SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 20 September 2025, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 3 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.

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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.

Which of the following best captures the key rituals and symbolism of the Nocte tribe's Loku festival?

(a)"Famlam" involves omen-reading by elders to determine jhum plots before the buffalo slaughter begins.
(b)"Chamkatja" includes prayers at Chaatam, Chamwangbong dance, and gunfire at the chief’s house.
(c)"Thanglangja" features forest bonfires, rice-beer offerings, and blank firing by women elders.
(d)"Loku" derives from "Rang-Ku" meaning prosperity and is fixed by diviners on a lunar eclipse night.

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The Tirap district administration's account of Chalo Loku names the second day Chamkatja.

That day everyone goes to Chaatam, on the outskirts of the village, where the chief leads prayers for the people's well-being and a better harvest.

After the meal they dance to the chief's house and fire blanks from their guns on arrival. That dance is the Chamwangbong.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
"Famlam" involves omen-reading by elders to determine jhum plots before the buffalo slaughter begins. — Famlam is the first day: collecting supplies, slaughtering buffaloes and pigs, making rice beer. The elders' omen-reading to choose jhum plots comes on the third day, Thanglangja.
(c)
"Thanglangja" features forest bonfires, rice-beer offerings, and blank firing by women elders. — Thanglangja, the third day, is when the elders and the chief break eggs to read omens and pick jhum plots. The blank firing happens on the second day, at the chief's house.
(d)
"Loku" derives from "Rang-Ku" meaning prosperity and is fixed by diviners on a lunar eclipse night. — The district's account derives Loku from Lofe (to drive out) and Rang-Ku (season): driving out the old season, not prosperity. The date is fixed by the village elders based on the waxing moon, not by diviners on an eclipse night.

Concept

The Nocte are a tribe of Arunachal Pradesh's Tirap district, and Chalo Loku is their festival for driving out the old season.

The district's account runs it over three days: Famlam for preparations and the slaughter of buffaloes and pigs, Chamkatja for prayers at Chaatam and the Chamwangbong dance, and Thanglangja for the egg omen that picks the year's jhum plots.

Three of the four statements open with a real day of the festival. What fails in the rejected ones is the ritual attached to the day, so learn the festival as a sequence: preparation, prayer and dance, omen.

Key facts

The Nocte tribe of Tirap district, Arunachal Pradesh, celebrates Chalo Loku.
Loku comes from Lofe (to drive out) and Rang-Ku (season): to drive out the old season.
Its three days are Famlam (preparation), Chamkatja (prayer at Chaatam and the Chamwangbong dance) and Thanglangja (egg omen for jhum plots).
Some villages hold it in July or August, others in October or November after the Ahu paddy harvest.

Study next

Festivals of other Arunachal tribes, such as the Tutsa's PongtuJhum (shifting) cultivation in the North-EastMajor tribes of Arunachal Pradesh and their districts

Common traps

Matching a statement by its familiar day-name alone. The ritual attached to the day is what has to fit.
Assuming the omen-reading comes before the slaughter. In the Tirap account it comes on the third and last day, after the slaughter on the first.

Each option here pairs a festival day with rituals, and the pairing decides it. An Arunachal tribal festival also appears at 12 Sep 2025, 16:00, GA Q.3 (the Tutsa tribe's Pongtu), and the same rituals-and-symbolism frame at 16 Sep 2025, 09:00, GA Q.2 (the Fagli festival of Pattan Valley).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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