SSC 2023 Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is C, granting loans and accepting deposits. A commercial bank exists to gather savings from those who have a surplus and lend them to those who need funds, and it earns from the gap between the interest it pays depositors and the interest it charges borrowers. Every other service it offers, such as remittances, lockers or card facilities, is secondary to these two.

Options A, B and D all describe work of the central bank. Issuing currency notes is the Reserve Bank's monopoly, with the one rupee note and coins issued by the Government. Conducting monetary policy is done by the RBI through its Monetary Policy Committee. Regulating the money supply is again the RBI's task, exercised through the repo rate, the cash reserve ratio and the statutory liquidity ratio. The line to fix is that a commercial bank deals with the public while the central bank deals with the banks.

The correct answer is A, Allahabad Bank. It was founded in 1865 and is remembered as the oldest joint stock bank in India, a joint stock bank being one owned by shareholders rather than by a partnership of agency houses. The presidency banks were older but were chartered institutions of the East India Company rather than ordinary joint stock companies.

Option B, Bank of Baroda, was founded in 1908 by Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III of Baroda, more than forty years later. Option C, Yes Bank, belongs to the generation of private banks licensed after the reforms of the 1990s and began business in 2004, so it cannot be the oldest anything. Option D, Punjab National Bank, was registered in 1894 and opened at Lahore; it holds a different distinction, that of the first bank floated with wholly Indian capital and Indian management, and examiners often swap the two claims in the options.

The correct answer is pocket veto of the President. The Constitution does not fix any time limit within which the President must give or withhold assent to an ordinary bill. By simply keeping such a bill pending, the President can let it lapse without ever formally rejecting it. President Giani Zail Singh used this pocket veto in 1986 on the Indian Post Office (Amendment) Bill, which critics feared would allow the interception of mail.

The suspensive veto is different: the President returns a bill to Parliament for reconsideration, and if Parliament passes it again, with or without changes, the President must assent. The absolute veto means formally withholding assent so that the bill dies. An "amendatory veto" is not part of the Indian system at all. The question excludes money bills and constitutional amendment bills for good reason: a money bill comes with the President's prior recommendation, and since the 24th Amendment (1971) the President must assent to a constitutional amendment bill.

The correct answer is Power of the President to consult the Supreme Court. Article 143 gives the Supreme Court its advisory jurisdiction: when a question of law or fact of public importance has arisen or is likely to arise, the President may refer it to the Court for its opinion. The Court may decline to answer an ordinary reference, and its opinion does not bind the President, though it carries great weight. References under Article 143 have been used, for example, on the Ram Janmabhoomi question in 1993, which the Court declined to answer.

The other options describe different provisions. Parliament, not the President, can enlarge the Supreme Court's jurisdiction, under Articles 138 and 139. The National Judicial Appointments Commission was created by the 99th Amendment in 2014 and struck down by the Supreme Court in 2015. And the power to transfer cases from High Courts to itself belongs to the Supreme Court under Article 139A, not to the President. Link Article 143 with the word "advisory".

The correct answer is President. Article 72 gives the President the power to grant pardons, reprieves, respites or remissions of punishment, and to suspend, remit or commute a sentence. It covers every case where the punishment was given by a court martial, every offence against a law on a matter within the Union's executive power, and every sentence of death. The President uses this power on the advice of the Council of Ministers.

The Prime Minister leads that Council but has no pardoning power of his or her own. The Attorney General, appointed under Article 76, is the government's chief legal adviser and appears for it in court, but cannot pardon anyone. The Vice-President has no such power either, except while acting as President. At the State level, the Governor has a similar power under Article 161, but it does not extend to sentences passed by a court martial, which only the President can pardon.

The correct answer is 35 years. Article 58 lays down four qualifications for the President: the person must be a citizen of India, must have completed 35 years of age, must be qualified for election as a member of the Lok Sabha, and must not hold any office of profit under the Union, a State or a local authority.

The wrong options are ages that belong to other offices, which is what makes them tempting. Twenty-five is the minimum age for the Lok Sabha and a State Legislative Assembly, and thirty is the minimum for the Rajya Sabha and a State Legislative Council. Thirty-four is simply a distractor. The same age of 35 applies to the Vice-President and to a Governor. A useful set to learn together: Lok Sabha 25, Rajya Sabha 30, President, Vice-President and Governor 35. There is no minimum age at all for a judge of the Supreme Court.

