SSC Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is A, Propanal. The ending 'al' marks an aldehyde, so propanal is the three-carbon aldehyde, CH3CH2CHO.

An aldehyde carries the group -CHO at the end of the carbon chain, with the carbonyl carbon attached to a hydrogen. In the naming system of organic chemistry the suffix tells the family: 'al' for an aldehyde, 'ol' for an alcohol, 'one' for a ketone, 'oic acid' for a carboxylic acid, 'ane' for an alkane, 'ene' for an alkene and 'yne' for an alkyne. Methanal and ethanal are the first two aldehydes of the series.

B is wrong: propanol ends in 'ol', so it is an alcohol with an -OH group. C is wrong: propyne ends in 'yne' and is an alkyne with a triple bond. D is wrong: propanone ends in 'one' and is a ketone, better known as acetone.

Exam tip: al for aldehyde, ol for alcohol, one for ketone, oic acid for carboxylic acid.

The correct answer is D, Dantidurga. Dantidurga founded the Rashtrakuta kingdom in the Deccan in about 753 CE.

Dantidurga was a feudatory of the Chalukyas of Badami and overthrew the Chalukya ruler Kirtivarman II to set up independent rule, with Manyakheta, today's Malkhed in Karnataka, becoming the capital. The Rashtrakutas were one of the three powers in the long tripartite struggle for Kannauj, along with the Palas and the Pratiharas. Arab traveller Al-Masudi called their ruler one of the great kings of the world.

A is wrong: Ashoka was a Mauryan emperor of the third century BCE. B is wrong: Amoghavarsha was a later Rashtrakuta king, the author of Kavirajamarga in Kannada. C is wrong: Krishna I was Dantidurga's successor and is remembered for the rock-cut Kailasa temple at Ellora.

Exam tip: Rashtrakutas - founded by Dantidurga about 753 CE, capital Manyakheta, Kailasa temple built by Krishna I.

The correct answer is B, 1961. The Dowry Prohibition Act was passed in 1961 and came into force on 1 July that year.

The Act makes the giving, taking or demanding of dowry a punishable offence, and defines dowry as property or valuable security given in connection with a marriage. It was strengthened by amendments in 1984 and 1986, which fixed a minimum punishment and provided for Dowry Prohibition Officers. Around the same years criminal law added cruelty to a wife as an offence and made a death within seven years of marriage in suspicious circumstances a dowry death, with the burden of explanation on the husband's family.

A is wrong: no dowry law was passed in 1967. C is wrong: 1952 saw no such legislation. D is wrong: 1959 is when the bill was under discussion, but the Act carries the year 1961.

Exam tip: Dowry Prohibition Act - 1961, in force 1 July 1961, amended in 1984 and 1986.

The correct answer is D, product method. The product method adds up the value of goods and services produced by all firms in the economy.

National income can be measured in three ways, and all three should give the same figure. The product or value added method adds the value added by each firm, that is output minus intermediate consumption, so that the same output is not counted twice. The income method adds the incomes earned by the factors of production, namely wages, rent, interest and profit. The expenditure method adds final expenditure in the economy as consumption, investment, government spending and net exports. In India the National Statistical Office prepares these estimates.

A is wrong: the expenditure method looks at final spending, not at output of firms. B is wrong: there is no separate consumption method; consumption is one item of the expenditure method. C is wrong: the income method counts factor incomes.

Exam tip: Three routes to the same GDP - product or value added, income, and expenditure.

The correct answer is A, Red Sindhi. Red Sindhi is an indigenous Indian dairy breed of cattle, while the other three are Indian dog breeds.

Red Sindhi cattle take their name from the Sindh region and are reddish-brown, hardy and able to bear heat, which is why they have been used to improve milk yield in many tropical countries. Sahiwal, Gir, Tharparkar and Deoni are the other well-known indigenous milch breeds, while Amritmahal, Hallikar and Kangayam are draught breeds. Under the Rashtriya Gokul Mission the government works to conserve and develop such native breeds.

B is wrong: Chippiparai is a sight hound dog breed of Tamil Nadu. C is wrong: Kanni is also a dog breed from southern Tamil Nadu. D is wrong: Kombai is a Tamil Nadu hunting dog breed, not cattle.

