SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 25 September 2024, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 4 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.

In chess which of the following may move only diagonally?

(a)The Queen
(b)The Knight
(c)The Rook
(d)The Bishop

Answer

Why

Correct — D. The load-bearing word in the stem is only.

The bishop slides any number of unobstructed squares along a diagonal and does nothing else, which is why it never leaves the colour of the square it started on.

The queen moves diagonally as well, but she also runs along ranks and files, so she is not restricted to diagonals and the word only rules her out.

The piece whose entire movement is diagonal is the bishop, option (d).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
The Queen — The queen does move diagonally, but she adds the rook's ranks and files. The stem demands a piece that moves only diagonally, and her straight-line moves break that.
(b)
The Knight — The knight moves in an L, two squares one way and one at right angles, and is the piece that may jump over others. Its path is never a diagonal.
(c)
The Rook — The rook moves along ranks and files and never on a diagonal. It is the bishop's opposite, and it is also the piece that castles with the king.

Concept

Chess items in SSC GA turn on the exact wording of a move, not on playing strength.

The three long-range pieces split cleanly. The rook takes ranks and files. The bishop takes diagonals. The queen takes both, which makes her the strongest piece and the standard trap in any question containing the word only.

The short-range pieces are the king, one square in any direction, and the pawn, forward one square but capturing diagonally. The knight is the piece that jumps.

A bishop is locked to one colour for the whole game. That is why a player holding both bishops is said to have the bishop pair, and why a lone bishop can never cover half the board.

Key facts

A bishop moves any number of free squares along a diagonal and stays on its starting colour all game.
Each player starts with two bishops, one on a light square and one on a dark square.
The queen combines the rook's move with the bishop's move.
The knight is the only piece permitted to jump over occupied squares.

Study next

The starting position of a chess set and the count of each pieceSpecial moves in chess, namely castling, en passant and pawn promotionIndian chess champions and their titles, a recurring SSC GA strand

Common traps

Choosing the queen because she is the most powerful piece, and skipping over the word only.
Believing a bishop can switch square colour if it travels far enough.
Confusing rook with bishop, since both slide any distance in a straight line.

SSC repeats the piece-movement item in near-identical wording. At 19 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.12 the stem asks which piece may only move forward to the unoccupied square immediately in front of it, and keys the pawn.

Vocabulary versions come too, as with castling at 26 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.10.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.