SSC Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is C, Awadh. Kathak, the classical dance of north India, reached its golden age in the nineteenth century under Wajid Ali Shah, the last Nawab of Awadh, who ruled from Lucknow until the British annexed his kingdom in 1856. He was a dancer and composer himself, wrote under the pen name Akhtarpiya, created the dance drama Rahas, and supported Thakur Prasad and the brothers Bindadin and Kalka Prasad, whose family built the Lucknow gharana with its stress on grace, expression and thumri. Kathak's other schools are the Jaipur, Banaras and Raigarh gharanas. Option A is wrong because Hyderabad was ruled by the Nizams of the Asaf Jahi line. Option B is wrong because Rampur was a separate Rohilla state, remembered for the Rampur-Sahaswan gharana of music, not for Kathak. Option D is wrong because Jaunpur was the Sharqi sultanate of the fifteenth century. Exam tip: Wajid Ali Shah goes with Awadh, the Lucknow gharana of Kathak and thumri.

The correct answer is D, Lonar. Lonar Lake, in Buldhana district of Maharashtra, was added to the list of Ramsar sites in November 2020 along with Sur Sarovar in Uttar Pradesh. The lake fills a crater punched into the Deccan basalt by a meteorite about fifty thousand years ago, which makes it the only such crater in basaltic rock in India, and its water is unusual for being saline and alkaline at the same time, supporting rare micro-organisms. The Ramsar Convention on wetlands was signed in 1971 in the Iranian city of Ramsar, and India became a party in 1982. Option A is wrong because Vihar is a reservoir that supplies water to Mumbai. Option B is wrong because Venna is a man-made lake at Mahabaleshwar. Option C is wrong because Rankala is a lake inside Kolhapur city, and none of these carries Ramsar status. Exam tip: Nandur Madhmeshwar was Maharashtra's first Ramsar site, followed by Lonar and Thane Creek.

The correct answer is A, Third battle of Panipat. Ahmad Shah Abdali, also called Ahmad Shah Durrani, defeated the Marathas in the Third Battle of Panipat on 14 January 1761. The Maratha army was led by Sadashivrao Bhau with the young Vishwasrao, while Abdali was joined by Najib-ud-Daula of the Rohillas and Shuja-ud-Daula of Awadh. The Marathas lost a whole generation of commanders, and the defeat ended their march towards supremacy in north India, clearing the field for the British. Option B is wrong because the Battle of Khanwa in 1527 was fought between Babur and Rana Sanga of Mewar. Option C is wrong because the Battle of Buxar in 1764 saw the English under Hector Munro beat the combined forces of Mir Qasim, Shuja-ud-Daula and Shah Alam II. Option D is wrong because the First Battle of Tarain in 1191 was won by Prithviraj Chauhan against Muhammad Ghori. Exam tip: Panipat 1526 Babur beat Ibrahim Lodi, 1556 Akbar beat Hemu, 1761 Abdali beat the Marathas.

The correct answer is D, Java. Java is an object-oriented programming language, so it is the right pick for Preet. It was created by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995; every piece of code sits inside a class, and the language is built on the four pillars of object orientation — encapsulation, inheritance, polymorphism and abstraction. Java source is compiled into bytecode that any Java Virtual Machine can run, which is why it is described as write once, run anywhere. Option B is wrong because Pascal, written by Niklaus Wirth in 1970 for teaching, is a structured procedural language; only the later Object Pascal added classes. Option A is wrong for the same reason, since it offers Pascal as an equal choice. Option C is wrong because BASIC, made by Kemeny and Kurtz in 1964, is a simple procedural language for beginners. Exam tip: C++, Java, Python, C# and Smalltalk are object-oriented, while C, Pascal, FORTRAN, COBOL and BASIC are procedural.

The correct answer is A, Kui. Kui is the language of the Kondh (Kandha) tribe of Odisha and is grouped with Telugu and Gondi in the south-central or south-eastern branch of the Dravidian family. It is spoken mainly in Kandhamal, Rayagada, Kalahandi, Koraput and Boudh districts, is written in the Odia script, and has a rich body of oral songs and folk tales. The Odisha cabinet cleared a proposal in July 2023 recommending that Kui be placed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, which began with fourteen languages in 1950 and now lists twenty-two, Odia among them. Option B is wrong because Malto is a North Dravidian language of the Rajmahal hills in Jharkhand and West Bengal. Option C is wrong because Tulu belongs to coastal Karnataka and Kasaragod in Kerala, and Karnataka has pressed its own case. Option D is wrong because Kodagu is spoken in the Kodagu district of Karnataka. Exam tip: Brahui, Kurukh and Malto are North Dravidian; Kui and Gondi sit with Telugu.

