, in July 1944.

2. The conference met while the Second World War was still going on, to plan the post-war economic order.

AnswerD · the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank

1. The conference at Bretton Woods in 1944 was called to design the post-war monetary and financial order.

2. It produced two institutions: the International Monetary Fund, and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which became the core of the World Bank.

3. India took part and is an original member of both.

AnswerC · 1 January 1995

1. The WTO was established on 1 January 1995.

2. It came out of the Uruguay Round of negotiations, which ran from 1986 to 1994.

3. The agreement establishing it was signed at Marrakesh in April 1994, but the organisation itself began the following January.

AnswerC · Ministerial Conference

1. The Ministerial Conference, made up of trade ministers of all members, is the WTO's top body and usually meets every two years.

2. Between conferences the General Council runs the organisation; it also meets as the Dispute Settlement Body.

3. A Board of Governors is the top body of the IMF and the World Bank.

AnswerC · The Fund addresses balance-of-payments and monetary stability; the Bank finances development projects

1. The Fund's business is monetary: exchange stability, and support for countries in balance-of-payments difficulty.

2. The Bank's business is development: long-term finance for projects and reform programmes.

3. Both lend to governments, and both are specialised agencies rather than principal organs, so the difference is one of purpose rather than of legal status.

AnswerB · The GATT was an agreement, not an organisation with a permanent legal standing

1. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was exactly that: an agreement, applied provisionally from 1948 and administered by a small secretariat.

2. The WTO is an organisation, with a permanent structure, a wider remit covering services and intellectual property, and a binding dispute settlement system.

3. The GATT itself was not abolished; it survives as one of the agreements the WTO administers.

AnswerA · the IDA

1. The International Development Association lends to the poorest countries on concessional terms — very long maturities and little or no interest.

2. The IBRD, the original Bretton Woods institution, lends to middle-income countries on terms closer to the market.

3. The IFC lends to the private sector and MIGA provides guarantees against political risk, so neither is a concessional lender to governments.

AnswerA · China

1. The G7 is made up of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, with the European Union also taking part.

2. China belongs to the larger G20, as does India.

AnswerD · the United States

1. The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue brings together India, Japan, Australia and the United States.

2. Its leaders began meeting at summit level in 2021.

AnswerB · the European Union

1. The euro was introduced in 1999 and its notes and coins in 2002; it is used by most, but not all, EU member states.

2. The European Central Bank in Frankfurt sets monetary policy for the euro area.

AnswerA · South Africa

1. The original four were Brazil, Russia, India and China.

2. South Africa was invited to join in 2010 and attended its first summit as a member the following year.

3. The added S is the whole of the change in the name, which is why the year is worth attaching to the letter.

AnswerA · Kathmandu

1. The founding summit was held at Dhaka in 1985, which is why Bangladesh is associated with the beginning of SAARC.

2. The secretariat, established two years later, is at Kathmandu.

3. Founding place and seat are different cities, and the question is usually built on the assumption that they are the same.

AnswerC · Bangkok

1. ASEAN was founded in August 1967 by the Bangkok Declaration, signed by five states.

2. Its secretariat is at Jakarta, which is a different city from the one in the declaration's name.

3. India is not a member; it is a dialogue partner, which is a different relationship.

AnswerB · Belgrade

1. The first summit met at Belgrade in 1961.

2. Bandung, in 1955, was the Asian-African Conference that prepared the ground, but it was not itself a Non-Aligned summit.

3. Cairo and Havana hosted later summits, which is why they are offered here.

AnswerC · The African Union

1. The summit was held at New Delhi in September 2023, under India's presidency.

2. The African Union was admitted as a permanent member at that summit.

3. It is the second regional grouping in the G20, alongside the European Union, which has been a member from the start.

AnswerC · greenhouse gas emissions

1. The Kyoto Protocol, under the UN climate convention, set binding targets for developed countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

2. It came into force in 2005; the Paris Agreement of 2015 later took a different approach.

AnswerB · international trade in endangered wild animals and plants

1. CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, was signed at Washington in 1973.

2. It lists species in appendices according to how strictly their trade must be controlled.

3. Wetlands come under the Ramsar Convention.

AnswerB · The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

1. The Paris Agreement was adopted at the twenty-first Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

2. The Framework Convention, agreed at the Rio summit of 1992, sets the structure; the agreements under it set the commitments.

