univ.tifr.res.in Graduate School Admissions Exam Biology Previous Question Papers : Tata Institute of Fundamental Research

Name of the Centre : Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
Document type : Previous Question Papers
Name Of The Exam : GS Graduate School Admissions Exam
Name Of The Subject : Biology
Year : 2019
Website : http://univ.tifr.res.in/gs2019/Prev_QP/Prev_QP.htm

TIFR GS Admissions Exam Biology Previous Question

Download Previous Question paper for GS Graduate School Admissions Exam Biology paper for 2019 from the official website of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
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Related : Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Joint Graduate Entrance Exam Biology Question Paper 2017 : www.pdfquestion.in/13096.html

Instructions

Please Read These Instructions Carefully Before Attempting the Questions :
1. Please fill in details about name, reference code etc. on the answer sheet and question paper. Use only blue/black ballpoint pen. The Answer Sheet is machine –readable and will not read other colours.

2. This test consists of three parts: Section A, Section B and Section C. You must answer questions according to the programme you are applying for.
Section A has 25 questions : 1 – 15 are multiple-choice; 16 – 25 are numerical.
Section B has 15 questions : 26 – 35 are multiple-choice; 36 – 40 are symbolic.
Section C has 15 questions : 41 – 50 are multiple-choice; 51 – 55 are symbolic.

3. Indicate your ANSWER ON THE ANSWER SHEET as follows.
Multiple choice questions have four options (a), (b), (c) and (d), of which only one option is correct. Indicate the answers by filling up the bubble on the Answer Sheet corresponding to the correct option. If more than one bubble is filled in, it will be treated as not answered.

** Numerical questions have answers which are 3 (three) digit integers. Indicate the answers by filling in the corresponding bubbles on the Answer Sheet.
** Unless all three bubbles for a given question are filled, it will be treated as not answered. (See inside for details.)

** Symbolic questions have answers which are a number, a short formula or a word. Indicate the answers by writing in the boxes on the Answer Sheet next to the appropriate question numbers. (See inside for details.)

4. The marking for these questions shall be as follows.
5. Candidates are advised to mark the Answer Sheet only when they are sure of the answer. Till then, they may mark the answers on the question paper.
6. Rough work may be done on blank pages of the question paper. If needed, you may ask for extra sheets from the invigilators.

7. Use of scientific, non-programmable calculators is permitted. Calculators which plot graphs are NOT allowed. Multiple-use devices, such as cell phones, smartphones, etc. CANNOT be used as calculators.

8. Do NOT ask the invigilators for clarifications regarding the questions. They have been instructed not to respond to any such queries. In case a correction/clarification is deemed necessary, it will be announced in the examination hall.

9. A list of useful physical constants is given on the next page. Make sure to use only these values in answering the questions, especially those of numeric type.

Download Biology Question Paper :
2018 :
https://www.pdfquestion.in/uploads/pdf2019/33672-GS2018.pdf
2019 :
https://www.pdfquestion.in/uploads/pdf2019/33672-GS2019.pdf

Section A – General

1. Ontario, a province in Canada, is nearly 6 times larger than the state of Karnataka, yet it houses fewer species of plants and animals than its Indian counterpart. This is most likely because:
a. Karnataka has a higher human population
b. Karnataka is closer to the equator
c. Ontario is west of Karnataka
d. Ontario gets more precipitationper year

2. You have been asked to measure the wingspans of a set of birds of the same species. As your sample size (the number of wingspans you measure) increases, what will a graph of standard deviation vs. sample size look like?
a. Increasing
b. Decreasing
c. Constant (flat)
d. Fluctuating (sometimes increasing, sometimes decreasing)

3. When you are writing a paper, which of the following actions does not require you to cite the source?
a. Reusing a standard abbreviation from a published paper
b. Reusing a sentence from a published paper
c. Reusing a paragraph from the methods section of a published paper
d. Reusing a paragraph from Wikipedia

4. When viewed in sunlight, a flower has red petals and a green stalk. You pluck the flower and take it to a room illuminated with a red lamp. What colours does the flower now appear to be?
a. Black petals and a green stalk
b. Black petals and a black stalk
c. Red petals and a black stalk
d. Red petals and a green stalk

5. India faced heavy floods this year in Uttarakhand and Kerala. This is most likely due to:
a. Pollution
b. Land use change
c. El Niño
d. Seismic activity

6. The speed of the Earth orbiting the sun is
a. the same at all points along its orbit
b. fastest at a single fixed point on its orbit
c. fastest at two fixed points on its orbit
d. slowest at two fixed points on its orbit

