NDA (I) 2025 General Ability Test · Question 61 of 150

Correct — B, Africa and Spain. Maize (makka) is a New World crop, domesticated in Mexico, and it reached the Old World only after Columbus (1492). On the route this question specifies, maize is taken to have entered India in the seventeenth century through the Old-World diffusion path — spreading out of Spain and through Africa and thence to India — which matches option (b). This item is genuinely disputed: a widely held competing view credits the Portuguese (option a) with carrying New-World crops to India by the sea route. We name (b) because it fits the specific 'via Africa and Spain' framing and the mainstream Indian agrarian-history argument, but flag that the Portuguese-introduction view is respectable — hence the honest medium confidence.

• (a)Portugal — This is the strongest rival answer, not a clearly wrong one: many textbooks credit Portuguese traders with bringing New-World crops (maize, chillies, potato, tobacco) to India by sea. We do not select it because the item specifies the 'Africa and Spain' diffusion route, but the disagreement is real.
• (c)China and Mongolia — There is no accepted historical route by which maize reached India from China and Mongolia; these lay outside the post-Columbian diffusion path for the crop.
• (d)Turkey — Turkey is not credited with introducing maize to India; interestingly the reverse naming exists — some languages call maize 'Turkish grain' — but that is a naming quirk, not a route into India.

Maize is one of the great Columbian Exchange crops: domesticated in the Balsas valley of southern Mexico thousands of years ago, it was unknown in Asia, Africa and Europe until Spanish and Portuguese voyages carried it out of the Americas after 1492. It then spread rapidly across the Old World and became a staple in many regions.

The disagreement is about the exact route into India, which primary sources do not settle. Reading 'via Africa and Spain' as the Old-World diffusion path gives (b); reading 'introduction' as the work of Portuguese carriers gives (a). Both are defensible, so the item is best treated as a known dispute rather than a clean fact.

• Maize is a New World crop, domesticated in Mexico; it left the Americas only after 1492 (the Columbian Exchange).
• Spanish and Portuguese voyages spread maize across Europe, Africa and Asia in the 16th-17th centuries.
• The precise route by which maize reached India is not settled by primary sources — historians differ.
• Other Columbian-Exchange crops that reached India similarly include chillies, potato, tomato and tobacco.

• Treating the maize route as a settled single fact — it is genuinely disputed between the Portuguese and the 'Africa and Spain' routes.
• Assuming maize is native to India or Asia — it is a New World crop.

Asked as 'maize was introduced into India via ___', which is a known disputed item — be ready for both the Portuguese and the Africa-and-Spain answers.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Maize, along with chillies and the potato, reached India as part of the

  • (a)Silk Route trade
  • (b)Columbian Exchange after 1492
  • (c)Arab conquests
  • (d)Harappan trade

  Answer(b) Columbian Exchange after 1492 — these are all New World crops.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following is NOT a crop native to the Americas (New World)?

  • (a)Maize
  • (b)Potato
  • (c)Chilli
  • (d)Wheat

  Answer(d) Wheat — an Old World crop; maize, potato and chilli are all New World crops.