SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 12 September 2025, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 9 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 11 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. From 2025 the candidate response sheet prints every question and option as a picture, so the text here is transcribed from those pictures for this shift and checked against them independently; where the layout carries meaning, the picture is shown as well. Each answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Consider the following statements about glacial landforms: Statement 1: Hanging valleys are often found opening into main glacial valleys at higher elevations. Statement 2: Spurs of such hanging valleys are frequently truncated into triangular facets. Which of the following Statements is/are Correct?

(a)Only 1
(b)Only 2
(c)1 and 2 are correct
(d)Neither 1 nor 2 are correct

Answer

Why

Correct — C. Both statements come almost word for word from NCERT's Class XI Fundamentals of Physical Geography.

It says there can be hanging valleys at an elevation on one or both sides of the main glacial valley. It adds that the spurs of such hanging valleys opening into the main valley are quite often truncated into triangular facets.

So statements 1 and 2 are both correct.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Only 1 — It drops a true statement. NCERT itself says the spurs of hanging valleys opening into the main valley are quite often truncated into triangular facets.
(b)
Only 2 — It drops the statement NCERT puts first: hanging valleys sit at an elevation on one or both sides of the main glacial valley.
(d)
Neither 1 nor 2 are correct — Both lines restate NCERT's description of glacial troughs, so rejecting both means rejecting the textbook's own account of a glaciated valley.

Concept

A glacier deepens its valley into a U-shaped trough with a broad floor and steep sides.

The main glacier, carrying more ice, cuts its floor lower than the smaller tributary glaciers cut theirs. When the ice melts, the tributary valleys are left hanging above the main floor.

The main glacier also planes off the ends of spurs in its path, leaving steep, triangular facets: the truncated spurs of statement 2.

Key facts

Glaciated valleys are trough-like and U-shaped, with broad floors and steep sides.
Hanging valleys sit at an elevation on one or both sides of the main glacial valley.
Spurs truncated by glacial erosion take the shape of triangular facets.
Very deep glacial troughs filled with sea water along high-latitude coasts are called fjords.

Study next

Cirques, horns and aretes: glacial erosional landformsMoraines, eskers and drumlins: glacial depositional landformsU-shaped glacial valleys versus V-shaped river valleys

Common traps

Thinking a hanging valley lies below the main valley, when it opens into it from above.
Confusing the truncated spurs of a glaciated valley with the interlocking spurs of a river valley.

Here two textbook sentences are offered as statements, and both are true. Geomorphology also appears at 13 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.12, which asks what kind of weathering exfoliation is.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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