SSC Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is B, Arikamedu. Arikamedu, on the Ariyankuppam river near Puducherry on the Coromandel coast, began as a small fishing settlement and grew into a busy port that traded with the Romans and the Greco Roman world in the first centuries of the common era. Excavations there have brought out Roman amphorae that carried wine and olive oil, red glazed Arretine ware, glass and stone beads, lamps and Roman coins, along with the local rouletted pottery, which is why the site is identified with the Poduke named in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. A is wrong because Badami in Karnataka was the inland capital of the Chalukyas, known for its rock cut cave temples. C is wrong because Lothal in Gujarat is a Harappan site with a dockyard, far older and on the western coast. D is wrong because tulapurushadana was a ritual of weighing oneself against gold and giving it away, not a place at all. Exam tip: Arikamedu near Puducherry is the Poduke of Roman trade; Lothal is the Harappan dock in Gujarat.

The correct answer is C, Germanium. Germanium is not used to build light emitting diodes because it is an indirect band gap semiconductor, so an electron falling back across the gap gives up most of its energy as heat in the crystal rather than as light. Its band gap is also very small, about 0.66 electron volt, which is far too little to produce visible light. Light emitting diodes are therefore made from direct band gap compounds, whose gap can be tuned to the colour wanted. A is wrong because gallium phosphide is used for green and yellow diodes. B is wrong because indium gallium nitride gives the blue and white diodes that made modern lighting possible and won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2014. D is wrong because gallium arsenide is the standard material for red and infrared diodes, including the ones inside television remote controls. Exam tip: light emitting diodes need direct band gap materials such as gallium arsenide, gallium phosphide and indium gallium nitride; silicon and germanium are indirect and do not emit light.

The correct answer is C, At room temperature, surface tension of water is less than ethyl alcohol. This is the statement that is not correct, because water has a much higher surface tension than ethyl alcohol. At about twenty degrees Celsius water measures close to seventy two dynes per centimetre while ethyl alcohol is only about twenty two, since the hydrogen bonds between water molecules pull far more strongly than the weaker forces inside alcohol. That is also why alcohol spreads out thinly on a surface while water gathers into beads. A is a correct statement, because surface tension is expressed in dynes per centimetre in the older unit system and in newtons per metre in the SI system. B is correct, because the inward pull on the surface gives a small free drop the shape with the least area for its volume, which is a sphere. D is correct, because surface tension arises from the cohesive forces among the molecules of the liquid itself. Exam tip: water is about 72 dynes per centimetre and alcohol about 22; surface tension falls as temperature rises.

The correct answer is C, 1000. Salinity is the quantity of dissolved salt, in grams, present in one thousand grams of sea water, so it is read as parts per thousand. The average salinity of the oceans is about thirty five parts per thousand, which means about thirty five grams of salt in a kilogram of sea water. Sodium chloride makes up the largest share of it, followed by magnesium chloride, magnesium sulphate and calcium sulphate. Salinity rises where evaporation is high and the inflow of fresh water is low, which is why the Red Sea reaches about forty one parts per thousand, and it falls near the mouths of large rivers and in polar waters fed by melting ice. A, B and D are wrong because a base of ten thousand, a hundred or ten grams would not give the parts per thousand figure that oceanographers actually use. Exam tip: salinity is grams of salt per 1000 grams of sea water, and the ocean average is about 35 parts per thousand.

The correct answer is A, Sangama Dynasty. The Vijayanagara kingdom was founded in 1336 by two brothers, Harihara and Bukka, who belonged to the Sangama family, and the line is therefore called the Sangama dynasty. Their capital, Vijayanagara, stood on the south bank of the Tungabhadra near modern Hampi in Karnataka. Four dynasties ruled the kingdom one after another, the Sangama, the Saluva, the Tuluva and the Aravidu. D is wrong because the Tuluva dynasty came third and gave the kingdom its most famous ruler, Krishnadeva Raya, who reigned in the early sixteenth century, but it did not found the state. B and C are wrong because Nagama and Soma were never ruling houses of Vijayanagara. The kingdom’s long rivalry with the Bahmani sultanate ended badly at the battle of Talikota in 1565, when the combined Deccan sultanates defeated Rama Raya. Exam tip: Vijayanagara founded in 1336 by Harihara and Bukka of the Sangama dynasty; the order of dynasties is Sangama, Saluva, Tuluva, Aravidu.

