SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 16 September 2025, Shift 3 · General Awareness · Question 2 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.

Which of the following is a typical architectural feature of the Capuchin Church?

(a)Ornate spires and domes
(b)Complex traceried rose windows
(c)Flat arched entrance with pediment
(d)Multi-storey shikhara tower

Answer

Why

Correct — C. The Capuchins are a reform of the Franciscan order that dates from 1525. They sought to re-establish Franciscan life in the spirit of the earliest Franciscan tradition, and poverty ruled even their buildings.

Their first constitutions, drawn up at Albacina in 1529, asked that houses be built, if possible, of mud and wattles, and that churches be 'of more becoming structure, yet small and narrow'.

A plain arched doorway under a simple pediment fits that restraint. Ornate spires, Gothic tracery and a temple tower do not → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Ornate spires and domes — Ornate is the word that fails. The order's own constitutions asked for churches that were small and narrow, the opposite of decorated spires and domes.
(b)
Complex traceried rose windows — Traceried rose windows are the showpiece of Gothic cathedrals such as Notre-Dame de Paris. Complex stone tracery is costly ornament, which sits badly with a rule of small, narrow churches.
(d)
Multi-storey shikhara tower — A shikhara is the tower over the sanctum of a north Indian Hindu temple. It belongs to temple architecture, not to a Christian church of any order.

Concept

The Order of Friars Minor Capuchin grew out of a reform within the Franciscans that dates from 1525. The friars sought to re-establish Franciscan life in the spirit and letter of the earliest Franciscan tradition.

Poverty shaped their buildings. The constitutions drawn up at the chapter of Albacina (1529) asked for houses of mud and wattles where possible, and churches 'of more becoming structure, yet small and narrow'.

The rule describes restraint: small scale, little ornament, humble materials.

The question names no particular church, and the sources checked here, including the Albacina constitutions, prescribe small and narrow churches rather than a pediment. Read the key as the plainest of the four features, the one consistent with that rule.

Key facts

The Capuchin reform of the Franciscan order dates from 1525.
The first Capuchin constitutions were drawn up at the chapter of Albacina in 1529.
Those constitutions asked for churches 'of more becoming structure, yet small and narrow'.
Rose windows with stone tracery are a hallmark of Gothic church architecture.

Study next

Gothic features: pointed arch, rib vault, flying buttress and rose windowChurch architecture in India, such as the churches and convents of GoaNagara, Dravida and Vesara temple styles and the shikhara

Common traps

Choosing a grand feature because the word Church suggests a cathedral. Capuchin churches were built to a rule of poverty.
Mixing traditions. A shikhara belongs to Hindu temples, and tracery to Gothic cathedrals.

Here one feature of a named building is set against features borrowed from Gothic cathedrals and Hindu temples. Church architecture is also asked at 17 Sep 2025, 12:30, GA Q.1 (Notre Dame des Anges, Puducherry).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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