SSC 2019 Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is C, Literature. The Jnanpith Award is India's highest literary honour, given to an author for an outstanding contribution to literature. It was instituted in 1961 by the Bharatiya Jnanpith trust and first awarded in 1965 to the Malayalam poet G. Sankara Kurup for his collection Odakkuzhal. It is open to writing in any of the languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, and in English since 2013, and the winner receives a citation, a cash prize and a bronze replica of Vagdevi, the goddess of learning. Option A is wrong because medicine in India is recognised by the Dr B. C. Roy National Award. Option B is wrong because social work is honoured by the Jamnalal Bajaj Award and the Ramon Magsaysay Award. Option D is wrong because cinema is honoured by the National Film Awards and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award. Exam tip: Jnanpith is for literature; the first winner was G. Sankara Kurup in 1965.

The correct answer is A, Kerala. Ottamthullal is a solo dance-and-recitation art form of Kerala. It was created in the eighteenth century by the poet Kunchan Nambiar, who used it to make fun of the powerful in simple Malayalam that ordinary people could follow. A single performer in a green face paint, tall headgear and pleated costume dances and recites verse, while a mridangam or maddalam and an idakka keep the beat and a singer repeats the lines. Because it needs no stage, no curtain and almost no troupe, it is often called the poor man's Kathakali. Option B is wrong because Tamil Nadu is the home of Bharatanatyam, Karagattam and Kummi. Option C is wrong because Andhra Pradesh is known for Kuchipudi and the folk form Veedhi Natakam. Option D is wrong because Manipur gives us Manipuri, Lai Haraoba and the Thang-Ta martial dance. Exam tip: Kerala — Kathakali, Mohiniyattam, Ottamthullal, Koodiyattam, Theyyam and Chakyar Koothu.

The correct answer is D, 86th amendment. The 86th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2002 made free and compulsory education a fundamental right. It inserted Article 21A, under which the State shall provide free and compulsory education to every child between the ages of six and fourteen years. The same amendment rewrote Article 45 in the Directive Principles, asking the State to care for children below six years, and added Article 51A(k), which makes it a fundamental duty of a parent or guardian to send a child to school. Parliament gave the right its working shape through the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, in force from 1 April 2010. Option A is wrong because the 88th Amendment dealt with service tax. Option B is wrong because the 89th Amendment split the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Commission into two separate bodies. Option C is wrong because the 87th Amendment shifted the basis of delimitation to the 2001 census. Exam tip: remember the trio 86th Amendment, Article 21A and the RTE Act, 2009.

The correct answer is A, 1951. The Representation of the People Act was passed in 1951, before the first general election.

Parliament made two laws under Articles 327 and 328. The Act of 1950 fixed the allocation of seats and the preparation of electoral rolls. The Act of 1951 is the bigger one: it deals with the actual conduct of elections, the qualifications and disqualifications of members, corrupt practices, election expenses, election petitions and by-elections. Dr B. R. Ambedkar, as law minister, piloted it through the provisional Parliament, and India's first general election was held in 1951 and 1952 under it.

Option B, 1945, is before independence, when no Indian Parliament existed. Option D, 1949, is the year the Constitution was adopted, on 26 November. Option C, 1955, is the year of the Citizenship Act and the Hindu Marriage Act, not of this law.

Exam tip: RPA 1950 for rolls and seats, RPA 1951 for conduct and disqualification.

The correct answer is A, Moth. Silk comes from the cocoon spun by the caterpillar of a moth.

The common silk moth is Bombyx mori, and rearing it is called sericulture. The female lays hundreds of eggs, the larva or silkworm feeds on mulberry leaves, and when it is ready to pupate it secretes a protein thread from its salivary glands and wraps itself in a cocoon. The cocoons are treated with steam or hot water and the single long fibre is reeled off. Karnataka leads India in silk output, and India is the second largest producer after China.

Option B is wrong because goats give mohair, pashmina and cashmere, which are types of wool. Option C is wrong as sheep give wool. Option D is wrong because butterflies do not spin commercial silk cocoons; both belong to the order Lepidoptera, but only moths are reared for silk.

