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CSAT 2024 paper

UPSC CSE CSAT 2024 · Question 21 · Reading comprehension

Based on the above passage, the following assumptions have been made:

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

By the time children reach class 8, the bulk of them tend to be in the age range of 13 years to 15 years. But in our country, about a quarter of all children in class 8 struggle with reading simple texts and more than half are still unable to do basic arithmetic operations like division. Every year about 25 million young boys and girls from elementary school move into the life that lies for them beyond compulsory schooling. They cannot enter the workforce at least in the organized sector till they are 18. For many families, these children are the first from their families ever to get this far in school. Parents and children expect that such ‘graduates’ from school will go on to high school and college. Hardly anyone wants to go back to agriculture. On the other hand, abilities in terms of academic competencies are far lower than they should be even based on curricular expectations of class 8.

CSAT 2024 · Q21

Reading comprehension Medium

Based on the above passage, the following assumptions have been made:

  1. 1.For effective school education, parents have greater role than the governments.
  2. 2.School curriculum that conforms to today’s requirements and is uniform for the entire country may address the issues brought out.

Which of the assumptions given above is/are valid?

Answer & explanation

Answer: (d) Neither 1 nor 2

The passage describes a gap between what class 8 children can actually do and what they and their parents expect. It never compares the role of parents with that of governments, and it does not suggest a new, uniform national curriculum as the remedy.

  • ✗ 1. Parents appear only as people who hold expectations for their children. The passage never weighs their role against the government’s.
  • ✗ 2. Competencies fall short ‘even based on curricular expectations of class 8’, so the problem is weak learning against the existing curriculum, not the absence of a new or uniform one. A nationwide uniform curriculum is the reader’s idea, not the author’s premise.

Remember · An assumption must be needed by the author’s argument; a remedy the author never hints at is not an assumption.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper II (2024, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). ·

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