Practice: Population, Urbanisation and Tribes

(b) 68,548,437 — males 35,550,997, females 32,997,440, as printed in the Economic Review 2025-26, Statistical Appendix table 33.

Why not the others: every wrong option is a real component of that same total offered as the whole. (a) 51,500,352 is the rural population, (d) 17,048,085 the urban, and (c) 35,550,997 the male population. Adding (a) and (d) gives the answer, which is the quickest check under exam conditions.

(a) 75.13% rural and 24.87% urban — 51,500,352 and 17,048,085 of a total of 68,548,437.

Why not the others: (b) applies India's urban share of 31.15% to Rajasthan. (d) simply inverts the pair, which is the commonest way this is got wrong. (c) 79.2 is Rajasthan's male literacy rate, borrowed from a different row of the same table.

(b) Child sex ratio 888. The state's density is 200, its decadal growth 21.3% and its sex ratio 928.

Why not the others: each is a real figure from the wrong row. (a) 595 is Jaipur district's density, the highest in the state. (c) 32.5% is Barmer's decadal growth, the fastest in the state. (d) 943 is India's sex ratio, against which Rajasthan's 928 is measured. Three district-or-national numbers offered as state ones is exactly how this question is set.

(b) 21.3%.

Why not the others: (a) 10.0% is Sri Ganganagar's, the slowest district in the state. (c) 24.87% is the urban share and (d) 13.48% the Scheduled Tribe share — two figures from the same chapter pressed into the wrong slot. Every distractor here is a number a candidate has genuinely learnt; the test is whether it was learnt with its label attached.

(a) 66.1%, males 79.2%, females 52.1% — the Directorate of Economics and Statistics reproducing the Census table itself. The commonly taught 66.11% agrees with it.

Why not the others: (b) is not invented — it is what another Government of Rajasthan source says. The Rajasthan Foundation's demographics page gives 67.06% (males 80.51%, females 52.66%), and this chapter prefers the Economic Review because it is the statistical authority carrying the Census table, while the Foundation page is a general profile. If an option in a paper offers 67.06%, it is following the Foundation page. (c) is Kota district's overall and female literacy, the highest in the state; (d) is Jalore's, the lowest.

(d). Urban share 24.87% against 31.15% (below); work participation 43.6% against 39.8% (above); sex ratio 928 against 943 (below).

Why not the others: the work participation rate is the one that runs against expectation, and every wrong option flattens it into the same direction as the other two. Fewer cities, more workers — a heavily rural, agrarian population records high work participation because cultivation and agricultural labour count as work, and are counted for women.

(a) Jaipur, Jodhpur, Alwar, Nagaur — 66.26, 36.87, 36.74 and 33.08 lakh in the Economic Review's own table.

Why not the others: Alwar and Nagaur are the two that surprise, and they are why every distractor works. All three wrong options substitute a district better known as a city — Udaipur, Kota, Bikaner — for one of them. Population here is a DISTRICT total, not a city total, and Nagaur has no large city at all. Note how close second and third are: Jodhpur 36.87 against Alwar 36.74 lakh, a gap of about 13,000 in nearly 3.7 million.

(c) Jaisalmer, 6.70 lakh. The largest district by area and the smallest by population — the pairing to carry, because area and population run in opposite directions across Rajasthan.

Why not the others: all three are small districts that end some other list, which is what makes them work here. (b) Sirohi and (a) Pratapgarh sit near the bottom of the literacy table (55.3% and 56.0%); (d) Dungarpur is at the top of the sex-ratio table (994) and the bottom of the urbanisation one (6.4%).

(b) Jaipur 595 and Jaisalmer 17 — a ratio of about thirty-five to one inside one state.

Why not the others: (a) Bharatpur 503 is second and (d) Dausa 476 is third, so both options pair a real rank-two or rank-three figure with the wrong district or the wrong end. (c) hands Jaipur Dausa's 476. The state average sits at 200, which places both extremes for you.

(a) Jaipur 595 · Bharatpur 503 · Dausa 476 · Alwar 438.

Why not the others: all four are eastern districts and the order is the only thing being tested, so elimination has to run on the figures rather than on geography. Bharatpur above Dausa is what decides it, and (c) and (d) both move Dausa or Alwar up past it.

(c). 6.70 lakh people at a density of 17 per sq km — the lowest density in Rajasthan by a wide margin.

Why not the others: Jaisalmer is near the bottom of several lists without being at the bottom of any of these, which is the whole design. (a) the lowest sex ratio is Dhaulpur's 846; Jaisalmer's 852 is second-lowest. (b) Jaisalmer is nearly the FASTEST growing district at 31.8%, second only to Barmer's 32.5% — the slowest is Sri Ganganagar at 10.0%. (d) the lowest overall literacy is Jalore's 54.9%; Jaisalmer's claim is on female literacy, where its 39.7% ties with Sirohi behind Jalore's 38.5%.

