According to the 2011 census of India, the State of Rajasthan had the lowest literacy rate of _______.

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — option (3), 66.11%. This is the literacy rate recorded for Rajasthan in the 2011 census. Rajasthan's literacy rate was among the lowest of any major Indian state that census, and the figure of 66.11% is the one that belongs specifically to Rajasthan, as distinct from the very similar-looking figures for two other low-literacy states offered in the other options. The question is really asking a candidate to attach the correct number to the correct state out of a cluster of states that all sat in the same low band in 2011.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) 55.42% is not a state's literacy figure from the 2011 census at all — no major Indian state recorded a literacy rate this low that year. It functions as a plausible-looking but unattached number rather than a genuine rival state's rate.  (b) 61.8% is Bihar's literacy rate in the 2011 census, and it is in fact the lowest among all Indian states nationally — lower than Rajasthan's own 66.11%. It is included here precisely because a candidate who recalls 'lowest literacy rate, 2011 census' but not which specific state the question is asking about is likely to reach for Bihar's figure instead of Rajasthan's.  (d) 65.39% is close to Arunachal Pradesh's 2011 literacy rate (65.38%), which sat between Bihar's and Rajasthan's in the national ranking. It is deliberately close to the correct 66.11% to catch a candidate who has the right region of the scale in mind but the wrong state's exact figure.

Concept: The 2011 census literacy figures cluster several states — Bihar, Arunachal Pradesh and Rajasthan among them — within a few percentage points of each other at the bottom of the national ranking, which makes this exactly the kind of question where a candidate must hold the specific state-to-number pairing rather than a general sense of 'this is a low number.'

State PCS 2025 Q20 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q20 — Geography PYQ with Answer