MPSC 2026 Prelims Paper-I · Question 90 of 100

Correct — option (2), '(b) is correct, (a) is incorrect'. This is a question about a single digit, and it is worth slowing down over because it is the purest example in the paper of how a current-affairs statement is falsified. Statement (b) is correct. The 31st National Children's Science Congress was held on the focal theme 'Understanding Ecosystem for Health and Wellbeing', the theme under which participating children built their group projects. Statement (a) is incorrect — but almost everything in it is right. The 31st edition was indeed held at Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, and it did run from the 3rd to the 6th of January, inaugurated by the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh. The single element that has been altered is the year: it took place in January 2025, not January 2026. City, State, dates and duration are all faithful; the year is not. That is the whole mechanism of the question. A candidate who has read about the event will recognise Bhopal, will recognise the January dates, will feel the statement is familiar, and will tick it as correct — which lands on option (3), 'Both (a) and (b) are correct'. The defence is a habit rather than a fact: in any statement that carries a place and a date together, verify the year separately from everything else, because the year is the cheapest thing for an examiner to change and the easiest thing for a reader to skim past. A useful cross-check here is internal to the paper itself. This examination was written on 31 May 2026, and an event dated January 2026 would be five months old; ask yourself whether you actually remember it happening in the exam year, or whether you remember it happening the year before. With statement (b) established as true, options (1) and (4) fall immediately, since both call it incorrect. The choice then lies between option (2) and option (3), and it turns entirely on the year in statement (a).

• (1)(a) is correct, (b) is incorrect — This inverts both judgements. The theme in statement (b) — 'Understanding Ecosystem for Health and Wellbeing' — is the genuine focal theme of the 31st Congress, so calling it incorrect is wrong; and statement (a) carries the wrong year, so calling it correct is wrong too. A candidate reaching this option has usually not recognised the theme at all and has defaulted to trusting the statement that names a familiar city.
• (3)Both (a) and (b) are correct — This is the intended trap and the option most candidates will choose. Statement (b) is indeed correct, and statement (a) is correct in every particular except one — the 31st Congress was held at Bhopal from 3 to 6 January, but in 2025, not 2026. The option fails on that single digit. It is the standard shape of a well-set current-affairs falsification: keep the memorable details intact and move the date.
• (4)Both (a) and (b) are incorrect — This rejects the theme along with the year. The theme is right, so the option overshoots. It is the choice of a candidate who has spotted that something is wrong with the pair and has generalised the suspicion to both statements rather than isolating the error. In a 'correct and incorrect' format, resist the pull towards the symmetrical answers at either end — the examiner sets this format precisely to test whether you can grade the two statements independently.

The National Children's Science Congress is a nationwide programme that invites school children to do science rather than recite it. Groups of children choose a problem in their own locality that falls within a declared focal theme, gather data, test an explanation and present their findings, moving from district to State to national level. It is run by the National Council for Science and Technology Communication under the Department of Science and Technology, and it has run annually since the early 1990s, with participants divided into a junior and a senior age group. The focal theme changes periodically and is deliberately broad enough to be worked on in a village, a small town or a city, so that a child's immediate surroundings become the laboratory. 'Understanding Ecosystem for Health and Wellbeing', the theme of the 31st edition, is characteristic — it invites projects on water, soil, air, food, biodiversity and human health in a single frame.

For the exam, science-communication events like this one are examined for four attributes and no more: the edition number, the host city and State, the dates, and the focal theme. Papers routinely combine three true attributes with one altered one, as here, and the altered attribute is far more often the year than the place. The 31st Congress was held at Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh from 3 to 6 January 2025 and was inaugurated by the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh. Keeping the organising body in mind is worth a mark on its own: the Department of Science and Technology through its National Council for Science and Technology Communication, which is the same body behind National Science Day and a range of other science-popularisation programmes.

• The 31st National Children's Science Congress was held at Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh from 3 to 6 January 2025 — the paper's statement (a) reproduces the venue and dates correctly but gives the year as 2026
• Its focal theme was 'Understanding Ecosystem for Health and Wellbeing' — the paper's statement (b) is accurate
• The Congress is a programme of the National Council for Science and Technology Communication under the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India
• Children participate in groups, take up a project on a local problem within the declared focal theme, and progress through district and State rounds to the national level
• The 31st edition was inaugurated by the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh at Bhopal

• Reading a statement for familiarity rather than for accuracy. Statement (a) here feels right because four of its five elements are right; only a deliberate check of the year exposes it
• Assuming that if one statement in a pair is true the other must be false, or that both must go the same way. The 'correct and incorrect' format exists to test independent grading of each statement
• Confusing the National Children's Science Congress with the Indian Science Congress. They are different events with different participants, organisers and themes

This two-statement 'correct and incorrect' format is an MPSC staple, and the four options are always the same four: (a) only, (b) only, both, neither. Because the format is fixed, the marks are decided entirely by whether you can grade each statement on its own. For event-based questions the reliable revision unit is a four-column line per event — edition, place, dates, theme — because that is exactly the set of attributes the examiner will draw one falsification from.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The National Children's Science Congress is organised under which department of the Government of India ?

  • (a)Department of School Education and Literacy
  • (b)Department of Science and Technology
  • (c)Department of Biotechnology
  • (d)Department of Higher Education

  Answer(b) Department of Science and Technology — the Congress is run by its National Council for Science and Technology Communication, the same body responsible for National Science Day and other science-popularisation programmes.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The focal theme of the 31st National Children's Science Congress was :

  • (a)Science for Sustainable Development
  • (b)Understanding Ecosystem for Health and Wellbeing
  • (c)Health and Nutrition for a Viksit Bharat
  • (d)Clean Energy for a Green Future

  Answer(b) Understanding Ecosystem for Health and Wellbeing — the theme under which participating children built their group projects at the 31st edition, held at Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh from 3 to 6 January 2025.