SSC 2021 Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is Impeachment of the President. Article 61 sets out the only way a President can be removed before the end of the term: impeachment for "violation of the Constitution". The charge can be brought in either House by a resolution signed by at least one-fourth of its members, after 14 days' notice, and must be passed by two-thirds of the total membership of that House. The other House then investigates, and if it too passes the resolution by two-thirds of its total membership, the President stands removed. No President has ever been impeached.

The other options belong elsewhere in the Constitution. The Fundamental Duties are in Article 51A, in Part IVA. A Financial Emergency is proclaimed under Article 360 and a National Emergency under Article 352, both in Part XVIII. Notice how the impeachment process borrows the idea from the United States, but India's only ground is a violation of the Constitution.

The correct answer is B, 1999. The Foreign Exchange Management Act was passed in 1999 and came into force on 1 June 2000, replacing the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act of 1973. The change of one word in the title tells the story: FERA regulated and restricted dealings in foreign exchange and treated a breach as a criminal offence, while FEMA manages them in an open economy and treats a breach as a civil matter with a monetary penalty. FEMA freed most current account transactions, kept capital account transactions under the control of the Reserve Bank, and is administered by the Directorate of Enforcement. Option A is wrong because 1988 has no link with this law. Option C is wrong because 2014 relates to later changes in foreign investment policy, not to FEMA's enactment. Option D is wrong because 1992 is the year of the SEBI Act and of the first big liberalisation of trade policy. Exam tip: FERA 1973 was criminal in approach, FEMA 1999 is civil, and it took effect in June 2000.

The correct answer is B, 2005. Value added tax replaced the old general sales tax from 1 April 2005, when most states adopted it on the recommendation of the empowered committee of state finance ministers. The point of VAT is that a trader pays tax only on the value added at that stage, taking credit for the tax already paid on purchases, so the cascading of tax upon tax is removed. Haryana had moved to VAT earlier, in 2003, and a few states joined later, with Uttar Pradesh the last in 2008. VAT on goods was itself absorbed into the Goods and Services Tax from 1 July 2017, though state VAT still applies to petroleum products and liquor. Option A is wrong because 2007 is when the last states were still joining. Option C is wrong because 2013 relates to the debate on the GST bill. Option D is wrong because 2011 is the year the constitutional amendment for GST was first introduced. Exam tip: link VAT 2005 with GST 2017.

The correct answer is D, 1977. IBM and Coca-Cola wound up their Indian operations in 1977 rather than dilute their holdings to 40 per cent. The Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, passed in 1973, required foreign companies to cut their equity in Indian subsidiaries to that level and to obtain permission for most dealings in foreign exchange. This was the high point of a closed, licence based economy, and the exit of two well known American firms became its symbol. Coca-Cola returned only after the reforms of 1991, and FERA itself was replaced by the milder Foreign Exchange Management Act of 1999. Option A is wrong because 1964 falls well before FERA was enacted. Option B is wrong because 1981 is after both companies had already left. Option C is wrong because 1956 is the year of the Industrial Policy Resolution, unrelated to this exit. Exam tip: remember FERA 1973, the IBM and Coca-Cola exit in 1977, liberalisation in 1991 and FEMA in 1999 as one chain.

The correct answer is D, Narasimhadeva 1. The Sun temple at Konark in Odisha was built in the thirteenth century by Narasimhadeva I of the Eastern Ganga dynasty. It is shaped as a colossal chariot for the sun god Surya, with twelve pairs of carved stone wheels and seven horses straining to pull it; the wheels work as sundials. Built in the Kalinga style of the Nagara order, it stood by the sea and European sailors called it the Black Pagoda. The main tower has collapsed, but the jagamohana and the carvings survive, and UNESCO placed it on the World Heritage List in 1984. Option A is wrong because Anantha Padmanabhan is not a ruler linked with this temple. Option B is wrong because Samudragupta of the Gupta dynasty ruled a thousand years earlier and left no temple here. Option C is wrong because Anantavarman Chodaganga, of the same dynasty, began the Jagannath temple at Puri. Exam tip: Konark means Narasimhadeva I, Puri means Anantavarman Chodaganga, and both belong to the Eastern Ganga dynasty.

