Textiles and Clothing Questions and Answers

Answer: A

Silk Mark indicates 100% silk.

The Silk Mark is a quality-assurance label introduced by the Silk Mark Organisation of India, set up by the Central Silk Board. A product carrying the label is certified to be made of pure natural silk, protecting buyers from imitation and blended products.

It does not certify a 90 percent blend, and it is not a description of how the fabric feels or how lustrous it is, since many synthetics are both silky and lustrous.

Answer: A

Moths damage wool.

The larvae of clothes moths feed on keratin, the protein of wool, hair and fur, and they also attack silk. Woollens are therefore cleaned before storage and kept with naphthalene, camphor or neem leaves.

Acrylic and nylon are synthetic polymers that moth larvae cannot digest. Rayon is regenerated cellulose; it can be attacked by silverfish and mildew, but not by moths.

Answer: C

Dry cleaning uses organic solvents.

Dry cleaning cleans with little or no water, using solvents such as perchloroethylene or petroleum hydrocarbons. Oils and greases dissolve in them, so oily stains can be removed without the shrinkage and distortion that water causes in wool, silk and structured garments.

Detergents and soaps are the agents of wet washing in water (small amounts of detergent may be added to the solvent, but they are not what dissolves the oil). Bleaching agents remove colour from stains rather than dissolve oily soil.

Answer: B

Aari embroidery is not Kasuti; it is a hook-worked chain-stitch embroidery associated with Kashmir and Gujarat, done with a hooked needle. Kasuti is the traditional counted-thread embroidery of Karnataka, and its basic stitches are Gavanti, Murgi, Negi and Menthi.

Menthi, Gavanti and Murgi are all named Kasuti stitches (Menthi resembles fenugreek seeds, Gavanti is a double running stitch, Murgi is a zigzag ladder-like stitch), so each of those options does represent Kasuti.

Answer: D

Bouclé yarn (ii), slub yarn (iii) and flock yarn (iv) are novelty yarns. They are made with irregular loops, thick-and-thin places or short fibres attached on a core to give a decorative surface. So the correct code is (ii), (iii) and (iv).

Crepe yarn (i) is not a novelty yarn: it is a highly twisted yarn which gives crepe fabric its crinkled, pebbly surface, and it is classed as a twist yarn. Options A, B and C each include it and are therefore wrong.

Answer: D

(A) is false and (R) is true. Cross dyeing and union dyeing are different processes. Cross dyeing dyes a fabric made of two fibres of different dye affinity in one or more baths so that each fibre takes its own colour, giving a two-tone or multicoloured effect. Union dyeing aims at one uniform shade over all the fibres of a mixed fabric.

So (A), that they are the same, is false. The key treats (R) as true, because both processes work on mixed-fibre fabrics and can be arranged to produce multicoloured effects. The options that make (A) true or (R) false are therefore wrong.

Answer: D

The correct sequence for removing a lipstick stain is: sponge with a grease solvent (b), wash in hot soapy water (a), bleach the stain (c), and rinse in hot water and dry in the sun (d). Lipstick contains oils, wax and dye, so the greasy part is loosened first with a solvent, then the residue is washed out with soap, and the leftover colour is bleached.

The other options start with washing or bleaching, which would set the greasy dye in the fibre, or start with the rinse, which comes last.

Answer: C

The correct matching is (a)-(iv), (b)-(iii), (c)-(ii), (d)-(i). In a knitted fabric the wale is the column of loops running parallel to the length, and the course is a row of loops extending crosswise. In a woven fabric the warp yarns run lengthwise (longitudinal) and the weft yarns run across the width (crosswise).

The other codes mix up the pairs: for instance matching wale with the series of loops crosswise, or weft with longitudinal yarns, reverses the definitions. Only (iv) (iii) (ii) (i) is right.

Answer: C

The degree of polymerisation (the number of repeating units in the chain) of polyester, polyethylene terephthalate, ranges between 115 and 140 in the usual textile grades. The figures 50-70 and 90-115 are too low for a fibre-forming polymer, and 140-165 is higher than the range the key accepts. A chain long enough to give strength and fibre properties but still easy to melt-spin explains the range. The answer is 115-140.

Answer: B

Modacrylic and aramid fibres are flame retardant by their chemistry, and PVC does not support burning, so the blends modacrylic-wool and aramid-PVC have the best flame retardancy. Cotton burns readily, which spoils the cotton-wool and cotton-spandex blends, and spandex is also highly flammable, so the modacrylic-spandex blend is poorer than the modacrylic-wool blend. The answer is IV and V.