SSC 2019 Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is A, Arteries. Arteries are the blood vessels that carry blood away from the heart to the different parts of the body. Because the heart pushes blood into them under high pressure, arteries have thick, muscular and elastic walls and no valves, and they are placed deep in the body. The largest artery is the aorta, which leaves the left ventricle. One important exception is the pulmonary artery, which carries deoxygenated blood from the heart to the lungs, so arteries are defined by direction, not by the kind of blood. B is wrong because veins bring blood back to the heart, have thinner walls and carry valves to stop backflow. C is wrong because the septum is the wall of muscle that separates the right and left sides of the heart. D is wrong because capillaries are the very thin vessels where exchange of gases and nutrients takes place. Exam tip: arteries away from the heart, veins towards it.

The correct answer is A, Wild yak. Bos mutus is the scientific name of the wild yak, the long haired bovine of the high cold plateaus of Ladakh, Tibet and the Karakoram, which grazes above four thousand metres and is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. The domestic yak is called Bos grunniens, the grunting ox, and mutus means mute, since the wild animal is far quieter. The two part naming system, with the genus first and the species second, was given by Carl Linnaeus. B is wrong because the horse is Equus caballus. C is wrong because the ox, meaning domestic cattle, is Bos taurus or Bos indicus for the humped Indian breeds. D is wrong because the Asiatic water buffalo is Bubalus bubalis. Exam tip: the genus Bos covers cattle and yak, Bos mutus wild yak and Bos grunniens domestic yak.

The correct answer is C, Tax levied on revenue. Sardeshmukhi was a levy of one tenth, that is ten per cent, of the land revenue, which the Marathas claimed in territory outside their own kingdom. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj claimed it as the hereditary sardeshmukh or chief headman of Maharashtra, so it was presented as an old right rather than a new tax. It was collected along with chauth, which was one fourth or twenty five per cent of the revenue and was taken in return for protection, so together the two claims brought the Marathas thirty five per cent of the revenue of the areas they raided. A is wrong because sardeshmukhi was a tax, not an office ranking with the Peshwa, who was the chief minister. B is wrong because it was not a coin; Maratha coins included the hon and the shivrai. D is wrong because it was never a name for Shivaji himself. Exam tip: chauth one fourth, sardeshmukhi one tenth.

The correct answer is D, 30 th December, 2016. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the BHIM app on 30 December 2016, a few weeks after the note ban of November 2016, to push people towards digital payment. BHIM stands for Bharat Interface for Money and is named after Dr B R Ambedkar, whose full name was Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar. The app is built by the National Payments Corporation of India on the Unified Payments Interface, so money moves straight from one bank account to another using a UPI identifier or a mobile number, and it works in several Indian languages. A is wrong because 15 August 2016 saw no such launch. B is wrong because 31 October 2016 is before the note ban announcement. C is wrong because 26 January 2016 is Republic Day of that year and unconnected. Exam tip: BHIM, Bharat Interface for Money, NPCI, UPI, 30 December 2016.

The correct answer is C, International Monetary Fund. The conference held in 1944 at Bretton Woods in New Hampshire in the United States set up two twin institutions, the International Monetary Fund to keep exchange rates orderly and help countries facing balance of payments difficulty, and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to lend for reconstruction and development. Both have their headquarters at Washington DC.

Option A is wrong because the United Nations was created by its own Charter, signed at San Francisco in 1945. Option B, UNESCO, was founded in 1946 as a specialised agency for education, science and culture. Option D, the International Labour Organization, is older than all of them, set up in 1919 under the Treaty of Versailles. Only the IMF and the World Bank are called the Bretton Woods institutions.

The correct answer is B, Gaganyaan. Gaganyaan is the programme under which the Indian Space Research Organisation is preparing to send Indian astronauts into a low orbit around the Earth in a crew module of its own and bring them back safely. The programme includes uncrewed test flights, a crew escape system and a human rated launch vehicle. Its first flight test of the crew escape system, called TV-D1, took place in October 2023.

