Syllabus head (i) — General Knowledge including contemporary social, economic and cultural issues | Chapter 9 of 18
55questions, every one explained
9items in the 2022 paper drew on this chapter
Why this chapter matters
The previous (2022) CRT paper for these posts carried around 20 General Knowledge questions, and their character was unmistakable: overwhelmingly education-sector current affairs — flagship reports, central schemes, education budget lines, days and themes — plus a small tail of static polity (national flag, constitutional offices, Union Territories). Very little "random" GK appeared.
Feature of the GK block
What it means for you
~20 questions × 2.5 marks
~50 marks — often the gap between selection and rejection
Education-flavoured, not general
ASER, NAS/PARAKH, UDISE+, PM SHRI, budget — not sports and cinema
Some static polity
Flag Code, Vice-President, Attorney-General, UTs, Article 239AA
Pure recall, zero calculation
Fastest questions in the paper — bank time here for Pedagogy and Reasoning
A candidate who controls this chapter answers the GK block in under fifteen minutes with high accuracy. A candidate who does not, guesses — and with −1/3 negative marking, guessing bleeds marks.
Three questions from this chapter, solved
Every one of the 55 items is written this way — the answer, and why each wrong option is wrong.
Consider the following statements about the Government e-Marketplace (GeM), which completed ten years in August 2026:
GeM was launched on 9 August 2016.
Its cumulative Gross Merchandise Value has crossed ₹20 lakh crore.
The number of registered sellers has grown from a few thousand in 2016 to about 25.45 lakh.
The transaction charge was raised from 0.30% to 0.50% in 2026.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
(a) 1 and 4 only
(b) 2, 3 and 4 only
(c) 1, 2 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2, 3 and 4
Answer (c).
★ 1, 2 and 3 are correct. GeM launched on 9 August 2016; PIB's ten-year release puts cumulative GMV at over ₹20 lakh crore, cumulative orders above 3.78 crore, sellers at about 25.45 lakh (from 3,339 in 2016) and buyer organisations at about 1.37 lakh (from 1,707). Statement 4 reverses the change — the transaction charge was cut from 0.50% to 0.30%, with orders up to ₹10 lakh exempted altogether. Note also that press coverage of the same event quoted a "₹1.55 lakh crore in a decade" figure that contradicts PIB's own cumulative number; the figures here are PIB's, and reported totals vary with what is being counted. Re-verify in the October pass — these counters rise monthly.
With reference to PGI-D 2025-26 and PGI 2.0 (States/UTs) 2025-26, consider the following statements:
Barnala was again the top-scoring district, with 462 points.
Chandigarh was the only State/UT to attain the Uttam-3 grade.
Both indices score their units out of 600 points.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 1 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer (a).
1 and 2 only. Barnala topped again with 462, and Chandigarh (766) was the only State/UT in Uttam-3. Statement 3 is the trap — PGI-D scores districts out of 600; PGI 2.0 scores States/UTs out of 1,000. The two reports are released together each July, which is exactly why the examiner can swap them.
With reference to the Vice-President of India, consider the following statements:
The electoral college consists of members of both Houses of Parliament, including nominated members.
Elected members of State Legislative Assemblies also vote in this election.
The Vice-President's resignation is addressed to the President.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
(a) 1 and 3 only
(b) 1 and 2 only
(c) 2 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer (a).
Statements 1 and 3 are correct: all MPs including nominated members elect the VP (proportional representation by single transferable vote), and the VP resigns to the President. Statement 2 imports the President's electoral college — State MLAs have no role in a Vice-Presidential election.
THE FLAGSHIP REPORTS: FOUR DOCUMENTS THAT SUPPLY HALF THE GK QUESTIONS
India's school-education debate runs on four recurring data sources. Examiners love them because each has a publisher, a year, and two or three headline numbers — perfect raw material for matching questions. Fix this orientation table first.
