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CSAT 2025 paper

UPSC CSE CSAT 2025 · Question 22 · Reading comprehension

With reference to the passage, the following assumptions have been made: The growing divergence…

Directions for the following 4 (four) 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

One of the dismal realities of the agricultural sector in independent India has been that it never experienced a high-growth phase, unlike the non-agricultural economy. The highest decadal growth (compound annual growth rate or CAGR) for agriculture has been just 3.5% in the 1980s. Also, after experiencing a spurt in decadal growth during the 1980s, agricultural growth suffered relative stagnation thereafter. This is in sharp contrast to non-agricultural growth, which consistently increased from the 1980s to 2000s.

CSAT 2025 · Q22

Reading comprehension Easy

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

The growing divergence between the fortunes of the agricultural and non-agricultural economy in India could have been reduced/contained by:

  1. I.adapting large-scale cultivation of commercial crops and viable corporate farming.
  2. II.providing free insurance for all crops and heavily subsidizing seeds, fertilizers, electricity and farm machinery at par with developed countries.

Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?

Answer & explanation

Answer: (d) Neither I nor II

The passage only records the widening gap between agricultural and non-agricultural growth; it neither diagnoses causes nor suggests remedies. Both statements are specific policy prescriptions, so neither is an assumption the author makes.

  • ✗ I The passage offers no remedy for the divergence. Commercial crops and corporate farming are solutions the reader brings in, not something the author relies on.
  • ✗ II Free crop insurance and subsidies 'at par with developed countries' are detailed policy prescriptions. Nothing in the passage discusses insurance, subsidies or developed countries.

Remember · If a passage only describes a trend, any assumption offering a specific cure is almost always invalid.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper II (2025, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). ·

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