SSC 2020 Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is A, 12 members. Article 80 of the Constitution lets the President nominate twelve members to the Rajya Sabha from people with special knowledge or practical experience in literature, science, art and social service. The maximum strength of the House is 250, of whom 238 are elected by the elected members of the State and Union Territory legislatures and 12 are nominated. A nominated member takes part in every proceeding of the House and may join a political party within six months of taking a seat, but does not vote in the election of the President. Option B is wrong because ten is not the figure for either House. Option C is wrong because 14 matches no provision. Option D is wrong because no article allows 16 nominations. Exam tip: Article 80 gives 12 nominated members in the Rajya Sabha; the Lok Sabha has had no nominated members since the 104th Amendment ended the two Anglo-Indian seats.

The correct answer is A, Maharana Pratap. The Battle of Haldighati was fought on 18 June 1576 near Gogunda in Rajasthan, between Maharana Pratap of Mewar and the Mughal army sent by Akbar. Pratap rode his horse Chetak and fought alongside his Rajput soldiers and the Bhil archers of the hills; the Mughal force was led by Raja Man Singh of Amber with Asaf Khan. The Mughals held the field, but Pratap escaped and carried on a long guerrilla war, winning back much of Mewar at Dewair in 1582. Option B is wrong because Amar Singh was Pratap's son and became Rana after him. Option C is wrong because Udai Singh II, Pratap's father, founded Udaipur and died in 1572. Option D is wrong because Man Singh commanded the Mughal side, not Mewar. Exam tip: Haldighati 1576 - Maharana Pratap against Akbar's general Man Singh; Pratap's horse was Chetak.

The correct answer is D, Sikkim. Sikkim does not touch Myanmar. Its neighbours across the border are Nepal to the west, China in the north and east, and Bhutan to the south-east. Only four Indian states share the border with Myanmar - Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram - and that border runs for about 1,643 km. Option A is wrong because Arunachal Pradesh meets Myanmar along its south-eastern edge. Option B is wrong because Mizoram has a long stretch of the Myanmar border besides its border with Bangladesh. Option C is wrong because Manipur meets Myanmar on the east, and Moreh in Manipur is the main trading town on that border. Sikkim is India's least populated state and shares borders with three countries, but Myanmar is not one of them. Exam tip: remember the Myanmar border states as A-N-M-M - Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram.

The correct answer is B, Sandstone. Sandstone is a sedimentary rock: grains of sand carried by rivers or wind settle in layers and harden over time. Metamorphic rocks are different, being older rocks changed in place by great heat and pressure inside the crust, which is why they are harder and often banded. Option A is wrong because marble is limestone that has been metamorphosed. Option C is wrong because quartzite is the metamorphic form of sandstone itself. Option D is wrong because slate is metamorphosed shale and splits into thin sheets. Rocks fall into three families: igneous, formed from cooling magma or lava, sedimentary, formed from deposits, and metamorphic, formed by change. They pass from one family to another through the rock cycle, so sandstone can turn into quartzite, and any rock that melts and cools again becomes igneous. Exam tip: limestone becomes marble, sandstone becomes quartzite, shale becomes slate and coal becomes graphite.

The correct answer is C, Kerala. Mohiniyattam is the classical dance of Kerala, and its name comes from Mohini, the enchantress form of Lord Vishnu. It is danced solo by women in a plain off-white and gold Kasavu sari, with gentle swaying movements, soft footwork and delicate expression. The songs are in Manipravalam, a mixture of Sanskrit and Malayalam, and the music follows the Carnatic style. The poet Vallathol Narayana Menon revived the form at Kerala Kalamandalam in the twentieth century. Option A is wrong because the classical dance of Assam is Sattriya, begun by the saint Srimanta Sankardeva. Option B is wrong because West Bengal has no classical dance of its own; Chhau and Gambhira are its well known folk forms. Option D is wrong because the classical dance of Andhra Pradesh is Kuchipudi. Exam tip: Kerala has two classical dances, Kathakali and Mohiniyattam; Sattriya belongs to Assam and Odissi to Odisha.