The correct answer is C, Shehnai. Ustad Bismillah Khan was the shehnai player who lifted that instrument from wedding processions to the concert stage. Born in 1916 at Dumraon in Bihar, he settled in Varanasi and played at the Vishwanath temple, and he performed from the Red Fort on the eve of independence in 1947 and again on the first Republic Day. He was given the Bharat Ratna in 2001, becoming the third musician after M.S. Subbulakshmi and Ravi Shankar to receive it, and he had earlier received the Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan. Option A is wrong because the santoor, a struck box zither of Kashmir, is linked with Shivkumar Sharma. Option B is wrong because the sitar is associated with Ravi Shankar and Vilayat Khan. Option D is wrong because the tabla brings to mind Alla Rakha and Zakir Hussain. Exam tip: match instrument to artist, shehnai with Bismillah Khan, sarod with Amjad Ali Khan, flute with Hariprasad Chaurasia and santoor with Shivkumar Sharma.

The correct answer is B, Pavapuri. Mahavira attained nirvana, or salvation, at Pavapuri in the Nalanda district of Bihar, at the age of 72. He was the twenty-fourth and last Tirthankara of Jainism, born at Kundagrama near Vaishali to Siddhartha and Trishala. He left home at 30, gained enlightenment at Jrimbhikagrama on the bank of the Rijupalika river after twelve years of penance, and preached in Prakrit for three decades. Pavapuri today has the Jal Mandir, a marble temple standing in a tank at the place of his cremation, and Diwali is observed by Jains as the day of his nirvana. Option A is wrong because Sonagiri in Madhya Pradesh is a Jain pilgrimage hill, but not the site of his nirvana. Option C is wrong because Shravanabelagola in Karnataka is famous for the statue of Bahubali. Option D is wrong because Mount Abu holds the Dilwara temples, built much later. Exam tip: fix Mahavira's four places as Kundagrama for birth, Jrimbhikagrama for enlightenment, Pavapuri for nirvana, and Vaishali as his home region.

The correct answer is C, Sales of final goods. Gross Domestic Product counts the value of final goods and services produced inside a country during a year. Only final output is added, because the value of intermediate goods is already inside the price of the finished product, and counting both would be double counting. The exclusions follow from the same rule. A used good was counted in the year it was made, so selling it again adds nothing to this year's production, although the dealer's commission is a fresh service and does count. A transfer payment such as a pension, a scholarship or unemployment relief is income handed over with no good or service in return, so it is not production. Option A is wrong because the sale of used goods is not new output. Option B is wrong because barter is not recorded in money and cannot be valued, so it stays outside measured GDP. Option D is wrong because transfer payments create no output at all. Exam tip: GDP counts final goods only, and leaves out second-hand sales and transfer payments.

The correct answer is C, Bimbisara. Bimbisara belonged to the Haryanka dynasty of Magadha, not to the Mauryas. He ruled from Rajagriha in the sixth century BC, was a contemporary of the Buddha and Mahavira, and enlarged Magadha through marriage alliances and by annexing Anga. The Mauryan line came much later: Chandragupta Maurya founded it around 321 BC with the help of Chanakya after overthrowing the Nandas, his son Bindusara followed, and Ashoka, the greatest of the family, ruled from about 268 BC and spread Buddhism through his rock and pillar edicts. Option A is wrong because Ashoka was the Mauryan ruler who fought the Kalinga war and then turned to dhamma. Option B is wrong because Bindusara was Chandragupta's son and Ashoka's father. Option D is wrong because Chandragupta founded the dynasty itself. Exam tip: the Magadha dynasties run Haryanka, Shishunaga, Nanda and then Maurya, so Bimbisara and Ajatashatru come long before Chandragupta.

The correct answer is A, 1998. Amartya Sen received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1998 for his contributions to welfare economics. His work spans social choice theory and the measurement of poverty and inequality, and his book 'Poverty and Famines' argued that famines come not only from a fall in food output but from a collapse in people's ability to buy food. With Mahbub ul Haq he helped shape the Human Development Index, and his other books include 'Development as Freedom' and 'The Argumentative Indian'. Option B is wrong because 2004 has no link with his prize. Option C is wrong because the economics prize of 1997 went to Robert Merton and Myron Scholes for their work on valuing options. Option D is wrong because 1999 is the year Amartya Sen was given the Bharat Ratna, which students often mix up with the Nobel. Exam tip: remember Nobel 1998 and Bharat Ratna 1999 for Amartya Sen, and note that Abhijit Banerjee won the economics Nobel in 2019.

