CDS 2026 (I) General Knowledge, question 34

Topic: Science and technology

Answers by SolvedPaper. UPSC has not released the official answer key for this paper yet. We will update it when they do.

Q34

In MP3 compression scheme, 60 minutes of music can be stored in about :

  1. (a) 600 MB
  2. (b) 200 MB
  3. (c) 50 MBCorrect answer
  4. (d) 10 MB

Solution.

Answer: (c) 50 MB

  1. A typical MP3 is encoded at 128 kilobits per second.
  2. One hour is 3600 seconds: 128000×36008≈57.6×106\frac{128000 \times 3600}{8} \approx 57.6 \times 10^{6} bytes, about 58 MB.
  3. Of the options, 50 MB is nearest; 600 MB is roughly uncompressed CD audio and 10 MB is far too small.

Trap: MP3 file size depends on the bitrate chosen, so the question asks only for the usual approximate size.