SSC 2023 Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is C, At room temperature, surface tension of water is less than ethyl alcohol. This is the statement that is not correct, because water has a much higher surface tension than ethyl alcohol. At about twenty degrees Celsius water measures close to seventy two dynes per centimetre while ethyl alcohol is only about twenty two, since the hydrogen bonds between water molecules pull far more strongly than the weaker forces inside alcohol. That is also why alcohol spreads out thinly on a surface while water gathers into beads. A is a correct statement, because surface tension is expressed in dynes per centimetre in the older unit system and in newtons per metre in the SI system. B is correct, because the inward pull on the surface gives a small free drop the shape with the least area for its volume, which is a sphere. D is correct, because surface tension arises from the cohesive forces among the molecules of the liquid itself. Exam tip: water is about 72 dynes per centimetre and alcohol about 22; surface tension falls as temperature rises.

The correct answer is D, The Comptroller and Auditor General. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India heads the Indian Audit and Accounts Department, the organisation through which the audit of Union and State accounts is actually carried out. The office is created by Article 148. The CAG is appointed by the President by warrant under hand and seal, holds office for six years or until the age of sixty five, whichever comes first, and can be removed only in the manner laid down for a judge of the Supreme Court. Article 149 sets out the duties, and the audit reports go to the President or the Governor, who lays them before the legislature, where the Public Accounts Committee takes them up. A is wrong because an Accountant General heads a state level office under the CAG. B is wrong because Principal Accountant General is a senior rank of the same kind. C is wrong because a Director General serves inside the department rather than at its head. Exam tip: Article 148, the CAG heads the audit department, six years or age sixty five.

The correct answer is C, Five. Five writs can be issued: habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, certiorari and quo warranto. Habeas corpus asks that a detained person be produced before the court. Mandamus commands a public authority to perform a duty it has refused to perform. Prohibition stops a lower court from going beyond its jurisdiction, while certiorari quashes an order such a court has already passed. Quo warranto questions a person’s claim to hold a public office. The Supreme Court issues these under Article 32, but only to enforce fundamental rights, and the right to move the Court under Article 32 is itself a fundamental right. A High Court’s power under Article 226 is wider, because it covers both fundamental rights and other legal rights. All five were borrowed from English common law. A, B and D are wrong because the Constitution provides exactly five, no more and no fewer. Exam tip: Article 32 for the Supreme Court and Article 226 for High Courts, five writs in both.

The correct answer is B, West Bengal. India's first jute mill was set up at Rishra, on the bank of the Hooghly near Serampore in Bengal, in 1855 by George Auckland. The industry stayed along that river because the Hooghly belt had everything it needed together: jute grown in the deltaic plains of Bengal, cheap water transport, coal from the Raniganj field, labour from Bihar and Odisha, and the port of Kolkata to ship sacking and hessian out. Partition in 1947 left most of the jute fields in East Pakistan while the mills stayed in India, which hurt the industry badly. West Bengal still has the largest number of jute mills and the highest output. A is wrong because Odisha has only a few mills. C is wrong because Assam grows jute but its mills came later. D is wrong because Bihar's mills, at Katihar and elsewhere, also came after Bengal's. Exam tip: first jute mill at Rishra on the Hooghly in 1855; West Bengal leads in jute.

The correct answer is D, It has no moving parts. A solar cell turns sunlight straight into electricity by the photovoltaic effect at a semiconductor junction, usually of silicon, so nothing inside it turns or slides. Having no moving parts means it needs almost no maintenance, makes no noise and lasts for decades once installed, which is why panels are used on satellites, in lighthouses and in village homes far from any grid. A single silicon cell gives about 0.5 to 0.6 volt, so cells are joined into modules and modules into panels for useful power. A is wrong because a solar cell shows no oscillatory motion; it is a static device. B is wrong because metal on the outer area describes the contacts and is not an advantage. C is wrong because having moving parts is the opposite of the cell's real strength. Exam tip: solar cell — photovoltaic effect in silicon, no moving parts, about 0.5 V per cell.