The correct answer is C, Packet filtering. A packet filtering firewall works at the network layer, the third layer of the OSI model, where it reads the header of every incoming and outgoing packet and compares the source and destination IP address, the port number and the protocol against a list of rules, then allows the packet through or drops it. It is the oldest and fastest kind of firewall and needs little memory, but it is stateless: it judges each packet on its own and cannot look inside the data, so it misses attacks hidden in the payload. Option A is wrong because a circuit-level gateway works at the session layer and only checks that the TCP handshake is valid. Option B is wrong because an application-level gateway, or proxy firewall, works at the application layer and understands protocols such as HTTP and FTP. Option D is wrong because network filtering is not a recognised firewall type. Exam tip: packet filter at the network layer, circuit-level at the session layer, proxy at the application layer.

The correct answer is D, Dharmapala. Dharmapala, the second and greatest ruler of the Pala dynasty of Bengal and Bihar, founded Vikramshila Vishwavidyalaya in the late eighth century at a site in present-day Bhagalpur district of Bihar. He also founded the monastery at Odantapuri, and under the Palas these became the great Buddhist seats of learning after Nalanda. Vikramshila specialised in Tantric Buddhism, and its best-known head was Atisha Dipankara Srijnana, who carried Buddhism to Tibet. The university was destroyed around 1193 during Bakhtiyar Khalji's raids. Dharmapala also fought the tripartite struggle for Kannauj and placed Chakrayudha on its throne. Option C is wrong because Mahipala I only revived Pala power and repaired monasteries. Option A is wrong because Ramapala was a much later Pala king, the subject of Sandhyakar Nandi's Ramacharitam. Option B is wrong because Govindapala was the last ruler of the line. Exam tip: Nalanda goes to Kumaragupta I, Odantapuri and Vikramshila to Dharmapala.

The correct answer is D, 6 years or up to the age of 65 years, whichever is earlier. The Chief Election Commissioner holds office for six years from the date he takes charge, or until he turns sixty-five, whichever comes first; the other Election Commissioners serve on the same terms. The Constitution itself does not fix the term — Article 324 leaves the conditions of service to a law of Parliament, and the law sets these limits. The Chief Election Commissioner draws the salary of a Supreme Court judge and can be removed only in the same manner as a Supreme Court judge, while the other Election Commissioners can be removed only on his recommendation, which is what protects the Commission's independence. Options A, B and C are wrong because four, three and five years are not the prescribed term for this office. Exam tip: six years or sixty-five is also the limit for the Comptroller and Auditor General and for the Chairman of the Union Public Service Commission.

The correct answer is A, Akbar. Akbar introduced the mansabdari system in the closing years of the sixteenth century to grade every officer of the empire. Mansab means rank, and each mansabdar held two numbers: zat, which fixed his personal status and pay, and sawar, the number of armed horsemen he had to keep ready. Ranks ran from ten to five thousand, with higher ones kept for princes of the royal house. Akbar also brought in the dagh system of branding state horses and the chehra, a written description of each soldier, to stop officers from showing borrowed men at muster. Option D is wrong because Jahangir only added the du-aspa sih-aspa device, which raised a noble's cavalry without raising his zat. Option B is wrong because Shah Jahan merely introduced the month-scale, or mahana, to adjust pay. Option C is wrong because Aurangzeb continued the system as he found it. Exam tip: Akbar gave the mansabdari ranks and Todar Mal's dahsala revenue settlement.

The correct answer is B, Platform as a Service. Cloud computing is sold in three service models, and PaaS is the middle one. A PaaS provider hands the developer a ready platform — the operating system, a runtime, a database, libraries and build tools — so an application can be written and deployed without buying or managing any hardware or patching an operating system. Google App Engine, Microsoft Azure App Service, Red Hat OpenShift and Heroku are examples. Below it, IaaS supplies raw computing power and storage, such as Amazon EC2, and the user still installs the software. Above it, SaaS delivers finished software over the browser, such as Gmail or Google Docs. The three main deployment models are public, private and hybrid cloud. Options A, C and D are wrong because Payment as a Service, Performance as a Service and Protocol as a Service are not cloud service models. Exam tip: IaaS gives the machine, PaaS the platform, SaaS the finished software.

