SSC Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is A, JLGs. NABARD started a pilot project on Joint Liability Groups in 2004-05 so that small, marginal and tenant farmers, who often till land they do not own, could borrow without the land papers a bank usually demands. A JLG is an informal group of roughly four to ten farmers of the same village who take a bank loan together and stand guarantee for one another, so the trust within the group takes the place of collateral. The pilot ran through selected banks in a few states, worked well, and was then adopted as a regular channel of farm credit alongside the older self-help group route. B is wrong because MEDP is NABARD's Micro Enterprise Development Programme, a skill training effort for members of mature SHGs. C is wrong because SGSY was a self-employment scheme of the rural development ministry. D is wrong because the SHG Bank Linkage Programme began in 1992 and mainly serves women's savings groups. Exam tip: JLG pilot 2004-05, tenant and oral lessee farmers, joint guarantee and no collateral.

The correct answer is D, Karnataka. Hampi stands on the south bank of the Tungabhadra river in the Vijayanagara district of Karnataka, and it was the capital of the Vijayanagara empire founded by Harihara and Bukka in 1336. At its height in the sixteenth century under Krishnadeva Raya it was among the largest cities in the world; the Persian envoy Abdur Razzaq and the Portuguese traveller Domingo Paes both wrote of its crowded bazaars and its ring of fortifications. The city was sacked after the battle of Talikota in 1565 and never recovered. Its ruins, including the Virupaksha temple and the Vittala temple with its stone chariot and musical pillars, were made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986. A is wrong because Tamil Nadu holds the great Chola temples instead. B is wrong because Kerala lay outside the Vijayanagara heartland. C is wrong because the medieval capital in Telangana was Warangal of the Kakatiyas. Exam tip: Hampi is on the Tungabhadra in Karnataka, a UNESCO site since 1986.

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 D, Kolkali. Kolkali is a popular folk dance of Lakshadweep, and it is also seen in the Malabar region of Kerala, with which the islands share much of their language and custom. Twelve or more dancers move in a circle, each holding a short wooden stick in either hand, and strike their neighbours' sticks in time with the song; the circle widens and closes in as the beat quickens. It is danced by men at weddings and festivals, and the rhythm comes from the clash of the sticks as much as from the drum. Lakshadweep's other well known forms are Parichakali and Lava. A is wrong because Kathak is a classical dance of north India. B is wrong because Kuchipudi is a classical dance of Andhra Pradesh. C is wrong because Koli is the dance of the fishing community of Maharashtra. Exam tip: Lakshadweep has Kolkali, Parichakali and Lava; Koli belongs to Maharashtra.

The correct answer is D, Vijayalaya. Vijayalaya founded the line known as the Imperial Cholas around 850 CE by taking Thanjavur from the Muttaraiyar chiefs, who held it as feudatories of the Pallavas. He built a temple to the goddess Nishumbhasudini in the captured town, and Thanjavur stayed the Chola capital until Rajendra I shifted to Gangaikonda Cholapuram. The dynasty he began reached its height under Rajaraja I, who raised the Brihadeshwara temple, and under Rajendra I, who carried Chola arms to Sri Lanka and across the sea to Srivijaya. A is wrong because Dantidurga founded the Rashtrakuta dynasty of the Deccan. B is wrong because Simhavishnu was an early Pallava king of Kanchipuram. C is wrong because Upendrarai has no place in the Chola genealogy. Exam tip: Vijayalaya founded the Cholas at Thanjavur around 850 CE, Rajaraja I built the Brihadeshwara temple, and Rajendra I founded Gangaikonda Cholapuram.

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 D, Chhau. Chhau was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010. It is a masked dance-drama of eastern India with three styles named after their homes: Seraikella in Jharkhand and Purulia in West Bengal, where masks are worn, and Mayurbhanj in Odisha, where the dancers perform without masks. The form grew out of martial training, so its steps imitate combat and the movements of birds and animals, while its stories come from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and local legend. It is danced at the spring festival of Chaitra Parva to the beat of the dhol and the dhumsa. A is wrong because Fugdi is a women's folk dance of Goa. B is wrong because Jhoomar belongs to Punjab. C is wrong because Dalkhai is a folk dance of western Odisha. Exam tip: Indian entries on the UNESCO list include Chhau (2010), Ramlila, Kutiyattam, Vedic chanting and Sankirtana.