The correct answer is B, 1921. Harappa in Punjab was excavated in 1921 by Daya Ram Sahni of the Archaeological Survey of India, and that dig brought the civilisation to light. A year later, in 1922, R.D. Banerji found Mohenjo-daro on the Indus in Sindh. Sir John Marshall, then Director-General of the ASI, put the two finds together and in 1924 announced a new Bronze Age civilisation older than anything then known in India. It is called the Harappan civilisation after the first site excavated and the Indus Valley civilisation after the river along which many of its sites lie. Option A is wrong because no such excavation took place in 1905. Option C is wrong because by 1926 work at these sites was already going on. Option D is wrong because 1932 is a full decade after the discovery. Exam tip: Harappa 1921 - Daya Ram Sahni; Mohenjo-daro 1922 - R.D. Banerji; announced by John Marshall in 1924.

The correct answer is D, 1953. Andhra State came into being on 1 October 1953 from the Telugu-speaking districts of the Madras province. The immediate cause was the death of Potti Sriramulu on 15 December 1952 after a fast unto death for a Telugu state, and the agitation that followed forced the Government's hand.

Option C, 1956, is the year of the States Reorganisation Act, when Andhra State was enlarged with the Telugu areas of Hyderabad and renamed Andhra Pradesh, so it marks a later step and is the commonest wrong choice. Option A, 1950, is the year the Constitution came into force, when the map still carried the Part A to Part D classification. Option B, 1947, is independence, five years before the agitation began. The order to remember is 1952 death, 1953 Andhra State, 1956 Andhra Pradesh.

The correct answer is C, Arthropoda. The name itself says so: in Greek arthros means jointed and podos means foot, so arthropods are the animals with jointed legs. They also have a hard outer skeleton of chitin, a segmented body and an open circulatory system, and they shed the skeleton as they grow, a process called moulting. Arthropoda is the largest phylum in the animal kingdom, holding insects, spiders, scorpions, crabs, prawns, centipedes and millipedes - about eighty out of every hundred known animal species. Option A is wrong because molluscs such as snails, octopus and mussels have a soft body with a muscular foot and usually a shell. Option B is wrong because nematodes are unsegmented roundworms like Ascaris, with no legs at all. Option D is wrong because echinoderms such as starfish and sea urchins are spiny-skinned marine animals that move on tube feet. Exam tip: Arthropoda - jointed legs, chitin skeleton, largest phylum; Mollusca is the second largest.

The correct answer is C, 80. Uttar Pradesh sends 80 members to the Lok Sabha, more than any other state, because seats are allotted in proportion to population and UP is the most populous state. The present strength of the Lok Sabha is 543 elected members, and the allotment rests on the 1971 census; the freeze on readjusting seats was extended by the 84th Amendment and again by the 87th Amendment, so the numbers have not changed since. Uttar Pradesh also has the largest share in the Rajya Sabha, with 31 seats. Option A is wrong because 48 is the number of Lok Sabha seats for Maharashtra, the second largest. Option B is wrong because 39 is the number for Tamil Nadu; West Bengal has 42 and Bihar 40. Option D is wrong because no state has 62 seats. Exam tip: Lok Sabha seats in order - Uttar Pradesh 80, Maharashtra 48, West Bengal 42, Bihar 40, Tamil Nadu 39.

The correct answer is A, Shashi Tharoor. Kerala: God's Own Country is an illustrated book on the land, people and culture of Kerala, written by Shashi Tharoor with photographs by M.F. Husain and brought out in 2009. Tharoor, a former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and later a Member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram, has written many other books, among them The Great Indian Novel, India: From Midnight to the Millennium, An Era of Darkness and Why I Am a Hindu. 'God's Own Country' is also the tourism tagline of Kerala. Option B is wrong because Jeet Thayil is a poet and novelist known for Narcopolis, which reached the Booker shortlist in 2012. Option C is wrong because Sudha Murthy writes fiction and essays such as Wise and Otherwise, Dollar Bahu and Three Thousand Stitches. Option D is wrong because Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai was a Malayalam novelist who wrote Chemmeen and won the Jnanpith Award in 1984. Exam tip: Tharoor - The Great Indian Novel; Thakazhi - Chemmeen; Thayil - Narcopolis.

The correct answer is D, Tide. A tide is the regular rise and fall of sea level caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon and, to a smaller extent, the Sun, together with the centrifugal force of the spinning earth. Most coasts get two high tides and two low tides in about 24 hours and 52 minutes. When the Sun, Moon and Earth line up at new moon and full moon, the pulls add up and give the high spring tides; when the Sun and Moon are at right angles in the first and third quarters, the pulls work against each other and give the low neap tides. Tides help ships enter ports and are used for tidal power. Option A is wrong because waves are made by wind blowing over the surface. Option B is wrong because a tsunami is a single train of huge waves set off by an undersea earthquake or landslide. Option C is wrong because currents are steady horizontal flows of water such as the Gulf Stream. Exam tip: spring tides at full and new moon, neap tides in the quarters.

