ICAR AICE-JRF/SRF (PhD) — Food Processing Technology, Food Safety & Quality, Processing and Food Engineering · India · ICAR through the National Testing Agency
Original practice questions written to the published syllabus · not past papersThe analytical science of a research laboratory: high-resolution mass spectrometry, NMR, advanced chromatography, imaging and hyperspectral methods, proteomics, metabolomics and lipidomics of foods, biosensors, and the chemometrics that interprets the data.
In the exams: ICAR AICE 35.a Unit 4 (non-destructive methods, biosensors) and 35.b Unit 6 (research techniques); PhD research
How our questions for ICAR AICE-JRF/SRF spread across the units of Advanced Analytical Techniques & Foodomics. Difficulty: 22 easy, 70 medium, 12 hard.
| High-resolution and tandem mass spectrometry | 9 | |
| LC-MS/MS and GC-MS/MS for residues and contaminants | 9 | |
| Advanced chromatography: UHPLC, 2D chromatography and ion chromatography | 9 | |
| Thermal analysis: DSC and TGA | 9 | |
| Proteomics, peptidomics and allergen detection | 9 | |
| Metabolomics and lipidomics | 9 | |
| Biosensors and electronic nose and tongue | 9 | |
| Chemometrics and machine learning for analytical data | 9 | |
| Nuclear magnetic resonance in food analysis | 8 | |
| Microscopy of foods: SEM, TEM, confocal and AFM | 8 | |
| X-ray diffraction and scattering | 8 | |
| Hyperspectral imaging and machine vision | 8 |
Choose an answer, then open the working. Each explanation says why the right answer is right and why the others are not.
Which ionisation technique, used with gas chromatography at 70 eV, gives reproducible fragment spectra searchable in libraries?
B. Electron ionisation
EI at 70 eV gives standardised fragmentation for library matching. ESI is soft and used with LC; MALDI suits large biomolecules.
Further reading: de Hoffmann and Stroobant, Mass Spectrometry
On a 400 MHz spectrometer, a signal appears 1600 Hz from TMS. What is its chemical shift?
A. 4.0 ppm
δ = 1600 Hz/400 MHz = 4.0 ppm. 0.25 inverts the ratio; 1.6 and 40 slip factors.
Further reading: Belton et al., Magnetic Resonance in Food Science
What is the main limitation of NMR compared with mass spectrometry for food analysis?
D. Lower sensitivity
NMR is reproducible, quantitative and non-destructive but far less sensitive, so it misses trace compounds.
Further reading: Belton et al., Magnetic Resonance in Food Science
Why do sub-2 µm particles in UHPLC allow faster separations without losing efficiency?
C. They lower the A and C terms of the van Deemter curve
Smaller particles give lower plate heights and a flatter van Deemter curve at high velocity, at the cost of higher pressure.
Further reading: Snyder, Kirkland and Dolan, Introduction to Modern Liquid Chromatography
What happens to the Maltese cross of starch granules under polarised light on gelatinisation?
B. It disappears
Loss of ordered (birefringent) structure on gelatinisation removes the cross.
Further reading: Aguilera and Stanley, Microstructural Principles
Which XRD pattern indicates amylose-lipid complexes formed during extrusion?
A. V-type
Single amylose helices around lipids give the V pattern.
Further reading: Aguilera and Stanley, Microstructural Principles
Which wavelength range is used by short-wave infrared hyperspectral cameras?
C. About 1000 to 2500 nm
SWIR covers ~1000–2500 nm, where O–H, C–H and N–H overtones occur.
Further reading: Sun, Hyperspectral Imaging for Food Quality
Which pre-processing method reduces light-scattering effects in reflectance spectra?
B. Standard normal variate
SNV (and MSC) correct for scatter differences caused by particle size and surface.
Further reading: Sun, Hyperspectral Imaging for Food Quality
A PLS-DA model separates organic from conventional tomatoes perfectly in training. What must be done before trusting it?
B. Validate with permutation tests and independent samples
With many features and few samples, perfect training separation can be chance; validation shows real predictive power.
Further reading: Cifuentes, Foodomics; Sumner et al. (2007)
What does autoscaling do to each variable?
B. Mean-centres it and divides by its standard deviation
Autoscaling gives each variable unit variance so that all have equal weight.
Further reading: Brereton, Chemometrics
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