SSC Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is D, Shah Jahan. The Jama Masjid of Delhi, whose formal name is Masjid-i-Jahan-Numa, was built by Shah Jahan between 1650 and 1656 as the congregational mosque of his new capital Shahjahanabad. It is built of red sandstone and white marble, stands on a high plinth reached by broad flights of steps, and has two tall minarets and three domes. It is among the largest mosques in India.

Option A, Akbar, built in red sandstone at Fatehpur Sikri and Agra, but the Delhi Jama Masjid belongs to his grandson. Option B, Humayun, built the short lived Dinpanah and is remembered instead through the garden tomb raised for him after his death. Option C, Babur, ruled only from 1526 to 1530 and left very little building in India. The Jama Masjid belongs firmly to the marble and sandstone age of Shah Jahan, who also raised the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort.

The correct answer is B, Priyanka Chopra Jonas. Unfinished, published in 2021, is her memoir, written in English, and it recounts her school years in India and the United States, her win at a beauty pageant and her move from Hindi films to work abroad. The title itself signals a life the writer regards as still in progress.

Option A, Alia Bhatt, has not written a memoir, and no such book stands in her name. Option C, Deepika Padukone, is likewise not an author, though she is often placed in these options because she belongs to the same set of leading actors. Option D, Katrina Kaif, has also written no memoir. In a question of this kind only one of the four names has actually published a book, and here the book and the name are tied by the word Unfinished.

The correct answer is D, Jhumpa Lahiri. Unaccustomed Earth, published in 2008, is her second collection of short stories and, like most of her work, deals with Bengali families settled in the United States. Her first collection, Interpreter of Maladies, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000, and her novel The Namesake was widely read and filmed.

Option A, Shobha De, is known for Socialite Evenings and Starry Nights, novels of Mumbai society. Option B, Arundhati Roy, wrote The God of Small Things, which won the Booker Prize in 1997, and later The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. Option C, Anita Nair, wrote Ladies Coupe and Mistress. All four are Indian women writing in English, which is why the question is set this way; only Lahiri writes of the Bengali diaspora in America, and Unaccustomed Earth is hers.

The correct answer is B, Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist, published in parts between 1837 and 1839, is his second novel and follows an orphan boy through a workhouse and the streets of London. Dickens also wrote A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, David Copperfield, Hard Times and The Pickwick Papers, and the workhouse, the pickpocket and the debtors' prison are the marks of his world.

Option A, Benazir Habib, is not the author of any novel that appears in general awareness lists. Option C, Paul Kennedy, is a historian known for The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, a work of history and not fiction. Option D, Eric Segal, wrote the popular novel Love Story in 1970, more than a century after Oliver Twist, so the period alone rules him out. When a Victorian title of London poverty is given, Dickens is the safe answer.

The correct answer is C, Table Tennis. The Corbillon Cup is the trophy of the women’s team event at the World Table Tennis Championships, and its companion, the Swaythling Cup, is the men’s team trophy. Option D, Badminton, is the distractor the setter counts on, because badminton has its own pair of team cups — the Thomas Cup for men and the Uber Cup for women — and candidates who remember only that cups exist in racket games mix the two sets. Option A, Golf, is wrong: golf’s team trophies are the Ryder Cup, the Presidents Cup and the Solheim Cup. Option B, Hockey, is wrong as well; Indian hockey is associated with the Dhyan Chand Trophy, the Rangaswami Cup and the Beighton Cup. Keep the four cups in two pairs, table tennis against badminton, and this family of questions becomes easy marks.

The correct answer is D, disqualification. Badminton umpires use three cards, and the black one is the last of them: it removes the player or the pair from the match altogether, and the referee is informed. Option C, warning, describes the yellow card, which the umpire shows for a first offence such as delaying play or leaving the court without permission. Option B, fault, describes the red card, which punishes a repeated or a serious offence by awarding the rally, and therefore a point, to the opponent. Option A, suspension, is not a card decision at all; a ban from future tournaments is imposed later by the federation on a disciplinary report, not by the umpire on court. Learn the three cards as a rising ladder — yellow for a warning, red for a point to the other side, black for disqualification — because papers ask for any one of the three.

The correct answer is A, Yoga for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. The second International Day of Yoga fell in 2016, the year after the first observance of 2015, and the theme tied yoga to the Sustainable Development Goals that the United Nations had adopted in 2015, with the main event held at Chandigarh. Options B, C and D are themes of the kind announced in other years or simply invented for the question, and they are meant to attract a candidate who remembers only that the themes speak of peace, wellness or health. The lesson for the examination hall is to count the editions: the first day was in 2015, so the second was in 2016, and the theme must belong to that year. The day itself is observed on 21 June, following the General Assembly resolution of 2014 on India’s proposal.

