Which of the following is the most rational and crucial message given by the passage?
Answer & explanation
Answer: (b) Safe wildlife corridors between protected areas is an essential aspect of conservation efforts.
Reserves are islands in a sea of people, yet tigers range widely and a third of them live outside reserves. The passage concludes that prey and tigers can disperse only through recognised corridors between protected areas — option (b).
- ✗ (a) The passage offers a remedy — corridors — so it does not call the conflict unresolvable.
- ✓ (b) The last sentence: prey and tigers 'can only disperse if there are recognized corridors of land between protected areas'.
- ✗ (c) The problem is the isolation of existing reserves, not their number; more reserves are never proposed.
- ✗ (d) Management of parks is not discussed; the issue is connectivity between protected areas.
Remember · A passage's closing solution sentence often carries its crucial message; drop options that add remedies it never mentions.
Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper II (2018, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). ·