Option A, Mangalyaan, is the Mars Orbiter Mission, an uncrewed spacecraft that reached Mars orbit in 2014. Option C, Chandrayaan-2, was an uncrewed Moon mission of 2019 with an orbiter, a lander and a rover. Option D, Aditya-L1, is the solar observatory launched in 2023 to a halo orbit around the Lagrange point L1. None of the three carries a crew, so only Gaganyaan can be the human spaceflight programme.

The correct answer is D, 1575. The Buland Darwaza, the lofty gateway on the south side of the Jama Masjid at Fatehpur Sikri, was raised by Akbar in 1575 to mark his conquest of Gujarat. It is built of red sandstone with white and black marble inlay, stands about 54 metres above the ground and is reached by a long flight of steps, which makes it one of the tallest gateways in the world. An inscription on it carries the saying that the world is a bridge, to be passed over and not built upon.

Option A, 1502, falls before the Mughals reached India at all. Option B, 1526, is the year of the first battle of Panipat, when Babur defeated Ibrahim Lodi, so it belongs to the founding of the empire, not to Akbar. Option C, 1534, falls in the reign of Humayun. Only 1575 fits Akbar and the Gujarat campaign.

The correct answer is C, Ibrahim. Ibrahim Lodi came to the throne in 1517 and almost at once faced Rana Sanga of Mewar at Khatoli, near the Rajasthan border, where the Lodi army was defeated and the Sultan's forces driven back. The victory made Rana Sanga the strongest Rajput power of the day, and he later fought Babur at Khanwa in 1527. Option A is wrong because Bahlul Khan Lodi, the founder of the dynasty, died in 1489, long before this battle. Option B is wrong because Qutbuddin Aibak belonged to the Slave dynasty and died in 1210. Option D is wrong because Sikandar Lodi, Ibrahim's father, died in 1517 and is remembered for founding Agra in 1504, not for Khatoli. Ibrahim Lodi was finally killed at the First Battle of Panipat in 1526.

The correct answer is D, Qutub-ud-Din-Aibak. The Adhai-din-ka-Jhonpra stands at Ajmer in Rajasthan and was raised on the site of an earlier Sanskrit college by Qutbuddin Aibak, the founder of the Slave dynasty and the first Sultan of Delhi. The same ruler built the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque in Delhi and began the Qutb Minar, so Aibak is the name to attach to the earliest Sultanate mosques. Option A is wrong because Balban, who ruled from 1266 to 1287, is known for court ceremony and administrative reform rather than for this mosque. Option B is wrong because Ibrahim Lodi ruled more than three centuries later, from 1517 to 1526, and lost the First Battle of Panipat to Babur. Option C is wrong because Iltutmish completed the Qutb Minar and built the Hauz-i-Shamsi, but the Ajmer mosque was Aibak's work.

The correct answer is Time immediately after Question Hour. In the Lok Sabha, Question Hour runs from 11 am to noon, and the period that begins at noon, when members raise urgent matters of public importance without the usual advance notice, is popularly called Zero Hour. It is an Indian innovation, in use since the early 1960s, and it is not mentioned in the Constitution or in the Rules of Procedure. Its name is usually traced to its starting time of 12 o'clock.

The other options place it wrongly. It is not a period in the last or first half of the day's proceedings as such, and in the Lok Sabha it does not come before Question Hour. One refinement is worth knowing for tougher papers: since 2014 the Rajya Sabha has taken up Zero Hour at 11 am and moved Question Hour to noon, so in the Rajya Sabha Zero Hour now comes first. The standard answer in exams, as here, describes the Lok Sabha.

The correct answer is D, Stratosphere. The ozone layer lies in the stratosphere, roughly 15 to 35 km above the ground, with the thickest concentration near 20 to 25 km, and that belt is sometimes called the ozonosphere. Ozone is a molecule of three oxygen atoms, and it forms there when ultraviolet light splits oxygen molecules and the free atoms join other oxygen molecules. It absorbs harmful ultraviolet-B radiation and so shields life from skin cancer, cataracts and crop damage, and because it takes in this energy the temperature in the stratosphere rises with height, which makes the layer stable and good for jet flight. Chlorofluorocarbons from refrigerators and aerosols destroy it, so the Montreal Protocol was signed in 1987 to phase them out, and 16 September is marked as World Ozone Day. Option A is wrong because the troposphere is the lowest layer, where all weather happens. Option B is wrong because the mesosphere lies above the stratosphere and is where meteors burn up. Option C is wrong because the exosphere is the outermost, almost airless layer. Exam tip: troposphere, stratosphere with ozone, mesosphere, thermosphere, exosphere, in that order going up.

