UPPSC 2025 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 42 of 150

Correct — C, A-3, B-4, C-2, D-1. The seventeen Sustainable Development Goals are numbered in a fixed order settled by the UN General Assembly in September 2015, so the question is pure recall of the first six: Goal 1 No Poverty, Goal 2 Zero Hunger, Goal 3 Good Health and Well-being, Goal 4 Quality Education, Goal 5 Gender Equality, Goal 6 Clean Water and Sanitation. Reading the lists off against that sequence: Goal 1 is 'to end poverty in all its forms everywhere', so A-3; Goal 3 is 'good health and well-being', so B-4; Goal 4 is 'quality education', so C-2; and Goal 6 is 'clean water and sanitation', so D-1. That combination — A-3, B-4, C-2, D-1 — is option (c).

• (a)A-4, B-3, C-1, D-2 — Every one of the four pairs is wrong, because both halves have been swapped. It puts good health at Goal 1 and poverty at Goal 3, then clean water at Goal 4 and quality education at Goal 6. Poverty is the opening goal of the 2030 Agenda and education comes before water in the list, so nothing here survives.
• (b)A-3, B-4, C-1, D-2 — This is the sharpest trap because it gets the harder half right — poverty at Goal 1 and health at Goal 3 — and then reverses the easier half, assigning clean water to Goal 4 and quality education to Goal 6. The order is the other way round: education is Goal 4 and water and sanitation is Goal 6.
• (d)A-4, B-3, C-2, D-1 — The mirror image of option (b). It correctly gives education to Goal 4 and clean water to Goal 6, but then swaps the first two, placing good health at Goal 1 and poverty at Goal 3. 'End poverty in all its forms everywhere' is Goal 1, the very first goal of the Agenda.

The Sustainable Development Goals are the seventeen goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations member states in September 2015 and in force from 1 January 2016. They succeeded the eight Millennium Development Goals of 2000-2015 and differ from them in two ways that examiners like: they are universal, applying to developed and developing countries alike rather than only to the developing world, and they are far broader, with 169 targets spanning the economic, social and environmental pillars together. They are politically, not legally, binding; progress is reported against a global indicator framework, and in India NITI Aayog is the nodal institution for implementation and publishes the SDG India Index.

This is a numbering question rather than a comprehension question — the marks turn entirely on remembering the order of the goals, so the efficient thing is to hold the first six as a ladder of basic human needs: poverty, hunger, health, education, gender, water. After that the list moves outward — energy (7), decent work (8), industry and infrastructure (9), inequality (10), cities (11), consumption (12), climate (13), oceans (14), land (15), peace and institutions (16), partnerships (17). Notice how the paper is split: option (b) fixes goals 1 and 3 and then reverses education and water, while option (d) fixes goals 4 and 6 and reverses poverty and health. Each is right on exactly half the pairs, so a candidate who checks only two pairs can land on either. Only (c) survives all four checks.

• The first six goals in order: SDG 1 No Poverty, SDG 2 Zero Hunger, SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being, SDG 4 Quality Education, SDG 5 Gender Equality, SDG 6 Clean Water and Sanitation
• 17 goals and 169 targets, adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2015 as the 2030 Agenda; effective from 1 January 2016 and to be achieved by 2030
• The SDGs replaced the eight Millennium Development Goals (2000-2015); unlike the MDGs they are universal, binding on rich and poor countries alike
• In India, NITI Aayog is the nodal institution for SDG implementation and brings out the SDG India Index, which ranks states and union territories
• Later goal numbers worth fixing for match-list questions: SDG 10 Reduced Inequalities, SDG 13 Climate Action, SDG 14 Life Below Water, SDG 15 Life on Land, SDG 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, SDG 17 Partnerships for the Goals

• Swapping Goal 4 (Quality Education) with Goal 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation) — the route into option (b)
• Placing 'No Poverty' anywhere other than Goal 1
• Confusing the number of goals (17) with the number of targets (169), or the UN's global indicator framework with India's National Indicator Framework

UPPSC asks the goal number directly — as a match-list like this one, as 'which SDG targets X', or as 'which of these is not an SDG'. UPSC prefers the framing question: who adopted the SDGs and when, by when they must be met, and how they differ from the Millennium Development Goals.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Sustainable Development Goal 5 of the 2030 Agenda relates to:

  • (a)Gender Equality
  • (b)Zero Hunger
  • (c)Decent Work and Economic Growth
  • (d)Reduced Inequalities

  Answer(a) Gender Equality — Zero Hunger is Goal 2, Decent Work and Economic Growth is Goal 8, and Reduced Inequalities is Goal 10.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following statements about the Sustainable Development Goals is correct?

  • (a)They were adopted in 2015 and are to be achieved by 2030
  • (b)They are eight in number and replaced the seventeen Millennium Development Goals
  • (c)They apply only to developing countries
  • (d)They are legally binding on every United Nations member state

  Answer(a) They were adopted in 2015 and are to be achieved by 2030 — there are 17 SDGs, they replaced the 8 MDGs, they apply universally, and they are politically rather than legally binding.