ICAR AICE-JRF/SRF (PhD) · India · NTA for ICAR
Original practice questions written to the published syllabus · not past papersICAR AICE-JRF/SRF (PhD) is a PhD, fellowship and lectureship exam run by NTA for ICAR, for candidates in India. Computer-based, 2 hours, 120 questions: Part A 20 (general agriculture, animal husbandry, current events), Part B 50 (core group), Part C 50 (specialised subject). +4 / -1, maximum 480.
Source: icar.org.in.
Checked against the exam body's published information. Formats and fees change; confirm the current edition there before you book.
One-line recall of synonyms and named lesions: nutmeg liver, tiger heart, mulberry heart, bread-and-butter heart, morocco-leather abomasum, milk spots, pipestem liver, rubber jaw, big head, white-spotted kidney, gunmetal kidney; which organism or deficiency causes which lesion; pneumonia patterns; inclusion bodies and where to find them; nutritional deficiency diseases by species.
Lesions organ system by organ system, plus the pathology of nutritional and production diseases.
Our 15 ICAR AICE-JRF/SRF questions in this subject: 0 easy, 10 medium, 5 hard, across 12 units.
Choose an answer, then open the working. Each explanation says why the right answer is right and why the others are not.
These 10 were written to ICAR AICE-JRF/SRF and are not shown on any other exam's page.
Acute bovine pulmonary oedema and emphysema (fog fever) after a move to lush pasture is caused by:
D. 3-methylindole formed in the rumen from L-tryptophan
Rumen microbes convert L-tryptophan in lush grass to 3-methylindole, which is activated by club cells and damages type I pneumocytes. Mould spores cause hypersensitivity pneumonitis (farmer's lung) in housed cattle; nitrite causes methaemoglobinaemia, not interstitial pneumonia. Perilla ketone produces a similar lesion but is a plant toxin, not the fog fever mechanism.
Random multifocal hepatic necrosis in a newborn foal with no zonal pattern is best explained by:
B. Blood-borne infection such as Tyzzer's disease or equine herpesvirus 1
Randomly scattered necrotic foci mean organisms arrived by blood and grew wherever they lodged; Clostridium piliforme (Tyzzer's disease) and equine herpesvirus 1 are classic in foals. Hypoxia gives centrilobular necrosis, and pyrrolizidine poisoning is chronic with fibrosis and megalocytes.
In most dogs with renal amyloidosis amyloid is glomerular, but in Abyssinian cats and Shar-Pei dogs it is deposited mainly in:
C. The renal medullary interstitium
Familial amyloidosis of Abyssinian cats and Shar-Pei dogs is mainly medullary interstitial, so these animals present with renal failure and papillary necrosis with less proteinuria. Glomerular deposition, typical of other dogs, causes heavy proteinuria and nephrotic syndrome.
Laminar cortical necrosis in a feedlot steer that autofluoresces under ultraviolet light (about 365 nm) is typical of:
D. Polioencephalomalacia
Polioencephalomalacia (thiamine disruption, high sulphur, lead) causes laminar necrosis of the cerebral cortex, and affected areas often fluoresce under a UV lamp. TEME gives haemorrhagic foci and BSE shows grey matter vacuolation without necrosis.
Enzootic ataxia (swayback) of lambs is caused by maternal deficiency of:
A. Copper
Copper-dependent enzymes are needed for myelin formation; deficiency in the ewe causes cerebral white matter cavitation (congenital form) or spinal tract degeneration (delayed form) in lambs. Selenium deficiency causes white muscle disease, not demyelination.
Ballooning degeneration of keratinocytes with intracytoplasmic eosinophilic inclusion bodies is characteristic of infection with:
B. Poxviruses
Poxviruses replicate in the cytoplasm, producing Bollinger (or Borrel) bodies, and cause ballooning degeneration. Herpesviruses form intranuclear inclusions; foot-and-mouth disease virus causes vesicles without inclusion bodies.
Multifocal non-suppurative encephalitis with necrosis and myocarditis in an aborted 5-month bovine fetus most strongly suggests:
A. Neospora caninum
Neospora caninum is a major cause of bovine abortion worldwide, and its fetal brain and heart lesions are characteristic. Aspergillus causes placentitis and fetal ringworm-like skin lesions; Brucella's main lesion is placental.
Islet amyloidosis in diabetic cats is formed from:
B. Islet amyloid polypeptide (amylin)
Amylin is co-secreted with insulin by beta cells and, in cats as in human type 2 diabetes, forms amyloid in islets that contributes to beta-cell loss. Serum amyloid A forms reactive (AA) amyloid in kidneys and liver; light chains form AL amyloid in plasma-cell tumours.
Ovine white liver disease is a hepatic lipidosis of lambs associated with deficiency of:
D. Cobalt
Rumen microbes need cobalt to make vitamin B12; B12 is a cofactor for methylmalonyl-CoA mutase, needed to use propionate, and deficiency leads to fatty liver and wasting. Copper deficiency causes swayback and achromotrichia, not white liver.
A broiler from a flock with high mortality has a right ventricle weighing 1.8 g and a total ventricular weight (right ventricle plus left ventricle plus septum) of 5.0 g. Using the widely used threshold of 0.28 for the right ventricle to total ventricle ratio, what is the ratio and the interpretation?
B. 0.36, above 0.28, consistent with pulmonary hypertension
RV:TV = 1.8/5.0 = 0.36, which exceeds 0.28 and indicates right ventricular hypertrophy from pulmonary hypertension (ascites syndrome). Dividing by left ventricle plus septum only (1.8/3.2 = 0.5625) uses the wrong denominator, and 5.0/1.8 = 2.78 inverts the ratio.
This plan follows where our questions actually fall, so the time goes where the marks are likely to be. It is our reading of the syllabus, not the exam body's weighting.
Read the manual chapters for these first and do every worked question you can find on them.
Aim for one sitting per unit, then mixed questions across them.
Learn the definitions, classifications and standard numbers; these units are more often recalled than worked.
Come back to these after a first pass, untimed, and read every explanation, including for the options you rejected.
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