The correct answer is B, Shri Krishna Sinha. Shri Krishna Sinha, affectionately called Shri Babu, is remembered as Bihar Kesari, the lion of Bihar. He was the first Premier of Bihar under the 1937 provincial elections and then the first Chief Minister of the state after independence, holding office until 1961. He led the Barahiya Tal satyagraha against illegal levies, joined the salt satyagraha, and made Bihar the first state in India to abolish the zamindari system in 1950. He also worked with Dr Rajendra Prasad to have the Deoghar temple opened to Dalits. Option A is wrong because Rajendra Prasad, independent India's first President, is called Desh Ratna and Bihar Vibhuti. Option C is wrong because Karpoori Thakur is remembered as Jannayak, the people's leader. Option D is wrong because Lala Lajpat Rai was Punjab Kesari and Sher-e-Punjab. Exam tip: Punjab Kesari is Lajpat Rai, Bihar Kesari is Shri Krishna Sinha, Andhra Kesari is T. Prakasam.

The correct answer is A, Access. DASD stands for Direct Access Storage Device. It is any storage device on which the read-write head can be sent straight to the place where a record is kept, so a file can be reached without passing over everything stored before it. Hard disk drives, floppy disks, CDs, DVDs and drums are direct access devices, and the term was coined by IBM for the disk units of its mainframes. The opposite is SASD, a sequential access storage device such as magnetic tape, where the tape must be wound past every earlier record. Direct access is what makes random reads and updates possible, which is why databases sit on disks and not on tape. Options B, C and D are wrong because Around, Accessible and Arithmetic do not appear in the expansion; Arithmetic belongs to ALU, the arithmetic logic unit of the CPU. Exam tip: DASD is disk and direct, SASD is tape and sequential.

The correct answer is B, Cotton. Cotton is a kharif crop: it is sown with the first showers of the south-west monsoon in June and July and picked from September onwards, because it needs high temperature, light rain and a long frost-free spell. Kharif crops are the monsoon crops and include rice, maize, jowar, bajra, ragi, arhar, moong, urad, groundnut, soybean and jute; the word kharif comes from the Arabic for autumn. Gujarat, Maharashtra and Telangana are the leading cotton states, and cotton grows best on the black regur soil of the Deccan. Options A and C are wrong because gram and pea are rabi pulses, sown from October to December and harvested in March and April. Option D is wrong because wheat is the main rabi cereal, which needs a cool growing season and warm ripening weather. Exam tip: cotton, rice and jute are kharif; wheat, gram, pea and mustard are rabi.

The correct answer is A, Sedimentary rocks. Only sedimentary rocks preserve fossils, because they are built up layer by layer from sediment that settles in water or on land. When a plant or animal dies and is buried in such a layer, the sediment hardens around it and keeps its shape or its hard parts as a fossil. Sandstone, shale, limestone and coal are sedimentary; the word comes from the Latin sedimentum, meaning settling, and the layers are called strata. Option B is wrong because extrusive igneous rock, such as basalt, cools from lava on the surface at temperatures that destroy any remains. Option D is wrong for the same reason: intrusive igneous rock like granite solidifies from magma deep inside the crust. Option C is wrong because metamorphic rocks are old rocks reshaped by great heat and pressure, which erases the fossils they once held. Exam tip: fossils are found only in sedimentary rocks, which is why coal seams carry plant imprints.

The correct answer is D, Jharkhand. Tusu Parab is the harvest festival of Jharkhand, kept at Makar Sankranti in mid-January when the winter paddy is in. Unmarried girls of the Kurmi, Santhal and other communities make a decorated bamboo-and-paper frame called a chaudal, carry the Tusu image in procession with folk songs known as Tusu geet, and immerse it in a river or pond at the end. Fairs are held along the Subarnarekha and Damodar, and the same festival is kept in the neighbouring Purulia belt. Option A is wrong because Gujarat marks the same season as Uttarayan, the kite-flying festival. Option B is wrong because Sikkim's harvest festivals are Namsoong and Losoong, kept by the Lepcha and Bhutia in December. Option C is wrong because Karnataka celebrates the harvest as Suggi Habba and Makar Sankranti with Ellu Bella. Exam tip: Tusu and Sarhul belong to Jharkhand, Bihu to Assam, Wangala to Meghalaya.

