About Sports
Sports at this level is three lists: which trophy belongs to which game, which term belongs to which game, and where a stadium stands. The questions are factual, and the terms have been chosen so that each belongs to one game only.
What you need to understand
- Trophies are best learned by the body that gives them or by the game they belong to. The cricket trophies named after players - the Ranji, Duleep, Irani, Vijay Hazare and Deodhar - are all domestic competitions in India.
- The hockey trophies include the Aga Khan Cup, the Rangaswamy Cup, the Beighton Cup, the Dhyan Chand Trophy and the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup.
- The football trophies include the Santosh Trophy, the Durand Cup, the IFA Shield, the Subroto Cup, the Merdeka Cup and the Nehru Cup.
- Badminton has the Thomas Cup for men's teams, the Uber Cup for women's teams and the Sudirman Cup for mixed teams, and table tennis has the Swaythling Cup and the Corbillon Cup.
- Tennis has the Davis Cup for men's national teams, and golf has the Ryder Cup and the Walker Cup; polo has the Ezra Cup and rowing the Wellington Trophy.
- The terms of cricket include the googly, the yorker, silly point, the maiden over, the follow-on, leg before wicket and the cover drive.
- The terms of hockey include the penalty corner, the penalty stroke, the green card and the bully, and football has the penalty kick, the corner kick, the own goal, the free kick and the goal kick.
- Tennis has deuce, break point, love and the drop shot; badminton has the shuttlecock, the net shot and the flick serve; table tennis has the chop and the penholder grip.
- Boxing has the jab, the uppercut and the southpaw; chess has checkmate, stalemate, the gambit, castling and en passant; basketball has the free throw and the three-point line.
- Volleyball has the libero, polo the chukker, golf the birdie and the bogey, and kabaddi the raid - terms that belong to one game and to no other.
- The stadiums are learned with their cities, and the ones asked about most are Eden Gardens in Kolkata, the Wankhede in Mumbai, the Chepauk in Chennai and the Chinnaswamy in Bengaluru.
- Two of the country's largest stadiums are in the same city and are not cricket grounds: the Salt Lake Stadium and the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, both in Kolkata in the first case and in Delhi in the second.
- Nothing here turns on a current record. There are no highest scores and no latest winners, because those change and the questions in this topic are about the games themselves.
How to work through these questions
- Learn the trophies by sport in families rather than as one long list, since the question almost always asks which sport a trophy belongs to.
- For the terms, ask which game the term could belong to and only then look at the options. A term used in two games has been left out of this topic deliberately.
- For stadiums, learn the city with the ground, and note that two of the largest are not cricket grounds at all.
- Learn the cups named after people with the person where you can: Ranji and Duleep were cricketers, Dhyan Chand a hockey player, and Azlan Shah a ruler who was a patron of hockey.
- Where two cups are close, such as the Thomas and the Uber, remember that the first is the men's and the second the women's.
- Read the question for the game before the term. A question that names hockey cannot have a term of football as its answer.
Mistakes that cost marks
- Confusing the Thomas Cup, which is for men's badminton teams, with the Uber Cup, which is for women's.
- Giving cricket for the Durand Cup, which is football, or for the Aga Khan Cup, which is hockey.
- Mixing up the Ranji Trophy, which is for first-class cricket, with the Irani Cup, which is played between the Ranji champions and the rest of India.
- Confusing the Swaythling Cup, which is table tennis, with the Sudirman Cup, which is badminton.
- Answering the Davis Cup for women's tennis; it is the men's competition, and the women's is now the Billie Jean King Cup.
- Mixing up the Santosh Trophy in football with the Subroto Cup, which is a schools competition in the same sport.
- Giving the wrong city for a stadium because two grounds share a name, as with the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadiums in Delhi and Kochi.
- Treating a term as belonging to the wrong game because it is also used loosely elsewhere, as with 'raid', which belongs to kabaddi.
Worked example
The Ranji Trophy is associated with which sport?
