SSC Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is D, Jharkhand. Bhagta Parab is observed by the tribal communities of Jharkhand in the weeks between spring and summer, and it is dedicated to Budha Baba. Devotees called bhagtas fast, carry water from a tank to the shrine and take part in feats of endurance, and the Chhau dance of the Seraikela and Purulia tradition is performed through the nights of the festival. Sarhul, Karma and Sohrai belong to the same festival calendar of the state.

Option A, Mizoram, celebrates Chapchar Kut, Mim Kut and Pawl Kut. Option B, Maharashtra, is the state of Ganesh Chaturthi and of the Warli people. Option C, Madhya Pradesh, holds the Bhagoria Haat of the Bhil and Bhilala before Holi, which sounds close to Bhagta Parab and is the trap in this question. Bhagta Parab, however, is a Jharkhand festival.

The correct answer is C, Assam. Ali Ai Ligang is the spring sowing festival of the Mising tribe of Assam. The name itself describes the occasion, for it refers to the sowing of roots and seeds, and the festival begins on the first Wednesday of the month of Fagun. Villagers plant the first paddy of the season, and the Gumrag dance is performed to drums and cymbals, with rice beer and pork served at the community feast.

Option A, Kerala, is the state of Onam, Vishu and Thrissur Pooram. Option B, Bihar, holds Chhath and the Sonepur cattle fair. Option D, Chhattisgarh, has Bastar Dussehra and the Karma dance of its tribal belt. Each is a real festival state, but Ali Ai Ligang belongs to the Mising, an Assamese tribe of the Brahmaputra valley, so C is the only correct pairing.

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 D, Mumbai. Axis Bank, which began in 1994 as UTI Bank and was renamed in 2007, has its corporate office in Mumbai, the city that also holds the Reserve Bank of India, SEBI, the State Bank of India, the Central Bank of India, Union Bank of India, Bank of India and both stock exchanges. Mumbai is the financial capital of the country, so most private banks and insurers are based there.

Option A, Ahmedabad, is where Axis Bank was registered and has a large office, which makes it the trap in this question, and it is also the home of the Space Applications Centre and the Physical Research Laboratory. Option B, Bengaluru, is the headquarters of Canara Bank and of ISRO. Option C, Chennai, is the headquarters of Indian Bank and Indian Overseas Bank. None of these is the headquarters of Axis Bank.

The correct answer is A, Nubra. The first ice climbing festival of Ladakh was held in the Nubra valley in January 2021, on the frozen waterfalls near the villages of the upper Nubra, as a way of building winter adventure tourism in a region that otherwise earns only in summer. Nubra lies north of Leh across the Khardung La and is watered by the Shyok and the Nubra rivers.

Option B, Ripchar, is a side valley on the Lamayuru to Chilling trek and hosts no such festival. Option C, Markha, is the valley of Ladakh's best known summer trek, between the Zanskar range and the Stok range. Option D, Dras, spelt Drass, lies in the Kargil district and is famous instead for being one of the coldest inhabited places in India and for the Kargil war memorial.

The correct answer is D, Odisha. Bali Yatra is held on the bank of the Mahanadi at Cuttack on Kartik Purnima and remembers the days when merchants of Kalinga sailed to Bali, Java and Sumatra. People float small boats of paper, banana bark or cork with lamps in them, and a very large trade fair runs beside the river for a week.

Option A, Tamil Nadu, had its own sea trade under the Cholas, who actually sent naval expeditions to Srivijaya, but its festival calendar has Pongal and the temple festivals, not Bali Yatra. Option B, Rajasthan, is a landlocked state whose big gatherings are the Pushkar Fair and the Desert Festival of Jaisalmer. Option C, Kerala, has Onam and Thrissur Pooram. The word Yatra and the Kalinga sea link should point the candidate to Odisha at once.