The correct answer is A, Purma Banerjee. India marched behind its own flag at the Olympics for the first time at Antwerp in 1920, and the athlete Purma Banerjee carried it at the opening ceremony. That was India's first real team at the Games: six members, four athletes and two wrestlers, sent with the help of the industrialist Dorabji Tata, whose support also led to the founding of the Indian Olympic Association in 1927. Earlier, at Paris in 1900, India had been represented by Norman Pritchard competing alone. B is wrong because Dhyan Chand was the hockey great whose teams took gold in 1928, 1932 and 1936, but he was not the first flag bearer. C is wrong because Lal Shah Bokhari carried the flag later, at Los Angeles in 1932. D is wrong because the hockey player Zafar Iqbal was flag bearer at Los Angeles in 1984. Exam tip: 1920 Antwerp — India's first Olympic team, flag carried by Purma Banerjee.

The correct answer is B, Article 17. Article 17 abolishes untouchability and forbids its practice in any form. It sits in Part III among the Fundamental Rights, under the right to equality, and it is one of the few rights that works against ordinary citizens as well as against the State. Parliament backed it with the Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955, renamed the Protection of Civil Rights Act in 1976, and later with the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. The Constitution nowhere defines untouchability; the courts read it as the social practice tied to caste, not as a general insult. A is wrong because Article 14 gives equality before the law and equal protection of the laws. C is wrong because Article 19 lists the six freedoms such as speech and movement. D is wrong because Article 32 lets a citizen move the Supreme Court for a writ. Exam tip: the equality rights run from Article 14 to 18 — 15 discrimination, 16 public employment, 17 untouchability, 18 titles.

The correct answer is D, Narendra Modi. The Prime Minister commissioned INS Vikrant at Kochi on 2 September 2022; built by Cochin Shipyard, it is the first aircraft carrier designed and built in India and it carries the name of the older Vikrant that served in the 1971 war. At the same ceremony the new naval ensign was unveiled. Option A is wrong because Rajnath Singh, as Defence Minister, has commissioned and launched other warships but not this carrier. Option B is wrong because Amit Shah holds the Home portfolio, which deals with the central armed police forces rather than the Navy. Option C is wrong because Jyotiraditya Scindia held the civil aviation portfolio and had no role in the commissioning. India's other carrier is INS Vikramaditya, rebuilt from the Russian Admiral Gorshkov.

The correct answer is D, churning poor. In the standard classification the churning poor are those whose consumption crosses the poverty line and falls back below it again and again, the typical cases being small and marginal farmers and casual labourers whose earnings depend on the season. Option A is wrong because the occasionally poor are usually above the line and slip below it only now and then, for example after an illness or a crop failure, so their movement is not regular. Option B is wrong because the usually poor are below the line most of the time and form part of the chronic poor rather than the group that moves in and out. Option C is wrong because the chronic poor, made up of the always poor and the usually poor, stay below the line year after year and are precisely the group that does not move across it.

The correct answer is D, the NSSO. The National Sample Survey Office carries out the large household surveys of consumption expenditure from which the number of people below the poverty line is worked out, and it now functions within the National Statistical Office under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. Option A is wrong because the Ministry of Finance uses poverty estimates in the budget and the Economic Survey but does not collect the household data. Option B is wrong because the Reserve Bank of India is the monetary authority and the banking regulator; the statistics it collects concern money, credit and payments, not household consumption baskets. Option C is wrong because the Central Statistics Office prepared national accounts and the index of industrial production; sample surveys of households were the work of the NSSO, and the two were merged into the National Statistical Office in 2019.

The correct answer is Article 352. It allows the President, if satisfied that a grave emergency exists whereby the security of India or any part of it is threatened by war, external aggression or armed rebellion, to make a Proclamation of Emergency. Since the 44th Amendment (1978), the President can do so only when the Union Cabinet's decision is communicated in writing, and both Houses must approve the proclamation within one month by a special majority.

The other options are real Articles on quite different subjects. Article 350 gives every person the right to submit a representation for the redress of a grievance in any language used in the Union or a State. Article 362 dealt with the rights and privileges of the rulers of the former princely states and was removed by the 26th Amendment in 1971, which ended the privy purses. Article 364 contains special provisions for major ports and aerodromes. Remember the emergency trio: 352 National Emergency, 356 President's Rule, 360 Financial Emergency.

