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CSAT 2021 paper

UPSC CSE CSAT 2021 · Question 61 · Reading comprehension

With reference to the above passage, the following assumptions have been made:

Directions for the following 2 (two) items: Read the following two passages and answer the items that follow. Your answers to these items should be based on the passages only.

Passage—1

Can a democracy avoid being a welfare state for long? Why cannot mass welfare be left entirely to the markets? There is a built-in tension between markets and democracy. Markets do not work on a one-person-one-vote principle as democracies do. What one gets out of the market place depends on one’s endowments, skills, purchasing power and the forces of demand and supply. Markets reward individual initiative and skill, and may also lift many from the bottom rungs of society, but some people never get the opportunity to develop skills that markets demand; they are simply too poor and too handicapped; or skill formation takes too long. By creating jobs, markets may be able to help even unskilled people, but capitalism has always witnessed bursts of unemployment.

CSAT 2021 · Q61

Reading comprehension Medium

With reference to the above passage, the following assumptions have been made:

  1. 1.Modern democracies rely on the market forces to enable them to be welfare states.
  2. 2.Markets ensure sufficient economic growth necessary for democracies to be effective.
  3. 3.Government programmes are needed for those left behind in economic growth.

Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?

Answer & explanation

Answer: (b) 3 only

Markets reward endowments and skills, but some people are too poor or handicapped to benefit, and capitalism has bursts of unemployment. The passage therefore assumes welfare cannot be left entirely to markets — government programmes are needed for those left behind.

  • ✗ 1. The passage stresses a 'built-in tension between markets and democracy' and asks why welfare cannot be left to markets; it does not say democracies rely on markets to be welfare states.
  • ✗ 2. Markets 'may' help, but 'capitalism has always witnessed bursts of unemployment' — the passage does not claim markets ensure sufficient growth.
  • ✓ 3. Some people 'never get the opportunity to develop skills that markets demand', so a democracy cannot avoid welfare — state support for those left behind is assumed.

Remember · A passage that lists what markets cannot do assumes a role for the state; it does not assume markets deliver what it doubts.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper II (2021, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). ·

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