SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 14 September 2025, Shift 3 · General Awareness · Question 12 of 95

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.

Which of the following best explains how mineral deposits influence population distribution?

(a)They improve soil fertility
(b)They reduce need for employment
(c)They attract industries and create jobs
(d)They lead to deforestation only

Answer

Why

Correct — C. NCERT lists minerals among the economic factors of population distribution: "Areas with mineral deposits attract industries. Mining and industrial activities generate employment."

Skilled and semi-skilled workers move in for those jobs, and the areas become densely populated. That is option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
They improve soil fertility — Soil fertility is a separate, geographical factor in NCERT's list. Minerals draw people through industry and employment, not by making the land better for farming.
(b)
They reduce need for employment — It reverses the mechanism. Mining and industry generate employment, and that demand for workers is why people move to mineral areas.
(d)
They lead to deforestation only — The word only is the flaw. Mining can clear forest, but NCERT's point is that mineral areas attract people, through industry and the jobs it brings.

Concept

NCERT sorts the factors behind where people live into three groups. Geographical: water, landforms, climate and soils. Economic: minerals, urbanisation and industrialisation. Social and cultural: religious or cultural significance, and unrest that pushes people away.

Minerals work through the economy. Deposits bring mines and industry, industry brings jobs, and jobs bring people. NCERT's example is the Katanga Zambia copper belt in Africa.

Key facts

NCERT lists minerals as an economic factor influencing population distribution.
Mining and industrial activities generate employment, drawing skilled and semi-skilled workers.
NCERT's example of a mineral area made densely populated is the Katanga Zambia copper belt in Africa.
NCERT's industrial example is the Kobe-Osaka region of Japan, thickly populated because of its industries.

Study next

Physiological and arithmetic density of populationUrbanisation and industrialisation as factors of population distributionPush and pull factors of migration

Common traps

Picking soil fertility because it also concentrates population. It does, but that is a geographical factor, not the mineral one.

Population geography also appears at 9 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.18, on density measured against net cultivated area (keyed physiological density).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Geography — all 179 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.