MPSC 2023 Prelims Paper-I · Question 100 of 100

Correct — option (4), which pairs a with ii, b with i, c with iv and d with iii. The two columns are printed side by side because the reader has to match them; the item standing opposite a name on the page is not that name's partner, and the pairing is only what the four options assert. Take the four Padma Shri awardees of 2023 in turn. Ramesh Patange, item a, was honoured in Literature and Education, item ii — he is a Marathi writer, editor and social activist from Maharashtra whose work concerns social harmony, caste reform and constitutional awareness. Mahendra Pal, item b, was honoured in Science and Engineering, item i — a veterinary scientist and academician from Gujarat, known for his research on the role of fungi in animal disease and described as the father of veterinary mycology in India. Uma Shankar Pande, item c, whose name is usually written Pandey, was honoured in Social Work, item iv — a social worker from Uttar Pradesh known for his work on groundwater and water conservation. Parshuram Khune, item d, was honoured in Art, item iii — a Zadipatti theatre artist from Gadchiroli in Maharashtra, popularly called the Dada Kondke of Vidarbha, who has played some eight hundred roles in more than five thousand performances and has used folk theatre for social causes including de-addiction, hygiene and the rehabilitation of young people in Naxal-affected areas. So the assignment is a-ii, b-i, c-iv and d-iii, which is option (4). As with any matching question, the structure does much of the work: because each field is used exactly once, a single confident pairing can settle everything. Here two pairings are individually decisive — only option (4) pairs b with i, and only option (4) pairs d with iii — so a candidate who knows either Mahendra Pal's field or Parshuram Khune's needs nothing else.

• (1)a - ii, b - iii, c - i, d - iv — This option pairs a with ii, b with iii, c with i and d with iv — that is, Ramesh Patange with Literature and Education, which is right, and then Mahendra Pal with Art, Uma Shankar Pande with Science and Engineering, and Parshuram Khune with Social Work. Three of the four are wrong. It is the most seductive of the three incorrect options precisely because it opens with the correct pair, and a candidate who verifies the first assignment and stops has been caught by exactly the trap the option was built for. The correction available at the lowest cost is Parshuram Khune, the Zadipatti theatre artist, who was honoured in Art and not in Social Work; his pairing is unique to option (4) among the four on offer, so testing it alone would have separated the two options that share the correct first pair.
• (2)a - iii, b - ii, c - iv, d - i — This option pairs a with iii, b with ii, c with iv and d with i — Ramesh Patange with Art, Mahendra Pal with Literature and Education, Uma Shankar Pande with Social Work, and Parshuram Khune with Science and Engineering. One pair is right, Uma Shankar Pande with Social Work, and the other three are wrong. The two most easily corrected are the first and the last, and they are corrected together: it is Parshuram Khune who belongs to Art, as a theatre artist of the Zadipatti tradition, and Ramesh Patange who belongs to Literature and Education, as a writer and editor. This option has in effect exchanged the two Maharashtra awardees with each other and then misassigned the scientist. The lesson is that two names from the same State are a natural pair for an examiner to swap, so where a matching list contains two awardees from one State it is worth checking that pair first.
• (3)a - i, b - iv, c - iii, d - ii — This option pairs a with i, b with iv, c with iii and d with ii — Ramesh Patange with Science and Engineering, Mahendra Pal with Social Work, Uma Shankar Pande with Art, and Parshuram Khune with Literature and Education. Every one of the four is wrong, which makes it the weakest option in the set and also the easiest to eliminate: a single correct pairing recalled from any part of the list will contradict it. The pairing of Mahendra Pal with Social Work is the one a candidate is most likely to catch, because his standing as a veterinary scientist and author of several hundred research papers places him unambiguously in Science and Engineering. Notice that this option, like the others, uses each field exactly once, so no structural check will remove it; only knowledge of one real pairing will.

The Padma awards are announced each year on the eve of Republic Day and conferred at Rashtrapati Bhavan, and they come in three grades — Padma Vibhushan for exceptional and distinguished service, Padma Bhushan for distinguished service of a high order, and Padma Shri for distinguished service. For 2023 the President approved a hundred and six Padma awards, comprising six Padma Vibhushan, nine Padma Bhushan and ninety-one Padma Shri. Each award is announced together with the field in which it is given, and the fields are a fixed and short list — Art, Social Work, Public Affairs, Science and Engineering, Trade and Industry, Medicine, Literature and Education, Sports, Civil Service and Others — which is what makes matching questions of this kind possible. In recent years the awards have been used deliberately to recognise unheralded work in small places, the so-called unsung heroes, and the four names in this question illustrate the pattern: a Marathi writer on social harmony, a veterinary mycologist, a water conservation worker from rural Uttar Pradesh and a folk theatre artist from Gadchiroli. Two of the four are from Maharashtra, which is why the Commission chose them.