The correct answer is C, SDG 6. Sustainable Development Goal 6 is clean water and sanitation, and its aim is to ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. The seventeen goals were adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and they took over from the Millennium Development Goals. Goal 6 covers safe drinking water, toilets and an end to open defecation, better treatment of waste water, efficient use of water in farming and industry, and the protection of rivers, lakes and groundwater. A is wrong because SDG 4 is quality education. B is wrong because SDG 7 is affordable and clean energy. D is wrong because SDG 5 is gender equality. Exam tip: SDG 4 education, SDG 5 gender equality, SDG 6 clean water and sanitation, SDG 7 clean energy; the seventeen goals were adopted in 2015 with 2030 as the target year.

The correct answer is D, Tundra. In Koppen’s classification the group of cold climates, marked E, holds two types, the tundra climate and the ice cap climate. The tundra belt lies mainly north of the Arctic Circle along the northern edges of North America, Europe and Asia. Its summers are short and cool, the average temperature of the warmest month stays below ten degrees Celsius, the subsoil stays frozen as permafrost, and the plant cover is limited to mosses, lichens and low shrubs, with no trees. A is wrong because the humid subtropical type belongs to the warm temperate group, which covers northern India, southern China and the south eastern United States. C is wrong because the humid continental type falls in the cold snow forest group, one step milder than the polar group. B is wrong because highland climate is kept as a separate group, where conditions change with altitude rather than with latitude. Exam tip: Koppen’s groups are A tropical, B dry, C warm temperate, D cold snow forest, E cold or polar and H highland.

The correct answer is D, The Comptroller and Auditor General. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India heads the Indian Audit and Accounts Department, the organisation through which the audit of Union and State accounts is actually carried out. The office is created by Article 148. The CAG is appointed by the President by warrant under hand and seal, holds office for six years or until the age of sixty five, whichever comes first, and can be removed only in the manner laid down for a judge of the Supreme Court. Article 149 sets out the duties, and the audit reports go to the President or the Governor, who lays them before the legislature, where the Public Accounts Committee takes them up. A is wrong because an Accountant General heads a state level office under the CAG. B is wrong because Principal Accountant General is a senior rank of the same kind. C is wrong because a Director General serves inside the department rather than at its head. Exam tip: Article 148, the CAG heads the audit department, six years or age sixty five.

The correct answer is C, Five. Five writs can be issued: habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, certiorari and quo warranto. Habeas corpus asks that a detained person be produced before the court. Mandamus commands a public authority to perform a duty it has refused to perform. Prohibition stops a lower court from going beyond its jurisdiction, while certiorari quashes an order such a court has already passed. Quo warranto questions a person’s claim to hold a public office. The Supreme Court issues these under Article 32, but only to enforce fundamental rights, and the right to move the Court under Article 32 is itself a fundamental right. A High Court’s power under Article 226 is wider, because it covers both fundamental rights and other legal rights. All five were borrowed from English common law. A, B and D are wrong because the Constitution provides exactly five, no more and no fewer. Exam tip: Article 32 for the Supreme Court and Article 226 for High Courts, five writs in both.

The correct answer is A, Vijayawada. Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh has a large coal based thermal power station on the Krishna river, named after Dr Narla Tata Rao, but no nuclear plant. India’s nuclear stations are run by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited, and the other three names in the question are all on that list. B is wrong because Narora, in Bulandshahr district of Uttar Pradesh on the bank of the Ganga, has a station with two pressurised heavy water reactors. C is wrong because Tarapur in Palghar district of Maharashtra is the country’s oldest nuclear station, commissioned in 1969 with boiling water reactors built with American help. D is wrong because Rawatbhata in Rajasthan stands on the Chambal near the Rana Pratap Sagar dam and carries the largest number of units of any Indian nuclear station. Kakrapar in Gujarat, Kaiga in Karnataka, and Kalpakkam and Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu complete the set. Exam tip: Tarapur was India’s first nuclear power station; Vijayawada is thermal, not nuclear.