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, Shah Alam II. The Third Battle of Panipat was fought in 1761 between Ahmad Shah Abdali of Afghanistan and the Marathas, who were defeated. Shah Alam II was the reigning Mughal emperor from 1759 to 1806, though he held little real power and was away from Delhi at the time. Option A is wrong because Akbar II ruled from 1806 to 1837, long after 1761, and is remembered for giving Ram Mohan Roy the title of Raja. Option C is wrong because Bahadur Shah I, the son of Aurangzeb, ruled from 1707 to 1712, half a century before the battle. Option D is wrong because Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last emperor, came to the throne in 1837 and was deposed after the revolt of 1857. Tie the three Panipats to 1526, 1556 and 1761 to avoid this trap.

The correct answer is D, Akbar. The town on the Bhagirathi that later became Murshidabad was founded as Maksudabad in the reign of Akbar, and it kept that name until the Bengal governor Murshid Quli Khan shifted his seat there in the early eighteenth century and renamed it after himself. Murshidabad then served as the capital of Bengal under the Nawabs until the British moved power to Calcutta after Plassey. Option A is wrong because Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last emperor, ruled only at Delhi in the nineteenth century and founded no city. Option B is wrong because Shah Jahan built Shahjahanabad at Delhi, not Maksudabad. Option C is wrong because Humayun spent much of his reign fighting Sher Shah Suri and in exile in Persia, and the city is not credited to him. Remember the pair Maksudabad and Murshidabad together with Akbar.

The correct answer is A, Alamgir II. The Battle of Plassey was fought in 1757 between Robert Clive of the East India Company and Siraj-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal. The Mughal emperor on the throne at Delhi in that year was Alamgir II, who ruled from 1754 to 1759 and was by then a powerless figure controlled by his nobles. Option B is wrong because Siraj-ud-Daulah was the Nawab of Bengal and the defeated party at Plassey, not the Mughal emperor. Option C is wrong because Mir Qasim, usually written Mir Qasim or Mir Kasim, was a later Nawab of Bengal who fought at Buxar in 1764 and never held the imperial throne. Option D is wrong because Shah Alam II became emperor in 1759, two years after Plassey, and it was he who lost Buxar and granted the diwani of Bengal to the Company in 1765.

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 C, Krishna. The Musi rises in the Anantagiri hills of Telangana, flows through Hyderabad, and joins the Krishna in Nalgonda district, which is why the city's water supply and floods are tied to it. Option A is wrong because the main tributaries of the Kaveri are the Hemavati, the Kabini, the Bhavani, the Noyyal and the Amaravati. Option B is wrong because the Godavari receives the Indravati, the Manjra, the Purna, the Pranhita and the Wainganga, not the Musi. Option D is wrong because the Mahanadi, which rises in the highlands of Chhattisgarh and carries the Hirakud dam, is joined by the Seonath, the Hasdeo, the Jonk and the Tel. The Krishna's other tributaries are the Bhima, the Tungabhadra and the Ghatprabha, and the pair Hyderabad, Musi and Krishna is the quickest way to hold this fact.

The correct answer is C, Parushni. In the Rigveda the Ravi appears as the Parushni, and it is on this river that the Battle of the Ten Kings, the Dasarajna, is placed. Option A is wrong because Askini, also written Asikni, is the Vedic name of the Chenab, which is formed by the Chandra and Bhaga streams and is also called the Chandrabhaga. Option B is wrong because Shutudri is the Vedic name of the Sutlej, the river that enters India through the Shipki La pass. Option D is wrong because Kalindi is an old name of the Yamuna, which rises at the Yamunotri glacier and joins the Ganga at Prayagraj. The remaining pairs to memorise are the Jhelum as the Vitasta and the Beas as the Vipasha, since papers often ask all six Punjab rivers in one matching question.

The correct answer is D, Shipki La. The Sutlej rises from the Rakas lake near Mansarovar in Tibet, where it is called the Langchen Khambab, and enters India through the Shipki La pass in Himachal Pradesh before flowing on to join the Beas at Harike. Option A is wrong because Zoji La lies on the road from Srinagar to Kargil in Ladakh and carries no such river. Option B is wrong because Nathu La is a trade pass in Sikkim on the route to Tibet, in an entirely different part of the Himalaya. Option C is wrong because Lipulekh is a pass in Uttarakhand used by the Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage and by the Kali river valley, not by the Sutlej. The Sutlej also carries the Bhakra Nangal project, so link the river, the pass and the dam together when you revise.

