SSC 2024 Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is B, Austro-Asiatic family. The tribal languages of Jharkhand and the neighbouring belt of central and eastern India, namely Santali, Mundari, Ho and Kurukh's neighbours in the Munda group, belong to the Austro-Asiatic family, whose Indian branch is called Munda. Santali, written in the Ol Chiki script, is the best known of them and was added to the Eighth Schedule in 2003. Option A is wrong because Indo-European, through its Indo-Aryan branch, covers Hindi, Bengali and Odia, the regional languages of the plains, not the tribal languages of the plateau. Option C is wrong because the Tibeto-Burman family lies along the Himalayan belt and the north-east, far from central India. Option D is wrong because the Dravidian family is concentrated in the south, although the Dravidian language Kurukh is indeed spoken by the Oraon of the same region, which is what makes this option a tempting trap.

The correct answer is C, Champaran. Gandhi's first satyagraha in India was fought in 1917 at Champaran in Bihar, where indigo planters forced tenants to grow indigo on a fixed part of their holding under the tinkathia system. The peasant Rajkumar Shukla persuaded Gandhi to come and see their condition; Gandhi arrived, was ordered to leave, refused, and the government instead set up an enquiry committee with him as a member. Its report ended the tinkathia system and won the peasants part of their money back. A is wrong because the Kheda satyagraha in Gujarat came in 1918, when Gandhi asked for remission of land revenue after crops failed. B is wrong because the Ahmedabad mill workers' struggle, in which Gandhi used a hunger strike for higher wages, also belongs to 1918. D is wrong because the Bardoli satyagraha of 1928 was a no-tax movement led by Vallabhbhai Patel, who earned the title Sardar there. Exam tip: 1917 Champaran, 1918 Ahmedabad and Kheda, 1928 Bardoli.

The correct answer is C, Grammy. Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt won the Grammy Award in 1994 for the album A Meeting by the River, which he recorded with the American slide guitarist Ry Cooder in the world music category. Bhatt, a musician of the Jaipur gharana and a disciple of Pandit Ravi Shankar, is best known for building the Mohan Veena, a Hawaiian guitar rebuilt with about twenty strings so that it can carry the sliding notes and drone of Indian classical music. He was later honoured with the Padma Shri. A is wrong because Sangita Kalanidhi is the highest award of the Madras Music Academy, given for Carnatic music. B is wrong because the Oscar, or Academy Award, is given for films, not for a music album of this kind. D is wrong because the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award is a national honour for music, dance and drama given in India, and it is not the 1994 award named in the question. Exam tip: Vishwa Mohan Bhatt – Mohan Veena, Grammy 1994 for A Meeting by the River with Ry Cooder.

The correct answer is A, B2C (Business to Consumer). In the business to consumer model a firm sells goods or services directly to the person who will use them, and Amazon's retail store is the best known example: a shopper opens the site or the app, puts an item in the cart and buys it, with no wholesaler or trader in between. Every e-commerce model is named in the same way, by who stands at each end of the deal, so learning the four pairs is enough to answer most questions on this topic. B is wrong because business to business means one firm selling to another, the way a parts maker supplies a car factory or IndiaMART links wholesalers. C is wrong because consumer to business is the reverse, where an individual offers a service to a company, as a freelance designer does on a bidding site. D is wrong because consumer to consumer is one individual selling to another, as on OLX or Quikr. Exam tip: B2C is Amazon retail, B2B is IndiaMART, C2C is OLX and C2B is freelancing sites.

The correct answer is B, Windows operating system. System software is the software that runs the machine itself. It manages the processor, the memory, the disk and the attached devices, and it gives other programs a platform on which to run. An operating system such as Windows, Linux or Android is the leading example of it; device drivers, utilities like antivirus and disk cleaners, and language translators such as compilers and assemblers are the others. Application software is written instead for a job the user wants done, and it cannot run at all unless system software is already working underneath it. A is wrong because Adobe Photoshop is an application for editing images. C is wrong because Google Chrome is an application, a web browser. D is wrong because Microsoft Word is an application for word processing. Exam tip: system software runs the computer, so operating systems, drivers, utilities and compilers; application software does the user's work, so Word, Chrome and Photoshop.

The correct answer is C, 2020. The Aatmanirbhar Bharat Rojgar Yojana was announced in October 2020 as part of the Aatmanirbhar Bharat package, to bring back the jobs lost during the Covid-19 lockdown. Under it the central government paid the provident fund contribution for new employees taken on by establishments registered with the EPFO: in units with up to 1,000 workers it paid both the employee's twelve per cent and the employer's twelve per cent, and in larger units only the employee's share, for two years from the date of joining. The benefit covered workers drawing less than fifteen thousand rupees a month who were newly hired or had lost a job earlier that year. A is wrong because 2010 belongs to an earlier period of schemes. B is wrong because 2015 is the year of the Atal Pension Yojana. D is wrong because by 2022 registration under this scheme had already closed. Exam tip: ABRY, 2020, an EPFO-linked wage subsidy for new jobs after Covid.

