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CSAT 2019 paper

UPSC CSE CSAT 2019 · Question 46 · Reading comprehension

The above passage seems to imply that

Passage—5

A vast majority of Indians are poor, with barely 10 percent employed in the organised sector. We are being convinced that vigorous economic growth is generating substantial employment. But this is not so. When our economy was growing at 3 percent per year, employment in the organised sector was growing at 2 percent per year. As the economy began to grow at 7 – 8 percent per year, the rate of growth of employment in the organised sector actually declined to 1 percent per year.

CSAT 2019 · Q46

Reading comprehension Hard

The above passage seems to imply that

  1. 1.most of modern economic growth is based on technological progress.
  2. 2.much of modern Indian economy does not nurture sufficient symbiotic relationship with labour-intensive, natural resource-based livelihoods.
  3. 3.service sector in India is not very labour-intensive.
  4. 4.literate rural population is not willing to enter organised sector.

Which of the statements given above are correct?

Answer & explanation

Answer: (c) 1, 2 and 3 only

Faster growth has come with slower growth of organised jobs. That fits growth driven by technology rather than labour, delinked from labour-intensive livelihoods, and led by activity that employs few people. Nothing in the passage blames workers' unwillingness to take such jobs.

  • ✓ 1. Output growth rising from 3 to 7–8 percent while employment growth falls from 2 to 1 percent suggests growth from technology and capital rather than more workers.
  • ✓ 2. Had growth been tied to labour-intensive, resource-based livelihoods, jobs would have grown with it; they did not.
  • ✓ 3. The passage names no sector, so this is the least direct of the three; but job-poor growth fits a leading sector that is not labour-intensive, and 'seems to imply' allows that reading.
  • ✗ 4. The passage blames the pattern of growth, not workers' attitudes; unwillingness of the rural literate is never suggested.

Remember · For 'seems to imply', accept plausible explanations of the passage's core fact; reject those that shift the cause to something it never hints at.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper II (2019, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). ·

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