General Knowledge and Aptitude: Static Facts, Current Affairs and Reasoning
The General Knowledge and Aptitude section mixes current affairs, Indian polity, geography, history, science, sports and awards with quantitative aptitude and reasoning. It is the most scoring area when static facts are revised systematically.
Core rules and concepts
- Polity: the Constitution was adopted on 26 November 1949 and came into force on 26 January 1950; Articles 12–35 cover Fundamental Rights; the President is the head of state and the Prime Minister heads the government.
- Geography: know river sources, state capitals, national parks and climate types.
- Current affairs: track the past 12 months - national health programmes, Bharat Ratna and Padma awards, sports championships, space missions, appointments.
- Aptitude: percentages, ratio and proportion, averages, time–speed–distance, simple and compound interest, number series and coding–decoding.
Worked example
A 120 m long train runs at 54 km/h. How long does it take to pass a pole? Convert speed: 54 × 5/18 = 15 m/s. To pass a pole, the train covers only its own length, so time = 120/15 = 8 seconds. If it had to cross a 180 m platform, the distance would be 120 + 180 = 300 m and the time 20 s.
Traps that cost marks
- Skipping the km/h to m/s conversion.
- Missing "not" or "except" in the question stem.
- Guessing under negative marking - skip when two options remain plausible.
- Mixing static facts with outdated current affairs from previous years.
- In percentage problems, applying the change to the wrong base.