The correct answer is B, Maasai. The Maasai are a cattle-keeping people of East Africa, living in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania around the Rift Valley and the Serengeti. They are known for their red shuka cloth, their beadwork and their jumping dance, and they have no presence in India at all, which makes them the odd one out here.

Option A, the Gond, are the largest tribe of India and are spread across Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Telangana and Odisha. Option C, the Santhal, are the largest tribe of eastern India, found in Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Bihar, and their language Santhali is listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. Option D, the Tharu, live in the terai belt of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar along the Nepal border. All three are Indian Scheduled Tribes.

The correct answer is D, Assam. The Ambubachi Mela is held every year at the Kamakhya temple, which stands on Nilachal Hill in Guwahati, the largest city of Assam. It falls in the Assamese month of Ahaar, which corresponds to June, and marks the belief that the goddess passes through her annual cycle of rest. The temple doors are closed for three days and are opened on the fourth, when prasad is distributed, so the fair is also known as the Ambubachi or Ameti festival.

Option A, Manipur, holds the Lai Haraoba and Yaoshang festivals, not Ambubachi. Option B, Nagaland, is the state of the Hornbill Festival at Kisama and of Moatsu and Sekrenyi. Option C, Mizoram, is the state of Chapchar Kut, its spring festival. All three are North Eastern states, which is exactly why the paper setter offers them together, but the Kamakhya temple is in Assam alone.

The correct answer is C, Kerala. Thrissur Pooram is held at the Vadakkunnathan temple in Thrissur during the Malayalam month of Medam, which falls in April and May. Thirty caparisoned elephants, the panchavadyam and pandimelam percussion ensembles, the umbrella exchange called Kudamattam and a long fireworks display make it the largest temple festival of the state.

Option A, Tamil Nadu, is the commonest trap because the state borders Kerala and has its own great temple festivals, such as the Chithirai festival of Madurai. Option B, Orissa, now Odisha, is the state of the Puri Rath Yatra and of Bali Yatra at Cuttack, both of which are separate topics in the same syllabus. Option D, Karnataka, is known for the Mysuru Dasara procession and the Hampi festival, not for Pooram, which is a Kerala word for a temple gathering.

The correct answer is B, inconsistent regulatory environment. Foreign investors bring in foreign exchange and look for predictable rules, and the difficulty most often listed for India is regulatory uncertainty: changing rules, clearances spread across departments and states, and disputes that take long to settle. Option A is wrong because competition from other foreign firms is a normal feature of any open market and is not a barrier that keeps investment out; investors come precisely to compete. Option C is wrong because India offers a large pool of engineers, managers and low cost workers and is usually described as strong on labour supply even where specific skills are short. Option D is wrong because a very large domestic consumer market is one of the main attractions that draws foreign direct investment to India, not a challenge. Remember that stable and simple rules are counted as the chief attraction for investment inflows.

The correct answer is D, tariffs and quotas. An inward-looking trade strategy, better known as import substitution, was the policy India followed from the Second Five Year Plan until 1991, and it rested on two instruments. A tariff is a tax on imports that makes the foreign good dearer, and a quota is a limit on the quantity that may be imported at all. Option A is wrong because subsidies help exporters or domestic producers but are not the paired instrument named in the textbook definition of protection. Option B is wrong for the same reason, and because it leaves out the tariff, which is the primary instrument. Option C is wrong because price controls are a domestic measure aimed at consumers and essential goods; they do not act at the border. Remember the textbook pairing: protection equals tariffs plus quotas.

The correct answer is Article 142. It allows the Supreme Court, in exercising its jurisdiction, to pass any decree or make any order necessary for doing "complete justice" in any case or matter pending before it. It is a unique power that lets the Court fill gaps where the law is silent. In 2022, in Budhadev Karmaskar v. State of West Bengal, the Court used it to issue directions recognising sex work as a profession and ordering the police not to harass consenting adult sex workers. It also relied on Article 142 in the Ayodhya judgment of 2019 to direct that five acres of land be given for a mosque.

The other options are the Articles around it. Article 140 lets Parliament confer supplementary powers on the Court. Article 141 makes the law declared by the Court binding on all courts. Article 143 is the President's power to seek the Court's advice. Because Article 142 is so broad, critics say the Court should use it sparingly, but for exams remember it with two words: "complete justice".

The correct answer is Article 129. It declares that the Supreme Court shall be a court of record and shall have all the powers of such a court, including the power to punish for contempt of itself. Being a court of record means two things: its judgments and proceedings are preserved as permanent records of evidentiary value that cannot be questioned when produced before any court, and it has the inherent power to punish anyone who scandalises the court or disobeys its orders.

The other options are nearby Articles with different content. Article 123 gives the President the power to issue ordinances. Article 125 deals with the salaries and allowances of Supreme Court judges. Article 127 provides for the appointment of ad hoc judges when there is no quorum of permanent judges. The High Courts are courts of record too, under Article 215, so remember the pair: 129 for the Supreme Court and 215 for the High Courts. Contempt of court is further defined by the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971.