The correct answer is D, Subramanian Raman. He received the Dronacharya Award of 2021 in the Regular category for table tennis, the award given to coaches whose trainees reach the podium at the Olympic, Asian, Commonwealth or World Championship level. Options A and B, Manika Batra and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, are players and not coaches, and they are put here because both are India’s leading table tennis names of the same years; Manika Batra won the Commonwealth Games singles gold in 2018. Option C, Mouma Das, is also a player, a long-serving international who received the Arjuna Award. The distinction the question rests on is therefore the class of award: the Dronacharya is for coaches, the Arjuna and the Khel Ratna for players, so a player’s name can never answer a Dronacharya question.

The correct answer is C, Ibrahim. Ibrahim Lodi came to the throne in 1517 and almost at once faced Rana Sanga of Mewar at Khatoli, near the Rajasthan border, where the Lodi army was defeated and the Sultan's forces driven back. The victory made Rana Sanga the strongest Rajput power of the day, and he later fought Babur at Khanwa in 1527. Option A is wrong because Bahlul Khan Lodi, the founder of the dynasty, died in 1489, long before this battle. Option B is wrong because Qutbuddin Aibak belonged to the Slave dynasty and died in 1210. Option D is wrong because Sikandar Lodi, Ibrahim's father, died in 1517 and is remembered for founding Agra in 1504, not for Khatoli. Ibrahim Lodi was finally killed at the First Battle of Panipat in 1526.

The correct answer is D, Kharaj tax. Kharaj was the land tax on agricultural produce and the single largest source of revenue for the Delhi Sultanate. Alauddin Khalji raised the demand to half the produce in the doab and had land measured for assessment. Along with kharaj the state took zakat from Muslims, jizya from non-Muslims and khams, its share of war booty. Option A is wrong because the Ryotwari settlement was a British land revenue system introduced by Thomas Munro and Alexander Read in the Madras and Bombay presidencies, centuries later. Option B is wrong because income tax in India dates from 1860, when James Wilson introduced it under the colonial government. Option C is wrong because the Mahalwari system was another British settlement, associated with Holt Mackenzie and later William Bentinck in the North-Western Provinces, in which the village or mahal was the revenue unit.

The correct answer is D, Qutub-ud-Din-Aibak. The Adhai-din-ka-Jhonpra stands at Ajmer in Rajasthan and was raised on the site of an earlier Sanskrit college by Qutbuddin Aibak, the founder of the Slave dynasty and the first Sultan of Delhi. The same ruler built the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque in Delhi and began the Qutb Minar, so Aibak is the name to attach to the earliest Sultanate mosques. Option A is wrong because Balban, who ruled from 1266 to 1287, is known for court ceremony and administrative reform rather than for this mosque. Option B is wrong because Ibrahim Lodi ruled more than three centuries later, from 1517 to 1526, and lost the First Battle of Panipat to Babur. Option C is wrong because Iltutmish completed the Qutb Minar and built the Hauz-i-Shamsi, but the Ajmer mosque was Aibak's work.

The correct answer is C, The President of India. The Finance Commission is constituted by the President under Article 280, and it therefore makes its recommendations to the President. Under Article 281 the President must cause every recommendation, together with an explanatory memorandum on the action taken on it, to be laid before each House of Parliament. Option A is wrong because NITI Aayog is an executive body set up by a Cabinet resolution in 2015 and has no role in receiving the Commission's report. Option B is wrong because the Finance Minister and the Ministry of Finance act on the recommendations once accepted but are not the authority the report is addressed to. Option D is wrong because the Prime Minister chairs the Union Council of Ministers and NITI Aayog but does not receive the report either.

The correct answer is C, A and C only. Statement A is correct: Article 280 provides that the Commission shall consist of a Chairman and four other members appointed by the President. Statement C is also correct: Article 280 is the very article that lists the matters on which the Commission makes its recommendations, including tax devolution and grants-in-aid. Statement B is wrong, and this is the trap the question is built on. The recommendations of the Finance Commission are advisory in nature, and the Union government is not legally bound to accept them; Article 281 only requires the report, with a memorandum explaining the action taken, to be laid before each House of Parliament. Because B is false, options A, B and D, each of which includes B, cannot be right, leaving A and C only.

