SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 18 September 2025, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 11 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.

Which of the following pairs is correctly matched with reference to limestone cave formations?

(a)Stalactite – Rises from cave floor
(b)Stalagmite – Hangs from cave roof
(c)Pillar – Formed by union of stalactite and stalagmite
(d)Stalagmite – Formed by water falling from floor

Answer

Why

Correct — C. Water dripping into a limestone cave deposits calcium carbonate at both ends of its fall.

The deposit hanging from the roof is a stalactite. The one rising from the floor, where the drops land, is a stalagmite.

When the two grow long enough to meet, they form a pillar (column): option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Stalactite – Rises from cave floor — Reversed. A stalactite hangs from the roof; it is the stalagmite that rises from the floor.
(b)
Stalagmite – Hangs from cave roof — Reversed again. A stalagmite rises from the floor; the formation hanging from the roof is the stalactite.
(d)
Stalagmite – Formed by water falling from floor — Water does not fall from the floor. A stalagmite builds up where water dripping from the roof lands on the floor.

Concept

Rainwater carrying carbon dioxide dissolves limestone (calcium carbonate), and groundwater hollows out caves this way.

Where that water drips back into a cave and gives up carbon dioxide, the carbonate is deposited again. Drips build stalactites down from the roof and stalagmites up from the floor, and the two can fuse into pillars.

These are depositional features of karst topography.

Key facts

Stalactite: hangs from the cave roof.
Stalagmite: rises from the cave floor where the drips land.
Pillar or column: a stalactite and a stalagmite joined.
Karst topography is named after the Karst region of the Balkans, beside the Adriatic Sea.

Study next

Erosional karst landforms: sinkholes, swallow holes and uvalasLimestone caves in India, such as the Borra Caves in Andhra Pradesh

Common traps

Swapping the two names. StalaCtite holds to the Ceiling, stalaGmite grows from the Ground.
Reading 'formed by water' as water rising from the floor. The drip falls from the roof.

Here the formations are tested as matched pairs, where each wrong pair either swaps roof and floor or reverses the drip.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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