Match List-I with List-II and choose the correct answer using the codes given below the lists :
List-I (Vitamin)
A. Vitamin A
B. Vitamin B
C. Vitamin C
D. Vitamin D
List-II (Disease)
1. Beriberi
2. Bl

Question

Match List-I with List-II and choose the correct answer using the codes given below the lists :
List-I (Vitamin)
A. Vitamin A
B. Vitamin B
C. Vitamin C
D. Vitamin D
List-II (Disease)
1. Beriberi
2. Blindness
3. Rickets
4. Scurvy
Codes :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — B, A-2, B-1, C-4, D-3. Each pair is one of the four classic deficiency diseases. (A) Vitamin A, chemically retinol, is the precursor of rhodopsin, the light-sensitive pigment in the rod cells of the retina. Deficiency shows first as night blindness, then as xerophthalmia — drying and clouding of the conjunctiva and cornea — and finally as keratomalacia and irreversible blindness; vitamin A deficiency remains the leading cause of preventable childhood blindness worldwide. So A goes with 2. (B) Vitamin B here means thiamine, vitamin B1, whose deficiency causes beriberi. Thiamine sits in the bran and germ of cereal grains, so a diet built on polished white rice is thiamine-poor; 'wet' beriberi damages the heart and causes oedema, 'dry' beriberi damages the peripheral nerves and wastes the muscles. So B goes with 1. (C) Vitamin C, ascorbic acid, is required for the hydroxylation step that lets the body build stable collagen. Without it connective tissue fails — bleeding and spongy gums, loose teeth, bleeding under the skin, poor wound healing — which is scurvy, the disease of long sea voyages that James Lind's citrus trials addressed in 1747. So C goes with 4. (D) Vitamin D, calciferol, controls the absorption of calcium and phosphorus from the gut, so deficiency leaves the growing bone unmineralised and soft: rickets in children, with bowed legs and a beaded rib cage, and osteomalacia in adults. So D goes with 3. A-2, B-1, C-4, D-3 is option (b). One caution on precision: the list says 'Vitamin B', but beriberi is specifically a thiamine (B1) deficiency — other B vitamins give quite different diseases, riboflavin (B2) causing cheilosis and angular stomatitis, niacin (B3) causing pellagra, and cobalamin (B12) causing pernicious anaemia.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Reverses the list completely, giving scurvy to vitamin A, rickets to vitamin B, blindness to vitamin C and beriberi to vitamin D. Every pair is wrong. Scurvy is the vitamin C disease and rickets the vitamin D one, so this is the mirror image of the correct answer and the standard reversal decoy.  (c) Simply pairs A with 1, B with 2, C with 3 and D with 4 in sequence, which is the option an unprepared candidate picks by default. It gives beriberi to vitamin A, blindness to vitamin B, rickets to vitamin C and scurvy to vitamin D — all four wrong. Beware of any match option that lines the two lists up in their printed order.  (d) Wrong in all four pairs as well: beriberi to vitamin A, rickets to vitamin B, blindness to vitamin C and scurvy to vitamin D. It is the most plausible-looking of the three decoys because it keeps rickets in the top half of the list, but rickets is the softening of growing bone caused by lack of vitamin D and the calcium absorption that depends on it, not by any B vitamin.

Concept: Vitamins are organic micronutrients that the human body cannot synthesise in adequate amounts, so they must come from the diet; each acts as a coenzyme or a regulator in a specific pathway, and its absence produces a characteristic deficiency disease. They split into two groups. The fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K are stored in the liver and fatty tissue and can accumulate to toxic levels. The water-soluble ones — the B complex and vitamin C — are not stored in quantity, are excreted in urine, and must be supplied regularly, which is why their deficiency diseases appear relatively quickly on a poor diet. Vitamin D is the partial exception to the 'diet only' rule: the skin makes it from a cholesterol precursor under ultraviolet B in sunlight.

State PCS 2024 Q141 — Science & Technology PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q141 — Science & Technology PYQ with Answer