The Padma awards are one of the most reliably examined items in any State PSC current affairs section, and a State's own awardees are certain to appear. For a Maharashtra candidate that means learning the State's Padma recipients each year with the field in which each was honoured — the field being what the question actually asks about, since the names alone are usually recognisable. Matching format compounds the requirement, because it is not enough to know that Parshuram Khune received a Padma Shri; the card turns on knowing that it was in Art. The technique for matching questions bears repeating here because this is the last of the four in this paper. Establish how many items each column holds; remember that side-by-side printing is layout and not an answer; note that every option will use each field exactly once, so structural checks cannot eliminate anything; then find the single pair you are surest of and strike out every option that contradicts it. In this question two different pairs are individually decisive, so a candidate who knew any one of several facts could have answered it in seconds. Note also that the paper prints 'Uma Shankar Pande' where the name is usually written Pandey, one of several transliteration variants in this paper.

• Ramesh Patange received the Padma Shri for 2023 in the field of Literature and Education; he is a Marathi writer, editor and social activist from Maharashtra whose work concerns social harmony, caste reform and constitutional awareness.
• Mahendra Pal received the Padma Shri for 2023 in Science and Engineering; a veterinary scientist and academician from Gujarat, he is known for research on the role of fungi in animal disease and is called the father of veterinary mycology in India.
• Uma Shankar Pandey, printed in this paper as 'Uma Shankar Pande', received the Padma Shri for 2023 in Social Work; he is a social worker from Uttar Pradesh known for his work on groundwater and water conservation.
• Parshuram Komaji Khune received the Padma Shri for 2023 in Art; a Zadipatti theatre artist from Gadchiroli in Maharashtra known as the Dada Kondke of Vidarbha, he has played some eight hundred roles in more than five thousand performances and has used folk theatre for de-addiction, hygiene and the rehabilitation of youth in Naxal-affected areas.
• For 2023 the President approved a hundred and six Padma awards — six Padma Vibhushan, nine Padma Bhushan and ninety-one Padma Shri — each announced with the field in which it was conferred.

• Verifying the first pair of an option and choosing it, when more than one option can share the same opening pair — here two of the four options begin with the same correct assignment, so the first pair decides nothing
• Reading the side-by-side printing of the two columns as the answer, when adjacency is layout and asserts no pairing — the columns are printed alongside one another precisely because they have to be matched
• Attempting a structural elimination, when every option in a matching question of this kind uses each field exactly once and none can be removed that way
• Knowing that a person received a Padma award but not the field it was given in, which is the only thing a matching question actually tests

Padma award questions appear in MPSC papers in three forms: who received an award in a named year, in what field a named person was honoured, and a matching question joining recipients to fields. All three are answered by the same preparation, which is a list of the year's awardees with the field against each, weighted towards the State's own recipients. The matching form is the most demanding because it requires several such pairs and cannot be answered by recognition alone, but it is also the most forgiving in structure, since one confident pairing usually eliminates every option but one. Expect the Commission to choose recipients with a Maharashtra connection and to place them alongside recipients from other States whose work is in a clearly different field, and expect a wrong option to be constructed by exchanging the two awardees who come from the same State.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Parshuram Komaji Khune, awarded the Padma Shri in 2023, is associated with which field ?

  • (a)Art, as an artist of the Zadipatti theatre of Maharashtra
  • (b)Social Work, for water conservation in Vidarbha
  • (c)Literature and Education, as a Marathi writer
  • (d)Science and Engineering, as a veterinary scientist

  Answer(a) Art, as an artist of the Zadipatti theatre of Maharashtra — the Zadipatti Rangbhumi is performed in the rice-growing districts of eastern Vidarbha after the harvest, blending commercial and folk theatre with live music, and Khune, from Gadchiroli, has played some eight hundred roles in over five thousand performances. The other three options describe, in order, Uma Shankar Pandey, Ramesh Patange and Mahendra Pal, the three other awardees named in this question.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Padma awards are conferred in how many grades, and which is the highest of them ?

  • (a)Two grades, of which Padma Bhushan is the higher
  • (b)Three grades, of which Padma Vibhushan is the highest
  • (c)Three grades, of which Padma Shri is the highest
  • (d)Four grades, of which Padma Ratna is the highest

  Answer(b) Three grades, of which Padma Vibhushan is the highest — it is given for exceptional and distinguished service, the Padma Bhushan for distinguished service of a high order, and the Padma Shri for distinguished service. For 2023 the President approved a hundred and six Padma awards in all, six of them Padma Vibhushan, nine Padma Bhushan and ninety-one Padma Shri.