SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 25 September 2024, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 13 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.

Makar Sankranti is the festival dedicated to which of the following Lords?

(a)Indra
(b)Surya
(c)Chandra
(d)Ganesha

Answer

Why

Correct — B. Sankranti is the sun's passage from one zodiac sign into the next, and Makar Sankranti is its entry into Makara, Capricorn. The festival is addressed to Surya, the sun.

The day also marks Uttarayana, the start of the sun's apparent northward journey, which is why it is kept as auspicious.

Because the reckoning is solar rather than lunar, the date barely moves: it falls on 14 January in most years. The deity is Surya, option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Indra — Indra is the Vedic god of rain, thunder and the heavens. Makar Sankranti is timed by the sun's position in the zodiac, and no part of the observance is addressed to him.
(c)
Chandra — Chandra is the moon. Lunar observances such as Karva Chauth wait on the moonrise, while this festival is fixed by a solar transit and needs no phase of the moon.
(d)
Ganesha — Ganesha has his own festival, Ganesh Chaturthi, kept in the month of Bhadrapada. He is not the deity of the January solar transit.

Concept

Hindu festivals run on two different clocks, and Makar Sankranti sits on the rarer one.

Most are lunar, fixed to a tithi inside a lunar month, so the Gregorian date shifts by weeks from year to year. Makar Sankranti is solar, marking the sun's entry into Makara, so its date is close to fixed.

It is also a harvest festival, kept under local names: Pongal in Tamil Nadu, Magh Bihu in Assam, Uttarayan in Gujarat. Surya is worshipped again at Chhath, the other sun festival SSC asks about.

SSC's festival questions take one of three shapes: the deity a festival honours, the state that keeps it, or the community that celebrates it.

Reading which shape the stem takes is half the work, because the same festival can appear in all three.

Key facts

Makar Sankranti marks the sun's entry into the zodiac sign Makara, or Capricorn.
It is reckoned by the solar calendar and usually falls on 14 January.
The day marks the beginning of Uttarayana, the sun's apparent northward movement.
Pongal in Tamil Nadu and Magh Bihu in Assam fall at the same point in the calendar.

Study next

Indian harvest festivals matched to their states and monthsFestivals classified by the deity each honours, from Navratri to Rath YatraSolar and lunar reckoning in the Indian calendar, and which festivals follow which

Common traps

Assuming a January festival must be lunar like most of the Hindu calendar.
Confusing Makar Sankranti with Lohri, which is kept on the previous evening in Punjab.
Answering from the harvest theme and losing the deity the stem actually asks for.

The deity-of-a-festival stem recurs across shifts. At 19 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.10 Navratri is keyed to Durga, and at 13 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q.20 the Puri Rath Yatra is keyed to Lord Jagannath.

Surya himself returns at 9 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.14, which describes a celebration dedicated to the Sun God and his wife Usha and keys Chhath Puja.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.