SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 23 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Awareness · Question 12 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 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.

As per the Census of India 2011, the increase in literacy rates for males and females,respectively, as compared to 2001 Census was:

(a)4.88% and 10.79%
(b)5.88% and 12.79%
(c)6.88% and 11.79%
(d)3.88% and 13.79%

Answer

Why

Correct — C. Census 2011 put male literacy at 82.14% and female literacy at 65.46%. The 2001 Census figures were 75.26% and 53.67%.

Subtract:
82.14 − 75.26 = 6.88 for males
65.46 − 53.67 = 11.79 for females

Those are the increases reported with the 2011 results, and they are option (c). Note which is bigger: the female rise is nearly double the male one, so the decade narrowed the gender gap in literacy.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
4.88% and 10.79% — Both numbers sit below the Census values — male by two points, female by one. The pair survives a quick look only because it keeps the female rise larger.
(b)
5.88% and 12.79% — One point out on each side: the male figure understated, the female overstated. The actual pair is 6.88 and 11.79.
(d)
3.88% and 13.79% — The widest miss of the four — it shrinks the male gain and inflates the female one, producing a decade far more lopsided than the Census recorded.

Concept

The Census measures literacy over the population aged seven years and above, so its rates are not shares of the whole population.

The headline of 2001-2011 was that female literacy grew faster than male literacy — 11.79 points against 6.88 — which narrowed the gender gap over the decade, though it did not close it.

Keep two quantities clearly apart: a rate is a level in one census year, an increase is the difference between two of them. This stem asks for the increase.

SSC writes these increases with a per-cent sign, but they are percentage points — differences between two rates, not growth on the earlier rate. Male literacy rose 6.88 points, which is a rise of roughly 9% on its own 2001 level.

Key facts

Census 2011 recorded male literacy at 82.14% and female literacy at 65.46%.
Census 2001 recorded male literacy at 75.26% and female literacy at 53.67%.
The increase over the decade was 6.88 percentage points for males and 11.79 for females.
Census literacy is calculated for the population aged seven years and above.

Study next

Census 2011 literacy: highest and lowest states and union territoriesThe male-female literacy gap and how it has moved across censusesCensus definitions: literate, worker, marginal worker

Common traps

Reading the four options as literacy rates rather than as the increase over 2001.
Assuming the male number must be the larger one because male literacy is the higher rate.

Census literacy is asked as a gap on 12 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.17, whose answer of 16.68% is exactly 82.14 − 65.46 — the same two numbers as here. It is also asked as a scheme threshold on 10 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q.15, on female literacy below 30% in the 2001 Census.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Geography — all 111 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.