SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 19 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Awareness · Question 1 of 99

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 the largest inhabited riverine island in the world?

(a)Lakshadweep
(b)Peacock
(c)Majuli
(d)Bhavani

Answer

Why

Correct — C. Majuli, an island in the Brahmaputra in Assam, is the largest inhabited riverine island in the world.

The word doing the work is riverine — land enclosed by the channels of a river, not by the sea.

Majuli exists because the Brahmaputra braids into channels around it. The same braiding erodes it, and the island has lost a large part of its area to the river over the past century.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Lakshadweep — Lakshadweep is a coral archipelago in the Arabian Sea, so its islands are marine, not riverine. It is also a group of islands and a Union Territory, not one island.
(b)
Peacock — Peacock Island (Umananda) is a Brahmaputra island too, but a tiny one at Guwahati carrying the Umananda temple. The stem asks for the largest.
(d)
Bhavani — Bhavani Island lies in the Krishna near Vijayawada and is developed as a tourist spot. It is a river island, but nowhere near Majuli's size.

Concept

A riverine island forms where a river splits into channels around a bar of its own sediment and rejoins downstream. Because the material is silt rather than rock, the river that builds such an island also eats it.

Majuli is the extreme case. The Brahmaputra carries a huge sediment and flood load, so the island is both unusually large and unusually fragile.

It is a cultural centre as well as a landform: its Vaishnavite satras, monastic institutions in the tradition of Srimanta Sankardeva, are why people settled there in numbers.

The question turns on one word. Read only "largest island" and Lakshadweep looks plausible; read riverine and every sea island is gone before you start comparing sizes.

Key facts

Majuli lies in the Brahmaputra river in Assam.
Majuli was constituted as a district of Assam in 2016.
Majuli's satras are Vaishnavite monasteries in the tradition of Srimanta Sankardeva.
Erosion by the Brahmaputra has cut Majuli's area substantially over the past century.

Study next

Braided rivers and how river islands form, with the Brahmaputra as the exampleThe satra institutions of Assam and Srimanta Sankardeva's Vaishnavite movementIsland types compared: coral atolls, barrier islands and riverine islands

Common traps

Reading the stem as "largest island" and picking Lakshadweep, which is a sea archipelago.
Confusing Majuli with Umananda (Peacock Island), the small temple island at Guwahati that is also in the Brahmaputra.

Assam's Vaishnavite culture is asked from the other end too — 24 Sep 2024, 12:30, General Awareness Q.25 asks which festival observed in Assam is mainly celebrated by Vaishnavites (Doljatra).

Learn Majuli as a landform and as a satra centre, because both sides get asked.

Related PYQs

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