(c) Barmer 32.5% and Sri Ganganagar 10.0%.

Why not the others: every wrong option offers a genuine second or third place. Fastest: Barmer 32.5, Jaisalmer 31.8, Jodhpur 27.7. Slowest: Sri Ganganagar 10.0, Jhunjhunu 11.7, Pali 11.9. (d) is the near miss that catches most people — the right fastest district with the second-slowest. The geography settles both ends: a canal-irrigated, settled, relatively prosperous district grows slowly, while a desert district grows fast from a very small base.

(d) Dungarpur, 994. Then Rajsamand 990, Pali 987, Pratapgarh 983 — all southern, tribal or hill districts.

Why not the others: (a) and (c) are second and third and are the near misses. (b) Banswara leads a different list — the CHILD sex ratio, at 934, ahead of Pratapgarh's 933, and is not at the top of the overall one. The tribal south has better sex ratios than the more prosperous north-east, which is the standard counter-example to the assumption that prosperity and gender balance move together.

(a) Dhaulpur 846, Jaisalmer 852, Karauli 861.

Why not the others: (b) is the trap and it is a real list — the two worst CHILD sex ratios, Jhunjhunu 837 and Sikar 848, folded into the overall table. Two different measures, two different bottoms, and the figures are close enough to pass unless the label is read. (c) is the bottom of the LITERACY table (Jalore 54.9, Sirohi 55.3, Pratapgarh 56.0); (d) begins with Bikaner and Nagaur, which end a third list entirely — the Scheduled Tribe proportion.

(b) Jhunjhunu 837 and Sikar 848.

Why not the others: (d) Banswara 934 and Pratapgarh 933 are the BEST child sex ratios in the state, not the worst — a straight inversion. (a) Dhaulpur and Karauli end the OVERALL sex-ratio list. (c) Jalore and Sirohi end the literacy list. The finding worth carrying into a Mains answer is that Jhunjhunu and Sikar also record literacy rates of 74.1% and 71.9%, among the state's highest: high literacy has not produced gender balance in Shekhawati.

(c) 888 against 928. The child sex ratio is markedly worse than the overall figure, which means the imbalance among children is sharper than in the population as a whole, and has therefore been getting worse rather than better.

Why not the others: (a) reverses the two and reverses the conclusion with them — the single most consequential inversion in this topic. (b) is Rajasthan against India (928 against 943), a different comparison. (d) 846 is Dhaulpur's district sex ratio, not a state figure.

(d) India 39.8%, Rajasthan 43.6%.

Why not the others: (a) carries the same two numbers in the opposite order, and that is the entire trap. Rajasthan is ABOVE the national figure here, which runs directly against the intuition built by the urbanisation figures — and both are examinable. They are not contradictory: cultivation and agricultural labour count as work, and are counted for women. Fix the direction and the digits follow.

(b) Kota 76.6 · Jaipur 75.5 · Jhunjhunu 74.1 · Sikar 71.9 · Alwar 70.7 — obtained by sorting the 33 district rows of table 33 in the Economic Review 2025-26.

Why not the others: Kota above Jaipur is what decides the question, and every wrong option moves Kota or Jaipur. (a) puts the capital first, which is the assumption being tested. The coaching-city effect shows in this table twice over: Kota also has the state's highest female literacy, 65.9%.

(a) Jalore, 54.9%.

Why not the others: (b) Sirohi 55.3% and (c) Pratapgarh 56.0% are second and third, within a point and a half of the answer. (d) Jaisalmer belongs to the FEMALE literacy list, where its 39.7% ties with Sirohi behind Jalore's 38.5% — Jalore ends both lists, which is the cleanest way to hold it.

(d) Kota 65.9% and Jalore 38.5%.

Why not the others: (b) is the same two districts with their OVERALL literacy rates — right districts, wrong column, the commonest form of this error. (a) Jaipur 64.0% is the second-highest female rate, and Sirohi's 39.7% is tied second-lowest with Jaisalmer. (c) hands Kota's 65.9% to Jhunjhunu.

(c). Child sex ratios of 837 and 848 alongside literacy rates of 74.1% and 71.9%. High literacy has not produced gender balance in Shekhawati — a finding worth stating plainly in a Mains answer, because it refuses the easy correlation.

Why not the others: (a) the highest sex ratios are Dungarpur 994, Rajsamand 990 and Pali 987, in the tribal and hill south. (b) the least urbanised are Dungarpur at 6.4% and Pratapgarh at 8.3%. (d) is close to the opposite — Jhunjhunu at 11.7% is among the state's slowest-growing districts; the fastest is Barmer at 32.5%.

