SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 21 September 2025, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 22 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.

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.

Read the below statements marked as Assertion (A) and Reason (R). Mark the correct options: Assertion (A): The Global Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) rankings gave maximum weightage to starting a business. Reason (R): Starting a business was one of the 10 indicators considered.

(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 — D. A is false. Doing Business did not weight starting a business most. Each of its 10 topics was scored, and economies were ranked on the simple average of those scores, so every topic counted equally.

R is true. Starting a business was one of the 10 topics in the ranking.

A false, R true → option (d).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A. — A is false, so R cannot explain it. No topic got extra weight — the ranking was a simple average across all ten, starting a business included.
(b)
Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A. — Needs A to be true, and it is not. Starting a business carried the same weight as getting electricity, paying taxes and every other topic.
(c)
A is true, but R is false. — Reverses the truth. A is the false statement, and R — starting a business as one of the 10 indicators — is true.

Concept

The World Bank's Doing Business report ranked 190 economies on the rules a firm faces, across 10 topics.

Among them: starting a business, getting electricity, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.

The World Bank discontinued it in September 2021, after audits found irregularities in the data of the 2018 and 2020 reports.

India ranked 63rd of 190 in Doing Business 2020, the last edition, but 136th on starting a business alone. Each topic was scored separately, and the overall rank came from the average score.

Key facts

Doing Business ranked economies on the simple average of their scores across 10 topics, so each topic carried equal weight.
Starting a business was one of the 10 topics.
India ranked 63rd of 190 economies in Doing Business 2020, and 136th on starting a business.
The World Bank discontinued Doing Business in September 2021 after data irregularities in the 2018 and 2020 reports.

Study next

B-READY (Business Ready), the World Bank's successor to Doing BusinessIndia's Doing Business topic ranks, such as getting electricityThe employing-workers indicator, removed from the Doing Business ranking

Common traps

Assuming the first-listed topic carries the most weight — the ranking averaged all ten equally.
Accepting A because R is true — judge each statement on its own before asking whether R explains A.

Doing Business is also asked at 15 Sep 2025, 09:00, GA Q.20, an Assertion–Reason item on its exclusion of informal firms, keyed with R explaining A.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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