Exam tip: Indigenous milch cattle - Red Sindhi, Sahiwal, Gir, Tharparkar, Deoni; Chippiparai, Kanni and Kombai are dog breeds.

The correct answer is D, Copper and Silver. The craftspersons of Bidar were famous for inlay work in copper and silver, and the craft took the name Bidri from the town.

Bidar is in present-day Karnataka and was the capital of the Bahmani rulers and later of the Barid Shahi dynasty. In Bidriware the artisan casts an article from an alloy of zinc and copper, cuts a design into the blackened surface and presses pure silver wire or sheet into the grooves, so the bright pattern stands out against the dark body. Flower, vine and geometric patterns are the usual designs. Bidriware carries a Geographical Indication tag.

A is wrong: gold and bronze are not the metals of Bidri work. B is wrong: bronze is not inlaid in this craft. C is wrong: gold has no part in it, though copper does.

Exam tip: Bidri - Bidar in Karnataka, zinc-copper body with silver inlay, GI tagged.

The correct answer is C, Glacier. A glacier is a natural mass of moving ice and a source of fresh water, not a pollutant.

A water pollutant is any substance added to water that makes it unfit for use. Pollutants are grouped as physical, such as silt, heat and colour; chemical, such as heavy metals, fertilisers, pesticides and detergents; and biological, such as bacteria and viruses from sewage. Glaciers in the Himalayas feed the Ganga, Yamuna and Brahmaputra, so they supply water rather than spoil it.

A is wrong as a choice because chromium is a heavy metal discharged by tanneries and electroplating units and causes serious harm. B is wrong because silt, washed in by erosion, raises turbidity, cuts light for aquatic plants and is treated as a physical pollutant. D is wrong because arsenic in groundwater, a known problem in West Bengal and Bihar, causes arsenicosis and skin cancer.

Exam tip: Physical pollutants - silt and heat; chemical - chromium, arsenic, fluoride; biological - pathogens from sewage.

The correct answer is B, Tanvi Shah. She was the first Indian woman musician to win a Grammy, in 2010.

Tanvi Shah, a singer and lyricist from Chennai, wrote and sang the Spanish lines of the song 'Jai Ho' from the film Slumdog Millionaire. The song won the Grammy for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media at the 2010 ceremony, shared with A. R. Rahman and Gulzar. The same film had already brought Rahman two Academy Awards, and Rahman and Resul Pookutty are the other Indian names students should keep with it.

A is wrong: Neeti Mohan is a playback singer with no Grammy. C is wrong: Shweta Pandit is a playback singer who has not won one either. D is wrong: Shalmali Kholgade is also a playback singer without a Grammy.

Exam tip: Tanvi Shah - first Indian woman to win a Grammy, 2010, for the Spanish lyrics of 'Jai Ho'.

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.

The correct answer is B, Maize. Maize is the crop grown both as food and as fodder, needing 21°C to 27°C and old alluvial soil.

Maize is a kharif crop sown with the onset of the monsoon, though in Bihar and a few other states it is also raised in the rabi season. Its output rose with high-yielding seeds, fertilisers and irrigation under the Green Revolution. Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Maharashtra are among the leading producers, and the grain also feeds the poultry and starch industries.

A is wrong: sesamum, or til, is an oilseed, a kharif crop in the north and a rabi crop in the south. C is wrong: bajra grows on sandy soils and shallow black soil in dry areas. D is wrong: ragi is a hardy millet of dry regions, grown on red, black, sandy and shallow soils.

Exam tip: Maize - kharif, 21°C to 27°C, old alluvial soil, food and fodder both.

The correct answer is C, Hockey. Back-stick is a foul in field hockey, called when a player strikes the ball with the rounded back of the stick.

A hockey stick has one flat face and one rounded face, and only the flat face may touch the ball. Using the rounded side gives the offending side a penalty and the other team a free hit. Other terms a paper setter may pair with hockey are bully, dribble, scoop, push-in, short corner, penalty stroke, tackle and hat-trick.

A is wrong: basketball terms include dribble, pivot, dunk, lay-up and free throw. B is wrong: badminton terms include smash, drop shot, deuce, let and service court. D is wrong: volleyball terms include spike, block, serve, dig and libero.

