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TNPSC Indian economy practice questions: GDP, sectors and planning

By the PrepMatic team · Updated 9 Oct 2026 · 3 min read

Unit V pairs the Indian economy with development administration in Tamil Nadu, and at about 20 of the 75 General Studies questions it is the joint-largest unit in the Group 4 and Group 2 prelims papers (the split is indicative, as TNPSC says). The concepts here are the foundation: what GDP measures, how the economy is divided into sectors, how inflation is tracked, and how planning worked before and after 2015. Try the five questions below, then read the subject guide, TNPSC Indian Economy.

What this topic covers

• National income: GDP, GNP, net national product and per capita income.
• Sectors: primary, secondary and tertiary activity.
• Planning: the Five-Year Plans from 1951 and the shift to NITI Aayog.
• Prices: inflation, the Consumer Price Index and the Wholesale Price Index.
• Money, budgets and farming: these have separate pages, linked below.

The Twelfth Plan (2012 to 2017) was the last. After it, the Planning Commission was replaced by NITI Aayog.

Sample questions

Question 1

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measures the:

• A. total value of final goods and services produced within a country in a year
• B. total value of a country's exports in a year
• C. total tax collected by the government in a year
• D. total savings of all households in a year

Question 2

NITI Aayog replaced the Planning Commission in:

• A. 2010
• B. 2014
• C. 2015
• D. 2017

Question 3

Mining and fishing belong to which sector of the economy?

• A. Secondary sector
• B. Primary sector
• C. Tertiary sector
• D. Quaternary sector

Question 4

Retail inflation in India is measured by the:

• A. Wholesale Price Index
• B. GDP deflator
• C. Index of Industrial Production
• D. Consumer Price Index

Question 5

The First Five-Year Plan (1951 to 1956) gave the highest priority to:

• A. heavy industry
• B. foreign trade
• C. agriculture and irrigation
• D. defence

Answers and explanations

1. A. GDP is the market value of all final goods and services produced inside the country in a year. Exports, taxes and savings are different measures.
2. C. The Planning Commission was replaced by NITI Aayog on 1 January 2015. The Prime Minister chairs it, and it acts as a policy think tank, not as a body that allocates funds.
3. B. Primary activities draw directly on natural resources: agriculture, forestry, fishing and mining. Manufacturing is secondary, and services such as banking and transport are tertiary.
4. D. The Consumer Price Index tracks the prices that households pay at the retail level. The Wholesale Price Index tracks wholesale prices, and the Index of Industrial Production tracks factory output.
5. C. The First Plan followed the Harrod-Domar approach and put agriculture, irrigation and power first, because India had just faced food shortages. Heavy industry came into focus in the Second Plan.

How to prepare economy basics

Start with definitions, in your own words, for ten terms: GDP, GNP, per capita income, inflation, deflation, fiscal deficit, subsidy, poverty line, unemployment and money supply. If you cannot explain a term in one sentence, you will not handle an indirect question on it.

Then give each Five-Year Plan one line: the years, the main push and the model or leader linked to it. The table above covers the first three, and learning the rest takes less than an hour. Add three dates that break the story: 1951 (planning starts), 1991 (economic reforms) and 2015 (NITI Aayog).

Do not memorise growth rates, GDP size, rankings or budget figures from a newspaper clipping. They change every year, and a question that depends on them goes stale before your exam. TNPSC's recent papers lean on concepts and institutions, so these hold their value.

Continue with TNPSC banking, budget and taxation practice and TNPSC agriculture and industry practice, then connect everything to the state through TNPSC development administration practice.

Take the full topic test on PrepMatic

Economy is a high-volume unit, so test it in a timed topic test on PrepMatic (about 15 questions in 30 minutes) and again inside a full mock that follows the 200-question, 180-minute Group 4 pattern. If your accuracy in General Studies lags behind aptitude, the subject-wise breakdown after each test will show it, and you can plan the next week accordingly.

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