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CSAT 2022 paper

UPSC CSE CSAT 2022 · Question 51 · Reading comprehension

Which of the following statements best reflects the underlying tone of the passage?

Directions for the following 3 (three) items: Read the following two passages and answer the items that follow the passages. Your answers to these items should be based on the passages only.

Passage—1

In an economic organization, allowing mankind to benefit by the productivity of machines should lead to a very good life of leisure, and much leisure is apt to be tedious except to those who have intelligent activities and interests. If a leisured population is to be happy, it must be an educated population, and must be educated with a view to enjoyment as well as to the direct usefulness of technical knowledge.

CSAT 2022 · Q51

Reading comprehension Medium

Which of the following statements best reflects the underlying tone of the passage?

Answer & explanation

Answer: (a) Only an educated population can best make use of the benefits of economic progress.

Machines can give people leisure, but leisure is tedious except for those with intelligent interests, and a leisured population can be happy only if it is educated. So only an educated people can truly enjoy the fruits of economic progress.

  • ✓ (a) “If a leisured population is to be happy, it must be an educated population” — education is what lets people benefit from the leisure that productivity brings.
  • ✗ (b) The passage says productivity “should lead to” leisure; it does not say all development should aim at leisure.
  • ✗ (c) Reverses the logic: education is necessary for happy leisure, not a guarantee that more education raises happiness.
  • ✗ (d) The passage does not urge using machines to create leisure; it takes leisure as given and asks what makes it happy.

Remember · ‘Must be X if Y is to happen’ states a necessary condition; options turning it into a sufficient cause are wrong.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper II (2022, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). ·

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