Important Days & Dates Quiz: Anniversary Names: Silver, Golden, Diamond and Platinum Jubilees

The correct answer is B, Silver jubilee. Twenty-five completed years are marked as a silver jubilee, called the Rajat Jayanti in Hindi, rajat being the word for silver, and the name comes from the old custom of giving silver on the twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Option A is wrong because the golden jubilee, or Swarna Jayanti, marks fifty years, twice as long; India kept the golden jubilee of its independence in 1997. Option C is wrong because the diamond jubilee, the Hirak Jayanti, marks sixty years in the usage now standard in India. Option D is wrong because the platinum jubilee marks seventy-five years in Indian official usage. The four names in ascending order, silver at twenty-five, golden at fifty, diamond at sixty and platinum at seventy-five, cover almost every question set from this chapter.

The correct answer is C, 50 years. The golden jubilee marks fifty completed years and is called the Swarna Jayanti in Hindi, the name taken from the gift of gold traditionally made on a fiftieth wedding anniversary. Option A is wrong because twenty-five years is the silver jubilee, or Rajat Jayanti, which is exactly half the span. Option B is wrong because forty years is the ruby jubilee, one of the intermediate names that appears in the full table but is rarely set on its own. Option D is wrong because sixty years is the diamond jubilee, the Hirak Jayanti, and it is the option most often chosen by a candidate who remembers that gold and diamond are both precious but cannot place the numbers. The simplest check is that the two best known names, silver and golden, stand at twenty-five and fifty, a gap of twenty-five years.

The correct answer is B, 60 years. The diamond jubilee, the Hirak Jayanti, marks sixty completed years in the usage now standard in India, and the figure is natural because sixty years completes a full cycle in the traditional Indian calendar. Option A is wrong because fifty years is the golden jubilee. Option C is wrong because seventy years was the span marked by the platinum jubilee in British royal usage, as with Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, whose diamond jubilee of sixty years had fallen in 2012. Option D is wrong because one hundred years is the centenary, called the Shatabdi. It is worth knowing that the diamond jubilee was once used for seventy-five years and that some older institutions still describe their seventy-fifth year that way, but when both sixty and seventy-five appear in the options the intended answer is sixty.

The correct answer is B, Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav. The seventy-fifth year of independence was observed from 2021 as the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, and in the scheme of anniversary names seventy-five completed years are a platinum jubilee in Indian official usage. Option A is wrong because the Swarna Jayanti is the golden jubilee of fifty years, which in the case of independence fell in 1997. Option C is wrong because the Hirak Jayanti is the diamond jubilee of sixty years, which for independence fell in 2007. Option D is wrong because the Rajat Jayanti is the silver jubilee of twenty-five years, which fell in 1972. Arranging the four milestones of independence in this way, 1972, 1997, 2007 and 2021, makes the whole scheme easy to recall from a single chain.

The correct answer is B, Sesquicentennial. One hundred and fifty years is a sesquicentennial, the prefix sesqui meaning one and a half, so the word reads as one and a half centuries. Option A is wrong because a centenary, also called a centennial and known in Hindi as the Shatabdi, marks one hundred years. Option C is wrong because a bicentenary marks two hundred years, the prefix bi standing for two. Option D is wrong because a tercentenary marks three hundred years. The larger words all follow their ordinary number prefixes, so once sesqui is understood as one and a half the series falls into place: centenary at one hundred, sesquicentennial at one hundred and fifty, bicentenary at two hundred, tercentenary at three hundred and a millennium at one thousand.

The correct answer is B, Tin. In the traditional table of anniversary names, the tenth year is the tin anniversary, the materials rising in value as the years increase from paper in the first year to silver, gold and diamond in the longer spans. Option A is wrong because crystal belongs to the fifteenth year, five years later. Option C is wrong because pearl belongs to the thirtieth year, which comes after the silver jubilee of twenty-five. Option D is wrong because coral belongs to the thirty-fifth year. The order of the first few is the part worth memorising as a block: paper at one, wood at five, tin at ten, crystal at fifteen and china or porcelain at twenty, after which the well known jubilees begin with silver at twenty-five.

The correct answer is B, 50 years. Swarna is the word for gold, so the Swarna Jayanti is the golden jubilee, the completion of fifty years. Option A is wrong because twenty-five years is the Rajat Jayanti, the silver jubilee, rajat being the word for silver, and candidates who have learnt the English names but not the Hindi ones interchange these two most often. Option C is wrong because sixty years is the Hirak Jayanti, the diamond jubilee, hirak meaning diamond. Option D is wrong because seventy-five years has no separate traditional word of this kind and is usually written as the platinum jubilee. Learning the three Hindi names together, rajat for silver at twenty-five, swarna for gold at fifty and hirak for diamond at sixty, settles every question of this form.

The correct answer is C, 40 years. The fortieth year is the ruby jubilee, one of the intermediate names in the table that lies between the silver jubilee of twenty-five and the golden jubilee of fifty. Option A is wrong because the thirtieth year is the pearl jubilee. Option B is wrong because the thirty-fifth year is the coral jubilee. Option D is wrong because the forty-fifth year is the sapphire jubilee. The intermediate names run in steps of five from twenty-five onwards and follow a simple order of precious things: silver at twenty-five, pearl at thirty, coral at thirty-five, ruby at forty, sapphire at forty-five and gold at fifty, and holding that short run in memory answers any question drawn from the middle of the table.

The correct answer is B, 1997. India became independent in 1947, so the completion of fifty years, the golden jubilee or Swarna Jayanti, fell in 1997. Option A is wrong because 1972 marks twenty-five years of independence, the silver jubilee or Rajat Jayanti. Option C is wrong because 2007 marks sixty years, the diamond jubilee or Hirak Jayanti in the usage standard in India. Option D is wrong because 2021 marks the beginning of the seventy-fifth year, observed as the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, which corresponds to the platinum jubilee in Indian usage. Working from 1947 and adding the span named in the question is the quickest way to answer any item of this kind, and the same method works for the anniversaries of the Constitution, which came into force in 1950.

The correct answer is C, 1,000 years. A millennium is one thousand years, from the Latin mille for a thousand and annus for a year, and in Hindi it is called the sahasrabdi. Option A is wrong because one hundred years is a centenary or centennial, known as the Shatabdi. Option B is wrong because five hundred years is a quincentenary, the prefix quin standing for five, so it is five centuries rather than ten. Option D is wrong because ten thousand years has no name in this series at all and is placed in the options only to test whether the candidate is reading the figures. The whole series rests on counting centuries: one for a centenary, one and a half for a sesquicentennial, two for a bicentenary, three for a tercentenary, five for a quincentenary and ten for a millennium.

The correct answer is B, China or porcelain. The twentieth year is the china anniversary, also called the porcelain anniversary, and it is the last of the early names before the silver jubilee of twenty-five. Option A is wrong because crystal belongs to the fifteenth year, and crystal and china are the two most easily interchanged because both are fragile materials from the same part of the table. Option C is wrong because pearl belongs to the thirtieth year, which lies on the other side of the silver jubilee. Option D is wrong because tin belongs to the tenth year. Fixing the five-year steps in order, paper, wood, tin, crystal and china, carries the candidate up to the silver jubilee, after which the better known jubilee names take over.