3. That is why the meetings are numbered as COPs of the Convention rather than of the Agreement.

AnswerA · substances that deplete the ozone layer

1. The Montreal Protocol controls the production and consumption of ozone-depleting substances, chiefly chlorofluorocarbons.

2. It sits under the Vienna Convention of 1985, which established the framework two years earlier.

3. The three other subjects listed belong to the Kyoto Protocol, the Basel Convention and CITES respectively.

AnswerC · wetlands

1. The Ramsar Convention is the treaty on wetlands of international importance, named for the Iranian city where it was signed.

2. Sites designated under it are called Ramsar sites, and India has a large and growing number of them.

3. Waterfowl habitat was the original motivation, but the convention covers wetlands as ecosystems, not birds alone.

AnswerD · Kyoto set binding targets for developed countries only; Paris asks every party to set its own contribution

1. Kyoto, adopted in 1997, placed binding emission targets on developed countries listed in an annex, and none on the rest.

2. Paris, adopted in 2015, asks every party to put forward its own nationally determined contribution instead.

3. The shift is from targets imposed by category to commitments declared by each country, which is why participation under Paris is far wider.

AnswerC · the movement of hazardous wastes across borders

1. The Basel Convention controls the transboundary movement of hazardous wastes and their disposal.

2. It was a response to hazardous waste being shipped from richer countries to poorer ones for cheap disposal.

3. Its central requirement is prior informed consent: a state must agree before waste can be sent to it.

AnswerA · The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

1. India has never signed the NPT, arguing that it divides the world into five recognised nuclear-weapon states and everyone else.

2. India is a party to the Paris Agreement, the Ramsar Convention and the Convention on Biological Diversity.

AnswerA · Paris

1. UNESCO's headquarters is at Paris.

2. It is the agency for education, science and culture, and it administers the World Heritage Convention.

3. The Hague belongs to the International Court of Justice, and Geneva to the health and labour bodies.

AnswerC · Brussels

1. NATO's headquarters is in Brussels, Belgium, which also hosts the main institutions of the European Union.

2. The alliance was founded by the North Atlantic Treaty, signed in Washington in 1949.

AnswerD · London

1. The Commonwealth Secretariat was set up in 1965 and is based at Marlborough House in London.

2. The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of countries, most of them once part of the British Empire.

AnswerC · Vienna

1. The IAEA is headquartered at Vienna.

2. Vienna is one of the four cities that host a United Nations office, alongside New York, Geneva and Nairobi.

3. Geneva is the crowded answer in this topic and is worth reserving for the health, labour and trade bodies.

AnswerC · Rome

1. The FAO is at Rome.

2. So are the World Food Programme and the International Fund for Agricultural Development, which makes Rome the food and agriculture city of the system.

3. Nairobi is the seat of the UN Environment Programme, which is the answer this option is placed here to catch.

AnswerA · The United Nations Environment Programme

1. The WHO, the ILO and the WTO are all at Geneva, which is the second-largest United Nations centre after New York.

2. The UN Environment Programme is at Nairobi.

3. Nairobi is the only headquarters of a major United Nations programme in the global South, which is the reason it is worth remembering separately.

AnswerA · Lyon

1. Interpol is headquartered at Lyon, in France.

2. It is not a United Nations body: it is an organisation of national police forces, and it has no power to arrest anyone itself.

3. The Hague is offered because Europol and the international courts are there, which is a different set of institutions altogether.

AnswerD · Canberra

1. The capital is Canberra.

2. It was built for the purpose, as a compromise between Sydney and Melbourne, which were both candidates.

3. Sydney is the largest city, which is exactly why it is the expected wrong answer.

AnswerC · Ottawa

1. Ottawa, in the province of Ontario, is Canada's capital.

2. Toronto is the largest city, which is why it is the usual wrong answer.

AnswerB · yen

1. Japan's currency is the yen.

2. The won is South Korea's, the yuan (renminbi) China's and the ringgit Malaysia's.

AnswerD · Brasília

1. Brasília was built inland and became the capital in 1960, taking over from Rio de Janeiro.

2. São Paulo is Brazil's largest city.

AnswerA · Nay Pyi Taw

1. The capital was moved to Nay Pyi Taw, a purpose-built city, in 2005.

2. Yangon, formerly Rangoon, remains the largest city and the commercial centre.

3. Questions on this topic are often written from older material, so the former capital is the standard distractor.

AnswerB · ngultrum

1. Bhutan's currency is the ngultrum, pegged at par with the Indian rupee.

2. The taka is Bangladesh's and the kyat is Myanmar's.

3. Nepal's currency is also called the rupee, which is why the rupee is a trap in any question about the neighbours rather than about Bhutan in particular.