The correct answer is C, Sun Temple, Konark. The Sun Temple at Konark in Odisha is called the Black Pagoda, a name European sailors gave it because its dark stone tower stood out as a landmark along the coast, in contrast to the whitewashed Jagannath temple at Puri, which they called the White Pagoda. It was built in the thirteenth century by Narasimhadeva I of the Eastern Ganga dynasty in the Kalinga style, and the whole structure is shaped as the chariot of the sun god, with twelve pairs of carved stone wheels and seven horses drawing it. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984. A is wrong because Omkareshwar is a Jyotirlinga on an island in the Narmada in Madhya Pradesh, not at Puri. B is wrong because the Somnath temple in Gujarat is a Jyotirlinga rebuilt many times after raids. D is wrong because the Jagannath temple stands at Puri in Odisha and is the White Pagoda. Exam tip: Konark is the Black Pagoda and Puri's Jagannath temple the White Pagoda.

The correct answer is A, Cyclical unemployment. Cyclical unemployment is the unemployment that a slump or depression in the economy creates: when demand falls, firms sell less, cut production and let workers go, and those jobs come back once demand recovers. It is therefore tied to the trade cycle of boom and slump, and it is the kind of unemployment John Maynard Keynes wrote about after the Great Depression, when he argued that the government should spend to lift demand. It is common in industrial economies and rare in a largely agricultural one such as India, where disguised and seasonal unemployment matter more. B is wrong because frictional unemployment is the short gap while a worker changes jobs or a fresh graduate hunts for the first one. C is wrong because seasonal unemployment comes from work being available only in some months, as in farming or sugar mills. D is wrong because structural unemployment arises when the skills workers hold no longer match the jobs the economy offers. Exam tip: a depression brings cyclical unemployment, while a skills mismatch brings structural unemployment.

The correct answer is B, Karnataka. Yakshagana is the folk theatre of coastal Karnataka, performed mainly in the Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Uttara Kannada districts. A show once ran all night and mixes dance, music, spoken dialogue and tall painted headgear with bright face make-up, and its stories are drawn from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Puranas. A singer called the Bhagavata leads from the side with the chande and maddale drums and a harmonium, and the actors build their dialogue around his verses as they go, so no two performances are quite the same. It is played mostly in Kannada, and a Tulu form also exists. A is wrong because Kerala's comparable temple theatre forms are Kathakali and Koodiyattam. C is wrong because Haryana is known for Dhamal, Phag and Khoria. D is wrong because Rajasthan is known for Ghoomar, Kalbelia and Chari. Exam tip: Yakshagana belongs to coastal Karnataka, while the similar-looking Kathakali belongs to Kerala.

The correct answer is B, Mumbai. The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development has its head office in Mumbai, in the Bandra Kurla Complex. NABARD was set up on 12 July 1982 under an Act passed in 1981, on the advice of the Sivaraman Committee, and it took over the rural credit work that the Reserve Bank and the Agricultural Refinance and Development Corporation had been doing. It is the apex body for rural finance: it refinances cooperative banks and regional rural banks rather than lending much directly to farmers, supervises those banks, runs the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund and links self-help groups to banks under its microfinance programme. It is fully owned by the Government of India. A is wrong because Pune houses the National Insurance Academy, not NABARD. C is wrong because Chennai is the headquarters of Indian Bank and Indian Overseas Bank. D is wrong because Kolkata is the headquarters of UCO Bank and Bandhan Bank. Exam tip: NABARD, Mumbai, set up 12 July 1982 on the Sivaraman Committee's recommendation.