The correct answer is D, National Commission for Scheduled Tribes. The Eighty-ninth Amendment Act, 2003 split the old joint commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes into two separate bodies. It left the National Commission for Scheduled Castes under Article 338 and inserted a new Article 338A for the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, which began work on 19 February 2004. Each commission has a chairperson, a vice-chairperson and three other members appointed by the President, and each places its report before Parliament. Option A is wrong because the Competition Commission of India was set up under the Competition Act, 2002 and is a statutory, not a constitutional, body. Option B is wrong because the National Commission for Backward Classes became a constitutional body only through the 102nd Amendment, 2018, which added Article 338B. Option C is wrong because the National Commission for Women rests on an Act of 1990 and remains statutory. Exam tip: Article 338 SCs, 338A STs, 338B backward classes.

The correct answer is D, Lothal. Excavations at Lothal found graves in which a man and a woman were buried together in one pit, a custom archaeologists call couple or double burial. Lothal lies in the Bhal region of Gujarat on the Bhogava, a tributary of the Sabarmati, and was excavated by S. R. Rao from 1955. It is best known for its dockyard, the earliest known tidal dock in the world, and also gave up a bead factory, a warehouse and a fire altar. Option A is wrong because Mohenjodaro in Sindh is remembered for the Great Bath, the Great Granary and the bronze Dancing Girl. Option B is wrong because Harappa, on the Ravi, gave the cemetery R-37 and rows of workmen's quarters, not couple graves. Option C is wrong because Chanhudaro, south of Mohenjodaro, was a craft town famous for bead making and is the site with no citadel. Exam tip: Lothal means dockyard and couple burial, Kalibangan means the ploughed field.

The correct answer is C, 1955. The All India Rural Credit Survey Committee found that rural credit needed a bank with a nationwide branch network, so Parliament passed the State Bank of India Act, 1955, and the Imperial Bank of India was taken over and renamed the State Bank of India with effect from 1 July 1955. The Imperial Bank itself had been formed in 1921 by joining the presidency banks of Bengal, Bombay and Madras.

Option A, 1947, is the year of independence and of no banking statute of this kind. Option B, 1965, is far too late; by then the State Bank already had its associate banks under the Act of 1959. Option D, 1950, is the year the Constitution came into force, and candidates pick it by association. Note also that 1949 was the year the Reserve Bank was nationalised, which is a different event from the creation of the State Bank.

The correct answer is D, Odisha. The twin hills of Udayagiri and Khandagiri stand near Bhubaneswar and hold Jain rock-cut cells cut for monks in the first century BCE. The Hathigumpha or elephant cave on Udayagiri carries the inscription of the Chedi king Kharavela of Kalinga, the main source for his reign, and the Rani Gumpha is the largest and most decorated of the cells.

Option A, Uttarakhand, has the Kalsi rock edict and hill temples but no such cave group. Option B, Chhattisgarh, is associated with the Sitabenga and Jogimara caves of the Ramgarh hills, which are different sites. Option C, Tripura, is known for the rock carvings of Unakoti, again a separate site. Candidates often confuse Udayagiri in Odisha with the Udayagiri caves of Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh, which are Gupta period Vaishnavite caves with the Varaha panel.

The correct answer is B. Elephanta, on Gharapuri island near Mumbai, is a Shaivite rock-cut group whose panels tell Shiva stories: the Trimurti Sadashiva, Ardhanarishvara, Gangadhara, the marriage of Shiva and Parvati and Shiva as Nataraja. The sculptors cut the figures deep into the rock so that the shifting light of the cave models them in shadow, which is why the site is remembered for sculptural depth rather than for painting or plan.

Option A is wrong because Elephanta has no stupa and is not Buddhist; the Buddhist rock-cut sites of the region are Kanheri, Bhaja, Karle and Ajanta. Option C is wrong because Jain and Vaishnavite images do not dominate here, unlike the Jain caves at Udayagiri or the Ellora group. Option D is wrong because Elephanta is a cave complex cut into a hillside, not a monolith, and it dates from about the sixth century CE, long after the Mauryas.