The correct answer is A, J. Chadwick. James Chadwick discovered the neutron in 1932 by bombarding beryllium with alpha particles and showing that the radiation produced consisted of neutral particles of nearly the same mass as the proton. The discovery explained why the mass of an atom is greater than the mass of its protons and electrons together. Option B is wrong because E. Goldstein discovered canal rays, which carried positive charge and led to the identification of the proton. Option C is wrong because Niels Bohr gave the model in which electrons revolve in fixed permitted shells without radiating energy. Option D is wrong because Ernest Rutherford discovered the nucleus through alpha-particle scattering and had only predicted that a neutral particle should exist. Note the years, which papers like to ask together: the electron in 1897, the nucleus in 1911 and the neutron in 1932, the last of the three fundamental particles to be found.

The correct answer is D, Harshavardhana. Banabhatta was the court poet of Harsha in the seventh century CE. He wrote the Harshacharita, the biography of his patron and the first historical biography in Sanskrit, and the prose romance Kadambari, which was completed by his son Bhushanabhatta.

Option A, Ashoka, ruled in the third century BCE, nine hundred years earlier, and left edicts in Prakrit rather than a body of Sanskrit court poetry. Option B, Bindusara, was Ashoka's father and an even earlier Mauryan king. Option C, Chandragupta II of the Guptas, ruled around 375 to 415 CE; the writers associated with his court in tradition are the nine gems, including Kalidasa, while the inscriptional poet of his father Samudragupta was Harishena. Banabhatta belongs to none of these courts, only to Harsha's.

The correct answer is D, Gauda. Shashanka was the king of Gauda, the region of Bengal with its centre at Karnasuvarna. He killed Harsha's elder brother Rajyavardhana, and it was to avenge that killing, and to recover his sister Rajyashri, that Harsha declared war and allied with Bhaskaravarman of Kamarupa.

Option A, Kanyakubja, is the old name of Kannauj, the Maukhari capital that Harsha himself took over and made his own seat, so it is not the kingdom Harsha attacked. Option B, Junagarh, is a place in Saurashtra in Gujarat known for the rock edicts of Ashoka and the Rudradaman and Skandagupta inscriptions, and had no connection with Shashanka. Option C, Magadha, is the south Bihar kingdom of the Haryankas, Nandas, Mauryas and Guptas; by Harsha's day it was part of his own empire and not the base of Shashanka.

The correct answer is C, because Harshavardhana's court poet was Banabhatta, not Harishena. Harishena belonged to an earlier century altogether: he was the court poet of Samudragupta and composed the Prayag Prashasti, the Allahabad Pillar Inscription. The statement is therefore the one that is not correct, which is what the question asks for.

Option A is correct, because Harsha ruled from 606 CE to about 647 CE, which is roughly fourteen hundred years before our own time. Option B is correct, because the Chinese pilgrim Xuan Zang, written in older books as Hiuen Tsang, travelled in India between 629 and 645 CE and spent several years at Harsha's court, leaving his account in the Si-yu-ki. Option D is correct, because the Harshacharita is the biography of Harsha written by Banabhatta and is regarded as the first historical biography in Sanskrit.

The correct answer is A, Goods and Services Tax. GST is charged on the supply of goods and services, and although the registered supplier deposits it with the government, the amount is recovered from the buyer in the price. Since the burden is shifted to someone other than the person who pays it in, GST is an indirect tax.

Option B, corporation tax, is a direct tax on the profits of a company, and the company cannot pass the liability on to anyone else. Option C, income tax, is the classic direct tax, levied under the Income-tax Act of 1961 on the income of individuals and other assessees according to their ability to pay. Option D, capital gains tax, is charged on the profit made when a capital asset such as land, a building or a share is sold, and is again borne by the seller who earned the gain. All three are administered by the Central Board of Direct Taxes, while GST falls under the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs.

The correct answer is C, Union Carbide. On the night of 2 and 3 December 1984, methyl isocyanate gas leaked from the pesticide plant of Union Carbide India Limited at Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, killing thousands of people and injuring many more. The disaster directly led Parliament to pass the Environment (Protection) Act in 1986 and later the Public Liability Insurance Act of 1991.

Option A, Exide, is a battery manufacturer and had no plant involved in the leak. Option B, Bharat Rasayan Limited, is an agrochemical company but is unconnected with Bhopal. Option D, UPL Limited, is another agrochemical firm and is likewise unrelated to the tragedy. For the examination, remember the chain: Union Carbide, methyl isocyanate, Bhopal, December 1984, and the Environment (Protection) Act of 1986 that followed it.

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.