FBR Preventive Officer cheat sheet

Subject-verb agreement: a singular subject takes a singular verb; intervening phrases (with, along with, as well as, together with) do not change the number of the subject.

Collective nouns (team, committee, jury) take a singular verb when acting as one unit and a plural verb when members act individually.

'Fewer' modifies countable nouns (fewer files); 'less' modifies uncountable nouns (less time). 'Amount of' pairs with uncountables, 'number of' with countables.

'Who' is a subject pronoun, 'whom' an object pronoun: test by substituting he/him. 'Whoever' is subject, 'whomever' object, within the clause it introduces.

Correlative conjunctions require parallelism: neither...nor, either...or, not only...but also must join grammatically equal elements; the verb agrees with the nearer subject in either...or/neither...nor.

Restrictive clauses take 'that' with no commas; non-restrictive clauses take 'which' and are set off by commas. 'That' is never used after a comma in this pattern.

Active to passive: object becomes subject, verb becomes be + past participle, agent introduced by 'by'. Tense of the auxiliary must match the original tense.

Common idioms tested: 'comprise' takes no 'of' (the committee comprises five members); 'consist of', 'differ from', 'superior to', 'prefer to', 'capable of', 'averse to'.

Direct to indirect speech: present tense in the reported clause shifts back one step (present to past, past to past perfect); 'this' becomes 'that', 'tomorrow' becomes 'the next day', and questions become statements with if/whether.

Largest ocean: Pacific; deepest point: Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, about 10,900 m. Largest desert: Antarctic (cold desert); largest hot desert: Sahara.

Longest river: Nile (about 6,650 km); largest by discharge: Amazon. Highest peak: Mount Everest, 8,849 m. Largest island: Greenland.

Planet order from the Sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. Venus is the hottest planet; Jupiter is the largest.

UN founded 24 October 1945, headquarters New York; Security Council has five permanent members (China, France, Russia, UK, US) with veto power.

SAARC founded 1985 in Dhaka, secretariat Kathmandu, eight members. OIC founded 1969, secretariat Jeddah. ASEAN founded 1967, secretariat Jakarta.

Nobel Prizes were first awarded in 1901 under Alfred Nobel's will; the Economics prize was added in 1968 by the Swedish central bank.

Human body: the largest organ is the skin; the largest internal organ is the liver; the smallest bone is the stapes in the ear; normal adult hemoglobin carries oxygen via iron.

Speed of light in vacuum is about 3 x 10^8 m/s; speed of sound in air is about 343 m/s at 20 degrees C.

Currency-to-country pairs: Japan yen, China yuan, Saudi Arabia riyal, Iran rial, Turkey lira, Bangladesh taka, Afghanistan afghani, India rupee.

Pakistan gained independence on 14 August 1947 under the Indian Independence Act 1947; Muhammad Ali Jinnah was the first Governor-General; Liaquat Ali Khan the first Prime Minister.

The Lahore Resolution was passed on 23 March 1940 at Minto Park (now Iqbal Park), Lahore, presided over by Jinnah and moved by A. K. Fazlul Huq.

Pakistan became an Islamic Republic under the 1956 Constitution; the 1973 Constitution is the current one, promulgated 14 August 1973 under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

The Objectives Resolution was passed by the Constituent Assembly on 12 March 1949, moved by Liaquat Ali Khan; it became a substantive part of the Constitution through the Eighth Amendment (1985).

National symbols: national animal markhor, national bird chukar partridge, national tree deodar, national flower jasmine, national fruit mango.

Provinces: Punjab (Lahore), Sindh (Karachi), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Peshawar), Balochistan (Quetta); Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir are administered territories with their own capitals.

Rivers of the Indus system, west to east: Indus, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej; the Kabul River joins the Indus near Attock. Tarbela Dam is on the Indus, Mangla on the Jhelum.

Pakistan joined the United Nations on 30 September 1947 and became a nuclear-armed state after the tests of 28 May 1998 at Chagai, Balochistan.

Current-affairs items must be verified against the latest official sources at exam time; officeholders, cabinet posts, and economic figures change frequently, so treat any dated claim as provisional.

The five pillars: Shahadah (declaration of faith), Salah (five daily prayers), Sawm (fasting in Ramadan), Zakat (2.5 percent of qualifying wealth held for one lunar year), Hajj (pilgrimage, obligatory once for those able).

The Quran has 114 surahs; the longest is Al-Baqarah and the shortest Al-Kawthar. The first revelation was Surah Al-Alaq (Iqra); the first surah in arrangement is Al-Fatihah.

The Hijrah (migration from Makkah to Madinah) occurred in 622 CE and marks year one of the Islamic calendar, which is lunar and about 11 days shorter than the solar year.

Pillars of Iman (faith) are six: belief in Allah, His angels, His books, His messengers, the Day of Judgment, and divine decree (qadar).

The four rightly guided caliphs in order: Abu Bakr, Umar ibn al-Khattab, Uthman ibn Affan, Ali ibn Abi Talib.

Zakat is due on gold, silver, cash, trade goods, and livestock above the nisab threshold; it is not due on one's primary residence or personal tools.

Ethical concepts: amanah (trust), adl (justice), ihsan (excellence), sadaqah (voluntary charity), and riba (interest), which is prohibited in Islamic finance.

Sources of Islamic law in Sunni jurisprudence: Quran, Sunnah, ijma (consensus), and qiyas (analogical reasoning).

Percentage change = (new - old) / old x 100. A 20 percent increase followed by a 20 percent decrease leaves a net 4 percent decrease, not zero.

Successive percentage changes combine multiplicatively: a% then b% gives a + b + ab/100.

