UPSC CIVIL SERVICES PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION

UPSC Prelims 2024— Question 73

2024General Studies Paper-IEnvironment & EcologyBiodiversitySpecies Diversitymoderate
Q73

Question

Consider the following pairs: Country — Animal found in its natural habitat: 1. Brazil — Indri; 2. Indonesia — Elk; 3. Madagascar — Bonobo. How many of the pairs given above are correctly matched?

Options

A
Only one
B
Only two
C
All three
D
None✓ Correct Answer
AnswerOption D

Explanation

The correct answer is option (D). Indri is a lemur native to Madagascar, not Brazil; elk are not native to Indonesia in the sense intended by the question; and bonobos are native to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, not Madagascar. Therefore none of the listed pairs is correctly matched. The key to this question is to distinguish the exact constitutional provision, factual association, scientific principle, or current-affairs detail being tested from statements that are partly true but incomplete or incorrectly framed. UPSC often makes the distractors plausible by changing one institutional role, date, classification, geographic association, or causal relationship. Option A — “Only one” is incorrect. It does not match the established fact or contains the incorrect combination, institution, relationship, classification, or proposition identified in the explanation above. Choosing it would therefore introduce a factual error or omit a necessary element. Option B — “Only two” is incorrect. It does not match the established fact or contains the incorrect combination, institution, relationship, classification, or proposition identified in the explanation above. Choosing it would therefore introduce a factual error or omit a necessary element. Option C — “All three” is incorrect. It does not match the established fact or contains the incorrect combination, institution, relationship, classification, or proposition identified in the explanation above. Choosing it would therefore introduce a factual error or omit a necessary element. Option D — “None” is correct. It matches the established fact described above and gives the complete combination or identification required by the question. For examination purposes, the safest approach is to verify each statement independently before looking at the answer-code combination. This is particularly important in statement-based questions, because one false clause makes an entire combination wrong. In factual questions, compare the defining characteristic asked in the stem with each alternative rather than relying on superficial familiarity. The answer recorded here follows the verified Set C key used for this database.

Question Classification

SubjectEnvironment & Ecology
TopicBiodiversity
SubtopicSpecies Diversity
Question TypeMatching / Multi-statement
Difficultymoderate
VerificationVerified