Exam tip: Back-stick, bully, scoop and short corner all belong to hockey; pivot and dunk to basketball.

The correct answer is A, The acid present in tomato - Formic acid. This pair is wrong, because tomato contains oxalic acid, along with some citric and malic acid.

Formic acid, or methanoic acid, is the acid of an ant sting and a bee sting, and its name comes from the Latin word for ant. Oxalic acid is found in tomato, spinach and other leafy vegetables. Learning the natural acids as pairs is the quickest way to handle such questions: lemon and orange give citric acid, curd gives lactic acid, vinegar gives acetic acid, apple gives malic acid and tamarind gives tartaric acid.

B is a correct match, so it is not the answer: orange does contain citric acid. C is correct as well, because grapes and tamarind contain tartaric acid. D is also correct, since rancid butter smells the way it does because of butyric acid.

Exam tip: Tomato - oxalic acid; ant sting - formic acid; do not mix the two.

The correct answer is C, A is true, but R is false. Iron and steel is indeed a heavy industry, but not because of light raw materials.

Industries are classified by the weight of the material they handle. A heavy industry uses bulky, heavy raw materials and turns out bulky products, so iron and steel, which consumes iron ore, coking coal, limestone, dolomite and manganese by the tonne, is the classic example. A light industry uses light raw materials and gives light finished goods, and it is here that cotton, rubber, silk and electronics belong. That is why the reason given is false: cotton and rubber are never the inputs of an iron and steel plant.

A is wrong as a choice because the reason is false. B is wrong for the same reason. D is wrong because the assertion about iron and steel being a heavy industry is perfectly true.

Exam tip: Heavy industry - iron and steel, cement, shipbuilding; light industry - cotton textiles, electronics, rubber goods.

The correct answer is B, Basavanna. He was a Jaina in his early life and served as a minister in a Chalukya court in the twelfth century.

Basavanna, also called Basaveshwara, led the Virashaiva or Lingayat movement in Karnataka. His followers worship Shiva in the form of a linga, reject caste distinctions, temple ritual and Brahmanical authority, and do not believe in rebirth. He composed his teachings as vachanas, short prose-poems in Kannada, and the movement ran an assembly called the Anubhava Mantapa where men and women debated freely. Allama Prabhu and Akka Mahadevi were among the other leading figures of the movement.

A is wrong: Karaikkal Ammaiyar was a Tamil Nayanar saint of a much earlier period. C is wrong: Eknath was a Marathi Varkari saint of the sixteenth century. D is wrong: Tallapaka Annamacharya was a Telugu composer of devotional songs at Tirupati.

Exam tip: Basavanna - twelfth century, Karnataka, Lingayat or Virashaiva movement, vachanas in Kannada.

The correct answer is D, Wang Chhu River. The Wang Chhu flows through western Bhutan and joins the Brahmaputra system in India.

The Wang Chhu rises in the Himalayas of Tibet, passes Thimphu and Paro in Bhutan, and enters West Bengal, where it is known as the Raidak. It then flows through Assam and meets the Brahmaputra. Several other Brahmaputra tributaries also come down from Bhutan, among them the Manas, the Sankosh and the Torsa, while the Subansiri, Dibang and Lohit join it in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam.

A is wrong: the Ayeyarwady, or Irrawaddy, is the main river of Myanmar and drains into the Andaman Sea. B is wrong: the Sittaung is also a river of Myanmar. C is wrong: the Chindwin is the largest tributary of the Ayeyarwady in Myanmar.

Exam tip: Brahmaputra tributaries from Bhutan - Wang Chhu (Raidak), Manas, Sankosh, Torsa; the Ayeyarwady, Sittaung and Chindwin belong to Myanmar.

The correct answer is B, Tamil Nadu. C. Rajagopalachari led the salt march in the Madras Presidency, in the area that is now Tamil Nadu.

When the Civil Disobedience Movement began in 1930, Rajagopalachari marched from Tiruchirappalli to Vedaranyam on the Tanjore coast and broke the salt law there in April 1930. He was arrested soon after. Rajagopalachari, often called Rajaji, later became the first Indian and the last Governor-General of India in 1948, and was the first recipient of the Bharat Ratna in 1954 along with C. V. Raman and S. Radhakrishnan.