The correct answer is B, Tropical monsoon. India's climate is usually called a tropical monsoon type, because the Tropic of Cancer runs across the middle of the country and the seasonal reversal of winds brings almost all of its rain. From June to September the south-west monsoon blows from the sea towards the land and gives about three quarters of the year's rainfall; in winter the north-east monsoon blows from land to sea and leaves most of India dry, although it does water the Tamil Nadu coast. Regional differences are wide, from the wet slopes of Meghalaya to the sands of Rajasthan, yet this rhythm of one wet and one dry season is what gives the whole country its label. A is wrong because a polar climate has long freezing winters and is found near the poles. C is wrong because a desert climate fits only western Rajasthan and not the country. D is wrong because an arid climate again describes a few dry pockets alone. Exam tip: India is tropical monsoon, and the south-west monsoon brings about 75 per cent of the annual rain.

The correct answer is B, Monthly channel. India Post moves its mail through six named channels, and there is no 'Monthly channel' among them. Under the Mail Network Optimisation Project the department separated its traffic so that each kind of article travels on a route with its own time norms. The six are the Metro channel, for mail between the big metro cities; the Rajdhani channel, linking the state capitals; the Green channel, for local mail inside a city; the Business channel, for corporate and bulk business mail; the Periodical channel, for newspapers and magazines; and the Bulk mail channel, for very large mailings. Because of this split, a letter addressed to a metro city does not travel with local city mail. A is wrong because the Metro channel is one of the six. C is wrong because the Rajdhani channel, which joins the capitals, is also one of them. D is wrong because the Business channel handles corporate and bulk mail and is on the list. Exam tip: the six mail channels are Metro, Rajdhani, Green, Business, Periodical and Bulk.

The correct answer is D, Comptroller and Auditor-General. Article 148 of the Constitution creates the office of the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India, who audits all receipts and expenditure of the Union and the States and of bodies largely financed from public funds. The President appoints the CAG, who holds office for six years or till the age of 65, whichever comes first, and can be removed only in the manner laid down for a judge of the Supreme Court. The reports go to the President or the Governor, who lays them before Parliament or the State legislature, where the Public Accounts Committee examines them, which is why the CAG is called the guardian of the public purse. A is wrong because the Attorney General, under Article 76, is the highest law officer and advises the government on legal matters. B is wrong because the Advocate General, under Article 165, does the same work for a State. C is wrong because the Union Public Service Commission conducts examinations and advises on recruitment. Exam tip: Article 148 CAG, 76 Attorney General, 165 Advocate General, 315 Public Service Commissions.

The correct answer is C, Indian Iron and Steel Company (IISCO). IISCO has its works at Burnpur, near Asansol in West Bengal, on the Kolkata-Asansol railway line, and it became a subsidiary of the Steel Authority of India and was later merged into it, the plant now being run as the IISCO Steel Plant. The site suited iron and steel making because coal came from the Raniganj and Jharia fields close by, iron ore from Singhbhum and Odisha, and water from the Damodar, while the railway carried the finished steel to the port of Kolkata. A is wrong because ESL Steel Limited is a plant at Bokaro in Jharkhand owned by the Vedanta group, not by SAIL. B is wrong because Jindal Steel and Power is a private company of the Jindal group, with its main works at Raigarh in Chhattisgarh. D is wrong because TISCO, now Tata Steel, is a private company with its plant at Jamshedpur in Jharkhand. Exam tip: SAIL plants – Bhilai, Durgapur, Rourkela, Bokaro, Burnpur (IISCO) and Salem.

The correct answer is D, Both I and II. Statement I is right, because a government security, or G-Sec, is a tradeable debt instrument issued by the central government or by a state government and can be bought and sold in the secondary market before it matures. Statement II is right as well, because repayment is promised by the government itself, so these papers carry practically no risk of default and are therefore called risk-free gilt-edged instruments. Short-dated central paper is issued as treasury bills of 91, 182 and 364 days, which are sold at a discount and repaid at face value, while longer paper is issued as dated securities that pay a fixed coupon every six months; a state's issue is called a State Development Loan. The Reserve Bank of India manages these borrowings for the government and conducts the auctions. A is wrong because it rejects both correct statements. B is wrong because it leaves out the gilt-edged character. C is wrong because it denies that G-Secs can be traded. Exam tip: G-Secs are tradeable and gilt-edged; treasury bills run 91, 182 and 364 days.