7. What is the output range of the function y = 1 – exp (x) for input values in the interval -8 < x < 8?
a. -8 < y < 8
b. 0 < y < 8
c. -8 < y < 1
d. 0 < y < 1

8. We say a shape has more symmetries if there are more ways it can be rotated, flipped or moved to get back the same shape. Below are images of four different macromolecules labelled A to D. Order them from low to high symmetry.
a. D, C, A, B
b. B, A, D, C
c. D, B, C, A
d. A, D, C, B

9. Identify the three measures of central tendency in the following distributions:
a. A1 and B1= mode, A2 and B2 = median, A3 and B3 = mean
b. A1 and B3= mode, A2 and B2 = median, A3 and B1 = mean
c. A3 and B1= mode, A2 and B2 = median, A1 and B3 = mean
d. A1 and B1= median, A2 and B2 = mode, A3 and B3 = mean

10. Observe the curves numbered 1, 2, 3 and 4 in this plot. For each of these curves at several evenly-spaced values of X, you measure the slope dY/dX. For which curve will you observe the largest variance in measured values of dY/dX?
a. Curve 1
b. Curve 2
c. Curve 3
d. Curve 4

Section B – Physics

1. You are running up a spiral staircase. The associated angular momentum points in which direction?
a. Upwards
b. Downwards
c. The net displacement is linear, so there is no angular momentum
d. The answer cannot be determined from the information given

2. Which of the following best explains why the refractive index of water changes with temperature?
a. Due to change in density
b. Due to change in surface tension
c. Due to change in viscosity
d. Due to evaporation

3. A particle is constrained to move in a circle with a 10-metre radius. At one instant, the particle speed is 10 m/s and its speed is increasing with a rate of 10 m/s2. What is the angle between the particle velocity and acceleration vectors?
a. 0 degrees
b. 30 degrees
c. 45 degrees
d. 90 degrees

4. A charged particle is released from rest in a region where there is a constant electric field and a constant magnetic field. If the two fields are parallel to each other, the path of the particle is a
a. circle
b. straight line
c. helix
d. parabola

5. A ray of light is incident on a mirror and the light travels in the direction x + 3 y and after reflection, travels in the direction x. What is the angle of incidence with respect to the normal to the mirror?
a. 30 degrees
b. 60 degrees
c. 90 degrees
d. 120 degrees

6. You have a system of non-interacting particles that can exist in three possible states, with energy 0, E, 2E (E > 0). At a temperature T = E/kB (where kB = Boltzmann’s constant) the energy states are occupied in approximately the ratio
a. 1 : 1 : 1
b. 1 : 0.5 : 0.25
c. 1 : 2.72 : 7.39
d. 1 : 0.37 : 0.14

7. The voltage measured across a metal bar is plotted as a function of applied current, at two different temperatures (T1 and T2). Which of the following statements is correct?
a. T1 is greater than T2
b. T2 is less than T1
c. T1 is equal to T2
d. T1 could be less than or greater than T2 depending on which metal it is

8. Two identical bi-convex lenses L1 and L2 are arranged 10 cm apart. A collimated, parallel beam of light strikes L1 from the left and converges 4.3 cm from the left lens. The emergent rays on the right of L2 will be
a. parallel
b. convergent
c. divergent
d. polarised

9. Standing waves are excited in a 1 m long pipe open at one end, closed at the other. Take the speed of the wave as 340 m/s and calculate the frequency of the first overtone (i.e. the first harmonic above the fundamental frequency).
a. 128 Hz
b. 170 Hz
c. 255 Hz
d. 510 Hz

10. In a certain process 1.5×105 Joules of heat is added to an ideal gas to keep the pressure at 2.0×105 Pa while the volume expands from 6.3m3 to 7.1m3. What is the change in internal energy for the gas?
a. It decreases by 2.0×105 J
b. It increases by 1.0×105 J
c. It increases by 1.0×103 J
d. It decreases by 1.0×104 J

Section C – Chemistry

1. Element Y has a nucleon number of 19 and a proton number of 9. Which group in the Periodic Table does it belong to?
a. Group I
b. Group III
c. Group VII
d. Group VIII

2. Which statement is true for the following chemical reactions?
CuCO3 + heat ? CuO + CO2 CuO + SnO ? Cu + SnO2
a. CO2 is oxidized and SnO2 is reduced
b. CuCO3 is oxidized and CuO is reduced
c. CuO is oxidized and SnO is reduced
d. SnO is oxidized and CuO is reduced