Report
Who publishes it
What it measures
Latest edition (Aug 2026)
ASER
Pratham (an NGO — not government)
Household survey of rural children's schooling status and basic reading/arithmetic
ASER 2024 (released January 2025); ASER 2026 fieldwork upcoming ★
PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan (formerly NAS)
PARAKH / NCERT under Ministry of Education
School-based achievement survey of learning outcomes
PARAKH RS 2024 (conducted Dec 2024; results July 2025)
PGI-D
Department of School Education & Literacy (DoSEL), Ministry of Education
Composite grading of districts' school-education performance (600 points)
PGI-D 2023-24 (June 2025); newer editions since ★ (see A.3)
UDISE+
DoSEL, Ministry of Education
Administrative census of all schools — enrolment, teachers, infrastructure
UDISE+ 2025-26 (released 7 July 2026) ★
Trap: ASER is the odd one out twice over — it is published by an NGO (Pratham), and it is a household survey (children are tested at home, in rural districts), while NAS/PARAKH RS and UDISE+ are school-based government exercises. The 2022-style paper tests exactly this distinction.
A.1 ASER 2024 — the Annual Status of Education Report
What it is. ASER (Annual Status of Education Report) is a citizen-led household survey run by the NGO Pratham since 2005. Local volunteers visit rural households and test children one-to-one on basic reading (can a child read a Std II-level text?) and basic arithmetic (recognition, subtraction, division). Because it is household-based, it captures out-of-school children too. The "Basic" nationwide round now comes every alternate year — hence ASER 2024, released on 28 January 2025, is the latest full rural round as of August 2026; the next Basic round (ASER 2026) has its fieldwork upcoming ★.
Coverage — memorise the trio.
ASER 2024 coverage
Number
Children surveyed (ages 3–16)
6,49,491 (649,491)
Villages
17,997
Rural districts
605
Headline findings.
Finding
Number
Why it made news
Std III children (government schools) who can read a Std II-level text
16.3% (2022) → 23.4% (2024)
Highest ever recorded by ASER — a post-COVID recovery that crossed pre-pandemic levels; widely credited to the FLN/NIPUN push
Enrolment, ages 6–14
Above 97%
Near-universal enrolment holds; India's problem is learning, not access
First-ever digital-literacy section (ages 14–16)
~90% have a smartphone at home
New section in 2024; most teens can use a smartphone, far fewer use it for study
Underage children (below six) sitting in Std I
16.7% — record low
Signals growing compliance with the NEP 2020 age-six norm for Class 1
Basic arithmetic (Std III)
Also improved to record levels
Same recovery story as reading
Trap: The famous 16.3% → 23.4% jump is for government-school Std III children reading a Std II text. Options that attach this number to Std V, to arithmetic, or to private schools are distractors.
A.2 PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan 2024 — the renamed NAS
What it is. The government's own large-scale learning survey was called the National Achievement Survey (NAS) — last held in 2017 and 2021. From the 2024 round it stands renamed as PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan, run by PARAKH (Performance Assessment, Review and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development) — the national assessment centre set up under NCERT in 2023 on the mandate of NEP 2020.
The 2024 round. Conducted in a single day, 4 December 2024; results released in July 2025.
PARAKH RS 2024
Number
Students assessed
21.15 lakh
Grades tested
3, 6 and 9 (the first grades of the NEP preparatory, middle and secondary stages — i.e. just after the foundational, preparatory and middle stages end)
Schools
74,229
Districts
781 (all 36 States/UTs)
Why you will also meet 75,565 / 22,94,377
Both sets are PARAKH's own, and neither is wrong. 74,229 schools · 21.15 lakh students · 781 districts is the results report (July 2025) — the analysed sample, and the set to quote in an answer. 75,565 schools · 22,94,377 students counts every school and student engaged in the exercise. The pre-survey PIB estimate was larger still: about 88,000 schools and 23 lakh students across 782 districts
What was tested. Grade 3: Language and Mathematics. Grade 6: Language, Mathematics and "The World Around Us". Grade 9: Language, Mathematics, Science and Social Science.
Headline findings.
The foundational stage performed comparatively well — attributed to the NIPUN Bharat FLN mission by Indrani Bhaduri, CEO of PARAKH ("the NIPUN effect").
Performance declines as grades rise, with the sharpest deficits in Mathematics and Science in the higher grades (Grade 9 especially).
Trap: NAS 2021 tested Grades 3, 5, 8 and 10; PARAKH RS 2024 tested Grades 3, 6 and 9. A question that quietly swaps these grade lists is testing whether you know the survey was redesigned around NEP stages, not just renamed.
A.3 PGI-D 2023-24 — grading India's districts
The rest of this chapter
PREREQUISITES
THE FLAGSHIP REPORTS: FOUR DOCUMENTS THAT SUPPLY HALF THE GK QUESTIONS