Average (mean) = sum of values / number of values; if a group average and subgroup averages are known, use weighted averages.

Speed = distance / time. For equal distances at speeds x and y, average speed = 2xy/(x + y), not (x + y)/2.

Simple interest = P x R x T / 100. Compound amount = P(1 + R/100)^T; compound interest = amount minus principal.

Ratio and proportion: if a:b = c:d then ad = bc. To divide a sum in ratio a:b:c, total parts = a + b + c.

Work problems: if A finishes in x days and B in y days, together they finish in xy/(x + y) days.

Permutations of n distinct items = n!; combinations choosing r from n = n! / (r!(n - r)!). Probability = favourable outcomes / total outcomes.

Area formulas: rectangle l x w; triangle (1/2) x base x height; circle pi r^2 with circumference 2 pi r; trapezium (1/2)(a + b)h. Sum of interior angles of an n-gon = (n - 2) x 180 degrees.

Photosynthesis: 6CO2 + 6H2O + light energy gives C6H12O6 + 6O2, occurring in chloroplasts with chlorophyll; oxygen is released from water, not carbon dioxide.

Newton's three laws: inertia; F = ma; every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Weight = mass x g, with g about 9.8 m/s^2.

Ohm's law: V = IR. Power P = VI = I^2R = V^2/R. Series resistances add; parallel resistances follow 1/R = 1/R1 + 1/R2.

Water boils at 100 degrees C and freezes at 0 degrees C at standard pressure; the three methods of heat transfer are conduction, convection, and radiation.

Blood groups follow the ABO and Rh systems; O negative is the universal donor for red cells and AB positive the universal recipient.

pH below 7 is acidic, 7 neutral, above 7 basic. Acids turn blue litmus red; bases turn red litmus blue.

Vitamins: A for vision, B complex for metabolism, C for collagen and immunity (deficiency causes scurvy), D for calcium absorption (deficiency causes rickets), K for clotting.

Diseases and agents: malaria by Plasmodium via Anopheles mosquito; dengue by virus via Aedes; tuberculosis by Mycobacterium tuberculosis; polio and measles by viruses.

Greenhouse gases include CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, and water vapour; ozone in the stratosphere absorbs ultraviolet radiation.

Storage units: 1 byte = 8 bits; 1 KB = 1024 bytes; 1 MB = 1024 KB; 1 GB = 1024 MB; 1 TB = 1024 GB.

RAM is volatile working memory; ROM is non-volatile. Cache is faster than RAM, which is faster than a hard disk.

Shortcuts: Ctrl+C copy, Ctrl+X cut, Ctrl+V paste, Ctrl+Z undo, Ctrl+Y redo, Ctrl+S save, Ctrl+P print, Ctrl+F find, Alt+Tab switch windows.

An IP address identifies a device on a network; IPv4 is 32-bit and IPv6 is 128-bit. DNS translates domain names into IP addresses.

HTTP is the web transfer protocol; HTTPS adds TLS encryption. SMTP sends mail, POP3 and IMAP retrieve it; IMAP keeps mail on the server.

A firewall filters network traffic by rules; malware categories include virus, worm, trojan, ransomware, and spyware.

Spreadsheet formulas begin with '='; relative references shift on copy (A1) while absolute references are locked ($A$1).

A database table stores rows (records) and columns (fields); a primary key uniquely identifies each row and a foreign key links to another table.

Binary to decimal: each position from the right is a power of 2. For example 1011 = 8 + 0 + 2 + 1 = 11.

Customs duty is levied at the import or export stage on goods crossing a frontier; the taxable value for most imports is the customs value, usually the transaction value (CIF), adjusted as the law allows.

The Customs Act 1969 is Pakistan's principal customs statute; the Pakistan Customs Tariff sets rates, and the Federal Board of Revenue administers customs.

Import procedure sequence: filing of a goods declaration, assessment, payment of duty and taxes, examination, and out-of-charge delivery.

Duty drawback refunds duty paid on imported inputs used in exported goods; a rebate is a remission or refund of duty under prescribed conditions.

Bonded warehouses store imported goods with duty suspended until clearance; goods may be re-exported or cleared on payment of duty.

Smuggling is the evasion of customs duty through concealment, false declaration, or movement outside approved routes; seized goods follow confiscation and adjudication procedures.

Valuation methods are applied in sequence: transaction value first, then identical goods, similar goods, deductive value, computed value, and finally the fallback method.

Rules of origin determine the national source of goods and thus eligibility for preferential tariff treatment under trade agreements.

Appeals against customs orders generally lie first to the relevant Collector (Appeals), then to the Appellate Tribunal, and thereafter to the High Court on points of law.

Deduction moves from general premises to a necessary conclusion; induction generalises from specific observations and is never certain.

Valid syllogism forms: All A are B; all B are C; therefore all A are C. All A are B; some A are C; therefore some B are C.

Invalid forms to reject: affirming the consequent (If P then Q; Q; therefore P) and denying the antecedent (If P then Q; not P; therefore not Q).

Contrapositive is equivalent to the original: 'If P then Q' equals 'If not Q then not P'. The converse ('If Q then P') is not equivalent.

'Some A are B' does not imply 'some A are not B' unless existence and non-exhaustion are stated; 'no A is B' converts to 'no B is A'.

Number series: check differences, then ratios, then alternating or prime-based patterns before assuming a single rule.

Coding-decoding: map letter positions (A=1 to Z=26); reverse alphabet pairs sum to 27 (A with Z, B with Y).

Blood relations and direction sense: draw a diagram, fix a reference point, and track left/right turns relative to the traveller's facing direction.

Seating arrangements: place fixed-position clues first, then apply immediate-neighbour and end-seat constraints; eliminate options that violate any single clue.