The correct answer is B, Meghalaya. Bamboo drip irrigation is a two-hundred-year-old practice of the Khasi and Jaintia hills of Meghalaya. Water from a hill spring or stream is led through split bamboo pipes, channels and diversion sections down the slope, and the flow is cut down stage by stage until the last narrow pipe drips water right at the root of the plant. Around eighteen to twenty litres a minute entering the system come out as twenty to eighty drops a minute at the plant. It is used mainly for betel leaf and black pepper grown along with areca nut, needs no pump or electricity, and is studied as a model of water harvesting on steep ground where channels cannot be dug. Option A is wrong because Chhattisgarh relies on tank and canal irrigation. Option C is wrong because Telangana depends on tanks, borewells and lift irrigation. Option D is wrong because Maharashtra is known for modern plastic drip irrigation, not the bamboo system. Exam tip: bamboo drip - Meghalaya, zabo - Nagaland, apatani - Arunachal Pradesh, kuhl - Himachal Pradesh, ahar-pyne - Bihar.

The correct answer is D, Vinesh Phogat. The wrestler Vinesh Phogat was nominated in 2019 for the Laureus World Sports Award in the Breakthrough of the Year category, the first Indian athlete to be shortlisted in that category. The nomination followed a remarkable 2018, in which she won gold at the Commonwealth Games at Gold Coast and then gold at the Asian Games in Jakarta, becoming the first Indian woman wrestler to win an Asian Games title. She had already received the Arjuna Award in 2016. The Laureus World Sports Awards, begun in 2000 by the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation, are often called the Oscars of sport. Option A is wrong because Anirban Chatterji is not a Laureus nominee. Option B is wrong because Pankaj Advani, a world champion in billiards and snooker, was not on the list. Option C is wrong because the sprinter Dutee Chand, known for her legal fight over hyperandrogenism rules, was not nominated that year. Exam tip: Vinesh Phogat - Laureus nomination 2019, Asian Games gold 2018, Arjuna Award 2016.

The correct answer is B, 1950. The Planning Commission was set up in March 1950 by a resolution of the Union Cabinet, not by the Constitution or by an Act of Parliament, so it was an extra-constitutional and non-statutory body. The Prime Minister was always its chairman, Jawaharlal Nehru being the first, and a full-time Deputy Chairman ran its work. Its task was to assess the country's material, capital and human resources and to draw up Five Year Plans for their balanced use. The First Five Year Plan ran from 1951 to 1956, was based on the Harrod-Domar model and put agriculture and irrigation first. The Commission was replaced on 1 January 2015 by NITI Aayog, a policy think tank that advises but does not allot funds to states. Options A, C and D are wrong because 1948, 1949 and 1951 are each a year off; 1951 is when the First Plan began, not when the body was created. Exam tip: Planning Commission 1950, First Plan 1951-56, NITI Aayog 2015.

The correct answer is C, Bile juice, Pancreatic juice. Fat is digested in the small intestine by these two secretions working together. Bile is made by the liver and stored in the gall bladder; it carries no enzyme, but its bile salts break large fat globules into tiny droplets, a process called emulsification, and they also make the acidic food from the stomach alkaline so that pancreatic enzymes can act. Pancreatic juice is poured into the duodenum and carries lipase, which splits the emulsified fat into fatty acids and glycerol, along with trypsin for protein and pancreatic amylase for starch. Option A is wrong because saliva has only salivary amylase, which acts on starch in the mouth. Option B is wrong because hydrochloric acid only makes the stomach acidic and activates pepsin, while mucus protects the stomach lining. Option D is wrong for both those reasons; neither saliva nor acid digests fat. Exam tip: bile emulsifies and lipase digests; the liver is the largest gland in the human body.

