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CSAT 2025 paper

UPSC CSE CSAT 2025 · Question 51 · Reading comprehension

Which one of the following statements best reflects the central idea conveyed by the passage?

Directions for the following 4 (four) items: Read the following two passages and answer the items that follow the passages. Your answer to these items should be based on the passages only.

Passage—1

It is hard to predict how changes in the climate and the atmosphere’s chemistry will affect the prevalence and virulence of agricultural diseases. But there is a risk that such changes will make some plant infections more common in all climatic zones, perhaps catastrophically so. Part of the problem is that centuries of selective breeding have refined the genomes of most high-value crops. They are spectacular at growing in today’s conditions but genetic variations that are not immediately useful to them have been bred out. This is good for yields but bad for coping with changes. A minor disease or even an unknown one could suddenly rampage through a genetically honed crop.

CSAT 2025 · Q51

Reading comprehension Medium

Which one of the following statements best reflects the central idea conveyed by the passage?

Answer & explanation

Answer: (b) Our total dependence on genetically honed crops entails possible food insecurity.

The author warns that climate change may spread plant diseases, and that crops bred for high yields have lost the genetic variety needed to cope with change. Depending wholly on these genetically honed crops therefore carries a risk to food security, as (b) says.

  • ✗ (a) The passage says the effect of climate change on crop diseases is 'hard to predict'; it speaks of a disease risk, not a definite fall in productivity.
  • ✓ (b) Selective breeding has made high-value crops 'spectacular' today but stripped out genetic variation, so a minor or unknown disease 'could suddenly rampage' through them. Relying entirely on such crops puts the food supply at risk.
  • ✗ (c) The passage does not discuss what else food security should rest on; its concern is the fragility of genetically honed crops.
  • ✗ (d) Replacing honed crops with wild varieties is a drastic prescription the author never makes; the passage even grants that breeding 'is good for yields'.

Remember · The central idea joins the problem to its cause; reject options that overstate certainty or leap to drastic remedies.

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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