SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 23 September 2025, Shift 3 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 14 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.

Find the ODD one out. K2, Kangchenjunga, Nanda Devi, Doddabetta, Nanga Parbat

(a)K2
(b)Nanda Devi
(c)Kangchenjunga
(d)Doddabetta

Answer

Why

Correct — D.
Rule: four of the five names are great peaks of the Himalaya–Karakoram in the far north.

K2 (8,611 m), Kangchenjunga (8,586 m), Nanga Parbat (8,126 m) and Nanda Devi (7,816 m) all stand in that mountain wall.

Doddabetta is the highest point of the Nilgiri Hills in Tamil Nadu, at about 2,637 m. It lies outside the Himalaya–Karakoram and is more than 5,000 m lower than any of the four → option (d).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
K2 — K2 (8,611 m) is the highest peak of the Karakoram and the second-highest mountain on Earth. It belongs to the high northern group with Kangchenjunga and Nanga Parbat.
(b)
Nanda Devi — Nanda Devi (7,816 m) is a Himalayan peak in Uttarakhand. Falling short of 8,000 m does not set it apart: Doddabetta is over 5,000 m lower and not Himalayan at all.
(c)
Kangchenjunga — Kangchenjunga (8,586 m), on the Sikkim–Nepal border, is the third-highest mountain on Earth. It is a Himalayan giant, the same class as K2 and Nanga Parbat.

Concept

An odd-one-out list of names is a classification item: find the category that holds all but one. Here the category is geographical, so the rule comes from knowing where each peak stands.

K2 is in the Karakoram, Nanga Parbat at the western end of the Himalaya, Nanda Devi in Uttarakhand and Kangchenjunga on the Sikkim–Nepal border. Doddabetta is in the Nilgiris of peninsular India.

Nanga Parbat is named in the list but not offered as an option. It belongs to the northern group, so it changes nothing about the answer.

Key facts

Doddabetta, about 2,637 m, is the highest peak of the Nilgiri Hills in Tamil Nadu.
K2, 8,611 m, is the highest peak of the Karakoram and the second-highest mountain on Earth.
Kangchenjunga, 8,586 m, on the Sikkim–Nepal border, is the third-highest mountain on Earth.
Nanda Devi, 7,816 m, stands in the Himalaya of Uttarakhand.

Study next

Peaks of peninsular India and the hill ranges that hold themHimalayan and Karakoram peaks with their states or bordersOdd-one-out items built on a geographical category, such as cities by state

Common traps

Picking Nanda Devi because it is the one giant under 8,000 m, when Doddabetta is not Himalayan at all.
Picking K2 because it stands in the Karakoram rather than the Himalaya proper, when Doddabetta is far outside both.

26 Sep 2025, 12:30, Reasoning Q.8 uses the same five-name format — Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Jaipur, Agra — and keys Jaipur, the city outside Uttar Pradesh.

20 Sep 2025, 09:00, Reasoning Q.9 keys Brazil against Asia, Europe, Africa and Australia: a country among continents.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Semantic Classification — all 59 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.