The correct answer is B, smog. A primary pollutant is released directly from a source, while a secondary pollutant is formed in the atmosphere when primary pollutants react. Photochemical smog is formed when sunlight acts on nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds to produce ozone and other irritants, so it is the classic secondary pollutant, and ground level ozone is counted with it. Option A is wrong because carbon monoxide comes straight out of an engine or a stove when fuel burns without enough oxygen. Option C is wrong because carbon dioxide is released directly by combustion and respiration. Option D is wrong because fly ash is the fine particulate matter that leaves the chimney of a thermal power station and is emitted as it is. The same distinction applies to acid rain, where sulphuric and nitric acids are secondary products formed from the primary gases sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.

The correct answer is A, Humayun Shah. Humayun Shah Bahmani ruled from 1458 to 1461 and the chronicles of the Deccan record his punishments as so savage that he was nicknamed Zalim, the cruel or the tyrant. His short reign is remembered mainly for that title and for the fact that Mahmud Gawan served on his council. Option B is wrong because Firuz Shah Bahmani, who ruled from 1397 to 1422, was the most learned sultan of the line, a patron of astronomy who built an observatory at Daulatabad and married a daughter of Deva Raya I. Option C is wrong because Mujahid Shah, who ruled from 1375 to 1378, is known for his campaign against Vijayanagara and his murder by his uncle, not for tyranny. Option D is wrong because Ahmad Shah Wali, who ruled from 1422 to 1436, is remembered for shifting the capital from Gulbarga to Bidar and for his reputation as a saintly figure.

The correct answer is C, 1336. Harihara I and Bukka Raya I, the sons of Sangama, founded the city and the empire of Vijayanagara in 1336 on the southern bank of the Tungabhadra, at the site now known as Hampi in Karnataka. Tradition links the foundation to the sage Vidyaranya of Sringeri, and the kingdom took Virupaksha as its tutelary deity. Option A is wrong because 1210 falls in the early Delhi Sultanate, the year Qutbuddin Aibak died, and no southern empire was founded then. Option B is wrong because 1315 belongs to the closing years of Alauddin Khalji, when Malik Kafur was raiding the far south; the Deccan then had no independent Hindu empire of this size. Option D is wrong because 1368 is a date after the foundation, by which time the Sangama rulers were already fighting the Bahmanis over the Raichur doab. Remember the pair 1336 for Vijayanagara and 1347 for the Bahmanis.

The correct answer is B, Alauddin Hasan Bahman Shah. In 1347 the centurion nobles of Daulatabad, the Amiran-i-Sadah, rebelled against the Delhi Sultan and raised one of their own, Hasan Gangu, to the throne of the Deccan. He took the regnal name Alauddin Hasan Bahman Shah and made Gulbarga, renamed Ahsanabad, his capital, and the dynasty he founded is called Bahmani after him. Option A is wrong because Mahmud Gawan was a Persian merchant who came to the Deccan more than a hundred years later and served as wazir under Muhammad Shah III; he was a minister, never a founder. Option C is wrong because Muhammad Shah I was Hasan Bahman Shah's son and successor, who organised the kingdom into four tarafs but inherited rather than created it. Option D is wrong because Muhammad bin Tughlaq was the Delhi Sultan against whom the Deccan nobles revolted; the Bahmani kingdom was carved out of his empire, not founded by him.

The correct answer is B. Self-reliance, the goal set out in India's early plans, means building the capacity to produce at home what the country would otherwise have to buy abroad, so the true indicator is that imports of such goods are avoided. It is a statement about reducing dependence, not about ending trade. Option A is wrong because rising imports of goods the country can itself make is the opposite of self-reliance and shows growing dependence. Option C is wrong because a country cannot export in quantity what it does not produce, and in any case exports are a sign of competitiveness rather than of self-reliance. Option D is wrong because avoiding exports of goods that can be produced at home wastes earning capacity; self-reliance was never meant to mean shutting out foreign markets. The policy that followed from this idea was import substitution.

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.