Challenge Prelims V1.0 – Day 54 – CSAT Paper

1. Passage

What climate change will undeniably do is cause or amplify events that hasten the reduction of resources. Competition over these diminishing resources would ensue in the form of political or even violent conflict. Resource- based conflicts have rarely been overt and are thus difficult to isolate. Instead they take on veneers that appear more politically palatable. Conflicts over resources like water are often cloaked in the guise of identity or ideology.

What does the above passage imply?

2. Passage

The man who is perpetually hesitating which of the two things he will do first, will do neither. The man who resolves, but suffers his resolution to be changed by the first counter suggestion of a friend—who fluctuates from opinion to opinion and veers from plan to plan—can never accomplish anything. He will at best be stationary and probably retrograde in all. It is only the man who first consults wisely, then resolves firmly and then executes his purpose with inflexible perseverance, undismayed by those petty difficulties which daunt a weaker spirit—that can advance to eminence in any line.

The keynote that seems to be emerging from the passage is that:

3. Passage

During the summer in the Arctic Ocean, sea ice has been melting earlier and faster, and the winter freeze has been coming later. In the last three decades, the extent of summer ice has declined by about 30 per cent. The lengthening period of summer melt threatens to undermine the whole Arctic food web, atop which stand polar bears.

Which among the following is the most crucial message conveyed by the above passage?

4. Passage

Why do people prefer open defecation and not want toilets or, if they have them, only use them sometimes? Recent research has shown two critical elements: ideas of purity and pollution, and not wanting pits or septic tanks to fill because they have to be emptied. These are the issues that nobody wants to talk about, but if we want to eradicate the practice of open defecation, they have to be confronted and dealt properly.

Which among the following is the most crucial message conveyed by the above passage?

5. Passage

In the last two decades, the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) has increased by 50 per cent, whereas inclusive wealth has increased by a mere 6 per cent. In recent decades, GDP-driven economic performance has only harmed inclusive wealth like human capital; and natural capital like forests, land and water. While the world’s human capital which stands at 57 per cent of total inclusive wealth grew by only 8 per cent, the natural capital which is 23 per cent of total inclusive wealth declined by 30 per cent worldwide in the last two decades.

Which of the following is the most crucial inference from the above passage?