The correct answer is B, Sania Mirza. 'Ace against Odds' is the autobiography of the tennis player Sania Mirza, brought out in 2016 and written with her father Imran Mirza and the journalist Shivani Gupta. The title plays on the tennis ace and on the obstacles she met on the way. Sania Mirza was the first Indian woman to win a WTA singles title and the first to reach the world number one ranking in women's doubles, and she has won Grand Slam titles in women's doubles and mixed doubles. She has been honoured with the Arjuna Award, the Padma Shri and the Khel Ratna. Option A is wrong because the sprinter Hima Das, known as the Dhing Express, has written no such book. Option C is wrong because Dutee Chand is a sprinter known for the 100 metres and for her legal fight against hyperandrogenism rules. Option D is wrong because Mary Kom's autobiography is titled 'Unbreakable'. Exam tip: pair 'Ace against Odds' with Sania Mirza, 'Unbreakable' with Mary Kom and 'Playing It My Way' with Sachin Tendulkar.

The correct answer is C, Ajatashatru. The First Buddhist Council was held under the patronage of Ajatashatru, the Haryanka ruler of Magadha. It met at Rajgir, in the Sattapanni cave, soon after the Buddha's death, and was presided over by Mahakassapa. Its task was to settle the Buddha's teachings in fixed words: Ananda recited the Sutta Pitaka and Upali the Vinaya Pitaka. Ajatashatru was the son of Bimbisara and a contemporary of both the Buddha and Mahavira, and he built the fort of Rajagriha. Option A is wrong because Porus fought Alexander on the Jhelum in 326 BC, far in time and place from this council. Option B is wrong because Ashoka patronised the Third Council, at Pataliputra, presided over by Moggaliputta Tissa. Option D is wrong because Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of the Mauryan empire, leaned towards Jainism and called no Buddhist council. Exam tip: the four councils run Rajgir under Ajatashatru, Vaishali under Kalasoka, Pataliputra under Ashoka and Kashmir under Kanishka.

The correct answer is A, Wildlife protection. The Amrita Devi Bishnoi National Award is given for outstanding courage and devotion in protecting wildlife. It was instituted by the Union environment ministry in 1994 and carries a cash prize with a citation. It is named after Amrita Devi Bishnoi, who in 1730 at Khejarli near Jodhpur clung to a khejri tree to stop the Maharaja's men from felling it; she and more than 360 other Bishnois died in that protest. The Bishnoi community, which follows the 29 rules laid down by Guru Jambheshwar, still guards the blackbuck, the chinkara and the khejri tree of the Thar desert, and the Khejarli sacrifice is remembered as an inspiration for the later Chipko movement. Option B is wrong because energy saving is rewarded by the National Energy Conservation Awards. Option C is wrong because broader environmental work is honoured by the Indira Gandhi Paryavaran Puraskar. Option D is wrong because biodiversity effort is recognised by the India Biodiversity Awards. Exam tip: tie Amrita Devi to Khejarli 1730, the khejri tree and the blackbuck of Rajasthan.

The correct answer is D, GDP - Depreciation. Net Domestic Product is what is left of the domestic product after setting aside the wear and tear of capital. Gross Domestic Product measures the value of all final goods and services produced inside a country in a year. Part of that output merely replaces machines, buildings and vehicles that have worn out during the year, and this loss is called depreciation or consumption of fixed capital. Taking it out gives NDP, a truer measure of what the economy has really added. In India these aggregates are estimated by the National Statistical Office. Option A is wrong because net factor income from abroad is added to a domestic aggregate, never subtracted. Option B is wrong because GDP plus net factor income from abroad gives Gross National Product. Option C is wrong because GNP minus depreciation gives Net National Product, the national counterpart of NDP. Exam tip: net always means depreciation removed, and national always means net factor income from abroad included.

The correct answer is A, Windows. Windows is proprietary, or closed-source: Microsoft keeps its source code private and sells it under a licence that does not let users study, change or redistribute the code. An open-source operating system publishes its source code under a licence that allows anyone to read it, modify it and share it, usually free of cost. Option B is wrong because Ubuntu is a free Linux distribution released by Canonical under open-source licences, widely used on desktops and servers. Option C is wrong because Android is built on the Linux kernel and its core is released as the Android Open Source Project, which is why phone makers can adapt it. Option D is wrong because Linux is the classic example: Linus Torvalds released the kernel in 1991 under the GNU General Public License, and Fedora, Debian and Red Hat all grew from it. Exam tip: closed-source - Windows, macOS and iOS; open-source - Linux, Ubuntu, Fedora and Android.

