SSC 2018 Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is C, its mass. Inertia is the tendency of a body to stay at rest or keep moving in a straight line, and the measure of that tendency is mass. A heavier body is harder to start, stop or turn, so mass is called the measure of inertia. This follows from Newton's first law of motion, which is also called the law of inertia. Mass is a scalar quantity, measured in kilograms, and it stays the same everywhere. Option A is wrong because weight is the force of gravity on the body, equal to mass times the acceleration due to gravity, so it changes from the Earth to the Moon while inertia does not. Option B is wrong because mass times velocity is momentum, which describes motion already in progress. Option D is wrong because mass times acceleration is force, the cause of a change in motion. Exam tip: mass is inertia, mass times velocity is momentum, mass times acceleration is force.

The correct answer is C, Nyaya. Maharishi Gautama, also called Akshapada Gautama, founded the Nyaya school of Indian philosophy and wrote its basic text, the Nyaya Sutra. Nyaya is the school of logic: it holds that right knowledge is the way out of suffering, and it lays down four means of valid knowledge, namely perception, inference, comparison and reliable testimony. Its careful rules of debate and proof were used by every other school, which is why Nyaya is called the doorway to Indian philosophy. It is counted among the six orthodox or astika systems along with Samkhya, Yoga, Vaisheshika, Mimamsa and Vedanta. A is wrong because Samkhya was founded by Maharishi Kapila, who explained the world through Purusha and Prakriti. B is wrong because Yoga is credited to Patanjali and his Yoga Sutra. D is wrong because Vaisheshika was founded by Kanada, who built an early atomic theory. Exam tip: Kapila Samkhya, Patanjali Yoga, Gautama Nyaya, Kanada Vaisheshika, Jaimini Mimamsa, Badarayana Vedanta.

The correct answer is C, 100. Use the third equation of motion, which links velocity and distance without needing time: v squared equals u squared plus 2as. Here u is 10 m/s, v is 30 m/s and a is 4 m/s2, so 900 equals 100 plus 8s, giving 8s equal to 800 and s equal to 100 metres. The same answer comes the long way round: the time taken is (30 minus 10) divided by 4, that is 5 seconds, and the average velocity of uniformly accelerated motion is (10 plus 30) divided by 2, that is 20 m/s, so the displacement is 20 times 5, again 100 metres. A is wrong because 200 comes from leaving out the initial velocity and taking v squared as 2as with u equal to zero. B is wrong because 250 follows no correct step here. D is wrong because 125 comes from using the wrong time of 5 seconds with a mistaken average of 25 m/s. Exam tip: the three equations are v = u + at, s = ut + half at squared, and v squared = u squared + 2as.

The correct answer is D, 40. Power is the rate of doing work, so power equals work divided by time. Here the work is 120 J and the time is 3 seconds, which gives 120 divided by 3, that is 40 watts. The watt is the SI unit of power and one watt means one joule of work done in one second; 746 watts make one horsepower, the older unit still used for engines. Remember that power tells you how fast the work is done, not how much: an engine that does the same 120 J in 6 seconds has only 20 W of power. A is wrong because 360 comes from multiplying 120 by 3 instead of dividing. B is wrong because 80 does not follow from any correct step with these figures. C is wrong because 180 comes from mistakenly taking three halves of the work. Exam tip: power equals work divided by time, its unit is the watt, and 1 horsepower equals 746 watts.

The correct answer is A, Part IX-A. The 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, 1992 inserted a new Part IX-A titled The Municipalities into the Constitution, and it came into force on 1 June 1993. This Part runs from Article 243P to Article 243ZG and gave urban local bodies a constitutional footing for the first time. It fixed three kinds of municipality: a Nagar Panchayat for an area moving from rural to urban, a Municipal Council for a smaller urban area and a Municipal Corporation for a larger urban area. The same Act added the Twelfth Schedule, which lists 18 subjects such as urban planning, water supply, slum improvement and public health that a state may hand over to these bodies. Elections every five years, seats reserved for women and Scheduled Castes, and a State Finance Commission also came with it. B is wrong because Part X covers Scheduled and Tribal Areas. C is wrong because Part XI deals with Centre-State relations. D is wrong because Part XIV covers services under the Union and the States. Exam tip: 73rd Amendment gives Part IX and the Eleventh Schedule for panchayats, 74th gives Part IX-A and the Twelfth Schedule for municipalities.