The correct answer is D, Persian. Persian was the language of the Mughal court and of its records, and Akbar made it the official language of administration in 1582. The chronicles written for the emperors were therefore in Persian: Abul Fazl's Akbarnama with its third volume the Ain-i-Akbari, Gulbadan Begum's Humayun-nama, Jahangir's own Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri and Abdul Hamid Lahori's Padshahnama for Shah Jahan. Babur wrote his memoirs, the Tuzuk-i-Baburi, in Chagatai Turkish, and Akbar had them translated into Persian as the Baburnama. Persian also borrowed freely from local speech at Delhi, and out of that mixing grew the language later called Urdu. Option A is wrong because Sanskrit works were translated into Persian at Akbar's Maktab Khana, not the other way round. Option B is wrong because Hindi was used in poetry and in the regions, not in court records. Option C is wrong because Urdu took shape later and never served as the Mughal chancery language. Exam tip: Akbarnama, Padshahnama and Ain-i-Akbari are all Persian; Baburnama began in Turkish.

The correct answer is C, Brihadratha. Brihadratha was the last Mauryan emperor, and about 185 BCE his own commander-in-chief Pushyamitra Shunga killed him while the army was being reviewed, ending the dynasty Chandragupta Maurya had founded around 322 BCE. Pushyamitra then set up the Shunga dynasty with its capital at Pataliputra. The story comes to us from Bana's Harshacharita, and the Puranas give the Mauryas a rule of about 137 years. Pushyamitra is remembered for performing two Ashvamedha sacrifices and for the revival of Brahmanical practice, while the Buddhist stupa at Bharhut and the railing at Sanchi belong to Shunga times. Option A is wrong because Devavarman was an earlier, short-lived Mauryan king. Option B is wrong because Bindusara was the second Mauryan emperor, son of Chandragupta and father of Ashoka. Option D is wrong because Dasharatha, a grandson of Ashoka, ruled earlier and gave the Nagarjuni caves to the Ajivikas. Exam tip: Chandragupta founded the Mauryas, Brihadratha ended them, Pushyamitra began the Shungas.

The correct answer is D, Seismograph. A seismograph, also called a seismometer, senses the shaking of the ground and draws it as a wavy line called a seismogram. A heavy mass hangs so that it stays almost still while the frame moves with the earth, and the difference between the two is recorded. From the gap between the arrival of the faster P waves and the slower S waves at three or more stations, scientists work out the epicentre, and from the size of the waves they work out the magnitude. Option A is wrong because a speedometer shows the speed of a vehicle. Option B is wrong because an odometer measures the distance a vehicle has travelled. Option C is wrong because the Richter scale is a scale, not an instrument: it puts a number on the energy of a quake using the readings a seismograph has already made, and each whole step means about 32 times more energy. Exam tip: seismograph records, Richter scale measures magnitude, Mercalli scale measures the damage felt.

The correct answer is B, Mizoram. The khuang is a hollow wooden drum of the Mizo people, made from a single log with animal hide stretched over both ends and slung from the shoulder while being played with the hands. No Mizo festival is complete without it: it sets the beat for Cheraw, the bamboo dance, and for the Chapchar Kut, Mim Kut and Pawl Kut festivals, and Mizos speak of it as the soul of their music. Other Mizo instruments include the darbu and darmang gongs, the tuium flute and the tingtang, a string instrument. Option A is wrong because Assam's best known instruments are the dhol, pepa, gogona and taal that accompany Bihu. Option C is wrong because Jharkhand's tribal music uses the mandar, nagara and dhak. Option D is wrong because West Bengal is associated with the ektara, dotara and khol, the drum of kirtan. Exam tip: khuang and Cheraw dance - Mizoram; pepa and Bihu - Assam; ektara and Baul songs - West Bengal.