3. Dinitrogen tetroxide (N2O4) breaks down into nitrogen dioxide (NO2). If the reaction is reversible and endothermic, which condition will give the largest yield of NO2?
a. High temperature and high pressure
b. High temperature and low pressure
c. Low temperature and high pressure
d. Low temperature and low pressure

4. Which of the following molecules will have a dipole moment?
a. CH4
b. NH3
c. CCl4
d. CO2

5. When a non-volatile solute is dissolved in a pure solvent, the difference between the freezing points of the solvent alone and the solution is
a. positive
b. negative
c. zero
d. none of the above

6. A helium atom is heavier than a hydrogen molecule. At 298 K, the average kinetic energy of a helium atom is
a. twice that of a hydrogen molecule
b. equal to that of a hydrogen molecule
c. four times that of a hydrogen molecule
d. half that of a hydrogen molecule

7. Among the following, the one that gives positive Iodoform test upon reaction with I2 and NaOH is:
(A) (B) (C) (D)
a. Molecule (A)
b. Molecule (B)
c. Molecule (C)
d. Molecule (D)

8. For an endothermic reaction, where ?H represents the enthalpy of the reaction in kJ/mol, the minimum value for the energy of activation will be:
a. Less than ?H
b. Zero
c. More than ?H
d. Equal to ?H

9. Which of the following amino acids is commonly used in catalysis by enzyme?
a. Alanine
b. Arginine
c. Serine
d. Methionine

10. Which of the following compounds does not undergo ozonolysis reaction?
a. 3-methyl-1-butene
b. 2,3-dimethyl-butane
c. 2-methyl-2-butene
d. 2-methyl-1-butene

Section D – Biology

1. Glucokinase phosphorylates glucose in liver only when glucose levels are higher than normal. What property of glucokinase is responsible for this?
a. High molecular weight
b. High Km
c. High Vmax
d. Ability to act equally on D- and L-glucose

2. Platelets contain
a. Both genomic and mitochondrial DNA
b. Only mitochondrial DNA
c. Only genomic DNA
d. No DNA

3. Protein X is composed of 700 amino acids. When resolved on denaturing PAGE it shows a band corresponding to 130 kDa. The probable reason for such discrepancy is
a. Dimerization of the protein
b. Glycosylation of the protein
c. Phosphorylation of the protein
d. Acetylation of the protein

4. A geneticist crossed two pure-bred (homozygous) tall and short plants. In the F1 generation she observed that all the offspring were of intermediate height. If she crosses one of the offspring with the short parent what kind of progeny would you expect? Assume that plant height is dictated by a single locus.
a. All short
b. 50 % tall and 50 % short
c. 50 % intermediate and 50 % short
d. 50 % intermediate, 25 % tall and 25 % short

5. How would you test whether a phenotypic difference between two populations of a plant is due to environmentally induced plasticity or evolutionary adaptation?
a. DNA sequencing
b. RNA sequencing
c. Grow both populations in different greenhouses
d. Grow both populations in the same greenhouse

6. In an experiment, two fly populations are separately maintained for many generations. Population A contains closely-related individuals. Population B contains a set of unrelated individuals. Over many generations it is observed that the fitness of individuals in population A is lower than the fitness of those in population B. Why?
a. Close relatives will not mate with one another
b. Close relatives compete for common resources more than unrelated individuals
c. The offspring of close relatives harbour more deleterious recessive mutations
d. Unrelated individuals are likely to contain new high-fitness genes

7. Of the graphs shown below, which is most representative of the kinetics of ion transport through a membrane channel?
a. Graph (A)
b. Graph (B)
c. Graph (C)
d. Graph (D)

8. Galvani discovered in the 1700s that frog’s legs jerked when touched with a piece of copper and a piece of iron, simultaneously. This happens because action potentials are triggered due to which of the following properties of the metals:
a. Metals conduct charge away from cell membranes
b. Soluble metal ions mimic neurotransmitters
c. The temperature difference between metals and tissues
d. The electrochemical potential difference between the two metals

9. Human red blood cells (RBCs) cannot be grown in cultures because
a. RBCs require a steady oxygen supply
b. RBCs are extremely fragile
c. RBCs are terminally differentiated cells
d. RBCs are biconcave

10. Which one of the following cannot form a bilayer by itself?
a. Glycerophospholipids
b. Cholesterol
c. Phosphatidic acid
d. Glycerolipids