SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 16 September 2025, Shift 2 · General Awareness · Question 1 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.

What material were the double-storeyed gates of Purana Qila primarily built with?

(a)Marble
(b)Red sandstone
(c)Glazed tiles
(d)Rubble

Answer

Why

Correct — B. Purana Qila's three gates, the Bara Darwaza, the Humayun Gate and the Talaqi Gate, are double-storeyed sandstone structures, each flanked by two huge semicircular bastion towers.

So the building material is red sandstone. Marble and tiles are on the gates too, but as decoration: white and coloured marble inlay and blue tiles set into the stone.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Marble — Marble appears on the gates as inlay, white and coloured marble set into the stone for decoration. The gates themselves are built of sandstone.
(c)
Glazed tiles — Glazed tiles are surface ornament here: blue tiles decorate the gates. A double-storeyed gateway flanked by bastions is not built of tiles, and its fabric is sandstone.
(d)
Rubble — Rubble means rough, undressed stone laid in mortar. The gates are recorded as sandstone structures, decorated with marble and tiles.

Concept

Purana Qila in Delhi grew out of Dinpanah, the city begun by Humayun. Sher Shah Suri, who defeated him, strengthened its fortifications and completed the walls. Historians still debate exactly who built which part.

Its three arched gateways are the Bara Darwaza facing west, the Humayun Gate on the south, and the Talaqi Gate, often called the forbidden gate. Each has overhanging jharokha balconies and is topped by chhatris.

Two distractors really are on the gates, as ornament: marble inlay and blue glazed tiles. The stem's word primarily asks for the building material, and that is sandstone.

Key facts

Purana Qila has three arched gateways: the Bara Darwaza (west), the Humayun Gate (south) and the Talaqi Gate.
The gates are double-storeyed sandstone structures flanked by semicircular bastion towers.
The gates are decorated with white and coloured marble inlay and blue tiles.
The fort grew out of Humayun's city of Dinpanah, and Sher Shah Suri completed its walls.

Study next

Sher Shah Suri's buildings inside Purana Qila: the Qila-i-Kuhna Mosque and the Sher MandalRed sandstone and white marble in early Mughal Delhi: Humayun's TombHumayun against Sher Shah: Chausa (1539) and Kannauj (1540)

Common traps

Picking marble because the gates visibly carry marble inlay, which is decoration rather than the building stone.
Treating glazed tiles as a building material, when on these gates they are surface ornament.

The stem names a building feature and asks its material, not its builder or date. The rulers behind the fort appear at 19 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q.7 (Battle of Chausa, 1539) and 17 Sep 2025, 16:00, GA Q.6 (Sher Shah Suri and the Second Afghan Empire).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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