The correct answer is C, Ayodhya. Jain tradition places the birth of Rishabhanatha, the first Tirthankara, and of Abhinandananatha, the fourth, at Ayodhya in present-day Uttar Pradesh. In fact five of the twenty-four Tirthankaras are held to have been born there, which is why Jains count Ayodhya among their oldest holy places. Rishabhanatha, also called Adinatha, has the bull as his symbol and is named in the Rig Veda and the Bhagavata Purana as well. The last two Tirthankaras, Parshvanatha and Mahavira, are the ones whose history is best attested; Mahavira was born at Kundagrama near Vaishali in Bihar. Option A is wrong because Gaya is linked with the Buddha's enlightenment at Bodh Gaya. Option B is wrong because Varanasi is the birthplace of Parshvanatha, the twenty-third Tirthankara, and of Suparshvanatha, the seventh. Option D is wrong because Dwarka is associated with Krishna and with Neminatha, the twenty-second Tirthankara. Exam tip: Ayodhya - Rishabhanatha; Varanasi - Parshvanatha; Kundagrama - Mahavira.

The correct answer is A, JS Khehar. Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar was the Chief Justice of India when the nine-judge bench delivered its verdict in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India on 24 August 2017, and he presided over it. The bench held unanimously that privacy is a fundamental right, protected mainly as part of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 and by the freedoms in Part III. It overruled the older rulings in M.P. Sharma (1954) and Kharak Singh (1962), which had said the Constitution gives no such right. The case grew out of a challenge to the Aadhaar scheme. Justice Khehar was also the first Sikh Chief Justice of India. Option B is wrong because Dipak Misra became Chief Justice a week later, and led the benches on Section 377 and adultery. Option C is wrong because H.J. Kania was India's first Chief Justice, in 1950. Option D is wrong because T.S. Thakur retired as Chief Justice in January 2017. Exam tip: Puttaswamy 2017, nine judges, Article 21, CJI Khehar.

The correct answer is D, Socialist. The 42nd Amendment Act, 1976 added three words to the Preamble: Socialist, Secular and Integrity. With them the description of India changed from a 'Sovereign Democratic Republic' to a 'Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic', and 'unity of the Nation' became 'unity and integrity of the Nation'. This is the only amendment so far to have touched the Preamble, and because it made so many other changes it is nicknamed the Mini Constitution. Justice, liberty and equality were part of the original Preamble adopted on 26 November 1949, borrowed in spirit from the ideals of the French Revolution. Option A is wrong because justice, in its social, economic and political forms, was there from the start. Option B is wrong because equality of status and opportunity was also in the original text. Option C is wrong because liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship was original too. Exam tip: 42nd Amendment gave the Preamble three words - Socialist, Secular, Integrity.

The correct answer is B, Madhya Pradesh. Matki is a women's folk dance of the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh, performed at weddings and other happy occasions. A single dancer balances an earthen pot, the matki, on her head and moves to the beat of the dhol while keeping her face covered with a veil; others join her one by one as the rhythm quickens. The solo version is often called Aada and Khada Nach. Madhya Pradesh also gives us Gaur, Karma, Saila, Grida and Jawara, so the state's folk dances are a favourite with paper setters. Option A is wrong because Assam is known for Bihu, Bagurumba and Jhumur. Option C is wrong because Bihar is known for Jat-Jatin, Jhijhiya, Bidesia and Paika. Option D is wrong because Rajasthan is known for Ghoomar, Kalbeliya, Bhavai, Chari and Terah Taali; the Chari dance also uses a pot, but one with a lit lamp in it. Exam tip: Matki and Jawara - Madhya Pradesh; Chari and Ghoomar - Rajasthan.

The correct answer is B, Venus. Venus is wrapped in a dense blanket of carbon dioxide topped by thick white and yellow clouds of sulphuric acid, which is why it shines so brightly in our sky. Those clouds reflect most of the sunlight that falls on them, giving Venus the highest albedo of any planet and making it the brightest object in the night sky after the Moon. The same blanket traps heat so well that the surface stays near 465 degrees Celsius, hotter than Mercury even though Venus is farther from the Sun. It is called Earth's twin for its similar size and mass, and the morning or evening star for when it is seen. Option A is wrong because Uranus looks blue-green owing to methane in its hydrogen and helium atmosphere. Option C is wrong because Neptune is also a methane-rich ice giant, known for its supersonic winds. Option D is wrong because Mars looks red owing to iron oxide dust and has a very thin atmosphere. Exam tip: Venus - hottest planet, thickest clouds, sulphuric acid, rotates east to west.