The correct answer is D, Polar Easterlies. The polar easterlies blow out of the high pressure belts over the poles towards the sub-polar low pressure belts, so they carry extremely cold and dry air. Cold air holds very little moisture, which is why these winds bring almost no rain and the polar regions are counted among the driest places on earth. They are one of the three planetary wind systems, along with the trade winds and the westerlies, and where they meet the warmer westerlies near sixty degrees latitude they form the polar front, the birthplace of temperate cyclones. Option A is wrong because monsoon winds reverse with the season and the summer monsoon is warm and heavy with moisture. Option B is wrong because the westerlies, blowing from the sub-tropical highs towards the sub-polar lows, bring rain to the western margins of continents. Option C is wrong because the trade winds blow towards the equator and are warm and moist over the oceans. Exam tip: trades from the east near the equator, westerlies in the middle latitudes, easterlies again at the poles.

The correct answer is C, El Nino. El Nino is the warming of the surface water of the central and eastern Pacific, and it weakens the trade winds that normally blow from east to west across that ocean. In normal years those winds push warm water towards Australia and Indonesia, letting cold water rise along the coast of Peru. When the pressure pattern flips, the winds slacken or even reverse, warm water spreads east, and the upwelling off South America stops, which hurts the anchovy catch. El Nino usually means a weaker monsoon and drier conditions over India. Option A is wrong because the Coriolis force, caused by the earth's rotation, only deflects winds and does not weaken them. Option B is wrong because a Mango Shower is a local pre-monsoon rain of Kerala and Karnataka. Option D is wrong because La Nina is the opposite phase, with cooler Pacific water and stronger trade winds. Exam tip: El Nino means warm Pacific, weak trade winds and a weak Indian monsoon; La Nina is the reverse on all three.

The correct answer is A, Cognizable offences. In a cognizable offence the police may register a case, start an investigation and arrest a person without any order from a magistrate. These are the graver offences, such as murder, rape, dacoity, kidnapping and theft, and a First Information Report must be recorded for them. In a non-cognizable offence, such as simple hurt, defamation or public nuisance, the police need the permission of a magistrate before they investigate or arrest. Whether an offence is cognizable, and whether it is bailable, is listed offence by offence in the criminal procedure law, which since 2024 is the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita in place of the old Code of Criminal Procedure. Option B is wrong because there is no class of offences called detention offences. Option C is wrong because a non-cognizable offence is precisely the case where the magistrate's order is needed. Option D is wrong because cross offences is not a category of this kind. Exam tip: cognizable means FIR and arrest without a warrant, non-cognizable means the police must first get a magistrate's nod.

The correct answer is D, Lord Shiva. The Ramappa temple is dedicated to Shiva, worshipped there as Ramalingeswara. It stands at Palampet in the Mulugu district of Telangana and was built in the thirteenth century under the Kakatiya ruler Ganapati Deva by his general Recharla Rudra. The temple is unusual in being named after its sculptor, Ramappa. It is raised on a star shaped platform of sandstone, its tower uses bricks so light and porous that they are said to float on water, and its polished black basalt pillars and bracket figures of dancers are finely carved. UNESCO inscribed it on the World Heritage List in 2021 as the Kakatiya Rudreshwara temple. Option A is wrong because Rama is worshipped at temples such as Bhadrachalam, not here. Option B is wrong because the great Vishnu temples of the region are Tirupati and Simhachalam. Option C is wrong because temples dedicated to Indra are almost unknown in India. Exam tip: link Ramappa temple with Palampet, the Kakatiya dynasty, floating bricks and the 2021 UNESCO listing.