A is wrong: no salt march of his was held in Maharashtra. C is wrong: Rajasthan is landlocked, so a coastal salt satyagraha was not possible there. D is wrong: Gujarat is where Gandhi himself marched, from Sabarmati to Dandi.

Exam tip: Dandi in Gujarat - Gandhi; Vedaranyam in Tamil Nadu - C. Rajagopalachari; Dharasana salt works - Sarojini Naidu.

The correct answer is A, carbon dioxide. Urea is made industrially by reacting ammonia with carbon dioxide under high pressure.

The process runs in two steps: ammonia and carbon dioxide first form ammonium carbamate, which then loses a water molecule to give urea. Its formula is CO(NH2)2 and it carries about 46 per cent nitrogen, the highest of the common solid fertilisers, which is why it is the most used nitrogenous fertiliser in India. The ammonia itself comes from the Haber-Bosch process. Urea also has a place in the history of chemistry as the first organic compound synthesised in a laboratory, by Friedrich Wohler in 1828.

B is wrong: ammonia is itself made from nitrogen and hydrogen, and adding hydrogen gives no urea. C is wrong: ammonia with oxygen gives nitric oxide, a step towards nitric acid. D is wrong: ammonia with sulphuric acid gives ammonium sulphate, a different fertiliser.

Exam tip: Urea - ammonia plus carbon dioxide, formula CO(NH2)2, about 46 per cent nitrogen.

The correct answer is A, Berar. The Imad Shahi dynasty founded the Sultanate of Berar in 1490.

As the Bahmani kingdom of the Deccan broke up in the late fifteenth century, five successor sultanates appeared. Fathullah Imad-ul-Mulk, the Bahmani governor of Berar, declared independence in 1490 and started the Imad Shahi line with Gawilgarh and Ellichpur as its centres. Berar was the smallest and weakest of the five and was annexed by Ahmednagar in 1574, and later passed to the Mughals under Akbar.

B is wrong: Bidar was ruled by the Barid Shahi dynasty. C is wrong: Ahmednagar was founded by Malik Ahmad of the Nizam Shahi dynasty. D is wrong: Golkonda was the seat of the Qutb Shahi dynasty founded by Quli Qutb Shah.

Exam tip: Five Deccan sultanates - Adil Shahi in Bijapur, Qutb Shahi in Golconda, Nizam Shahi in Ahmednagar, Imad Shahi in Berar, Barid Shahi in Bidar.

The correct answer is D, 1982. The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development was set up on 12 July 1982.

NABARD was created by an Act of Parliament of 1981 on the recommendation of the Shivaraman Committee, formally the Committee to Review Arrangements for Institutional Credit for Agriculture and Rural Development, and it began work in July 1982. It is the apex refinance institution for agriculture, small industry, handicrafts and other rural activities, and its headquarters is in Mumbai. It supervises Regional Rural Banks and cooperative banks, runs the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund, and promotes the self-help group and bank linkage programme.

A is wrong: 1979 is not connected with NABARD. B is wrong: 1981 is the year the enabling Act was passed, not the year the bank started functioning. C is wrong: 1978 is too early for this institution.

Exam tip: NABARD - Act 1981, began 12 July 1982, Shivaraman Committee, headquarters Mumbai.

The correct answer is C, Two. A normal umbilical cord contains two arteries and one vein, three blood vessels in all.

The umbilical cord joins the developing foetus to the placenta. The two umbilical arteries carry deoxygenated blood, carbon dioxide and wastes from the foetus to the placenta, while the single umbilical vein brings oxygen-rich blood and nutrients from the placenta back to the foetus. This is the reverse of the usual pattern in the body, where arteries carry oxygenated blood. The vessels are cushioned by a jelly-like tissue called Wharton's jelly, and a mature cord is about 50 to 55 cm long.

A is wrong: three is the total number of vessels, not of arteries. B is wrong: one is the number of umbilical veins. D is wrong: four vessels are never present in a normal cord.

Exam tip: Umbilical cord - two arteries plus one vein; the vein is the one carrying oxygenated blood to the foetus.