The correct answer is D, Lothal. Excavations at Lothal found graves in which a man and a woman were buried together in one pit, a custom archaeologists call couple or double burial. Lothal lies in the Bhal region of Gujarat on the Bhogava, a tributary of the Sabarmati, and was excavated by S. R. Rao from 1955. It is best known for its dockyard, the earliest known tidal dock in the world, and also gave up a bead factory, a warehouse and a fire altar. Option A is wrong because Mohenjodaro in Sindh is remembered for the Great Bath, the Great Granary and the bronze Dancing Girl. Option B is wrong because Harappa, on the Ravi, gave the cemetery R-37 and rows of workmen's quarters, not couple graves. Option C is wrong because Chanhudaro, south of Mohenjodaro, was a craft town famous for bead making and is the site with no citadel. Exam tip: Lothal means dockyard and couple burial, Kalibangan means the ploughed field.

The correct answer is B, Non-violence. Ahimsa, or non-violence, is the first and greatest vow of Jainism, and every other rule of Jain life follows from it, down to the mask and the soft broom a Jain monk carries to avoid harming the smallest creature. Mahavira, the twenty-fourth Tirthankara, taught five vows: ahimsa or non-violence, satya or truth, asteya or non-stealing, aparigraha or non-possession and brahmacharya or celibacy. Parshvanatha, the twenty-third Tirthankara, had already taught the first four, and Mahavira added celibacy. The three jewels of Jainism are right faith, right knowledge and right conduct. Option A is wrong because karma explains the soul's bondage and is shared with other Indian religions, so it is not the chief rule of conduct. Option C is wrong because dispassion follows from keeping the vows rather than standing above them. Option D is wrong because loyalty is not a Jain vow at all. Exam tip: the five vows of Mahavira are ahimsa, satya, asteya, aparigraha and brahmacharya.

The correct answer is the Chief Justice of India. Under Article 60, the President takes the oath or affirmation before the Chief Justice of India, or, in the Chief Justice's absence, before the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court. In the oath the President promises to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and the law, and to devote himself or herself to the service and well-being of the people of India. Unlike the oaths of ministers and judges, which are in the Third Schedule, the form of the President's oath is written into Article 60 itself.

The Prime Minister does not administer the President's oath; it is the other way round, since the President administers the oaths of the Prime Minister and the other Union ministers. The Speaker of the Lok Sabha and the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha have no role in it either. Keep a small chain in mind: the Chief Justice swears in the President, the President swears in the Vice-President, the Prime Minister, the ministers and the judges of the Supreme Court, and the Chief Justice of a High Court swears in the Governor of the State.

The correct answer is D, Argon. Argon is a noble gas whose outer shell already holds eight electrons, so it has no room to take another one easily; adding an electron would mean starting a new shell, and energy has to be supplied rather than released. Its electron affinity is therefore effectively zero, the lowest of the four. Electron affinity is the energy change when a neutral gaseous atom gains an electron, and it generally rises across a period and falls down a group. The other three are halogens, one electron short of a stable octet, so they release a lot of energy on gaining an electron. Option A is wrong because fluorine has a very high electron affinity, though its small size and crowded electrons push it just below chlorine. Option B is wrong because chlorine has the highest electron affinity of all elements. Option C is wrong because bromine's affinity, while lower than chlorine's, is still far above argon's. Exam tip: order is Cl greater than F greater than Br greater than I, and noble gases sit at the bottom.

The correct answer is Germany. The provision for suspending Fundamental Rights during an Emergency was taken from the Weimar Constitution of Germany. It is the only feature of the Indian Constitution usually traced to that source.

The other options are sources of different features. France gave the idea of a republic and the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity in the Preamble. Russia, as the former USSR, gave the Fundamental Duties and the ideal of social, economic and political justice. Australia gave the Concurrent List, freedom of trade and commerce, and the joint sitting of the two Houses of Parliament. The emergency provisions as a whole are drawn largely from the Government of India Act, 1935, so a question on "emergency provisions" in general points there, while one on "suspension of Fundamental Rights during an Emergency" points to Germany. Read the wording carefully before choosing.