- The name is that of a person, so it is a trophy named after a player, and the question is which sport he played.
- Ranji - Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji - played cricket, and the trophy is the domestic first-class championship of India.
- The other Indian trophies in the same family are the Duleep Trophy, the Irani Cup and the Vijay Hazare Trophy, all cricket.
- The Ranji Trophy belongs to cricket.
Answer: cricket
Practice questions with answers
A few Sports questions with the full solution shown, so you can see
how the method is applied before you attempt the timed set.
Question 1
In which of these sports is the Santosh Trophy awarded?
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A
cricket
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B
polo
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C
badminton
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D
football
Answer: Option D — with explanation
the Santosh Trophy belongs to football.
Learn the trophies by the body that gives them rather than in one list, and the terms by the game they belong to. A term that is used in two games is a trap in a question like this, so be sure which game the question is about before choosing.
Common mistakes
- this trophy belongs to another sport: cricket
- this trophy belongs to another sport: polo
- this trophy belongs to another sport: badminton
Question 2
In which sport is the term penalty kick used?
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A
hockey
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B
football
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C
tennis
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D
polo
Answer: Option B — with explanation
penalty kick is a term used in football.
Learn the trophies by the body that gives them rather than in one list, and the terms by the game they belong to. A term that is used in two games is a trap in a question like this, so be sure which game the question is about before choosing.
Common mistakes
- this term belongs to another sport: polo
- this term belongs to another sport: tennis
- this term belongs to another sport: hockey
Question 3
the IFA Shield is a trophy in which of these sports?
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A
rowing
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B
golf
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C
football
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D
cricket
Answer: Option C — with explanation
the IFA Shield belongs to football.
Learn the trophies by the body that gives them rather than in one list, and the terms by the game they belong to. A term that is used in two games is a trap in a question like this, so be sure which game the question is about before choosing.
Common mistakes
- this trophy belongs to another sport: rowing
- this trophy belongs to another sport: cricket
- this trophy belongs to another sport: golf
Question 4
The term stalemate belongs to which of these sports?
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A
volleyball
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B
chess
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C
kabaddi
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D
basketball
Answer: Option B — with explanation
stalemate is a term used in chess.
Learn the trophies by the body that gives them rather than in one list, and the terms by the game they belong to. A term that is used in two games is a trap in a question like this, so be sure which game the question is about before choosing.
Common mistakes
- this term belongs to another sport: kabaddi
- this term belongs to another sport: volleyball
- this term belongs to another sport: basketball
Question 5
The term penalty corner belongs to which of these sports?
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A
hockey
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B
cricket
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C
volleyball
-
D
basketball
Answer: Option A — with explanation
penalty corner is a term used in hockey.
Learn the trophies by the body that gives them rather than in one list, and the terms by the game they belong to. A term that is used in two games is a trap in a question like this, so be sure which game the question is about before choosing.
Common mistakes
- this term belongs to another sport: cricket
- this term belongs to another sport: volleyball
- this term belongs to another sport: basketball
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to know current players and records?
Not for this topic, and deliberately so. Those change every season. What is asked here is which game a trophy or a term belongs to, which does not change.
What is the difference between the Davis Cup and the Billie Jean King Cup?
The Davis Cup is the men's international team competition in tennis and the Billie Jean King Cup the women's. It was earlier called the Federation Cup.
Which trophies are named after people?
Most of them. Ranji, Duleep, Irani, Vijay Hazare and Deodhar were cricketers, Dhyan Chand a hockey player, and Sultan Azlan Shah a patron of hockey, which is often enough to place the trophy.
Why are only some stadiums listed?
The list gives the grounds that competitive papers ask about, which are the international venues and the two largest non-cricket stadiums. A complete list of Indian stadiums would run to hundreds.
Where does this topic appear in a paper?
In the general knowledge sections of bank, SSC and railway papers, usually as two or three questions together. Trophies and terms are asked far more often than venues.
