2022 CSAT — Q3
Passage
Unless the forces and tendencies which are responsible for destroying the country’s environment are checked in the near future and afforestation of denuded areas is taken up on a massive scale, the harshness of the climatic conditions and soil erosion by wind and water will increase to such an extent that agriculture, which is the mainstay of our people, will gradually become impossible. The desert countries of the world and our own desert areas in Rajasthan are a grim reminder of the consequences of large-scale deforestation. Pockets of desert-like landscape are now appearing in other parts of the country including the Sutlej-Ganga Plains and the Deccan Plateau. Where only a few decades back there used to be lush green forests with perennial streams and springs, there is only brown earth, bare of vegetation, without any water in the streams and springs except in the rainy season.
According to the passage given above, deforestation and denudation will ultimately lead to which of the following?
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Depletion of soil resource
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Shortage of land for the common man
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Lack of water for cultivation
Select the correct answer using the code given below.
Thinking pathway
Locate. This is a locate-the-detail question — your job is not to reason about the world, it is to find the exact line that states each numbered consequence. The passage: “soil erosion by wind and water will increase to such an extent that agriculture, which is the mainstay of our people, will gradually become impossible”; barren land where “there used to be lush green forests”; “without any water in the streams and springs except in the rainy season.”
Test — find the line, then match it. Match each numbered item to a line before you trust it. Item 1 (depletion of soil resource) maps to “soil erosion… will increase.” Item 3 (lack of water for cultivation) maps to dried-up streams/springs plus agriculture becoming impossible. Item 2 (shortage of land for the common man) — search the passage: it describes land degrading into a barren/desert-like landscape, but it never speaks of a shortage of land for the common man (a land-availability / distribution claim).
Eliminate by anatomy. (a)/(b)/(d) all seat item 2 — a claim that is out of scope: a plausible real-world knock-on (“less usable land → land shortage”) that the passage never actually states. The transferable rule: “the land becomes barren” is a soil/agriculture claim, not a “shortage of land for the common man” claim — don’t promote a downstream guess into a stated consequence. Key: (c).
Evidence in the text
Item 1 — “soil erosion by wind and water will increase to such an extent that agriculture… will gradually become impossible” → depletion of the soil resource, stated. Item 3 — “without any water in the streams and springs except in the rainy season” (and agriculture becoming impossible) → lack of water for cultivation, stated. Item 2 — “shortage of land for the common man” is NOT in the passage; it describes land turning barren/desert-like, never a distribution/shortage-of-land claim → out of scope → (c).
Worked rationale
The passage’s stated consequences of deforestation/denudation are intensified soil erosion (agriculture becoming impossible) and dried-up water sources (no water except in the rainy season).
- Item 1 (soil-resource depletion) — stated via “soil erosion… will increase.” Valid.
- Item 3 (lack of water for cultivation) — stated via dry streams/springs and impossible agriculture. Valid.
- Item 2 (shortage of land for the common man) — not stated; the passage describes barren land, not a land shortage for people. Out of scope.
Answer: (c) 1 and 3 only.
Why the other options miss
- A out of scope: seats the unstated “land shortage for the common man” and drops the explicitly-stated water consequence.
- B out of scope: again seats item 2, and drops the soil-erosion consequence.
- D adds the out-of-scope item 2 (a claim the passage never makes) to the two genuine consequences.
Specialist insight
The single trap is item 2. The passage’s land claim is qualitative — fertile land turning barren — not a quantitative land-availability claim (“shortage of land for the common man”). It is the kind of consequence a reader supplies from real-world reasoning (“degraded land means less land for people”) that the text does not assert. Read what the passage literally predicts: soil erosion and water loss. (c).
The passage predicts soil erosion and lost water, not a "shortage of land for the common man" — item 2 is read-in, so the answer is (c).