The correct answer is A, Loo. The Loo is the hot, dry, dusty wind that blows over the plains of north India in summer. It develops in May and June, usually from the west or north-west, and blows strongest in the afternoon, when temperatures can cross 45 degrees Celsius in Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. Long exposure to it causes heat stroke, so schools and outdoor work stop in the afternoon during a Loo spell. It weakens once the monsoon reaches the plains. Option B is wrong because the Chinook is a warm, dry wind that descends the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains in North America and is nicknamed the snow-eater. Option C is wrong because mango showers are pre-monsoon rain in Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu that helps mangoes ripen, not a wind. Option D is wrong because Purga is a cold, snow-laden wind of the Siberian tundra. Exam tip: Loo is hot and Indian, Chinook is American and warm, Purga is Siberian and cold.

The correct answer is C, Article 164(2). Article 164(2) says that the Council of Ministers in a state shall be collectively responsible to the Legislative Assembly of that state, which is the rule that keeps a state government in office only while it holds the confidence of the Assembly and is the ground on which a no confidence motion works. The rest of Article 164 covers the other parts of the state executive. A is wrong because Article 164(3) deals with the oath of office and secrecy administered to a minister by the Governor. B is wrong because Article 164(4) says a minister who is not a member of the legislature for six consecutive months ceases to be a minister. D is wrong because Article 164(1) provides that the Chief Minister is appointed by the Governor and other ministers are appointed on the Chief Minister's advice. Exam tip: Article 75 is the Union mirror of Article 164 for the states.

The correct answer is One-third. The Constitution (106th Amendment) Act, 2023, known as the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, reserves one-third of all seats for women in the Lok Sabha, the State Legislative Assemblies and the Legislative Assembly of Delhi, including one-third of the seats already reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. It was the first bill passed in the new Parliament building, in September 2023.

The reservation does not begin at once: it will take effect after the delimitation of constituencies carried out on the basis of the first census taken after the Act, and it will last for fifteen years, which Parliament can extend. The seats reserved for women will rotate after each delimitation. The other options are wrong fractions; one-third also happens to be the share of seats reserved for women in panchayats and municipalities since the 73rd and 74th Amendments of 1992, which is where the idea first entered the Constitution.

The correct answer is 79. Article 79 says: "There shall be a Parliament for the Union which shall consist of the President and two Houses to be known respectively as the Council of States and the House of the People." The President is therefore part of Parliament even though he or she sits in neither House, because no bill passed by the two Houses can become law without the President's assent, and it is the President who summons and prorogues the Houses.

The other options are nearby Articles on other subjects. Article 70 deals with the discharge of the President's functions in other contingencies. Article 73 sets out the extent of the executive power of the Union. Article 82 provides for the readjustment of seats after each census. The chapter on Parliament runs from Article 79 to Article 122, so remember 79 as its opening Article, followed by 80 (Rajya Sabha) and 81 (Lok Sabha).

The correct answer is C, Council of Ministers to aid and advise Governor. Article 163 says there shall be a Council of Ministers with the Chief Minister at its head to aid and advise the Governor in the exercise of his functions, except in the few matters where the Constitution requires him to act in his own discretion. Whether a matter falls in that discretion is decided by the Governor himself, and Article 163(3) bars any court from asking what advice the ministers gave. It is the state counterpart of Article 74, which makes the President's Council of Ministers binding at the Union level. Option A is wrong because the conduct of business of a state government is Article 166. Option B is wrong because the constitution of legislatures in states is Article 168. Option D is wrong because the Advocate-General for the State is appointed under Article 165. Exam tip: 163 aid and advise, 164 appointment of the Chief Minister and ministers, 165 Advocate-General, 166 conduct of business.

The correct answer is B, Article 171. It lays down the composition of a state's Legislative Council.

Under Article 171 the Council cannot have more than one third of the strength of the Legislative Assembly and never fewer than forty members. Its seats are filled in a fixed way: one third elected by local bodies, one twelfth by graduates, one twelfth by teachers, one third by members of the Assembly, and the rest nominated by the Governor from people distinguished in literature, science, art, the cooperative movement or social service. The Council is a permanent house whose members serve six years, with one third retiring every two years.

Option A, Article 168, says what a state legislature consists of. Option D, Article 169, lets Parliament create or abolish a Council if the Assembly passes a special majority resolution. Option C, Article 181, concerns the Speaker or Chairman not presiding when a resolution for removal is being considered.

Exam tip: 168 constitution, 169 creation and abolition, 171 composition.

The correct answer is B, North and Northwestern. The Loo is the hot, dry wind of the northern and north-western plains of India.

The Loo blows from the west and north-west during the day in May and June, when the land heats up and a low pressure trough forms over north-west India. Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar feel it most, and it often pushes the afternoon temperature past 45°C and causes heat stroke. It dies down at night and disappears once the monsoon arrives.

A is wrong: the west and south-west coast is cooled by sea breezes and the pre-monsoon Mango showers. C is wrong: the east and north-east get Kaal Baisakhi thunderstorms and Bardoli Chheerha instead. D is wrong: the south and south-west are peninsular and coastal, where the sea keeps temperatures even.

Exam tip: Loo - hot summer wind of north India; Kaal Baisakhi - Bengal; Mango showers - Kerala and Karnataka.