SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 26 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Awareness · Question 18 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.

Which of the following states suffers from ‘Loo’?

(a)Karnataka
(b)Assam
(c)Rajasthan
(d)Kerala

Answer

Why

Correct — C. The Loo is a hot, dry, dusty wind that blows over the plains of north and north-west India in May and June, strongest through the afternoon.

Of the four states listed, Rajasthan is the one inside that belt, next to the Thar desert that gives the wind its heat and dryness.

Prolonged exposure to it can bring on heat stroke. Rajasthan, option (c), is the state on this list that lives with the Loo.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Karnataka — Karnataka is a peninsular state, its summers moderated by the height of the Deccan plateau and by the sea on both flanks. The Loo does not reach that far south.
(b)
Assam — Assam's pre-monsoon season belongs to the Norwesters (Kalbaisakhi) — moist, violent evening thunderstorms, the opposite of a dry desert wind.
(d)
Kerala — Kerala lies on the humid Malabar coast and gets pre-monsoon mango showers. A dry continental wind cannot survive in that maritime air.

Concept

The Loo is India's best-known local wind: air heated over the north-western desert and dragged east across the plains during the hot weather season.

It is dry because it never crosses the sea, and hot because it comes off bare, sun-baked ground. That is why its territory is the plains from Rajasthan and Punjab across Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh into Bihar.

Learn it beside the other named local winds: Kalbaisakhi in Bengal and Assam, mango showers in Kerala and coastal Karnataka.

The question says states, but the Loo is really a regional wind of the plains and does not respect state lines. What decides the item is that only one option lies in the north-western plains at all.

Key facts

The Loo is a hot, dry wind blowing over the northern plains, from Rajasthan and Punjab to Bihar, in May and June.
It blows mainly in the afternoon, and prolonged exposure to it can cause heat stroke.
Kalbaisakhi, or Norwesters, are the pre-monsoon evening thunderstorms of West Bengal and Assam.
Mango showers are pre-monsoon showers over Kerala and coastal Karnataka, named for their effect on the mango crop.

Study next

Local winds of India: Loo, Kalbaisakhi, mango showers, Bardoli ChheerhaThe hot weather season in the Indian monsoon calendar, March to MayWhy coastal and plateau interiors heat differently from the northern plains

Common traps

Picking whichever state you think of as hottest, when the Loo is defined by region rather than by temperature
Treating the Loo as a monsoon wind, when it belongs to the pre-monsoon hot weather season

SSC asks the Loo from either end. The region is asked at 9 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.1, where the key is north and north-western India, and the name is asked at 9 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q.18, where it stands against Chinook and mango showers.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.