UPSC CIVIL SERVICES EXAMINATION

PRELIMS 2020 SPECIAL

CSAT
PAPER - II
ENGLISH

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Passage-1
CSAT | ENGLISH COMPREHENSIONS
Global population was around 1.6 billion in 1990—today it is around 7.2 billion and growing.
Recent estimates on population growth predict a global population of 9.6 billion in 2050 and 10.9
billion in 2100. Unlike Europe and North America, where only three to four per cent of
population is engaged in agriculture, around 47 per cent of India's population is dependent upon
agriculture. Even if India continues to do well in the service sector and the manufacturing sector
picks up, it is expected that around 2030 when India overtakes China as the world's most
populous country, nearly 42 per cent of India's population will still be predominantly dependent
on agriculture.
Q. Which of the following is the most logical and rational inference that can be made from the
above passage?

(a) Prosperity of agriculture sector is of critical importance to India.

(b) Indian economy greatly depends on its agriculture.
(c) India should take strict measures to control its rapid population growth.
(d) India's farming communities should switch over to other occupations to improve their
economic conditions.
 CSAT | ENGLISH COMPREHENSIONS
Passage-2

Many pathogens that cause foodborne illnesses are unknown. Food contamination can occur at
any stage from farm to plate. Since most cases of food poisoning go unreported, the true extent
of global foodborne illnesses is unknown. Improvements in international monitoring have led to
greater public awareness, yet the rapid globalization of food production increases consumers'
vulnerability by making food harder to regulate and trace. "We have the world on our plates",
says an official of WHO.

Q. Which of the following is the most logical corollary to the above passage?

(a) With more options for food come more risks.

(b) Food processing is the source of all foodborne illnesses.
(c) We should depend on locally produced food only.
(d) Globalization of food production should be curtailed
Passage-3 CSAT | ENGLISH COMPREHENSIONS

I am a scientist, privileged to be somebody who tries to understand nature using the tools of
science. But it is also clear that there are some really important questions that science cannot
really answer, such as : Why is there something instead of nothing? Why are we here? In those
domains, I have found that faith provides a better path to answers. I find it oddly anachronistic
that in today's culture there seems to be a widespread presumption that scientific and spiritual
views are incompatible.

Q. Which of the following is the most logical and rational inference that can be made from the
above passage?
(a) It is the faith and not science that can finally solve all the problems of mankind.
(b) Science and faith can be mutually complementary if their proper domains are understood.
(c) There are some very fundamental questions which cannot be answered by either science or
faith.
(d) In today's culture, scientific views are given more importance than spiritual views.
Passage-4 CSAT | ENGLISH COMPREHENSIONS

Though I have discarded much of past tradition and custom, and am anxious that India should rid
herself of all shackles that bind and contain her and divide her people, and suppress vast
numbers of them, and prevent the free development of the body and the spirit; though I seek all
this, yet I do not wish to cut myself off from that past completely. I am proud of that great
inheritance that has been and is, ours and I am conscious that I too, like all of us, am a link in that
unbroken chain which goes back to the dawn of history in the immemorial past of India.

Q. The author wants India to rid herself of certain past bonds because:

(a) he is not able to see the relevance of the past

(b) there is not much to be proud of
(c) he is not interested in the history of India
(d) they obstruct her physical and spiritual growth
Passage-5 CSAT | ENGLISH COMPREHENSIONS

The practice of dieting has become an epidemic; everyone is looking out for a way to attain that
perfect body. We are all different with respect to our ethnicity, genetics, family history, gender,
age, physical and mental and spiritual health status, lifestyles and preferences. Thereby we also
differ in what foods we tolerate or are sensitive to. So we really cannot reduce so many
complexities into one diet or diet book. This explains the failure of diets across the world in
curbing obesity. Unless the reasons for weight gain are well understood and addressed and
unless habits are changed permanently, no diet is likely to succeed.

Q. What is the most logical and rational inference that can be made from the above passage?

(a) Obesity has become an epidemic all over the world.

