SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 13 September 2025, Shift 2 · General Awareness · Question 8 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): Last Man in Tower explores the moral and ethical conflicts faced by residents during rapid urban development and real estate pressures in Mumbai. Reason (R): The novel focuses on the historical evolution of Mumbai’s architecture and its colonial past.

(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. In Aravind Adiga's 2011 novel Last Man in Tower, a builder offers to buy out an entire Mumbai apartment block. Every resident agrees except Masterji, a retired schoolteacher, and his refusal sets him against the builder and his neighbours.

R is false. The novel is about that buy-out and the choices it forces, not the history of Mumbai's architecture or its colonial past.

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 novel centres on a property buy-out and its moral pressure, not on Mumbai's colonial architecture.
(b)
Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A. — Needs R to be true. The novel does not trace the historical evolution of Mumbai's architecture; its subject is a present-day redevelopment deal.
(d)
A is false, but R is true. — Gets A backwards. The moral conflict of residents under real-estate pressure is exactly what the novel is about.

Concept

An Assertion–Reason item is two tests: is each statement true, and if both are, does R explain A?

Here the facts settle it. Aravind Adiga, who won the 2008 Man Booker Prize for The White Tiger, set Last Man in Tower in a Mumbai housing block facing redevelopment. The conflict is money against the right to stay, played out among neighbours.

Key facts

Last Man in Tower (2011) is a novel by Aravind Adiga.
Its holdout is Yogesh A. Murthy, called Masterji, a retired schoolteacher.
Adiga's The White Tiger won the 2008 Man Booker Prize.

Study next

Booker Prize winners of Indian origin and their novelsAssertion–Reason technique: judge each statement before the link

Common traps

Choosing option (b) because R sounds scholarly, when a plausible-sounding reason must still be true.

Adiga's first novel is asked directly at 17 Sep 2025, 16:00, GA Q.10: who wrote The White Tiger, the 2008 Man Booker winner.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Culture — all 246 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.