AnswerA · Ankara

1. Ankara has been the capital since the founding of the republic in the 1920s.

2. Istanbul is the largest city and was the seat of the Ottoman Empire, which is the reason for the confusion.

3. The move inland was deliberate, marking a break from the imperial capital on the straits.

AnswerB · Pretoria

1. Pretoria is the administrative capital and the seat of the executive.

2. Cape Town is the legislative capital, where Parliament sits, and Bloemfontein the judicial one.

3. Johannesburg is the largest city and is not a capital at all, which is what puts it on the list.

AnswerC · India and Pakistan

1. The Radcliffe Line was drawn in 1947 to divide British India, and is the boundary between India and Pakistan — and, in the east, between India and what is now Bangladesh.

2. It is named for Cyril Radcliffe, who chaired the boundary commissions.

3. He had never visited India before the task and was given about five weeks to complete it.

AnswerA · China

1. The Line of Actual Control separates areas held by India and China along their disputed boundary.

2. The Line of Control, a different line, divides the parts of Jammu and Kashmir held by India and Pakistan.

AnswerD · Pakistan and Afghanistan

1. The Durand Line was agreed in 1893 between British India and the Amir of Afghanistan.

2. It now forms the boundary between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

3. Afghanistan has never fully accepted it, which is why it remains a live dispute rather than a settled border.

AnswerB · India and China

1. The McMahon Line was drawn at the Simla Convention of 1914 as the boundary between Tibet and British India.

2. It runs along the eastern sector, in what is now Arunachal Pradesh.

3. China does not accept it, which is why the eastern sector of the India-China boundary remains disputed.

AnswerC · North and South Korea

1. The Korean peninsula was divided at the 38th parallel in 1945 for the purposes of accepting the Japanese surrender.

2. The division hardened into two states, and the Korean War was fought across it.

3. The armistice line of 1953 is close to the parallel but is not identical to it.

AnswerD · Pakistan

1. Sir Creek lies between Gujarat and Pakistan's Sindh province, where the Rann of Kutch meets the Arabian Sea.

2. The two countries disagree over where the boundary runs in the creek, which also affects their sea boundary and fishing rights.

AnswerA · Bangladesh

1. The boundary with Bangladesh is the longest India has, running for over four thousand kilometres.

2. It is longer than the boundary with China, which is the answer most people expect because China is the larger country.

3. Length of boundary follows the shape of the border, not the size of the neighbour.

AnswerA · August 2023

1. The landing took place on 23 August 2023.

2. The date is now observed as National Space Day.

3. September 2019 belongs to Chandrayaan-2, whose lander did not achieve a soft landing, which is why the two are offered together.

AnswerB · Sriharikota

1. The Satish Dhawan Space Centre is at Sriharikota, an island on the coast of Andhra Pradesh.

2. A coastal site on the east lets a rocket drop its spent stages over the sea while flying east, which is the direction that gains most from the Earth's rotation.

3. The other cities named are all ISRO centres, but they build and control rather than launch.

AnswerB · Russia

1. Roscosmos is the Russian state corporation for space activities.

2. China's agency is the CNSA and Japan's is JAXA.

3. The European Space Agency is not a national agency at all but an organisation of member states, which is the fourth kind of answer this topic offers.

AnswerD · The Ministry of Defence

1. DRDO is the research and development wing of the Ministry of Defence.

2. Its work covers missiles, armaments, radar and related systems for the armed forces.

3. ISRO, by contrast, works under the Department of Space, which reports to the Prime Minister — a genuinely different arrangement, and the reason this question is worth asking.

AnswerA · India succeeded in reaching Mars orbit at the first attempt

1. The orbiter reached Mars in September 2014, at India's first attempt.

2. Most space programmes have failed at least once before reaching Mars, which is what makes a first-attempt success unusual.

3. It was an orbiter, so it neither landed nor returned anything — it observed from orbit.

AnswerA · the first Lagrange point between the Sun and the Earth

1. Aditya-L1 was launched in September 2023 and reached a halo orbit around Lagrange point L1 in January 2024.

2. L1 lies about 1.5 million km from the Earth towards the Sun; from there the spacecraft can watch the Sun without being blocked by the Earth or the Moon.