BPSC 70th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 134 of 143

Correct — C, “Let’s Move and Celebrate”. The International Olympic Committee ran Olympic Day on 23 June 2024 under that banner, announcing it as a celebration of the summer of sport that Paris was about to host: the campaign invited people worldwide to get physically active, recreate the victory celebrations of their favourite athletes and share them online. The wording matters and is the whole question. 'Let's Move' by itself is the name of the IOC's wider global participation initiative, the standing campaign that encourages daily physical activity; the 2024 Olympic Day theme was that campaign extended with the word 'Celebrate' for the Paris year. So option (a) is not wrong about the movement — it is simply the parent campaign rather than that day's theme, which is exactly the sort of near-miss BPSC likes to build an option set around. The timing explains the extra word. Olympic Day 2024 fell about five weeks before the Paris 2024 Olympic Games opened on 26 July 2024, so the IOC deliberately fused participation with anticipation: move, and celebrate the Games that are coming. Options (b) and (d) are Olympic-sounding slogans of a different character — peace and international understanding, and the older three-part formula about moving, learning and discovering — and neither carries the Paris-year celebration element that fixes 2024. When a theme question offers you two variants of the same phrase, the discriminator is almost always the qualifier that ties it to the year's biggest event.

• (a)“Let’s Move” — The name of the IOC's continuing global participation campaign, not the 2024 Olympic Day theme. It is the intended trap: a candidate who half-remembers the campaign will recognise the phrase and stop reading, missing that the 2024 theme extended it with 'and Celebrate' for the Paris Games year.
• (b)“Together, For a Peaceful World” — A slogan in the Olympic movement's peace-and-unity register — the tradition of the Olympic Truce and 'sport as a force for peace' — rather than the participation-and-celebration message the IOC built the 2024 day around. It has no connection to the Paris summer that the 2024 theme was pointing at.
• (d)“Move, learn, discover – Together for a better world” — Echoes the older three-part Olympic Day formula of moving, learning and discovering, bolted onto a generic 'better world' tag. It is the longest option and the most official-sounding, which is why it attracts a guess, but the 2024 theme was the short participation slogan, not this composite.

Olympic Day is observed every year on 23 June because that is the date on which the International Olympic Committee was founded, in 1894, at the congress convened in Paris. The IOC established the observance in 1948; it was commemorated that first year under IOC president J. Sigfrid Edström, with celebrations organised by nine National Olympic Committees. From 1987 the Olympic Day Run became its core activity, a mass-participation run held simultaneously by National Olympic Committees across the world, and the day has since broadened from running into a general 'get moving' campaign built around the Olympic values of excellence, friendship and respect. In recent years the IOC has given the day an annual theme, which is how it enters an examination paper: the theme is a short slogan tied to whatever the movement is pushing that year, and in an Olympic year it is tied to the Games themselves.

Theme questions look like pure memory but they usually have a structure you can reason with. First, look for the option that fits the year's context: 2024 was a Summer Olympic year, with Paris opening on 26 July, so the theme most likely to be right is the one that points at a celebration rather than at an abstract virtue. Second, when two options are variants of one phrase — here 'Let's Move' and 'Let's Move and Celebrate' — the setter has almost certainly built the question on that pair, and the fuller, more occasion-specific one is usually the year in question, with the bare version being the standing campaign it grew out of. Third, be wary of the longest and most sonorous option; slogans that try to carry three ideas at once are usually composites assembled by the setter. Applying all three tests points the same way, at 'Let's Move and Celebrate'. A general warning for this class of question: themes change every year while the date does not, so the date is the safe mark and the theme is the risky one — which is why BPSC asks the theme.

• Olympic Day falls on 23 June each year, the date the International Olympic Committee was founded in 1894 at the congress held in Paris
• The IOC established Olympic Day in 1948; it was commemorated that year under IOC president J. Sigfrid Edström, with nine National Olympic Committees holding celebrations
• The Olympic Day Run was established in 1987 and became the day's signature mass-participation activity
• The theme for Olympic Day on 23 June 2024 was 'Let's Move and Celebrate', an extension of the IOC's standing 'Let's Move' participation campaign for the Paris Games year
• The Paris 2024 Olympic Games opened on 26 July 2024, about five weeks after that year's Olympic Day, which is why the theme joined participation to celebration

• Choosing the bare campaign name over the year's actual theme when both appear as options
• Assuming the longest, most formal-sounding slogan is the official one
• Confusing the fixed date of an observance, which is safe to memorise, with its theme, which changes every year

BPSC asks observance days in two forms — the date, which never changes, and the theme, which changes annually — and it draws the theme from the twelve months before the paper, so the current-affairs window matters more than general knowledge. UPSC does not ask themes at all; when it touches the Olympics it asks structural or historical facts, such as an official motto, which sports were newly included in a named edition, or what a particular Olympic trophy is awarded for.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  International Olympic Day is observed every year on

  • (a)23rd June
  • (b)6th April
  • (c)29th August
  • (d)26th July

  Answer(a) 23rd June — the date the International Olympic Committee was founded in 1894; 29 August is India's National Sports Day and 6 April is the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Paris 2024 Olympic Games opened on which date ?

  • (a)23rd June 2024
  • (b)26th July 2024
  • (c)11th August 2024
  • (d)28th August 2024

  Answer(b) 26th July 2024 — the Games ran to 11 August; 28 August was the start of the Paralympic Games and 23 June was Olympic Day.