Exam tip: silk from the moth Bombyx mori and mulberry leaves; wool from sheep and goat.

The correct answer is B, Chlorofluorocarbons. CFCs release chlorine in the stratosphere, and that chlorine destroys ozone.

CFCs were used as refrigerants, in aerosol sprays and in foam. They are stable near the ground, so they drift up to the stratosphere, where ultraviolet light breaks them and frees chlorine atoms. One chlorine atom can destroy thousands of ozone molecules in a chain reaction, which is how the ozone hole over Antarctica formed. The Montreal Protocol of 1987 phased CFCs out, and 16 September is observed as World Ozone Day.

Option A, polyvinylchloride, is a plastic and a waste problem, but it does not reach the stratosphere. Option C, biopolymer, means a natural polymer such as cellulose or starch and is harmless to ozone. Option D, methanol, is an alcohol used as a fuel and solvent and has no role in ozone loss.

Exam tip: ozone killers are CFCs, halons and carbon tetrachloride; the Montreal Protocol, 1987, controls them.

The correct answer is D, SEBI. The Securities and Exchange Board of India regulates the securities market and protects investors.

SEBI was set up as a non-statutory body in 1988 and was given statutory powers by the SEBI Act of 1992, passed after the Harshad Mehta scam exposed how weak market supervision was. Its headquarters is in Mumbai, it is run by a chairman appointed by the central government, and appeals against its orders go to the Securities Appellate Tribunal. It registers brokers and mutual funds, checks insider trading and clears public issues.

Option A, RERA, regulates real estate projects and builders. Option B, NABARD, is the apex bank for agriculture and rural credit. Option C, IRDA, now IRDAI, supervises insurance companies.

Exam tip: match the regulator to its market - SEBI securities, RBI banking and currency, IRDAI insurance, PFRDA pensions, RERA real estate.

The correct answer is D, Assam. Muga silk is produced only in Assam and is the state's best known textile.

It comes from the semi-domesticated silkworm Antheraea assamensis, which feeds on som and soalu leaves in the Brahmaputra valley. The thread has a natural golden yellow shine that grows brighter with every wash, and a Muga mekhela chador can outlast its owner. Muga silk received a Geographical Indication tag in 2007, the first such tag given to a product from Assam. India makes four kinds of silk: mulberry, tasar, eri and muga.

Option A is wrong because Arunachal Pradesh is known for its Apatani and Adi weaves, not muga. Option B is wrong as Bihar is linked with tasar silk from Bhagalpur. Option C is wrong because Maharashtra is known for Paithani sarees, made from mulberry silk.

Exam tip: Muga and eri silk - Assam; tasar - Jharkhand and Bihar; mulberry - Karnataka.

The correct answer is C, Honours Your Trust. UCO Bank uses this line in its logo and advertising.

UCO Bank was founded in Kolkata in 1943 as the United Commercial Bank, and the industrialist G. D. Birla was behind its creation. It was one of the fourteen banks nationalised in July 1969, took its present name in 1985, and still has its head office in Kolkata. Taglines are a favourite one-mark question because each public sector bank keeps the same line for years.

Option A, 'Good People to bank with', belongs to Union Bank of India. Option B, 'Where every individual is committed', is the line of Bank of India. Option D, 'Faithful And Friendly', is used by Bank of Maharashtra.

Exam tip: UCO Bank - Kolkata, 1943, 'Honours Your Trust'; Union Bank - 'Good People to bank with'.

The correct answer is C, Janata Party. The Janata Party government led by Morarji Desai set up the Second Backward Classes Commission in 1978.

It is better known as the Mandal Commission, after its chairman B. P. Mandal, and it was appointed under Article 340, which lets the President name a commission to study the condition of socially and educationally backward classes. The commission reported in 1980 and recommended 27 per cent reservation for Other Backward Classes in central government jobs. V. P. Singh's government announced its implementation in 1990, and the Supreme Court upheld it in the Indra Sawhney case of 1992.

Option A is wrong because the Congress set up the first such commission, under Kaka Kalelkar, in 1953. Option B is wrong as the BJP was founded only in 1980. Option D names a regional party that never formed a union government.

