SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 17 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Awareness · Question 5 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 is a species of tropical deciduous forests?

(a)Ebony
(b)Mahogany
(c)Teak
(d)Palms

Answer

Why

Correct — C. Teak is the dominant species of India's tropical deciduous forests, the monsoon forests that shed their leaves for about six to eight weeks in the dry season.

These forests occupy the belt receiving roughly 200 to 70 cm of rainfall a year, and moist deciduous forest — teak country — sits at the wetter end of that belt.

Sal, bamboo, sandalwood, khair and shisham grow alongside teak there, which is why option (c) is the species that fits.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Ebony — Ebony is a tropical evergreen species of the belt above about 200 cm of rainfall, where trees have no fixed leaf-shedding season.
(b)
Mahogany — Mahogany is likewise a tropical evergreen tree of the heavy-rainfall belt, listed with ebony and rosewood rather than with teak.
(d)
Palms — Palms belong with the evergreen and coastal vegetation of the wet tropics, not with the monsoon deciduous forest the question asks about.

Concept

India's natural vegetation is classified by rainfall before anything else.

Above about 200 cm lies tropical evergreen forest — ebony, mahogany, rosewood, rubber, cinchona — in the Western Ghats, the Andamans and the north-east.

Between 200 and 70 cm come the tropical deciduous or monsoon forests, the most widespread type in India. They split into moist deciduous (200-100 cm, teak dominant) and dry deciduous (100-70 cm, with teak, sal, peepal and neem).

Below that lie thorn forest and scrub, and separately the tidal mangroves of the deltas.

All four options are tropical trees, so the item is not testing whether you know the tree. It is testing whether you know the rainfall band it sits in. Revise species grouped by forest type, not as a single list.

Key facts

Tropical deciduous forests are the most widespread forest type in India and occupy the 200 to 70 cm rainfall belt.
Teak is the dominant species of moist deciduous forest.
Ebony, mahogany and rosewood are tropical evergreen species of the belt above about 200 cm of rainfall.
Deciduous trees shed their leaves for roughly six to eight weeks in the dry season, which is what makes the forest deciduous.

Study next

The vegetation types of India and the rainfall band each occupiesMangrove forests of the Sundarbans and the sundari treeMoist deciduous against dry deciduous forest, and where each is found

Common traps

Assuming any tropical hardwood is deciduous. Ebony and mahogany are evergreen.
Confusing the two slopes of the Western Ghats. The windward western slopes carry evergreen forest, the drier eastern slopes deciduous.

SSC asks this classification from either side.

At 11 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.9 it names ebony and mahogany and asks for the forest type, keyed to tropical evergreen. At 13 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.13 it does the same with the sundari tree, keyed to mangrove forests.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.