The correct answer is D, Secondary. A hard disk is secondary storage: the CPU cannot work on its contents directly, and data must first be copied into main memory. Secondary storage is non-volatile, so it keeps files, programs and the operating system even after the power is switched off, and it is far larger and cheaper per gigabyte than RAM, though much slower. A hard disk drive stores data magnetically on spinning platters, with a read-write head moving over the tracks and sectors; solid-state drives, pen drives, CDs and memory cards are secondary storage as well. Option A is wrong because tertiary storage means robotic tape libraries and similar archival systems used for very large backups. Option B is wrong because off-line storage is a removable medium kept away from the computer, such as a tape or a disc on a shelf. Option C is wrong because primary storage means RAM, ROM and cache, which the processor reaches directly. Exam tip: RAM is primary and volatile, hard disk is secondary and non-volatile.

The correct answer is C, 1957. The Ramon Magsaysay Award was established in April 1957 by the trustees of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund in New York, with the agreement of the Philippine government, in memory of Ramon Magsaysay, the third President of the Philippines, who had died in an air crash in March that year. The first awards were presented in 1958. The prize honours greatness of spirit and service to the peoples of Asia and is often called Asia's Nobel Prize; the foundation that gives it is based in Manila. Vinoba Bhave was the first Indian to receive it, in 1958. Option A is wrong because by 1965 the award had already been given for seven years. Option B is wrong because 1962 is the year Mother Teresa won it for peace and international understanding, not the year it began. Option D is wrong because 1982 is far later than the founding. Exam tip: Magsaysay Award — set up 1957, first given 1958, first Indian Vinoba Bhave, foundation at Manila.

The correct answer is A, Maharashtra. The Industrial Development Bank of India has its head office in Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra, at the IDBI Tower in Cuffe Parade. IDBI was set up in 1964 by an Act of Parliament as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of India, to give long-term finance to industry. It was transferred to the Government of India in 1976, turned into a banking company in 2004, and reclassified by the RBI as a private sector bank in 2019 after the Life Insurance Corporation took a majority stake in it. Option B is wrong because West Bengal's Kolkata is the home of UCO Bank and Bandhan Bank, not IDBI. Option C is wrong because Karnataka holds Canara Bank at Bengaluru and Karnataka Bank at Mangaluru. Option D is wrong because Haryana has no such national financial institution's head office. Exam tip: Mumbai holds the RBI, SEBI, IDBI, the State Bank of India and both stock exchanges, which is why it is called the financial capital of India.

The correct answer is B, Eight. In Rock Edict XIII, Ashoka states that the country of the Kalingas was conquered eight years after his consecration as king. Taking his coronation at about 268 BCE, the war is placed around 261 BCE. The same edict records that a hundred and fifty thousand people were carried away, a hundred thousand were slain and many more died, and that the king felt deep remorse and turned to dhamma — this is the only war Ashoka ever describes in his inscriptions. Kalinga is the coastal tract of present-day Odisha, and his edicts at Dhauli and Jaugada stand there. Option A is wrong because no Ashokan edict gives five years for the Kalinga campaign. Option C is wrong because six years appears in none of the inscriptions. Option D is wrong because seven is a common distractor while the text plainly says eight. Exam tip: consecration about 268 BCE, Kalinga war in the eighth regnal year about 261 BCE, told in Rock Edict XIII.

The correct answer is D, Education. Article 21A says the State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years, in such manner as the State may by law determine. It was inserted by the 86th Constitutional Amendment Act of 2002, which also reworded Article 45 to cover early childhood care and added a parent's duty to educate a child as Fundamental Duty 51A(k). 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 there is no fundamental right to work; the right to work appears in Article 41 among the Directive Principles. Option B is wrong because privacy has no separate article and was read into Article 21 by the Supreme Court in 2017. Option C is wrong because the right to equality is Article 14. Exam tip: 86th Amendment, 2002 — Article 21A, a reworded Article 45 and the eleventh Fundamental Duty, all in one Act.