Exam tip: first commission - Kaka Kalelkar, 1953; second - B. P. Mandal, 1978.

The correct answer is D, Abanindranath Tagore. He painted 'My Mother', a portrait done in the soft wash technique he made famous.

Abanindranath Tagore (1871-1951) was a nephew of Rabindranath Tagore and the founder of the Bengal School of Art. That movement turned Indian painters away from European academic realism and back to Mughal, Rajput and Ajanta traditions. His best known canvas is 'Bharat Mata', painted in 1905 during the Swadeshi movement, and he also wrote children's classics such as 'Kshirer Putul'.

Option A, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, was a novelist who wrote 'Anandamath', not a painter. Option B, Debendranath Tagore, was a Brahmo Samaj leader and Rabindranath's father. Option C, Nandalal Bose, was Abanindranath's pupil, and he is remembered for illustrating the original manuscript of the Constitution and for the Haripura posters.

Exam tip: Abanindranath Tagore - Bengal School, 'Bharat Mata' and 'My Mother'; Nandalal Bose - Constitution illustrations.

The correct answer is A, Propanal. The ending 'al' marks an aldehyde, so propanal is the three-carbon aldehyde, CH3CH2CHO.

An aldehyde carries the group -CHO at the end of the carbon chain, with the carbonyl carbon attached to a hydrogen. In the naming system of organic chemistry the suffix tells the family: 'al' for an aldehyde, 'ol' for an alcohol, 'one' for a ketone, 'oic acid' for a carboxylic acid, 'ane' for an alkane, 'ene' for an alkene and 'yne' for an alkyne. Methanal and ethanal are the first two aldehydes of the series.

B is wrong: propanol ends in 'ol', so it is an alcohol with an -OH group. C is wrong: propyne ends in 'yne' and is an alkyne with a triple bond. D is wrong: propanone ends in 'one' and is a ketone, better known as acetone.

Exam tip: al for aldehyde, ol for alcohol, one for ketone, oic acid for carboxylic acid.

The correct answer is C, Gobind Behari Lal. He was the first person of Indian origin to win the Pulitzer Prize, sharing the award for reporting in 1937.

Gobind Behari Lal was born in Delhi in 1889 and went to the United States in 1912 as a student, where he also worked with the Ghadar movement in California. He became science editor of the Hearst newspaper group and shared the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Reporting for his coverage of the science meetings held during Harvard University's tercentenary, explaining new research in language ordinary readers could follow.

A is wrong: Geeta Anand shared a Pulitzer much later, in 2003, for reporting in an American newspaper. B is wrong: Siddhartha Mukherjee won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 2011 for his book on cancer, 'The Emperor of All Maladies'. D is wrong: Jhumpa Lahiri won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000 for 'Interpreter of Maladies'.

Exam tip: Gobind Behari Lal - first Indian-origin Pulitzer winner, 1937, in the Reporting category.

The correct answer is B, Platform as a Service. Cloud computing is sold in three service models, and PaaS is the middle one. A PaaS provider hands the developer a ready platform — the operating system, a runtime, a database, libraries and build tools — so an application can be written and deployed without buying or managing any hardware or patching an operating system. Google App Engine, Microsoft Azure App Service, Red Hat OpenShift and Heroku are examples. Below it, IaaS supplies raw computing power and storage, such as Amazon EC2, and the user still installs the software. Above it, SaaS delivers finished software over the browser, such as Gmail or Google Docs. The three main deployment models are public, private and hybrid cloud. Options A, C and D are wrong because Payment as a Service, Performance as a Service and Protocol as a Service are not cloud service models. Exam tip: IaaS gives the machine, PaaS the platform, SaaS the finished software.

The correct answer is D, Hampi. Hampi on the Tungabhadra in Karnataka was the capital of the Vijayanagara empire, and its Virupaksha, Vittala and Hazara Rama temples are Dravidian work of the most elaborate kind: walled enclosures, towering gopurams, pillared kalyana mandapas, the famous stone chariot and the musical pillars. UNESCO inscribed the Group of Monuments at Hampi as a World Heritage Site.

