UPSC Prelims Mock Test 11 - GS Paper 2 | PTS | CSAT

UPSC Prelims Mock Test 11 – GS Paper 2

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1. Directions for the following 8 (eight) items: Read the following eight passages and answer the items that follow the passages. Your answers to these items should be based on the passages only.
Passage – 1
What climate change will undeniably do is cause or amplify events that hasten the reduction of resources. Competition over these diminishing resources would ensue in the form of political or even violent conflict. Resource-based conflicts have rarely been overt and are thus difficult to isolate. Instead they take on veneers that appear more politically palatable. Conflicts over resources like water are often cloaked in the guise of identity or ideology.

1. What does the above passage imply?
(a) Resource-based conflicts are always politically motivated.
(b) There are no political solutions to resolve environmental and resource-based conflicts.
(c) Environmental issues contribute to resource stresses and political conflict.
(d) Political conflict based on identity or ideology cannot be resolved.

Passage – 2
The man who is perpetually hesitating which of the two things he will do first, will do neither. The man who resolves, but suffers his resolution to be changed by the first counter-suggestion of a friend— who fluctuates from opinion to opinion and veers from plan to plan— can never accomplish anything. He will
at best be stationary and probably retrograde in all. It is only the man who first consults wisely, then resolves firmly and then executes his purpose with inflexible perseverance, undismayed by those petty difficulties which daunt a weaker spirit—that can advance to eminence in any line.

2. The keynote that seems to be emerging from the passage is that
(a) we should first consult wisely and then resolve firmly
(b) we should reject suggestions of friends and remain unchanged
(c) we should always remain broad-minded
(d) we should be resolute and
achievement-oriented

Passage – 3
During the summer in the Arctic Ocean, sea ice has been melting earlier and faster, and the winter freeze has been coming later. In the last three decades, the extent of summer ice has declined by about 30 percent. The lengthening period of summer melt threatens to undermine the whole Arctic food web, atop which stand polar bears.

3. Which among the following is the most crucial message conveyed by the above passage?
(a) Climate change has caused Arctic summer to be short but temperature to be high.
(b) Polar bears can be shifted to South Pole to ensure their survival.
(c) Without the presence of polar bears, the food chains in Arctic region will disappear.
(d) Climate change poses a threat to the survival of polar bears.

Passage – 4
Why do people prefer open defecation and not want toilets or, if they have them, only use them sometimes? Recent research has shown two critical elements : ideas of purity and pollution, and not wanting pits or septic tanks to fill because they have to be emptied. These are the issues that nobody wants to talk about, but if we want to eradicate the practice of open defecation, they have to be confronted and dealt properly.

4. Which among the following is the most crucial message conveyed by the above passage?
(a) The ideas of purity and pollution are so deep-rooted that they cannot be removed from the minds of the people.
(b) People have to perceive toilet use and pit-emptying as clean and not polluting.
(c) People cannot change their old habits.
(d) People have neither civic sense nor sense of privacy.

Passage – 5
In the last two decades, the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) has increased by 50 percent, whereas inclusive wealth has increased by a mere 6 per cent. In recent decades, GDP-driven economic performance has only harmed inclusive wealth like human capital; and natural capital like forests, land and water. While the world’s human capital which stands at 57 per cent of total inclusive wealth grew by only 8 percent, the natural capital which is 23 percent of total inclusive wealth declined by 30 per cent worldwide in the last two decades.

5. Which of the following is the most crucial inference from the above passage?
(a) More emphasis should be laid on the development of natural capital.
(b) The growth driven by GDP only is neither desirable nor sustainable.
(c) The economic performance of the countries of the world is not satisfactory.
(d) The world needs more human capital under the present circumstances.

Passage – 6
By 2020, when the global economy is expected to run short of 56 million young people, India, with its youth surplus of 47 million, could fill the gap. It is in this context that labour reforms are often cited as the way to unlock double-digit growth in India. In 2014, India’s labour force was estimated to be about 40 percent of the population, but 93 percent of this force was in unorganized sector. Over the last decade, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of employment has slowed to 0.5 per cent, with about 14 million jobs created during last year when the labour force increased by about 15 million.

