SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 13 September 2025, Shift 2 · General Awareness · Question 18 of 100

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 13 September 2026.

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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.

Read the below statements marked as Assertion (A) and Reason (R). Mark the correct options: Assertion (A): Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar is a civilian science award. Reason (R): It is conferred by Ministry of Culture.

(a)Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
(b)Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
(c)A is true, but R is false
(d)A is false, but R is true

Answer

Why

Correct — C. A is true. The Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar is a civilian honour: the Government of India's national award for science, technology and innovation, not a military decoration.

R is false. The awards come under the Ministry of Science and Technology and are presented by the President of India, not by the Ministry of Culture → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A — R is false, so it cannot explain A. The awards come under the Ministry of Science and Technology and are presented by the President, not by the Ministry of Culture.
(b)
Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A — This option needs R to be true. The Ministry of Culture plays no part: the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar is a science award under the Ministry of Science and Technology.
(d)
A is false, but R is true — A is not false. The Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar is a civilian national honour for science, technology and innovation, and R is the statement that fails.

Concept

The Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar is the Government of India's national award for science, technology and innovation, given across 13 domains in four categories:

Vigyan Ratna: lifetime achievement
Vigyan Shri: distinguished contributions
Vigyan Yuva–Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar: scientists up to age 45
Vigyan Team: teams of three or more

The President presented the first set on 22 August 2024.

In an Assertion–Reason item, test each statement on its own first. Here R fails on the ministry, which settles the answer before the question of whether R explains A arises.

Key facts

Four categories: Vigyan Ratna, Vigyan Shri, Vigyan Yuva–Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar and Vigyan Team.
Vigyan Yuva–Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar is for scientists up to 45 years of age.
The President presented the first awards on 22 August 2024, and Prof. G. Padmanabhan received the first Vigyan Ratna.
The awards come under the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Study next

National Science Day (28 February) and the Raman effectNational Technology Day (11 May) and Pokhran-IIPadma awards: civilian honours and who confers them

Common traps

Marking A false because 'civilian' reads like a trick word: the award is a civilian honour, and the error sits in R.
Assuming national awards run through the Ministry of Culture: this one belongs to the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Here the award is framed as an Assertion–Reason pair in which R names the wrong ministry, so the fact to carry away is who runs it and who presents it.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Current events — all 232 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.