CSAT Solved Papers/ 2024/Q63
2024 CSAT — Q63
Passage
Green growth involves rethinking growth strategies with regard to the impacts on environmental sustainability and the environmental resources available to poor and vulnerable groups. In rethinking growth, we need to focus on the current reality of a resource-constrained world. Resource intensive and, in particular energy intensive processes will need to make way for more efficient and resource frugal development strategies if we are to avoid an economic dead end or a world in which only a small elite is able to enjoy affluence in the midst of a sea of poverty.
Which one of the following statements best reflects the crux of the above passage?
Thinking pathway
Locate. This asks for the central idea (the crux): find the claim the passage drives toward. The passage defines green growth as rethinking growth around environmental sustainability and the resources available to the poor and vulnerable, and argues for “efficient and resource frugal development strategies” to avoid “an economic dead end or a world in which only a small elite… enjoy[s] affluence in the midst of a sea of poverty.” The thesis: sustainable, resource-frugal growth is the route to lasting, inclusive prosperity.
Test (thesis-vs-detail + scope-fit). The crux must capture sustainability-as-condition-for-good- growth without reversing it. (c) — high environmental standards are “now a prerequisite for achieving a steady, sufficient and inclusive growth” — matches the passage’s “if we are to avoid… a sea of poverty” framing and spans the whole argument.
Eliminate by anatomy. (a) gets the direction backwards — “sustainability is inimical to GDP growth” opposes a passage that makes sustainability necessary for good growth. (b) also gets the direction backwards — “poverty eradication… requires rapid growth and consequent environmental degradation” is the exact position the passage rejects (it wants growth without the dead-end/elite-affluence outcome). (d) is too strong for what the passage says, and also reverses it — “degradation cannot be prevented and inequalities are inevitable” is a fatalism the passage argues against. The transferable rule: a green-growth passage’s crux affirms sustainability as enabling inclusive growth; reject options that pit them against each other or declare degradation inevitable. Key: (c).
Evidence in the text
Green growth means “rethinking growth strategies with regard to the impacts on environmental sustainability” and shifting to “efficient and resource frugal development strategies if we are to avoid an economic dead end or a world in which only a small elite is able to enjoy affluence in the midst of a sea of poverty” — the crux is that environmental sustainability is now a prerequisite for steady, sufficient and inclusive growth, exactly (c).
Worked rationale
The passage: green growth rethinks strategy around environmental sustainability and the resources of the poor and vulnerable, favouring efficient, resource-frugal development to avoid an economic dead end and a world of elite affluence amid mass poverty. Its crux: environmental sustainability is now a condition for steady, sufficient, inclusive growth.
(c) states this. (a) and (b) make sustainability and growth enemies (the opposite of the passage), and (d) declares degradation and inequality inevitable (which the passage seeks to avoid).
Answer: (c).
Why the other options miss
- A gets the direction backwards: “sustainability is inimical to GDP growth” flips the passage, which treats sustainability as enabling, not opposing, sound growth.
- B gets the direction backwards: endorses “rapid growth and consequent environmental degradation” as necessary for poverty eradication — precisely the model the passage urges us to move beyond.
- D too strong for what the passage says, and reverses it: “degradation cannot be prevented and inequalities are inevitable” is the fatalistic outcome the passage explicitly wants to avoid.
Specialist insight
Three of four options set sustainability against growth or declare degradation inevitable — the exact views the green-growth passage is written to refute. The crux runs the other way: sustainability is the prerequisite for steady, inclusive growth (c). The scoring move is direction — read whether the passage treats environment and growth as opposed (a, b, d) or as mutually necessary (c), and pick the one that matches the passage’s actual stance.
The passage makes sustainability a *prerequisite* for inclusive growth (c); (a)/(b)/(d) pit them against each other or call degradation inevitable — the views the passage refutes — (c).