UKPSC Prelims 2024 Q97: Prior to Jyoti Aree, the record of oldest Indian woman to

Q: What is the answer to UKPSC Prelims 2024 Q97?

B. Correct — B, Sangeeta Bahl. The stem asks for the previous holder of one record: the oldest Indian woman to summit Mount Everest. Jyoti Ratre of Bhopal, printed in the paper as 'Jyoti Aree', took that record on 19 May 2024 at 55. The woman she displaced was **Sangeeta Bahl**, who summited on 19 May 2018 at 53. Bahl, born in Jammu, reached the top on her second attempt. She had in turn overtaken Premlata Agrawal, whose 2011 climb at 48 was the earlier mark. So the record's succession runs Agrawal, then Bahl, then Ratre. The idea to carry: **a 'prior to X' question wants the displaced record holder, not the new one**. Ratre's name in the stem is context; the mark goes to the person whose record she beat.

UKPSC Prelims 2024 General Studies Paper-I · Question 97 of 147

Verified against the official question booklet. Answer as per UKPSC's provisional answer key.

Answers from UKPSC's provisional answer key. The Commission publishes a provisional key for UKPSC Prelims 2024 and invites objections before issuing a final key. Every answer shown here is the Commission's own provisional answer (key PDF), not our derivation. If the final key changes an answer, this page is updated to match.

Prior to Jyoti Aree, the record of oldest Indian woman to scale Mount Everest was held by

(a)Piyali Basak
(b)Sangeeta Bahl
(c)Shefali Singh
(d)Kaamya

Answer

Why

Correct — B, Sangeeta Bahl.

The stem asks for the previous holder of one record: the oldest Indian woman to summit Mount Everest.

Jyoti Ratre of Bhopal, printed in the paper as 'Jyoti Aree', took that record on 19 May 2024 at 55. The woman she displaced was Sangeeta Bahl, who summited on 19 May 2018 at 53.

Bahl, born in Jammu, reached the top on her second attempt. She had in turn overtaken Premlata Agrawal, whose 2011 climb at 48 was the earlier mark. So the record's succession runs Agrawal, then Bahl, then Ratre.

The idea to carry: a 'prior to X' question wants the displaced record holder, not the new one. Ratre's name in the stem is context; the mark goes to the person whose record she beat.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Piyali Basak — Piyali Basak of West Bengal summited Everest in 2022, but her distinction lies elsewhere. She is known for attempting and climbing 8,000-metre peaks without bottled oxygen, Dhaulagiri among them, and was airlifted off Makalu in May 2023 after such an attempt.
The oldest-Indian-woman record passed from Bahl in 2018 directly to Ratre in 2024; Basak's 2022 climb sits between them without touching it.
(c)
Shefali Singh — The reported succession of this record is Premlata Agrawal (2011, at 48), Sangeeta Bahl (2018, at 53) and Jyoti Ratre (2024, at 55). This name is not one of those three, so it is eliminated on the lineage alone.
Fix the Agrawal, Bahl, Ratre chain in memory and an unfamiliar name in the options falls away without a second look.
(d)
Kaamya — Kaamya Karthikeyan is the other Everest headline of the same week, which is the hazard: she summited on 20 May 2024 at 16, a day after Ratre. She is the right answer to the youngest Indian to climb Everest from the Nepal side, the opposite end of the age scale.
She went on to finish the Seven Summits on Mount Vinson in December 2024. Her name belongs to a youngest record, not to the oldest one the stem asks about.

Concept

Mountaineering records are tracked as chains: each holder is defined by whom they displaced and by who later displaces them. An 'oldest' or 'youngest' record is tied to age at the summit and can be overtaken; a 'first' record (first from a state, first without oxygen) is permanent once set.

A question can ask for any link in the chain, so learn the predecessor and successor together rather than the latest name alone.

Everest ascents by Indian women generate a steady flow of distinctions: firsts, youngest, oldest, and ascents without bottled oxygen. Spring 2024 produced two age records within a day of each other, Ratre's oldest on 19 May and Kaamya's youngest from the Nepal side on 20 May.

This paper asked about the event in the same year it happened, and framed it backwards, by naming the new holder and asking for the old one.

Key facts

Jyoti Ratre of Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, summited Everest on 19 May 2024 at 55, becoming the oldest Indian woman to do so.
Sangeeta Sindhi Bahl, born in Jammu, summited on 19 May 2018 at 53, on her second attempt, and held the record until 2024.
Bahl is also described as the first woman from Jammu and Kashmir to climb Everest.
Before Bahl, Premlata Agrawal held the oldest-Indian-woman mark, summiting on 20 May 2011 at 48.
Premlata Agrawal was the first Indian woman to complete the Seven Summits, finishing in 2013, and received the Padma Shri that year.
Ratre's first Everest attempt, in May 2023, ended above 8,100 m in bad weather; she returned the next season and summited.
Kaamya Karthikeyan summited on 20 May 2024 at 16, the youngest Indian to climb Everest from the Nepal side; her father is an Indian Navy commander.
Kaamya completed the Seven Summits on Mount Vinson, Antarctica, in December 2024.
Piyali Basak of West Bengal summited Everest in 2022 and is known for no-oxygen climbs of 8,000-metre peaks, including Dhaulagiri.