The correct answer is B, 2005. The Kyoto Protocol came into force on 16 February 2005. It had been adopted at Kyoto in Japan on 11 December 1997 as the first binding agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of 1992. It could start only after 55 parties had ratified it, including developed countries that accounted for at least 55 per cent of the 1990 carbon dioxide emissions of that group. Russia’s ratification in November 2004 crossed that mark, and the treaty began ninety days later. Its first commitment period ran from 2008 to 2012 and asked developed countries to cut emissions to about five per cent below their 1990 levels. A is wrong because 2004 is the year Russia ratified, not the year the treaty began. C and D are wrong because the protocol was already working by then; 2007 is remembered instead for the Bali road map. Exam tip: adopted in 1997, in force in 2005, first commitment period 2008 to 2012.

The correct answer is B, Tenth Schedule. The anti-defection law sits in the Tenth Schedule, which sets out when a member of Parliament or of a State legislature loses the seat for defecting. It was inserted by the 52nd Constitutional Amendment Act of 1985, after a decade in which governments were toppled by floor crossing. A member is disqualified for voluntarily giving up the membership of the party on whose ticket the seat was won, or for voting against the party whip. The Speaker or the Chairman of the House decides such a case, and courts can review that decision. The 91st Amendment of 2003 removed the old one third split defence, so only a merger supported by two thirds of a party’s legislators is now protected. A is wrong because the Second Schedule fixes the salaries and allowances of the President, Governors, Speakers and judges. C is wrong because the Third Schedule carries the forms of oath and affirmation. D is wrong because the Fourth Schedule allots Rajya Sabha seats to states and union territories. Exam tip: Tenth Schedule, anti-defection, 52nd Amendment of 1985.

The correct answer is A, Kushana. The Gandhara school of art grew in the north-west, around Peshawar and Taxila, and reached its height under the Kushana rulers, above all Kanishka, in the first and second centuries. Its sculptors worked in grey schist and later in stucco, and they gave the Buddha a Greek-Roman face: wavy hair, a sharp nose, heavy drapery falling in folds, and a halo behind the head. This blending of styles is why it is called the Greco-Buddhist or Indo-Greek school. The Mathura school flourished in the same Kushana period but used red sandstone and a purely Indian idiom. B is wrong because the Mauryas are known for polished stone pillars and their animal capitals. C is wrong because the Nandas left no distinct school of sculpture. D is wrong because the Cholas are remembered for bronze images such as the Nataraja, many centuries later. Exam tip: Gandhara grey schist and a Greco-Roman Buddha, Mathura red sandstone — both under the Kushanas.

The correct answer is B, Villi. Villi are the small finger-like folds on the inner wall of the small intestine, so they belong to the digestive system. Their work is to enlarge the surface through which digested food is absorbed; each villus does hold a capillary and a lymph vessel inside it, but the villus itself is not a part of the circulatory system. The human circulatory system is made of the heart, the blood and the blood vessels. A is wrong because capillaries are the thinnest vessels, where gases and nutrients pass between blood and the tissues. C is wrong because veins carry blood back to the heart and have valves to stop it flowing backwards. D is wrong because arteries carry blood away from the heart and have thick elastic walls to take the pressure. Exam tip: villi absorb digested food in the small intestine; the heart, blood and blood vessels make up the circulatory system.

The correct answer is B, West Bengal. India's first jute mill was set up at Rishra, on the bank of the Hooghly near Serampore in Bengal, in 1855 by George Auckland. The industry stayed along that river because the Hooghly belt had everything it needed together: jute grown in the deltaic plains of Bengal, cheap water transport, coal from the Raniganj field, labour from Bihar and Odisha, and the port of Kolkata to ship sacking and hessian out. Partition in 1947 left most of the jute fields in East Pakistan while the mills stayed in India, which hurt the industry badly. West Bengal still has the largest number of jute mills and the highest output. A is wrong because Odisha has only a few mills. C is wrong because Assam grows jute but its mills came later. D is wrong because Bihar's mills, at Katihar and elsewhere, also came after Bengal's. Exam tip: first jute mill at Rishra on the Hooghly in 1855; West Bengal leads in jute.