The correct answer is D, Space Research. Space research is not one of the Sustainable Development Goals. The United Nations General Assembly adopted seventeen such goals in September 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with 169 targets to be met by 2030; they replaced the Millennium Development Goals, which ran from 2000 to 2015. The seventeen cover poverty, hunger, health, education, gender equality, clean water, energy, decent work, industry, inequality, cities, responsible consumption, climate action, life below water, life on land, peace and justice, and partnerships. Option A is wrong because Gender Equality is Goal 5. Option B is wrong because Zero Hunger is Goal 2. Option C is wrong because Good Health and Well-being is Goal 3. In India NITI Aayog tracks state progress on the goals through its SDG India Index. Exam tip: 17 goals, 169 targets, adopted 2015, target year 2030; Goal 1 is No Poverty and Goal 17 is Partnerships for the Goals.

The correct answer is C, water bodies. Red algae, the division Rhodophyta, live in water, mostly in warm and shallow sea water, with a few species in fresh water. Their colour comes from the pigment phycoerythrin, which masks the green of chlorophyll and lets them use the blue light that reaches greater depths, so some grow deeper than other algae. Porphyra, Gracilaria and Polysiphonia are common examples, and the agar used in laboratories and the carrageenan used in food both come from this group. Coralline red algae deposit calcium carbonate and help build coral reefs. Option A is wrong because bare mountain slopes lack the standing water algae need. Option B is wrong because a city is a settlement, not a water body or habitat for marine algae. Option D is wrong because deserts are dry and an alga cannot complete its life cycle without water. Exam tip: Rhodophyta are red from phycoerythrin, Chlorophyta green from chlorophyll, Phaeophyta brown from fucoxanthin.

The correct answer is D, Shah Jahan. The Moti Masjid, or Pearl Mosque, inside the Agra Fort was built by Shah Jahan in white marble between 1648 and 1654, and it takes its name from the pearl-like glow of the stone. Shah Jahan rebuilt much of the red sandstone Agra Fort in marble, adding the Diwan-i-Khas, the Khas Mahal and the Sheesh Mahal; his reign from 1628 to 1658 is called the golden age of Mughal architecture and gave us the Taj Mahal, the Red Fort and the Jama Masjid of Delhi. Option A is wrong because Aurangzeb built the small Moti Masjid inside the Red Fort at Delhi and the Bibi ka Maqbara at Aurangabad. Option B is wrong because Akbar raised the original Agra Fort in red sandstone and built Fatehpur Sikri. Option C is wrong because Humayun built Dinpanah at Delhi, and his own tomb was raised after his death. Exam tip: Moti Masjid at Agra Fort is Shah Jahan's, the one in Delhi's Red Fort is Aurangzeb's.

The correct answer is A, Pataliputra. Pataliputra, today's Patna, stood where the Son joins the Ganga, and it was the capital of the Mauryan empire founded by Chandragupta Maurya in about 322 BCE with the help of Chanakya. Megasthenes, the envoy sent by Seleucus to Chandragupta's court, described it in his account Indica as a long city guarded by a wooden palisade with sixty-four gates and five hundred and seventy towers. Ashoka held the third Buddhist council there in about 250 BCE. Option B is wrong because Vaishali was the capital of the Lichchhavi republic and the seat of the second Buddhist council. Option C is wrong because Indraprastha is the ancient name of the Delhi region in the Mahabharata, not a Mauryan capital. Option D is wrong because Kushinagar is the place where the Buddha attained mahaparinirvana. Exam tip: Pataliputra served as capital of the Haryankas, the Nandas, the Mauryas and later the Guptas.

The correct answer is B, 1787. The Constitution of the United States was drafted by the Philadelphia Convention and signed on 17 September 1787, which is why it is counted as the world's first written democratic constitution. It was ratified by the required number of states in 1788 and the new government began work in 1789. It is a short document of a preamble and seven articles, sets up a federal republic with a President elected separately from the legislature, and gained a Bill of Rights in 1791 through its first ten amendments. The makers of the Indian Constitution borrowed Fundamental Rights, judicial review, an independent judiciary, the office of Vice-President and the impeachment procedure from it. Option A is wrong because 1932 belongs to the Great Depression years. Option C is wrong because 1877 marks the end of Reconstruction after the Civil War. Option D is wrong because 2000 is more than two centuries too late. Exam tip: US Constitution signed 1787, in force 1789 — the oldest written constitution still in use.