SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 16 September 2025, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 16 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.

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.

Which of the following pairs of type of nutrient – nutrient is correctly matched?

(a)Micronutrient – Calcium
(b)Macronutrient – Zinc
(c)Micronutrient – Boron
(d)Macronutrient – Iron

Answer

Why

Correct — C. For plants, boron is a micronutrient: essential, but needed only in small amounts.

NCERT's Class 9 table lists six soil macronutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulphur) and seven micronutrients (iron, manganese, boron, zinc, copper, molybdenum, chlorine).

Boron sits in the micronutrient column, so the pair is right → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Micronutrient – Calcium — Calcium is one of the six soil macronutrients in NCERT's table, needed in large amounts, so calling it a micronutrient is wrong.
(b)
Macronutrient – Zinc — Zinc is needed only in small amounts. It is a micronutrient, so the macronutrient label is wrong.
(d)
Macronutrient – Iron — Iron is essential to plants but needed in small amounts, which makes it a micronutrient, not a macronutrient.

Concept

NCERT counts sixteen nutrients essential for plants. Air supplies carbon and oxygen, water supplies hydrogen, and the soil supplies the other thirteen.

Of those thirteen, six are needed in large quantities, the macronutrients. The other seven are needed in small quantities, the micronutrients.

Essential and macro are different ideas: a plant short of boron or iron suffers even though it needs very little.

The stem does not say plant or human nutrition. In diet science macronutrients usually means carbohydrates, proteins and fats, so element-by-element labels like these come from plant nutrition, the frame the key uses.

Key facts

NCERT Class 9: plants need sixteen essential nutrients — carbon and oxygen from air, hydrogen from water, thirteen from soil.
Soil macronutrients: nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulphur.
Soil micronutrients: iron, manganese, boron, zinc, copper, molybdenum, chlorine.

Study next

Primary (N, P, K) and secondary (Ca, Mg, S) macronutrientsManures versus fertilizersSoil Health Card and soil nutrient testing

Common traps

Calling calcium a micronutrient because it is a mineral — for plants it is one of the six macronutrients.
Equating essential with macro — iron and zinc are essential but needed only in traces.

Soil nutrients come back from the policy side at 20 Sep 2025, 09:00, GA Q.17, where the Soil Health Card's primary aim is keyed as assessing nutrient status.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Scientific Research — all 220 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.