SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 16 September 2025, Shift 3 · General Awareness · Question 12 of 75

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 was India’s urban population percentage in Census 2011?

(a)24%
(b)31%
(c)36%
(d)41%

Answer

Why

Correct — B. Census 2011 counted 1.21 billion people.

Rural: 833 million = 68.84%
Urban: 377 million
Urban share = 100 − 68.84 = 31.16%

31.16% rounds to 31% → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
24% — 24% of 1.21 billion is about 290 million, far short of the 377 million urban residents the census counted.
(c)
36% — 36% of 1.21 billion is about 436 million, some 59 million more than the census counted in urban areas.
(d)
41% — 41% would mean about 496 million urban residents, well above the 377 million recorded in 2011.

Concept

Census 2011 counted 377 million people in urban areas and 833 million in rural areas, out of 1.21 billion.

Read either figure as a share: rural 68.84%, urban 31.16%. The two add to 100, so one figure gives you the other.

India's urban population had grown from 25.85 million in 1901 to 377.11 million in 2011.

The options are whole numbers. The census figure is 31.16%, which the key rounds to 31%.

Key facts

Census 2011 counted about 1.21 billion people in India.
833 million people (68.84%) lived in rural areas in 2011.
377 million people, about 31.16%, lived in urban areas in 2011.
India's urban population grew from 25.85 million in 1901 to 377.11 million in 2011.

Study next

Census 2011: sex ratio, literacy and densityCensus towns and statutory townsMost and least urbanised states in Census 2011

Common traps

Confusing the urban share with the rural share. Rural was 68.84%, urban 31.16%.
Answering from a later estimate. The question asks for Census 2011, not a current projection.

Census 2011 figures are also asked at 17 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.21 (the Union Territory with the highest slum population) and 24 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.12 (the most densely populated Union Territories).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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