6. Which of the following is the most rational inference from the above passage?
(a) India must control its population growth so as to reduce its unemployment rate.
(b) Labour reforms are required in India to make optimum use of its vast labour force productively.
(c) India is poised to achieve the double-digit growth very soon.
(d) India is capable of supplying the skilled young people to other countries.

Passage – 7
The very first lesson that should be taught to us when we are old enough to understand it, is that complete freedom from the obligation to work is unnatural, and ought to be illegal, as we can escape our share of the burden of work only by throwing it on someone else’s shoulders. Nature ordains that the human race shall perish of famine if it stops working. We cannot escape from this tyranny. The question we have to settle is how much leisure we can afford to allow
ourselves.

7. The main idea of the passage is that
(a) it is essential for human beings to work
(b) there should be a balance between work and leisure
(c) working is a tyranny which we have to face
(d) human’s understanding of the nature of work is essential.

Passage – 8
There is no harm in cultivating habits so long as they are not injurious. Indeed, most of us are little more than bundle of habits. Take away our habits and the residuum would hardly be worth bothering about. We could not get on without them. They simplify the mechanism of life. They enable us to do a multitude of things automatically, which, if we had to give fresh and original thought to them each time, would make existence an impossible confusion.

8. The author suggests that habits
(a) tend to make our lives difficult
(b) add precision to our lives
(c) make it easier for us to live
(d) tend to mechanize our lives

Directions for the following 2 (two) items: Consider the given information and answer the two items that follow: No supporters of ‘party X’, who knew Z and supported his campaign strategy, agreed for the alliance with ‘party Y’; but some of them had friends in ‘party Y’.

9. With reference to the above information, which one among the following statements must be true?
(a) Some supporters of ‘party Y’ did not agree for the alliance with the ‘party X’.
(b) There is at least one supporter of ‘party Y’ who knew some supporters of ‘party X’ as a friend
(c) No supporters of ‘party X’ supported Z’s campaign strategy. (d) No supporters of ‘party X’ knew Z.

10. With reference to the above information, consider the following statements:
1. Some supporters of ‘party X’ knew Z.
2. Some supporters of ‘party X’, who opposed Z’s campaign strategy, knew Z.
3. No supporters of ‘party X’ supported Z ‘s campaign strategy.
Which of the statements is/are not correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 and 3 only (c) 3 only
(d) 1,2and3

11. If second and fourth Saturdays and all the Sundays are taken as only holidays for an office, what would be the minimum number of possible working days of any month of any year?
(a) 23
(b) 22
(c) 21
(d) 20

12. If there is a policy that 1/3rd of a population of a community has migrated every year from one place to some other place, what is the leftover population of that community after the sixth year, if there is no further growth in the population during this period?
(a) 16/243rd part of the population (b) 32/243rd part of the population (c) 32/729th part of the population (d) 64/729th part of the population

13. Four tests—Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Biology are to be conducted on four consecutive days, not necessarily in the same order. The Physics test is held before the
test which is conducted after Biology. Chemistry is conducted exactly after two tests are held. Which is the last test held?
(a) Physics
(b) Biology
(c) Mathematics
(d) Chemistry

14.ThesumofincomeofAandBis more than that of C and D taken together. The sum of income of A and C isthesameasthatofBandDtaken together. Moreover, A earns half as much as the sum of the income of B and D. Whose income is the highest?
(a) A
(b) B
(c) C
(d) D

15. Consider the following :
Statement : Good voice is a natural gift but one has to keep practising to improve and excel well in the field of music.
Conclusions :
I. Natural gifts need nurturing and care.
II. Even though one’s voice is not good, one can keep practising.
Which one of the following is correct in respect of the above statement and conclusions?
(a) Only conclusion I follows from the statement.
(b) Only conclusion II follows from the statement.
(c) Either conclusion I or conclusion II follows from the statement.
(d) Neither conclusion I nor conclusion II follows from the statement.