2023 CSAT — Q35

Locate. On a four-statement valid-assumption question, pin the passage’s argument once, then test each statement against it. The argument: India’s food-consumption shift wiped out nutritious foods like millets; grain production rose fivefold yet malnutrition persists; the agriculture sector’s focus on staples cut indigenous crops and hurt nutrition security; and intensive monoculture perpetuates the problem by degrading land, water and food quality.

Test (run each statement through the three boundaries). Statement 2 — “dependence on a few crops has negative consequences for human health and the ecosystem”: the passage says monoculture degrades land, water and food quality — same entities, same degradation mechanism, no inflated qualifier. VALID. Statement 3 — “food-planning policy needs to incorporate nutritional security”: the passage’s spine is that production rose but nutrition did not, so planning must factor nutrition — a fair inference inside the text. VALID. Statement 1 — “monoculture is inevitable even if it doesn’t address malnutrition”: gets the cause-and-effect direction backwards; the passage says monoculture perpetuates the problem, the reverse of treating it as inevitable-and-acceptable. INVALID. Statement 4 — “farmers get subsidies and remunerative grain prices, so they ignore crop diversity”: brings in an actor/mechanism the passage never names; subsidies and remunerative prices appear nowhere in the passage. INVALID.

Eliminate by anatomy. Any option containing 1 (a, d) gets the direction backwards — monoculture cast as a necessary good against a passage that condemns it. Any option containing 4 (a, c, d) brings in something the passage doesn’t — a subsidy mechanism the text never mentions. Strip both and only 2 and 3 survive. The transferable rule: in a multi-statement validity item, one reversed direction and one added entity are the two classic plants; quarantine them and the valid pair is what remains. Key: (b).

Statement 2 — “intensive, monoculture agriculture practices can perpetuate the food and nutrition security problem by degrading the quality of land, water and food derived through them” → dependence on a few crops has negative consequences for health (food quality) and ecosystem (land, water): VALID (same entities, same degradation mechanism). Statement 3 — the passage’s whole arc is that production rose “five times” yet “has not sufficiently addressed… malnutrition,” so food planning must factor nutrition: VALID (fair inference). Statement 1 crosses MECHANISM/direction — it makes monoculture “inevitable,” the OPPOSITE of a passage that says monoculture PERPETUATES the problem (REVERSED) → INVALID. Statement 4 crosses the ENTITY boundary — “subsidies,” “remunerative prices for grains” are nowhere in this passage → INVALID. Valid = 2 and 3 → (b).

Passage thesis: production grew without solving malnutrition; the staples/monoculture focus eroded indigenous crops and degrades land, water and food quality, perpetuating the nutrition-security problem.

• Statement 1 — monoculture is inevitable even if it ignores malnutrition. The passage treats monoculture as a cause of the problem to be moved away from, not an inevitability. Reverses the passage’s direction. Invalid (reversed).
• Statement 2 — dependence on a few crops harms health and the ecosystem. Directly restates “degrading the quality of land, water and food.” Valid.
• Statement 3 — food-planning policy must incorporate nutritional security. Fair inference from “production increased… has not sufficiently addressed malnutrition.” Valid.
• Statement 4 — subsidies/remunerative grain prices make farmers ignore diversity. No subsidy or price mechanism is in the passage. Invalid (adds entity).

Valid = 2 and 3. Answer: (b) 2 and 3 only.

Four-statement validity items are engineered so that the two true-sounding statements are the planted ones. Statement 1 is a fashionable food-security talking point (monoculture as the price of feeding billions) — but it reverses this passage’s direction. Statement 4 is a real Indian agricultural fact (MSP, subsidies) — but it is nowhere in this passage. Both are “true in the world,” and both fail the boundary test (direction; entity). The valid pair, 2 and 3, are the unglamorous ones that simply restate and fairly extend the text. Answer (b).