The correct answer is A, 1896 INC session. Vande Mataram was first sung on a political occasion at the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress in 1896, and it was Rabindranath Tagore who set the tune and sang it there. The song had been written earlier by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay in Sanskritised Bengali and placed in his novel Anandamath, published in 1882. After the partition of Bengal in 1905 it became the cry of the Swadeshi movement, and the Constituent Assembly later gave it the status of the national song, to be honoured equally with the national anthem. B is wrong because the 1903 session came seven years after that first singing. C is wrong because the Calcutta session of 1911 is remembered for the first singing of Jana Gana Mana. D is wrong because the 1900 session has no such first to its name. Exam tip: Vande Mataram was written in 1882 in Anandamath and first sung in 1896; Jana Gana Mana was first sung in 1911.

The correct answer is A, 1928. The Bardoli Satyagraha began in February 1928 in Bardoli taluka of Surat district in Gujarat, after the Bombay government raised the land revenue by about twenty-two per cent in a year when the crop had already been poor. Vallabhbhai Patel led the peasants, who refused to pay a single rupee, held together across castes and communities, and faced the seizure of land, cattle and carts without answering back. The government at last appointed the Broomfield and Maxwell enquiry, which found the increase unjustified and cut it to roughly six per cent. It was the women of Bardoli who gave Vallabhbhai the title Sardar. B is wrong because 1934 is the year the Congress Socialist Party was founded. C is wrong because 1919 is the year of the Rowlatt Satyagraha and Jallianwala Bagh. D is wrong because 1943 is the year of the Bengal famine. Exam tip: Bardoli 1928, Sardar Patel, a no-tax satyagraha, Broomfield and Maxwell enquiry.

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 A, 1 to 12. The intensity of an earthquake is measured on the Modified Mercalli scale, whose grades run from I to XII. Intensity is not the same thing as magnitude: it records how strongly the shaking was felt at a particular place and how much damage it did, so it is judged from what people report and from the state of buildings, and it falls as you move away from the epicentre. Grade I is picked up only by instruments, grade VI cracks plaster and moves furniture, and grade XII means total destruction with the ground thrown into visible waves. Magnitude, by contrast, measures the energy released at the focus and is given as one number on the Richter scale. B is wrong because 1 to 7 is nearer the everyday span of Richter magnitudes. C is wrong because the Mercalli scale has no grade above XII. D is wrong because five grades cannot cover everything from barely felt to total ruin. Exam tip: Mercalli I to XII is damage felt; Richter is energy released.

The correct answer is A, Charles Cornwallis. Cornwallis, Governor General from 1786 to 1793, introduced the Permanent Settlement in Bengal, Bihar and Odisha in 1793, with John Shore doing much of the groundwork. It recognised the zamindars as owners of the land and fixed for all time the revenue they had to pay the Company, so any later rise in output went to the zamindar and not to the state. The sunset clause meant that a zamindar who had not paid by sunset on the appointed day lost his estate at auction, which ruined many old families and created a new class of landlords, while the peasant got no security of tenure. B is wrong because Bentinck came in 1828 and is remembered for abolishing sati. C is wrong because Mountbatten was the last Viceroy, in 1947. D is wrong because Ripon, in the 1880s, is known for local self-government. Exam tip: Permanent Settlement 1793 Cornwallis, Ryotwari Munro and Read, Mahalwari Holt Mackenzie.

The correct answer is D, Rajendra Chola I. He took the title Gangaikonda Chola, the one who won the Ganga, after his army marched north about 1022 CE, defeated the Pala ruler Mahipala and carried Ganga water back to the Tamil country. That water was poured into a great tank at his new capital, Gangaikonda Cholapuram, which he raised in place of Thanjavur and where he built a large Shiva temple in his father's style. He also sent a fleet against Srivijaya in South East Asia, a rare overseas campaign for an Indian ruler. A is wrong because Vijayalaya founded the dynasty by seizing Thanjavur in the ninth century. B is wrong because Gandaraditya is remembered for a Tamil devotional hymn, not for a northern march. C is wrong because Parantaka I fought the Rashtrakutas and was beaten at Takkolam. Exam tip: Rajendra I means Gangaikonda Chola, Gangaikonda Cholapuram and the naval raid on Srivijaya.

The correct answer is C, Joint Photographic Experts Group. The format is named after the committee of experts that drew up the standard, which was published in 1992 for compressing photographs. A JPEG file uses lossy compression: it throws away the fine detail the human eye is least likely to miss, so a picture that would need several megabytes as raw data is stored in a few hundred kilobytes. That is why photographs on websites and in phone galleries are saved as .jpg or .jpeg, while logos, line drawings and screenshots are better kept as PNG or GIF, which are lossless. A is wrong because it puts Photography and Exports in place of Photographic and Experts. B is wrong because it replaces Photographic with Pixel. D is wrong on both counts, using Pixel as well as Exports. Exam tip: JPEG is the Joint Photographic Experts Group and is lossy; PNG and GIF are lossless; MPEG is the Moving Picture Experts Group.