Option A, Konark in Odisha, is the Sun Temple of the Eastern Ganga ruler Narasimhadeva I and belongs to the Kalinga branch of the Nagara style, not to Dravida. Option B, Bodh Gaya in Bihar, is a Buddhist site with the Mahabodhi temple and the Bodhi tree, and its tall brick tower follows a north Indian shrine form. Option C, Akshardham in Delhi, is a modern temple completed in this century and cannot represent a historical style.

The correct answer is D, Garbhagriha. The garbhagriha, the womb house, is the small square windowless cell that holds the image of the presiding deity. Every other part of a temple is added around it: the tower rises over it, the hall stands in front of it and the circumambulatory passage runs around it. A shrine can exist with nothing but a garbhagriha, which is why texts and examiners call it the nucleus of the temple.

Option A, the gopuram, is the gateway tower in the enclosure wall of a South Indian temple; it is often the tallest structure but it is an entrance, not the shrine. Option B, the mandapam, is the pillared hall where devotees assemble, and large temples have several of them. Option C, the pradakshina patha, is only the passage left for circumambulation around the sanctum. All three are important, yet none of them houses the deity.

The correct answer is A, Mother Teresa. She was born at Skopje, came to India as a nun, took Indian citizenship in 1948 and founded the Missionaries of Charity at Kolkata in 1950. The Nobel Peace Prize was given to her in 1979 for her work among the poorest of the poor, and she remains the only woman from India to have received it.

Option B, Nargis Dutt, was a film actress who was given the Padma Shri and was later a member of the Rajya Sabha, but she was never a Nobel laureate. Option C, Indira Gandhi, was Prime Minister of India and received the Bharat Ratna in 1971; no Indian Prime Minister has won the Nobel Peace Prize. Option D, Sarojini Naidu, called the Nightingale of India, was the first woman President of the Indian National Congress and the first woman Governor of a state, but she too won no Nobel Prize.

The correct answer is D, Dinaras. Gupta gold coins were called dinaras, a name borrowed from the Roman denarius that had already reached India through trade and through Kushana coinage. The Guptas struck more gold coins than any other ancient Indian dynasty, and their types, such as the Archer, the Ashvamedha and the Lyrist, are a major source for the dynasty's history.

Option A, rupaka, was the Gupta silver coin, introduced by Chandragupta II after he defeated the Shaka Kshatrapas and took over their silver currency zone in western India. Option B, tanka, was the silver coin of the Delhi Sultanate, standardised by Iltutmish in the thirteenth century. Option C, drama or dramma, was a silver coin used by several post-Gupta and early medieval dynasties of western and central India, and was never the Gupta gold denomination.

The correct answer is D, Agenda 21. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, popularly called the Earth Summit, met at Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and adopted Agenda 21, a detailed non-binding programme of action for sustainable development. The number refers to the twenty-first century, for which the programme was drawn up, and its chapters cover poverty, consumption patterns, health, human settlements, atmosphere, oceans, waste and the role of major groups.

Options A, B and C, Agenda 39, Agenda 19 and Agenda 22, name no document at all and are included only to test whether the candidate remembers the number. The way to keep it straight is to link the twenty-one to the century that was about to begin, and to remember that the same summit also produced the Rio Declaration, the Forest Principles and the two conventions on climate change and biological diversity.

The correct answer is Sardar Vallabhai Patel. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was India's first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, from 1947 until his death in 1950. He is remembered above all for integrating more than 500 princely states into the Indian Union, which earned him the title "Iron Man of India"; the 182-metre Statue of Unity in Gujarat honours him. The post of Deputy Prime Minister is not mentioned in the Constitution; it is a political arrangement, and the holder is sworn in simply as a minister.

The other three options also served as Deputy Prime Minister later, which is exactly why the question asks for the first. Morarji Desai was Deputy Prime Minister under Indira Gandhi from 1967 to 1969. Charan Singh and Jagjivan Ram both became Deputy Prime Ministers in 1979 in Morarji Desai's Janata government. Charan Singh then went on to become Prime Minister himself later that year.