Static GK decides most of the General Awareness score in SSC exams. The CGL, CHSL and CPO notices describe it in almost the same words: questions on India and its neighbouring countries in History, Culture, Geography, the Economic Scene, General Policy and Scientific Research, and on everyday observation in its scientific aspect. The GD notice adds Sports, General Polity and the Indian Constitution, and the MTS notice lists Social Studies, General Science and Environmental Studies up to the 10th Standard. This page brings together GK24's GK notes and practice questions tagged for all five SSC exams. The notes follow a subject-wise syllabus, one topic per note in English and Hindi: Indian Polity, Indian History, Geography, Indian Economy, General Science, Environment and Ecology, Art and Culture, Computer, Sports, Awards and Honours, Books and Authors, Days and Dates, and Static GK. Each note is written as short facts and tables so that a topic can be revised in one sitting, and each ends with multiple-choice questions and explanations. The level is what changes between exams: read MTS and GD topics at Class 10 depth, CHSL at Class 12 depth, and CGL and CPO at graduate depth, where questions ask for the article number or the year rather than the broad idea. Start with Polity, History and Geography, which fill the most questions in past papers in GK24's reading, then move to the Economy and Science. After each note, solve its questions here and your exam's previous-year questions on its own page.
Karst topography takes its name from a plateau in which present-day country?
The term comes from the Kras or Karst plateau of the Dinaric region, which lies largely in present-day Slovenia and extends into the neighbouring coastal belt.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following is a depositional landform of a glacier?
A moraine is the ridge of unsorted rock debris that a glacier carries and dumps; it is named by position as lateral, medial, ground or terminal moraine, and the terminal moraine marks the farthest point the ice reached.
Read the full explanation →Loess, a thick deposit of fine, wind-blown silt, is best developed in which country?
Loess is a depositional landform of wind: very fine silt lifted from desert and glacial margins is carried far away and settles as a yellow, porous, loosely packed sheet.
Read the full explanation →An ox-bow lake is formed by which of the following?
In its middle and lower course a river swings from side to side, eroding the outer bank of each bend and depositing on the inner bank.
Read the full explanation →Stalactites, stalagmites and pillars inside a limestone cave are formed mainly by the action of which agent?
Rainwater charged with carbon dioxide becomes a weak carbonic acid, seeps along joints in limestone and dissolves calcium carbonate by carbonation.
Read the full explanation →Exfoliation, in which curved shells of rock peel away from a granite dome like the skin of an onion, is an example of which process?
Exfoliation is caused by repeated heating and cooling of the outer layer of a rock and by the release of pressure when overlying material is removed; the surface expands and contracts more than the interior and splits away as curved sheets.
Read the full explanation →Consider the following types of erosion and arrange them in the correct sequence in the increasing order of soil loss from a field: I. Gully erosion II. Splash erosion III. Rill erosion IV. Sheet erosion. Select the correct answer from the codes given below.
Water erosion passes through stages, and the soil lost grows at every stage. Splash erosion, numbered II, is the first and mildest: raindrops strike bare soil and knock single particles a few centimetres away.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following is NOT a method of soil conservation?
Overgrazing strips the protective cover of grass, loosens the surface with hooves and leaves bare soil exposed to rain and wind, so it is one of the leading causes of soil erosion in dry India, never a remedy.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following is the main cause of 'bad lands'?
Bad lands are stretches of land cut into a close network of deep gullies and sharp ridges, so dissected that cultivation becomes impossible, and they are produced when running water removes the topsoil through sheet wash that concentrates first into rills and then into gullies.
Read the full explanation →The crescograph, an instrument that magnifies and records the growth of plants, was invented by which Indian scientist?
Bose designed the crescograph to magnify the growth of a plant many thousand times and record it on a smoked glass plate, which allowed him to show that plants respond to light, heat, touch and other stimuli in ways that resemble responses in animals.
Read the full explanation →A seismograph is an instrument used to record which of the following?
A seismograph holds a heavy mass that tends to stay still while the ground and the frame of the instrument move during a tremor; the relative motion is magnified and traced as a seismogram, from which the arrival times of the primary, secondary and surface waves are read.
Read the full explanation →X-rays were discovered by which scientist?
In 1895, while working with a discharge tube, Roentgen found an unknown radiation that passed through cardboard and flesh but was stopped by bone and metal, and made a screen coated with a fluorescent salt glow.
Read the full explanation →Penicillin, the first widely used antibiotic, was discovered by whom?
In 1928 Fleming noticed that a mould of the genus Penicillium which had contaminated a culture plate in his London laboratory had killed the staphylococcus bacteria around it, and he named the active substance penicillin.
Read the full explanation →The depth of the ocean is measured with which instrument?
A fathometer, also called an echo sounder, sends a pulse of sound from the hull of a ship to the sea floor and times the returning echo; since the speed of sound in sea water is known, the time gives the depth.
Read the full explanation →The purity of milk is determined with the help of which instrument?
A lactometer is a floating instrument that measures the relative density of milk. Pure milk has a density slightly greater than that of water, so adding water lowers the reading and the float sinks deeper, which is how dilution is detected.
Read the full explanation →Which instrument is used to measure atmospheric pressure?
A barometer measures the pressure of the atmosphere, and the mercury barometer invented by Evangelista Torricelli in 1643 does so by balancing the weight of the air against a column of mercury about 76 centimetres high at sea level.
Read the full explanation →What is the meaning of the Greek origin word, 'Elektron'?
Elektron is the Greek name for amber, the fossilised tree resin which the ancient Greeks found would attract straw, feathers and bits of dust after being rubbed with fur.
Read the full explanation →The discovery and understanding of electromagnetic induction is based on a long series of experiments carried out by ______.
Working independently in the 1830s, Michael Faraday in England and Joseph Henry in the United States showed that a changing magnetic flux through a circuit sets up an electromotive force in it, and that the effect depends on the rate of change of flux rather than on the flux itself.
Read the full explanation →Who discovered neutron, one of the constituent particles of nucleus of an atom?
In 1932 Chadwick bombarded beryllium with alpha particles and showed that the highly penetrating radiation given off consisted of neutral particles with almost the same mass as a proton.
Read the full explanation →Who discovered the presence of electron in an atom?
In 1897 Thomson passed an electric discharge through a gas at very low pressure and showed that the cathode rays produced were a stream of identical negatively charged particles, far lighter than any atom and the same whatever gas or electrode was used.
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