(b) 66.1%, from the Economic Review 2025-26. The Rajasthan Foundation's page gives 67.06% (males 80.51%, females 52.66%); the Economic Review's Census table gives 66.1% (males 79.2%, females 52.1%), and the commonly taught 66.11% agrees with the Economic Review.

Why not the others: the ground is what kind of document each is, not which number is larger or newer. (c) turns a real reason into a rule of thumb that is not one. (d) reverses the relationship entirely — the Economic Review is reproducing a completed census, not projecting. If an option in a paper offers 67.06%, it is following the Foundation page, and knowing that is more useful than knowing either figure alone.

(c) India 31.15%, Rajasthan 24.87%. 24.87% is confirmed arithmetically from the state's own table — 17,048,085 urban of 68,548,437.

Why not the others: (a) carries the same two numbers in the opposite order, which is the whole of the trap. Fix the direction rather than the digits: Rajasthan is markedly LESS urbanised than India, and the figures then place themselves. (b) and (d) work by shifting a digit — 34.15 for 31.15, 21.87 for 24.87 — the second commonest way this is got wrong.

(a) Kota — of its 19.51 lakh people, 11.77 lakh were urban.

Why not the others: Jaipur is the only other district on this page that is majority-urban, at 34.72 lakh urban against 31.54 lakh rural, and it is close rather than clear. The rule that disposes of the rest: urbanisation in Rajasthan runs north-east and along the Chambal industrial belt, and thins into the tribal south and the desert west.

(b) Dungarpur 6.4% and Pratapgarh 8.3%. The southern tribal districts are the least urbanised in the state.

Why not the others: (a) is the plausible answer and the wrong one — the desert west is thinly populated, which is a different thing from being thinly urbanised, and Barmer and Jaisalmer are in fact the state's two fastest-growing districts. (c) Udaipur is a substantial urban centre in its own right. (d) Jalore and Sirohi end the literacy table, not this one.

(d). More workers, fewer cities — the two facts are not in tension, and the second follows from the same rural character that produces the first.

Why not the others: (a) both figures are Census 2011, and the point of the pairing is precisely that they come from one source and point opposite ways. (b) and (c) both look for a defect to explain an anomaly that is not one. The two belong together and are best learnt as a pair rather than as two separate numbers.

(b) 13.48%, about 92.4 lakh. The share is as stated in the India State of Forest Report 2023's Rajasthan profile, which reproduces the Census figure.

Why not the others: (a) 24.87% is the urban share and (c) 21.3% the decadal growth rate — both from the same chapter, each given a headcount to make it look self-consistent. (d) is the sharper trap: the right percentage with the wrong headcount. 13.48% of 6.85 crore is about 92.4 lakh, not 46 lakh — one arithmetical check settles it.

(c) Banswara, Dungarpur, Pratapgarh. Banswara is about three-quarters tribal; Udaipur is about half and heavily tribal, but does not enter the top three by proportion.

Why not the others: learn the top three as an ordered set, not as a group, because the second place is what a question of this shape turns on — the first is too widely known to separate anybody. (b) inserts Udaipur, which is the commonest wrong answer, since it is much the best known of the four tribal districts. This ordering is carried from RPSC's own answer keys and the southern concentration of Scheduled Tribes, not from a district-wise Scheduled Tribe table, and the chapter flags it as exam-keyed rather than source-verified.

(d) Bikaner and Nagaur.

Why not the others: the answer is half derivable. Rajasthan's tribal population is southern — Banswara, Dungarpur, Pratapgarh and Udaipur form a contiguous block in the far south — so the lowest proportions must lie in the north and west. But every wrong option is a genuine northern or eastern pair, and (a) and (b) are geographically just as far from the tribal south, so the derivation narrows the field without finishing the job: this exact pairing is worth holding as a fact in its own right.

(c) Sahariya, in Baran alone — in the Kishanganj and Shahabad blocks.

Why not the others: no other tribe in Rajasthan is restricted to a single district, which makes each of the other three wrong on the same ground and makes Sahariya the anchor of any map question. The Bhil are spread across the whole south, the Meena across the east, the Garasiya across the Sirohi–Pali–Udaipur hills. A map showing four tribal concentrations can be solved from Sahariya alone.

(d) Garasiya — the Sirohi–Pali–Udaipur hills, on the Gujarat border.

Why not the others: each wrong option is a real region given to the wrong tribe. (a) gives the Meena the Garasiya's hills; the Meena are the eastern tribe — Jaipur, Dausa, Sawai Madhopur, Karauli — numerically comparable to the Bhils and far more widely spread. (b) gives the Bhil the Meena's districts; the Bhil are the southern tribe and the largest in Rajasthan. (c) puts the Sahariya in Bhil country, when they are confined to Baran.

