UPSC Mains 2022 Anthropology Optional Paper I questions

27 questions from the Civil Services (Main) Examination 2022. Official UPSC paper (PDF) · All Anthropology Optional PYQs

1. Mesolithic rock art in Indian subcontinent

   10 marks

2. Radcliffe-Brown's ideas on status, role and institution

   10 marks

3. Pedigree analysis in genetic counselling

   10 marks

4. Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and Participatory Learning and Action (PLA)

5. "Anthropology is the systematic, objective and holistic study of human kind in all times and places". Elaborate the argument.

   20 marks

6. Discuss different forms of primate social organisation.

   15 marks

7. Discuss with suitable examples the typo-technological problems in Indian palaeolithic industry with reference to environmental hypotheses.

   15 marks

8. Discuss how the rules of descent contradict the principles of residence in matrilineal society, mentioning suitable examples?

   20 marks

9. Enumerate the evidence of animal domestication in Indian microlithic industry.

10. ara fran 4 frase & ear a aaftra frag St fraser Fifa Should we still distinguish between 'classic' and 'progressive' Neanderthals? Discuss the controversy surrounding Neanderthal's position in human evolution.

11. Why Heath and Carter used anthropometric measurements instead of photographs of an individual to assess the somatotype? Elaborate their method.

    20 marks

12. Discuss the historical and cultural contexts that led to superseding ethnocentrism with cultural relativism in anthropology.

    15 marks

13. Critically examine various anthropological interpretations about the Kula Ring.

    15 marks

14. Balanced and transient genetic polymorphism.

    10 marks

15. Genetic imprinting in human diseases.

    10 marks

16. Stages of human pre-natal development.

    10 marks

17. Shaman, sorcerer and medicine man.

    10 marks

18. Household and domestic group.

    10 marks

19. Atty Discuss the mechanism of social control in different kinds of political systems.

20. What is meant by health? Is the burden of life style diseases on the rise? Justify your answer with suitable examples.

    15 marks

21. Critically evaluate the reasons of reduction in age at menarche in human females over the successive generations.

    15 marks

22. Discuss the role of evolutionary forces in creating human diversity.

    20 marks

23. Write the historical development of field work tradition in anthropology till recent times.

    15 marks

24. afar oe vat Fife Discuss the approaches of Leslie White, Julian Steward and Marshall Sahlins in the light of cultural evolution.

    15 marks

25. Discuss the contemporary population problems in the light of various socio-cultural demographic theories.

    20 marks

26. What do you understand by blood group systems? How is HLA system different from those based on red cell antigens?

    15 marks

27. Discuss how anthropological knowledge of the human body may be used in designing equipments and articles of human use.

    15 marks