SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 17 September 2025, Shift 2 · General Awareness · Question 20 of 99

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.

Read the below statements marked as Assertion (A) and Reason (R). Mark the correct options: Assertion (A): Human Development Index (HDI) in India improved significantly post-2010. Reason (R): The methodology was revised globally to include inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (HDI).

(a)Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A.
(b)Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A.
(c)A is true, but R is false.
(d)A is false, but R is true.

Answer

Why

Correct — B. A is true. UNDP's series puts India's HDI at 0.590 in 2010 and 0.685 in 2023 (Human Development Report 2025).

R is true as a description of the 2010 Human Development Report, which revised the HDI's method and introduced the inequality-adjusted HDI (IHDI).

R does not explain A. The IHDI is a separate index that discounts the HDI for inequality, so it cannot lift India's HDI. The HDI rises through its components: life expectancy, schooling and income. So option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A. — A change of method cannot explain a real rise. The IHDI sits beside the HDI and only discounts it for inequality, so R gives no reason why India's HDI went up.
(c)
A is true, but R is false. — R is true: the 2010 Human Development Report did revise the HDI's method and introduced the IHDI. Marking R false misreads a documented change.
(d)
A is false, but R is true. — A is true: on UNDP's own series India's HDI rose from 0.590 in 2010 to 0.685 in 2023, so 'A is false' cannot stand.

Concept

The Human Development Index combines three dimensions: a long and healthy life (life expectancy at birth), knowledge (mean and expected years of schooling) and a decent standard of living (GNI per capita, PPP).

The 2010 report changed the method: schooling years replaced literacy and enrolment, GNI replaced GDP, and the three indices are now combined by a geometric mean.

It also launched the IHDI, the HDI discounted for inequality in each dimension.

R is loosely worded: the IHDI was added beside the HDI, not built into it. The key still reads R as true, as a description of the 2010 revision.

Key facts

HDI dimensions: life expectancy at birth, mean and expected years of schooling, and GNI per capita (PPP).
The 2010 Human Development Report introduced the inequality-adjusted HDI (IHDI) and a new method for the HDI.
Since 2010 the HDI is the geometric mean of its three dimension indices.
Human Development Report 2025: India's HDI is 0.685 for 2023, rank 130.

Study next

Gender Inequality Index and Multidimensional Poverty IndexWhy a geometric mean penalises uneven progress across the HDI's dimensionsIndia's position in the Human Development Report 2025

Common traps

Linking a new formula to a rising score, when UNDP publishes India's HDI as one consistent series from 1990.
Marking R false because the IHDI is a separate index, when the key reads R as a description of the 2010 revision.

Here the Assertion-Reason frame pairs two true statements that are not cause and effect.

The HDI's workings are also asked at 20 Sep 2025, 12:30, GA Q.20 (whether it can rise while income falls, keyed (a)) and Tier-II Paper-I, 19 Jan 2026, 11:00, GA Q.13 (the knowledge indicators, keyed mean and expected years of schooling).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Economic Scene — all 144 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.