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). ·