SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 24 September 2025, Shift 2 · General Awareness · Question 4 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.

The Pola festival, celebrated in the Balaghat district of Madhya Pradesh, is dedicated to which of the following?

(a)Cow worship
(b)Rain prayer
(c)Bull worship
(d)Harvest sale

Answer

Why

Correct — C. Pola is the farmers' festival of the bull. Bulls and oxen, the animals that work the fields, are washed, oiled and decorated, their horns are coloured, and they are not worked that day.

It falls on Pithori Amavasya, the new-moon day of Shravana, and is kept in Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Cow worship — Pola honours the bull, the draught animal, not the cow. Cow-and-calf worship belongs to other days, such as Vasu Baras at the start of Diwali in Maharashtra.
(b)
Rain prayer — Pola falls on the new moon of Shravana, in the middle of the monsoon, when the rains have already come. It honours the bulls; it is not a prayer for rain.
(d)
Harvest sale — No sale is involved. The day belongs to the bulls, which are rested, decorated and walked in procession through the village.

Concept

Many farm festivals honour the animals farming depends on. Pola is the one for the bull, which pulls the plough and the cart.

It is celebrated in Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, Balaghat included, on Pithori Amavasya, the new moon of Shravana, in August or September.

Key facts

Pola honours bulls and oxen, the draught animals of farming.
It falls on Pithori Amavasya, the new-moon day of Shravana, in August or September.
It is celebrated in Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.
On Pola the bulls are washed, decorated and not put to work.

Study next

Harvest and farm festivals by state: Pongal, Bihu, Nuakhai, LohriFestivals of Chhattisgarh and Madhya PradeshMattu Pongal: cattle worship in Tamil Nadu

Common traps

Reading 'cattle' as 'cow'. Pola's animal is the bull, the one that pulls the plough.
Reading a monsoon date as a rain prayer. Pola falls after the rains have begun, and it honours the bulls.

Regional festivals are asked by their purpose in the same way at 17 Sep 2025, 12:30, GA Q.2 (Uttarakhand's Bissu Mela, keyed as a Jaunsari harvest fair in Chakrata).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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