SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 12 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Awareness · Question 25 of 100

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 6 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.

According to the Census of India 2011, the percentage of adolescent population (10-19 years) from the total population is how much?

(a)22.9%
(b)21.9%
(c)20.9%
(d)19.9%

Answer

Why

Correct — C. The Census of India 2011 put the adolescent population, aged 10 to 19, at 20.9% of the total.

The arithmetic behind the share: about 253 million adolescents against a counted population of about 1.21 billion, which is roughly one in five Indians.

The figure is quoted throughout policy documents on adolescent health and education, which is where a question setter picks it up.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
22.9% — 22.9% overshoots by two percentage points. The census share comes from 253 million in 1.21 billion, and that ratio lands just under 21%, nowhere near 23%.
(b)
21.9% — 21.9% is the near-miss, one point above the census figure. Options set this close are settled by recalling the number, not by estimating it.
(d)
19.9% — 19.9% falls below the census figure. It mirrors the 21.9% option one point on the other side, to punish a half-remembered 'about 20%'.

Concept

Census 2011 is the standing source for India's age-structure questions, and a handful of its shares are asked again and again.

Adolescents, taken here as the 10-19 age group, numbered about 253 million and formed 20.9% of the population.

Note that adolescent and youth are different bands. The National Youth Policy 2014 defines youth as 15-29 years, so the two shares are not interchangeable and a question naming one will not accept the other.

Census 2011 was India's fifteenth census and the seventh since independence. The decennial census due in 2021 was deferred, so the 2011 figures remain the reference SSC works from.

Key facts

Census 2011 counted about 253 million adolescents in the 10-19 age group.
That is 20.9% of India's counted population of about 1.21 billion.
The National Youth Policy 2014 defines youth as the 15-29 age group, a different band.
Census 2011 was the fifteenth census of India and the seventh after independence.

Study next

Census 2011 sex ratio and child sex ratio figuresMale and female literacy rates in Census 2011 and the gap between themThe demographic dividend and how it differs from the dependency ratio

Common traps

Estimating rather than recalling, when the options sit one percentage point apart
Using the youth share for 15-29 in place of the adolescent share for 10-19

Census shares are offered as four close percentages, so the number has to be carried exactly. The female share within the same 10-19 band is asked at General Awareness Q.15 of the 25 Sep 2024, 09:00 paper, and the male-female literacy gap at Q.17 of the 12 Sep 2024, 12:30 paper.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.