Motorcycle is related to battery in the same way as Life is related to

Question

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Correct — C, Sun. Begin by putting the first pair into a full sentence, because a vague relationship is what makes analogies feel arbitrary. A battery is the source of the energy that a motorcycle runs on — it turns the starter, fires the ignition and powers the lights and horn, and without it the machine will not come alive. So the relationship is 'X is powered by its source of energy Y'. Substitute the second pair and ask what supplies the energy that life runs on. The answer is the Sun. Green plants, algae and cyanobacteria capture solar radiation and convert that free energy into chemical potential energy stored in carbohydrates; every heterotroph, including every animal, then draws on that store through the food chain, and even the fossil fuels that power human civilisation are ancient sunlight. Nothing else in the option list plays that role. The Earth is where life is located and what supplies its water, minerals and atmosphere, but a place is not a power source, and 'motorcycle is related to garage' is not the relationship the first pair sets up. The Moon influences tides and stabilises the planet's axial tilt, but it contributes no significant energy to the biosphere — the light it gives is reflected sunlight. That leaves 'Star', which is where honesty is owed: the Sun is a star, so option (d) is not false in a loose sense. It fails the analogy on a different ground. 'Battery' names a specific object, not the category 'power source', so the second pair must also name the specific body — the Sun — and not the class it belongs to. Matching the level of specificity is the standard rule for resolving exactly this kind of near-tie, and it gives (c).

Why the other options are wrong — (a) The most common answer given at speed, because 'life on Earth' is a phrase everyone carries around. But the relationship being tested is source of energy, not place of residence. Earth supplies the habitat, the water and the mineral nutrients; it does not supply the energy, which arrives from outside as solar radiation.  (b) The Moon governs the tides and helps stabilise the Earth's axial tilt, so it is not irrelevant to the conditions for life — but it generates no energy of its own, and moonlight is only reflected sunlight. On the energy relationship the first pair establishes, it contributes essentially nothing.  (d) The near-tie, and it deserves a straight answer: the Sun is a star, so this option is not factually wrong. It is wrong as an analogy, because it changes the level of description. The first pair names a specific component, a battery, rather than the category 'power source', so the second pair must name the specific body rather than its class.

Concept: A verbal analogy asks you to identify a relationship in one pair and apply it unchanged to another. The relationships that recur in this examination are a small, learnable set: object and its power source, worker and tool, part and whole, cause and effect, product and raw material, instrument and the quantity it measures, animal and its young, and word and its synonym or antonym. The single technique that makes them reliable is to convert the first pair into a complete sentence with a verb — 'a battery supplies the energy that runs a motorcycle' — and then read the same sentence with the second pair's terms substituted, rejecting every option that does not fit the verb. The science behind this particular item is the trophic structure of the biosphere. Photosynthesis converts free radiant energy into stored chemical potential energy, and every subsequent link in a food chain lives on that stored energy, with only about a tenth of it passing from one trophic level to the next. The Sun is therefore not merely one influence on life; it is the input at the base of nearly every food chain on the planet.

State PCS 2024 Q52 — Science & Technology PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q52 — Science & Technology PYQ with Answer