SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 13 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Awareness · Question 18 of 98

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.

Which of the following crops is NOT grown during the Zaid season in India?

(a)Rice
(b)Muskmelon
(c)Watermelon
(d)Cucumber

Answer

Why

Correct — A. Zaid is the short summer season between the rabi harvest and the kharif sowing, roughly March to June, and it runs on irrigation because it falls in the dry months.

What fits that window are quick, heat-tolerant crops: watermelon, muskmelon, cucumber and other cucurbits, summer vegetables, fodder.

Rice is a kharif crop. It is sown with the arrival of the south-west monsoon and needs standing water and high humidity for months, which zaid cannot supply — option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Muskmelon — Muskmelon is a textbook zaid crop. It grows fast in dry summer heat on irrigated land and is off the field before the monsoon breaks.
(c)
Watermelon — Watermelon appears in every zaid list for the same reasons — heat tolerance, assured irrigation and a growing period short enough to fit between two main seasons.
(d)
Cucumber — Cucumber is grown through the zaid season across northern India on irrigated land, maturing in about two months, which is exactly what the short season allows.

Concept

India's cropping calendar has three seasons.

Kharif: sown with the south-west monsoon in June-July, harvested September-October — rice, maize, jowar, bajra, cotton, jute, groundnut.

Rabi: sown October-December, harvested April-June — wheat, barley, gram, peas, mustard.

Zaid: the short irrigated season in between, March to June — watermelon, muskmelon, cucumber, summer vegetables and fodder crops.

The zaid list is short and stable, which is why SSC tests it as an odd-one-out. A cereal sitting in a zaid list is always worth a second look, since the season belongs to cucurbits, vegetables and fodder.

Key facts

Zaid runs roughly from March to June, between the rabi harvest and the kharif sowing.
Typical zaid crops are watermelon, muskmelon, cucumber, summer vegetables and fodder.
Rice is a kharif crop, sown with the onset of the south-west monsoon.
Zaid cultivation depends on irrigation because it falls in the dry pre-monsoon months.

Study next

Kharif, rabi and zaid crop lists with sowing and harvest monthsGeographical conditions rice needs: temperature, rainfall, soilIrrigation and the summer cropping season

Common traps

Assuming a summer season implies a summer cereal, when zaid is dominated by cucurbits and vegetables.
Treating zaid as rain-fed and forgetting that it depends on irrigation.

The same three lists are tested from the kharif side on 23 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.14, which asks which crop is NOT a kharif crop and keys wheat.

Learn the seasons as three recitable lists, since both question shapes are simply the list read backwards.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.