India · Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board (ICAR) · professional · secondary source
NET: one paper of 150 objective questions at 1 mark each, 2 hours, -1/3 negative, online, English or Hindi, Master's level. ARS: qualifying prelims, then mains 240 and interview 60.
Checked against a secondary source (coaching or news site), not the conducting body; re-confirm before relying on it. asrb.org.in was unreachable during research. The ARS mains/interview split comes from an undated Wikipedia page. Discipline codes, 2025 dates and the combined NET+ARS+SMS+STO prelims from 2022 are not verified. Official site: https://www.asrb.org.in
Official source: https://www.pw.live/agriculture/exams/asrb-net-syllabus
Original questions written to this exam's published syllabus and pattern. Not past papers.
1. The acronym POSDCORB, listing planning, organising, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting and budgeting, is associated with:
B. Luther Gulick, in work with Lyndall Urwick in the 1930s
Gulick coined POSDCORB in 1937 in the papers he edited with Urwick. Fayol's own list was planning, organising, commanding, coordinating and controlling.
Principles of Management & Organisational Behaviour · Nature and scope of management
2. A feed mill's total revenue is TR = 120Q - 2Q^2 and total cost is TC = 300 + 24Q + Q^2, with Q in tonnes. What output maximises profit?
B. 16
MR = 120 - 4Q and MC = 24 + 2Q. Setting MR = MC: 96 = 6Q, so Q = 16; the second-order condition holds because MC rises while MR falls. Q = 30 maximises revenue (MR = 0), not profit. Q = 24 comes from setting MR equal to 24 and forgetting the 2Q term in MC. Q = 48 sets price (120 - 2Q) equal to 24.
Managerial (Applied Agribusiness) Economics · Objective of the firm and mathematical tools
3. A farm with a fixed area can produce either 100 t of wheat or 60 t of pulses, with a straight-line trade-off between them. What is the opportunity cost of 1 t of pulses?
C. 1.67 t of wheat
Opportunity cost of pulses = wheat forgone / pulses gained = 100/60 = 1.67 t of wheat per t of pulses. The tempting 0.6 inverts the ratio (that is the cost of 1 t of wheat in pulses); 40 is the difference, not a ratio.
Microeconomic Theory & Applications · Scarcity and the production possibility frontier
4. Which of the following is excluded when GDP is measured?
C. An old-age pension paid by the government
A pension is a transfer payment: no current good or service is produced in exchange, so it is excluded from GDP (it does enter personal disposable income). Farm wages are factor income, own-consumed farm output is imputed and included, and a dealer's commission on a second-hand sale is payment for a current service even though the tractor itself is not counted again.
Macroeconomics & Policy · National income concepts and measurement
5. A farmer pays the household grocery bill from the farm business bank account. Which accounting concept requires this payment to be recorded as drawings rather than as a farm expense?
C. Business entity concept
The business entity concept treats the business as separate from its owner, so private spending paid from business funds is drawings, reducing capital. Matching concerns setting expenses against the revenue they earn; it does not decide whose expense it is.
Financial & Managerial Accounting · Accounting concepts and conventions
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