The correct answer is B, Rate at which RBI borrows money from commercial banks. The reverse repo rate is what the Reserve Bank pays banks when it takes their surplus cash for a short period. It is the mirror image of the repo rate, at which banks borrow from the RBI against government securities. When the RBI wants to pull extra money out of the system, it makes parking funds with the central bank more attractive; when it wants credit to flow, it does the opposite. The reverse repo rate is always kept below the repo rate, and both are decided by the six member Monetary Policy Committee headed by the RBI Governor. Since 2022 most of this absorption of cash is done through the Standing Deposit Facility. Option A is wrong because the RBI does not borrow from foreign banks through this window. Option C is wrong because the rate at which commercial banks borrow from the RBI is the repo rate. Option D is wrong because lending between commercial banks and foreign banks is not set by the RBI. Exam tip: repo means the RBI lends, reverse repo means the RBI borrows.

The correct answer is B, Sitar. Ustad Ilyas Khan was a sitar player. He was born in Lucknow in 1924 into a family of musicians and belonged to the Etawah or Imdadkhani gharana, the school built up by Imdad Khan and carried forward by Enayat Khan and Vilayat Khan. He played for decades on All India Radio, performed across the country and trained many students of the instrument. The sitar itself is a long-necked plucked instrument with movable frets and extra sympathetic strings that give it its ringing tone, and Ravi Shankar and Vilayat Khan carried it to audiences around the world. Option A is wrong because the tabla is a pair of drums, its famous names being Alla Rakha and Zakir Hussain. Option C is wrong because the veena is the plucked instrument of Carnatic music, linked with the goddess Saraswati. Option D is wrong because the mridangam is the barrel drum that keeps time in Carnatic concerts. Exam tip: the Etawah gharana means sitar, while Lucknow also has well known gharanas of kathak and tabla.

The correct answer is A, Dang. Dang is not a South Indian tribe. The name belongs to the Dangs district of southern Gujarat, whose tribal people are mainly Bhil, Warli and Konkana, all of western India. The other three are communities of the Nilgiri hills, where Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka meet. The Toda are pastoralists known for their barrel-shaped huts and their buffalo-centred rituals. The Badaga are farmers of the Nilgiri plateau who speak a tongue close to Kannada. The Irula, a Scheduled Tribe of Tamil Nadu, are known for snake catching and for collecting forest produce. Option B is wrong because the Toda are the best known tribe of the Nilgiris. Option C is wrong because the Badaga live on the same plateau, around Udhagamandalam. Option D is wrong because the Irula are spread across Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Exam tip: remember Toda, Kota, Kurumba, Badaga and Irula as the five main Nilgiri tribes, and place Bhil, Warli and the Dangs in Gujarat and Maharashtra.

The correct answer is D, 22. The Eighth Schedule of the Constitution lists 22 languages. It began with 14 languages in 1950. Sindhi was added by the 21st Amendment in 1967; Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali by the 71st Amendment in 1992; and Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali by the 92nd Amendment in 2003, which took the list to 22. These are the languages the Union must draw upon to enrich Hindi, and candidates may write many central examinations in them. Note that the Schedule does not by itself make all 22 languages official languages of the Union: Article 343 makes Hindi in Devanagari script the official language, with English continuing alongside. Option A is wrong because 42 is the number of the amendment that changed the Preamble, not a language count. Option B is wrong because 12 is fewer even than the 14 the Schedule started with. Option C is wrong because 32 is more than the list holds. Exam tip: remember 14 in 1950 and 22 in 2003, the last four added by the 92nd Amendment.

The correct answer is A, Mercury. Mercury is a terrestrial planet, not a Jovian one. The eight planets fall into two groups. The four inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, are called terrestrial or rocky planets: they are small, dense, have solid crusts and few or no moons. The four outer planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, are the Jovian or giant planets, named after Jupiter, whose Roman name is Jove. They are far larger, made mostly of hydrogen and helium, have low density, ring systems and many moons. Saturn is so light that it would float on water. Mercury is also the smallest planet and the one closest to the Sun. Option B is wrong because Neptune is the outermost Jovian planet. Option C is wrong because Jupiter is the largest Jovian planet and the group is named after it. Option D is wrong because Saturn, with its bright rings, is a Jovian planet too. Exam tip: four rocky inner planets, four gas giants outside, with the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