The correct answer is D, Puducherry. Puducherry is a Union Territory with a legislature of its own, which is why it is said to have partial statehood. Article 239A, added in 1962, allowed Parliament to create a legislature and a council of ministers for such a territory, and the Government of Union Territories Act, 1963 gave Puducherry an Assembly and a Chief Minister, while an administrator styled Lieutenant Governor still represents the President. Delhi has a similar arrangement under Article 239AA, and Jammu and Kashmir became a Union Territory with a legislature in 2019. A is wrong because Chandigarh is administered directly, with the Governor of Punjab acting as its administrator. B and C are wrong because Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, merged into a single Union Territory in 2020, have no legislature and are run by an administrator. Exam tip: the Union Territories with legislatures are Delhi, Puducherry and Jammu and Kashmir.

The correct answer is B, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. The Statue of Unity stands on Sadhu Bet, an island in the Narmada near the Sardar Sarovar Dam in the Narmada district of Gujarat, and it shows Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, independent India's first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, who brought the princely states into the Union. The statue is 182 metres tall, a height chosen to match the number of seats in the Gujarat Assembly, and it was unveiled on 31 October 2018, Patel's birth anniversary. Ram V. Sutar designed it, and iron collected from farmers across the country went into the work. A is wrong because M. K. Gandhi has no statue of this scale. C is wrong because Vinoba Bhave, who led the Bhoodan movement, is not its subject. D is wrong because Dr B. R. Ambedkar is honoured by other memorials, not by this statue. Exam tip: Statue of Unity — 182 m, Sardar Patel, on the Narmada in Gujarat, unveiled 31 October 2018.

The correct answer is A, To protect the lining of the stomach. The gastric glands in the stomach wall release three things: hydrochloric acid, the enzyme pepsin and mucus. The acid makes the contents strongly acidic so that pepsin can act, and the mucus coats the inner wall as a thick slippery layer so that this acid and the enzyme do not digest the stomach's own tissue. When the mucus layer breaks down the acid attacks the wall and an ulcer forms; the bacterium Helicobacter pylori is a common cause. B is wrong because fat is digested by lipase, helped by bile from the liver, mainly in the small intestine. C is wrong because germs in food are killed by the hydrochloric acid and not by mucus. D is wrong because protein is broken down by pepsin in the stomach and by trypsin further along. Exam tip: gastric juice — HCl for acid, pepsin for protein, mucus for protection of the lining.

The correct answer is A, Odisha. Odisha is the largest producer of bauxite in India and accounts for more than half of the country's output. Its ore lies in the plateau belt of Koraput and Kalahandi, where the Panchpatmali deposit worked by NALCO is the biggest in the country, and it is also mined in Sundargarh and Bolangir. Bauxite is the ore from which alumina and then aluminium is obtained, so the state carries large refineries and smelters as well. Gujarat, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh follow at a distance. B is wrong because Bihar has almost no bauxite; its old reserves went to Jharkhand when the state was divided in 2000. C is wrong because Madhya Pradesh mines bauxite in Katni and Balaghat but on a far smaller scale. D is wrong because Jharkhand's mines in Lohardaga and Gumla also yield much less than Odisha's. Exam tip: Odisha leads in bauxite, chromite and iron ore; Panchpatmali in Koraput is the largest bauxite deposit.

The correct answer is B, Nana Sahib. Nana Sahib, the adopted son of the last Peshwa Baji Rao II, led the revolt of 1857 at Kanpur. The Company had refused him the pension his father had drawn, and when the sepoys at Kanpur rose in June 1857 he joined them, was proclaimed Peshwa and drove the British garrison out of the city; Tantia Tope was his commander. The British under Havelock retook Kanpur in July, and Nana Sahib is believed to have escaped into Nepal. A is wrong because Rani Lakshmibai led the fighting at Jhansi. C is wrong because Begum Hazrat Mahal led the revolt at Lucknow in the name of her young son Birjis Qadr. D is wrong because Kunwar Singh, the old zamindar of Jagdishpur, led it in Bihar. Exam tip: Kanpur Nana Sahib, Jhansi Lakshmibai, Lucknow Begum Hazrat Mahal, Bihar Kunwar Singh, Delhi Bahadur Shah Zafar.