(a) Balara.

Why not the others: (b) and (c) are the neighbouring vocabulary and belong with the Bhils — Chimata is the burning of hill slopes, Dajia the burning of the forest floor. All three describe shifting or slash-and-burn cultivation in the southern hills, which is why any one of the three can be the key depending on how the stem is worded. Read the stem, not the word. (d) dry farming is a general technique of arid agriculture, not a tribal practice with a local name.

(c) 1 April 2026, running April to September 2026, each State or Union Territory taking a 30-day window of its own choosing.

Why not the others: every wrong option is a real date in the same sequence attached to a different kind of event. (a) 16 June 2025 is the Gazette of India notification of the intent to conduct the census. (b) 30 April 2025 is the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs' decision that caste would be enumerated. (d) February 2027 is Phase II, Population Enumeration. A notification, a decision, a start and an enumeration — four events, four dates.

(d) is the false statement. It runs in two phases — Houselisting and Housing from April to September 2026, and Population Enumeration in February 2027, with caste enumeration during the second.

Why not the others: (a), (b) and (c) are the three firsts, and they are best learnt as a set, because any one of them is a clean one-mark question. Carry the frame with them: outlay ₹11,718.24 crore, more than 3 million field staff, and the Registrar General and Census Commissioner Shri Mritunjay Kumar Narayan. Self-enumeration runs in a 15-day window before the door-to-door work, online in 16 languages.

(a). The nine were the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Goa, Karnataka, Lakshadweep, Mizoram, Odisha, Sikkim, and the NDMC and Cantonment Board areas of Delhi. Rajasthan is not among them.

Why not the others: (c) reverses the order of the two phases — Population Enumeration is February 2027 and has been held nowhere. (d) no State is exempted; every one takes a 30-day window inside the April-to-September period. The chapter states no date for Rajasthan's own window, so treat any date offered for it as unconfirmed.

(b). There is no newer census figure to quote, and any source offering one is offering a projection.

Why not the others: (a) is the opposite of the position — the Economic Review 2025-26, published with Budget 2026-27, is the current edition, and it still prints the Census 2011 table because that is the latest census there is. (c) and (d) both assume a 2021 count that was never taken. RPSC asks Census 2011 figures and expects Census 2011 figures, and will keep doing so until Phase II data is published after February 2027.

(a) R is exactly why A holds. The data has not changed and the framework has. The Economic Review still prints the 2011 table on the old 33-district framework, so a district figure quoted from it describes that district as it stood in 2011, not as it stands now.

(d) R is true and A is false. The child sex ratio was 888 against an overall 928 — markedly worse, not better. The imbalance among children is sharper than in the population as a whole, which is why the child figure is the darker of the two.

(d) The figure in R is right; the inference in A is wrong. Fast growth here signals a low starting point, not prosperity. Barmer and Jaisalmer grew fastest from a very small base in the desert, while Sri Ganganagar — canal-irrigated, settled and relatively prosperous, well into demographic transition — grew slowest at 10.0%. In Rajasthan the correlation runs the other way.

(b) Both are true — literacy 74.1%, third highest in the state; child sex ratio 837, the lowest — and neither explains the other, which is the entire point. High literacy has not produced gender balance in Shekhawati, and Sikar repeats the pattern with 71.9% and 848. An answer that makes R the reason for A has invented a relationship the data refuses.

(c) A is true — Kota's female literacy was 65.9%, the highest in the state, as was its overall 76.6%. R is false: the belt of highest Scheduled Tribe concentration is the far south, a contiguous block of Banswara, Dungarpur, Pratapgarh and Udaipur. Kota's neighbour Baran holds the Sahariya, but that is one tribe in one district, not the concentration belt.

(c) A-4, B-3, C-2, D-1. Jaipur 595 highest density · Jaisalmer 17 lowest · Dungarpur 994 highest sex ratio · Jalore 54.9% lowest literacy.

Why not the others: (b) swaps the two ends of the density list, the commonest swap in this topic; (d) puts Jaisalmer on the sex-ratio list, where it belongs at the wrong end — its 852 is second-lowest, not highest.

(d) A-4, B-3, C-2, D-1.

Why not the others: solve it from D. The Sahariya are confined to Baran and are the state's only Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group, so 1 can pair with nothing else — which disposes of (a) at once. (b) swaps the Bhil and the Meena, the two largest and the pair most often exchanged; (c) gives the Garasiya's hills to the Meena.

(a) A-4, B-3, C-2, D-1.

Why not the others: (b) swaps 888 and 928, the inversion that matters — the child figure is the lower and the worse. (c) swaps the density and the growth rate, two numbers that cannot be confused once their units are read. All four are state totals from the Economic Review 2025-26's Census 2011 table, and none of them will change before Population Enumeration in February 2027.