The correct answer is D, United States of America. The very idea of opening a constitution with a preamble came from the American Constitution of 1787, which begins 'We the People of the United States'. India's Preamble likewise begins 'We, the people of India', showing that the Constitution draws its authority from the people. From the same source India also took the Fundamental Rights, an independent judiciary and judicial review, impeachment of the President, and the removal of Supreme Court and High Court judges. The Objectives Resolution moved by Jawaharlal Nehru on 13 December 1946 later grew into our Preamble, which was adopted on 26 November 1949. Option A is wrong because the USSR gave us the Fundamental Duties, the ideal of justice and the five-year plans. Option B is wrong because Canada gave us a federation with a strong Centre, residuary powers and the appointment of Governors. Option C is wrong because Britain gave us the parliamentary system, rule of law, single citizenship and the office of Speaker. Exam tip: preamble and fundamental rights from the US, duties from the USSR.

The correct answer is C, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. The Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme was approved in 1983 and run by the DRDO under Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, which is why he is called the Missile Man of India. The programme built five missiles, easy to remember as P-A-T-N-A: Prithvi, a surface-to-surface missile; Agni, a ballistic missile; Trishul, a short-range surface-to-air missile; Nag, an anti-tank missile; and Akash, a medium-range surface-to-air missile. It was formally closed in 2008 once its main goals were met. Kalam also guided the Pokhran-II tests of 1998 and served as President of India from 2002 to 2007. Option A is wrong because Har Gobind Khorana shared the Nobel Prize in 1968 for work on the genetic code. Option B is wrong because Vikram Sarabhai is called the father of India's space programme. Option D is wrong because Homi J. Bhabha founded India's nuclear programme. Exam tip: Kalam - missiles; Sarabhai - space; Bhabha - atomic energy.

The correct answer is B, Third. The Third Anglo-Maratha War, fought in 1817-18 under Lord Hastings, ended Maratha power. Peshwa Baji Rao II was beaten at Khadki, Koregaon and Ashti, the office of Peshwa was abolished, and his lands around Poona were taken over and joined to the Bombay Presidency. Baji Rao II was pensioned off to Bithur near Kanpur, and a small kingdom was carved out at Satara for a descendant of Shivaji. With this the East India Company became the paramount power in India. Option A is wrong because there was no fourth Anglo-Maratha war; the Marathas fought three. Option C is wrong because the Second War of 1803-05 followed the Treaty of Bassein and cost the Marathas Orissa, Delhi and Agra, but the Peshwa stayed on his seat. Option D is wrong because the First War of 1775-82 ended in the Treaty of Salbai, which restored the position as it was before the war. Exam tip: Salbai 1782, Bassein 1802, Peshwaship abolished 1818.

The correct answer is C, The US. Zero-based budgeting was first put to use in the United States. Peter Pyhrr developed it at Texas Instruments around 1970, and Jimmy Carter, then Governor of Georgia, applied it to a state budget in 1973 and later carried it to the federal government as President. Under this method every expense has to be justified afresh for each new period, starting from a zero base, instead of simply adding a percentage to last year's figure. Each activity is treated as a decision package, examined for its cost and benefit, and ranked; schemes that no longer serve a purpose are dropped. India began using zero-based budgeting in 1986-87 in some departments, and the Department of Science and Technology was the first to try it. Option A is wrong because India adopted the idea more than a decade after it began. Option B is wrong because Germany is not linked with its origin. Option D is wrong because the UK did not introduce it either. Exam tip: zero-based budgeting - Peter Pyhrr, the US, 1970; India from 1986-87.

The correct answer is B, P waves. P waves, or primary waves, are longitudinal: the particles of the medium move back and forth along the same direction in which the wave travels, squeezing and stretching the rock like a sound wave. They are the fastest seismic waves, so they reach a recording station first and give the quake its early warning. P waves pass through solids, liquids and gases alike, which is how scientists learned that the earth's outer core is liquid - S waves die out there and leave a shadow zone. Option A is wrong because L waves, the surface or long waves, arrive last, travel along the crust and cause the most destruction. Option C is wrong because there is no seismic wave called an N wave. Option D is wrong because S waves, or secondary waves, are transverse: particles move at right angles to the direction of travel, and they can pass only through solids. Exam tip: P longitudinal and fastest, S transverse and solids only, L surface and most damaging.