SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 19 September 2025, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 18 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.

What is the main reason for the decline in core inflation across most countries in 2024?

(a)Fall in service sector productivity
(b)Decrease in export demand
(c)Drop in international commodity prices
(d)Increase in fiscal deficit

Answer

Why

Correct — C. The UN's World Economic Situation and Prospects 2025 reports that inflation 'has continued to decline across most countries and regions in 2024'.

It attributes the decline to easing labour market pressures and moderating international food, energy, and commodity prices.

Commodity prices are set on world markets, so a fall reaches many economies at once. That is the drop in international commodity prices → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Fall in service sector productivity — Services kept inflation up in 2024. The UN report found core inflation in developed economies sticky because of services prices, and a fall in productivity would raise the cost of each unit of output.
(b)
Decrease in export demand — Export demand is not among the causes the UN report gives. It attributes the 2024 decline to easing labour market pressures and moderating international food and energy commodity prices.
(d)
Increase in fiscal deficit — A bigger fiscal deficit adds to demand, which pushes prices up. It works against a decline in inflation, not for one.

Concept

Headline inflation tracks the whole consumer basket. Core inflation strips out the volatile food and energy items to show the underlying trend. The RBI reports India's core as CPI excluding food and fuel.

Commodity prices hit headline inflation directly, through fuel and food. They reach core inflation more slowly, through input and transport costs that firms pass on in the prices of other goods and services.

The stem says core, but the UN report's 2024 explanation is for inflation overall. On core itself it is blunter: in developed economies core inflation stayed sticky and fell slowly, held up by services such as housing.

Read the key as the best of the four options, not as a full account of core inflation.

Key facts

Core inflation is headline inflation excluding the volatile food and energy items (food and fuel, in India's CPI).
UN WESP 2025: global headline inflation fell from 5.6% in 2023 to an estimated 4.0% in 2024.
WESP 2025 projects global inflation to ease further to 3.4% in 2025.
WESP 2025 found core inflation in developed economies sticky in 2024, held up by services prices.

Study next

Headline and core inflation in India's CPIFlexible inflation targeting: the 4% CPI target with a band of 2% to 6%Demand-pull and cost-push inflation

Common traps

Treating core and headline inflation as one measure: core leaves out food and energy.
Reading a fiscal deficit or a productivity fall as disinflationary: both push prices up.

Inflation policy appears at 23 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.14, which asks the year the RBI Act amendment introduced flexible inflation targeting, keyed 2016.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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