SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 17 September 2025, Shift 3 · General Awareness · Question 17 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 11 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 Swiss-based business school is known for publishing the annual World Competitiveness Index?

(a)University of Geneva School
(b)IMD Business School
(c)ETH Zurich Institute
(d)University of St. Gallen

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The ranking the stem calls the World Competitiveness Index is the IMD World Competitiveness Ranking, produced by the IMD World Competitiveness Center.

IMD is a business school in Lausanne, Switzerland, which makes it the Swiss business school the question wants: option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
University of Geneva School — Wrong city, wrong institution. The University of Geneva is Swiss, but the World Competitiveness Ranking comes from IMD's World Competitiveness Center in Lausanne.
(c)
ETH Zurich Institute — ETH Zurich's index is a different one. Its KOF institute is behind the KOF Globalisation Index. The competitiveness ranking belongs to IMD.
(d)
University of St. Gallen — Right country, wrong school. The University of St. Gallen is a Swiss university, but the World Competitiveness Ranking is produced by IMD in Lausanne.

Concept

The IMD World Competitiveness Ranking scores economies on four factors: Economic Performance, Government Efficiency, Business Efficiency and Infrastructure.

It combines hard statistical data with an executive opinion survey, and it is published each year in IMD's World Competitiveness Yearbook.

Do not confuse it with the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report.

The stem's title is loose. IMD calls its product the World Competitiveness Ranking, and the word 'Index' in the stem does not point to a different product or publisher.

Key facts

The IMD World Competitiveness Ranking is produced by the IMD World Competitiveness Center.
IMD is a business school in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The ranking has four factors: Economic Performance, Government Efficiency, Business Efficiency and Infrastructure.
The KOF Globalisation Index comes from the KOF institute at ETH Zurich.

Study next

Global indices and their publishers, such as the Global Energy Transition Index of the World Economic ForumThe four factors of the IMD ranking and India's place in itThe KOF Globalisation Index and what it measures

Common traps

Mixing IMD's ranking with the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report: they are different publishers.
Picking ETH Zurich because it does publish an index: that one is the KOF Globalisation Index.

The same ranking is asked at 12 Sep 2025, 16:00, GA Q.21, which tests Switzerland's first place in Infrastructure. Index publishers are also tested at 14 Sep 2025, 09:00, GA Q.20, where the Global Energy Transition Index is the World Economic Forum's.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Economic Scene — all 92 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.