SSC GK Questions 2026

Equilibrium is the point at which the budget line is tangent to the highest indifference curve the consumer can reach, and at a point of tangency the slopes of the two are equal, which means MRS of X for Y equals Px divided by Py; a second condition is that…

The budget line is the equation Px·X + Py·Y = M, which on rearranging gives Y = M ÷ Py minus (Px ÷ Py)·X, so the intercept is income divided by the price of Y and the slope is the ratio of the price of the good on the horizontal…

If two curves crossed, the combination at the crossing point would belong to both and would therefore give two different levels of satisfaction at the same time, a logical contradiction; for the same reason they cannot even be tangent.

As a consumer moves down an indifference curve he holds more and more of the first good and less of the second, so each extra unit of the first is worth fewer units of the second to him; the slope therefore becomes flatter from left to right and the curve…

The marginal rate of substitution of X for Y is the number of units of Y a consumer is willing to give up to get one more unit of X while remaining on the same indifference curve, and it equals the ratio of the marginal utility of X to the…

Marginal utility is the addition made to total utility by one more unit, so as long as it is positive total utility keeps rising; the moment it becomes zero nothing more is being added and total utility stands at its highest point, called the point of satiety.

Marshall, in his Principles of Economics, built the theory of demand on the assumption that utility is measurable in imaginary units, so that a consumer can compare the ten utils of a cup of tea with the six utils of a samosa; from this assumption he derived the law of…

Salinity is the quantity of dissolved salts in a kilogram of sea water, expressed in parts per thousand, and isohalines map its distribution; the open ocean averages about 35 parts per thousand, while enclosed seas with high evaporation such as the Red Sea are far saltier and seas fed by…

The earth's orbit is an ellipse, so its distance from the sun changes through the year; at perihelion, about 3 January, the earth is nearest the sun, which is why the northern winter half of the year is slightly shorter than the summer half.

A contour, whose technical name is isohypse, joins all points standing at the same height above sea level and is the chief means of showing relief on a topographical sheet; contours drawn close together mean a steep slope, contours far apart a gentle slope, and contours that merge indicate a…

In Alfred Weber's least-cost theory of industrial location, isodapanes are drawn through all points at which the total transport cost, for assembling the raw materials and for distributing the finished product, is the same; the innermost isodapane marks the area of least total cost, where the plant should be sited.

The Isthmus of Panama joins North and South America and separates the Caribbean Sea from the Pacific, and the Isthmus of Suez joins Africa to Asia; both have been cut by canals precisely because they are narrow.

Magnetic declination is the angle between true north and magnetic north, and along the agonic line that angle is zero, so a compass needle there points to true north.

Isoseismal lines join points at which the shaking of an earthquake was felt with the same intensity, and because intensity falls away from the source, they are drawn as roughly concentric closed curves around the epicentre, the point of the surface vertically above the focus.

The Greek bathos means depth, so isobaths are the depth contours of a bathymetric chart; the 200 metre isobath is conventionally taken as the outer edge of the continental shelf.

An isohel, from the Greek helios for the sun, joins places that receive sunshine for an equal number of hours, and such maps are used in studies of solar energy potential and of crop seasons.

The word comes from the Greek hyetos, meaning rain, so an isohyet joins all places on a map that receive the same amount of rainfall in a given period; rainfall distribution maps of India, which show the 200 centimetre and 50 centimetre lines, are drawn with isohyets.

Twelve pairs of cranial nerves arise from the brain and serve the head and neck, among them the optic nerve of sight, the auditory nerve of hearing and the vagus, the longest cranial nerve, which reaches the heart and the abdomen; thirty-one pairs of spinal nerves arise from the spinal…

The hyoid is a U-shaped or horseshoe-shaped bone lying in the front of the neck below the lower jaw; it is held in place only by muscles and ligaments and forms no joint with any other bone, which is why it supports the tongue and helps in speech and swallowing.

The thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland in the neck, in front of the windpipe, and is the largest of the ductless or endocrine glands; it secretes thyroxine, for which iodine is essential, and the hormone controls the rate of metabolism, growth and development.