Oldest Indian woman on Everest: the record chain

Premlata Agrawal — 20 May 2011, aged 48→Displaced by Bahl in 2018

Sangeeta Bahl — 19 May 2018, aged 53→Displaced by Ratre in 2024 — the answer

Jyoti Ratre — 19 May 2024, aged 55→Holder named in the stem

Kaamya Karthikeyan — 20 May 2024, aged 16→Youngest Indian, Nepal side — a different record

Piyali Basak — Everest 2022→No-oxygen climber — a different distinction

The stem asks for the link before Ratre, which is Sangeeta Bahl. Kaamya and Basak hold other kinds of distinction, and the fourth name is outside the chain.

Study next

Bachendri Pal, the first Indian woman to summit Everest (23 May 1984)Malavath Poorna, who summited Everest in 2014 at 13 from the Tibet sideIndian women who have completed the Seven SummitsPriyanka Mohite, the first Indian woman to climb Annapurna (2021)Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, Uttarkashi, and Uttarakhand's mountaineering institutions

Common traps

Reading 'prior to' as 'after' and picking the newest name in the news, Kaamya, who set the youngest-from-Nepal-side record the day after Ratre.
Treating Piyali Basak's oxygen-free fame as an age record; her distinction is the style of ascent, not her age at the summit.
Stopping at 'oldest Indian woman = Ratre' without learning whom she displaced; the stem gives Ratre and asks for Bahl.
Confusing Sangeeta Bahl (2018, at 53) with Premlata Agrawal (2011, at 48), the holder one step further back in the chain.

The record is framed as a chain, and the question chooses a link: who holds it now, who held it before, or by what margin it moved. Here the stem supplies the current holder and asks for the predecessor.

The same idea can be asked with the roles reversed, the predecessor given and the successor asked, or with the ages and dates moved into the options.

Related PYQs

UKPSC_2021_PRE_GSI_Q1052021

Same genre in the same paper series: an Indian woman's mountaineering distinction asked as a single name. It differs in kind: a permanent 'first' on Annapurna (Priyanka Mohite, 2021) rather than an overtakable age record on Everest, and it asks for the holder, not the predecessor.

UPSC_2005_GS1_Q442005

Also an Everest age record held by an Indian woman: Dicky Dolma as the youngest woman to climb Everest, from her 1993 ascent. It differs in being a youngest rather than oldest mark, a world rather than Indian record, and a match-the-lists item rather than a single name.

UPSC_2004_GS1_Q1382004

Same question device, different field: the current record holder is named and the question asks who held the record immediately before. That one is Test cricket's highest innings score; this one is an Everest age record, but the reasoning step, work back one link in the chain, is identical.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Jyoti Ratre, who in May 2024 became the oldest Indian woman to summit Mount Everest, belongs to which State?
- (a)Uttarakhand
- (b)Madhya Pradesh
- (c)Jammu and Kashmir
- (d)West Bengal
Answerb — Ratre is from Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.
Uttarakhand is the exam's home state and hosts mountaineering institutions but is not hers. Jammu and Kashmir is Sangeeta Bahl's origin, and West Bengal is Piyali Basak's, so each wrong option borrows a state from another climber in this story.
practice — not a real PYQ
Consider the following statements about Sangeeta Bahl: 1. She summited Mount Everest in 2018 at the age of 53. 2. She was the first woman from Jammu and Kashmir to climb Mount Everest. 3. The record she set was broken in 2024 by Kaamya Karthikeyan. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a)1 and 2 only
- (b)2 and 3 only
- (c)1 and 3 only
- (d)1, 2 and 3
Answera — Statements 1 and 2 are correct: Bahl summited on 19 May 2018 at 53 and is described as the first woman from Jammu and Kashmir to climb Everest.
Statement 3 is wrong because her oldest-Indian-woman record was broken by Jyoti Ratre, at 55, on 19 May 2024; Kaamya Karthikeyan set a youngest record the next day. Options b, c and d each include statement 3.
practice — not a real PYQ
Arrange the following Indian women in chronological order of their first Mount Everest summit: 1. Premlata Agrawal 2. Jyoti Ratre 3. Sangeeta Bahl 4. Bachendri Pal Select the correct answer using the codes given below.
- (a)4, 1, 3, 2
- (b)1, 4, 3, 2
- (c)4, 3, 1, 2
- (d)1, 3, 4, 2
Answera — Bachendri Pal summited in 1984, Premlata Agrawal in 2011, Sangeeta Bahl in 2018 and Jyoti Ratre in 2024. Options b and d place Agrawal (2011) before Pal (1984); option c places Bahl (2018) before Agrawal (2011).
practice — not a real PYQ
Kaamya Karthikeyan, who was in the news in May 2024, is known for which of the following?
- (a)Becoming the oldest Indian woman to summit Mount Everest
- (b)Climbing Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen
- (c)Becoming the youngest Indian to climb Mount Everest from the Nepal side
- (d)Becoming the first Indian woman to climb Mount Annapurna
Answerc — Kaamya summited on 20 May 2024 at 16 and was reported as the youngest Indian to climb Everest from the Nepal side.
Option a is Jyoti Ratre's record (19 May 2024). Option b describes the no-oxygen style Piyali Basak is known for. Option d is Priyanka Mohite, who climbed Annapurna in 2021.