(b) A lot of people are obsessed with attaining a perfect body.
(c) Obesity is essentially an incurable disease.
(d) There is no perfect diet or one solution for obesity.
Passage-6
CSAT | ENGLISH COMPREHENSIONS
Cooking with biomass and coal in India is now recognized to cause major health problems, with
women and children in poor populations facing the greatest risk. There are more than 10 lakh
premature deaths each year from household air pollution due to polluting cooking fuels with
another 1.5 lakh due to their contribution to general outdoor air pollution in the country.
Although the fraction of the Indian population using clean cooking fuels, such as LPG, natural gas
and electricity, is slowly rising, the number using polluting solid fuels as their primary cooking
fuel has remained static for nearly 30 years at about 70 crore.

Q. Which of the following is the most crucial and logical inference that can be made from the
above passage?
(a) Rural people are giving up the use of polluting solid fuels due to their increasing awareness of
health hazards.
(b) Subsidizing the use of clean cooking fuels will solve the problem of India's indoor air
pollution.
(c) India should increase its import of natural gas and produce more electricity.
(d) Access to cooking gas can reduce premature deaths in poor households.
 CSAT | ENGLISH COMPREHENSIONS
Passage-7

Scientific knowledge has its dangers, but so has every great thing. Over and beyond the dangers
with which it threatens the present, it opens up as nothing else can, the vision of a possible
happy world; a world without poverty, without war, with little illness. Science, whatever
unpleasant consequences it may have by the way, is in its very nature a liberator.

Q. Which one of the following is the most important implication of the passage?

(a) A happy world is a dream of science.

(b) Science only can build a happy world, but it is also the only major threat.
(c) A happy world is not possible without science.
(d) A happy world is not at all possible with or without science.
 CSAT | ENGLISH COMPREHENSIONS
Passage-8

The Arctic's vast reserves of fossil fuel, fish and minerals are now accessible for a longer period in
a year. But unlike Antarctica, which is protected from exploitation by the Antarctic Treaty framed
during the Cold War and is not subject to territorial claims by any country, there is no legal
regime protecting the Arctic from industrialization, especially at a time when the world craves for
more and more resources. The distinct possibility of ice-free summer has prompted countries
with Arctic coastline to scramble for great chunks of the melting ocean.

Q. Which one of the following is the most important implication of the passage?

(a) India can have territorial claims in the Arctic territory and free access to its resources.
(b) Melting of summer ice in the Arctic leads to changes in the geopolitics.
(c) The Arctic region will solve the world's future problem of resource crunch.
(d) The Arctic region has more resources than Antarctica.
Passage-9 CSAT | ENGLISH COMPREHENSIONS

Being a member of the WTO, India is bound by the agreements that have been signed and
ratified by its members, including itself. According to Article 6 of the Agriculture Agreement,
providing minimum support prices for agricultural products is considered distorting and is
subject to limits. The subsidy arising from 'minimal supports' cannot exceed 10 per cent of the
value of agricultural production for developing countries. PDS in India entails minimum support
prices and public stockholding of food grains. It is possible that, in some years, the subsidy to
producers will exceed 10 per cent of the value of agricultural production.

Q. What is the crucial message conveyed by the above passage?

(a) India should revise its PDS.

(b) India should not be a member of WTO.
(c) For India, food security collides with trade.
(d) India provides food security to its poor.
Passage-10
CSAT | ENGLISH COMPREHENSIONS
India's educational system is modelled on the mass education system that developed in the 19th
century in Europe and later spread around the world. The goal of the system is to condition
children as 'good' citizens and productive workers. This suited the industrial age that needed the
constant supply of a compliant workforce with a narrow set of capabilities. Our educational
institutes resemble factories with bells, uniforms and batch-processing of learners, designed to
get learners to conform. But, from an economic point of view, the environment today is very
different. It is a complex, volatile and globally interconnected world.

Q. With reference to the above passage, the following assumptions have been made:
1. India continues to be a developing country essentially due to its faulty education system.
2. Today's learners need to acquire new-age skill-sets.
3. A good number of Indians go to some developed countries for education because the
educational systems there are a perfect reflection of the societies in which they function.
Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?

(a) 1 and 3 only (b) 2 only (c) 2 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3
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