SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 11 September 2024, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 13 of 95

Text as printed on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; answer per SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 10 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. The questions and options here are reproduced as printed on a candidate's own response sheet for this shift — the Commission's text, unchanged. Each answer is SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet; SSC allowed challenges to it and never publishes a final key. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Which of the following options is mostly caused by overpopulation?

(a)Reduction in the scarcity of water
(b)Land and other renewable resources are under pressure
(c)Increase in the area covered by forests
(d)Adequate natural resource storage

Answer

Why

Correct — B. Land, forests, fresh water and fisheries are renewable but not unlimited — they regenerate, and only at a rate. More people draw on the same stock, so the pressure on it rises.

The other three options all describe conditions easing: less water scarcity, more forest cover, adequate stocks. Population growth pushes each of those the other way → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Reduction in the scarcity of water — Overpopulation raises demand against a fixed supply, so water available per person falls. Scarcity deepens rather than reduces, which is the opposite of what this option claims.
(c)
Increase in the area covered by forests — Growing numbers push settlement and cropland outward, so forest is cleared, not added. Where cover does rise, it comes from afforestation policy rather than from population growth.
(d)
Adequate natural resource storage — Adequate storage of resources describes a surplus. A larger population draws down stocks faster than they regenerate, which produces shortage, not adequacy.

Concept

Renewable resources regenerate, but at their own pace: a forest regrows, an aquifer recharges, a fishery breeds. Use them faster than that pace and they degrade like any finite stock, which is why renewable does not mean inexhaustible.

Two ideas do most of the work in this kind of question. Per capita availability is the total divided by the population, so it falls as numbers rise even when the total is steady. Carrying capacity is the population a resource base can support without being degraded.

This is a reasoning item dressed as general knowledge. No figure is needed; the answer is the only option in which pressure increases.

Key facts

Renewable resources such as forests, fisheries, groundwater and soil fertility regenerate only at a rate, and use beyond that rate degrades them.
Per capita availability of a resource is the total divided by the population, so it falls as population grows even when the total is unchanged.
Carrying capacity is the population a given resource base can support without being degraded.

Study next

Renewable and non-renewable resources and the idea of sustainable useCarrying capacity and per capita resource availabilityEffects of population growth on employment and per capita income

Common traps

Answering with what ought to be done rather than with what happens, when the stem asks for a consequence.
Skimming and picking any option that contains the word resources.

SSC sets population pressure as a cause-and-effect item rather than a data question. Over-population as the cause of unemployment is asked on 12 Sep 2024, 16:00, General Awareness Q.19, and population growth as the cause of falling per capita income on 26 Sep 2024, 16:00, General Awareness Q.22.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.