The correct answer is C, Securities and Exchange Board of India. SEBI is the regulator of the securities market, and protecting the interests of investors is the first duty written into its founding law. It was set up in 1988 and given statutory powers by the SEBI Act of 1992, after the securities scam of that period exposed how weak the old controls were; its headquarters is in Mumbai. SEBI registers brokers, merchant bankers and mutual funds, lays down the rules for public issues, acts against insider trading and price rigging, and runs an online grievance system called SCORES for small investors. A is wrong because the Bombay Stock Exchange is a market place where shares are traded, not the regulator that polices it. B is wrong because the Reserve Bank of India looks after banks, currency and credit. D is wrong because the National Stock Exchange, like the BSE, is itself a body regulated by SEBI. Exam tip: SEBI, formed 1988, statutory in 1992, headquarters Mumbai, regulator of the securities market.

The correct answer is D, NABARD. E-Shakti was launched by NABARD in 2015 to put the accounts and records of self-help groups on a digital platform. Until then an SHG kept its savings, loans, attendance and repayments in handwritten registers, which a bank could not check quickly, so grading a group and sanctioning credit took a long time. E-Shakti holds the same records online, where the lending branch can see them, so an SHG that repays well can be identified and financed faster. The project began as a pilot in Ramgarh in Jharkhand and Dhule in Maharashtra and was then extended to many more districts. A is wrong because SIDBI is the apex bank for micro, small and medium industries. B is wrong because SEBI regulates the securities market. C is wrong because IFCI was India's first development finance institution, set up for industry. Exam tip: NABARD milestones are the SHG Bank Linkage Programme of 1992, the JLG pilot of 2004-05 and E-Shakti in 2015.

The correct answer is B, Haryali. Haryali is a centrally sponsored watershed development project launched in 2003 by the Ministry of Rural Development, and its whole point is that the village panchayat plans and carries out the work itself. Under it gram panchayats build check dams, farm ponds, percolation tanks and contour bunds so that rain is held where it falls; wells recharge, and dryland farmers get water for a second crop. The watershed committee is chosen by the gram sabha, and the villagers share part of the cost and the upkeep of the structures. A is wrong because the Arvary Pani Sansad is a people's parliament of villages on the Arvari river in Alwar, Rajasthan, a community effort and not a central scheme. C is wrong because Jal Kranti Abhiyan was a later water awareness campaign of the water resources ministry. D is wrong because Neeru-Meeru was a state water conservation programme of Andhra Pradesh. Exam tip: Haryali 2003, central and panchayat-led; Neeru-Meeru is Andhra Pradesh; Arvari Pani Sansad is Rajasthan.

The correct answer is D, Pala. The Palas ruled eastern India, that is Bengal and Bihar, so their capital was never in the south. The line was founded by Gopala around 750 CE, who was chosen by the chiefs of Bengal to end a long spell of disorder. Dharmapala and Devapala after him ruled from Pataliputra and Monghyr, and they built and endowed the great Buddhist monastery at Vikramashila, which drew students from Tibet. A is wrong because the Cholas ruled the Tamil country, with their capital first at Thanjavur and later at Gangaikonda Cholapuram. B is wrong because the Cheras held the Malabar coast of present-day Kerala and had their seat at Vanji, usually identified with Karur. C is wrong because the Pallavas ruled from Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu and gave India the shore temples of Mahabalipuram. Exam tip: Chola at Thanjavur, Chera at Vanji and Pallava at Kanchipuram are all southern; the Pala kingdom of Bengal and Bihar is the odd one out.

The correct answer is B, cheque. Section 6 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 defines a cheque as a bill of exchange drawn on a specified banker and not expressed to be payable otherwise than on demand. In plain words it is a written order by an account holder, the drawer, telling the bank, the drawee, to pay a stated sum to the payee named on it, which is exactly what the question describes.

Option A, cash, is money itself and needs no instruction to anyone. Option C, a passbook, is only a record of the entries in an account, so it proves what has happened but orders nothing. Option D, currency, is the legal tender issued by the Reserve Bank and the Government of India, again not an instruction to pay. Only a cheque is an instrument carrying an order to a banker, and that is why it is a negotiable instrument under Section 13 of the Act.

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.