CSAT Solved Papers/ 2025/Q43
2025 CSAT — Q43
Passage
In only 50 years, the world’s consumption of raw materials has nearly quadrupled, to more than 100 billion tons. Less than 9% of this is reused. Batteries of old vehicles contain materials such as lithium, cobalt, manganese and nickel that are pricey and can be hard to obtain. Supply chains are long and complicated. Buyers’ risks are being aggravated by their suppliers’ poor environmental and labour standards. Reusing materials makes sense. Once batteries reach the ends of their lives, they should go back to a factory where their ingredients can be recovered and put into new batteries.
Which one of the following statements best reflects the most logical, rational and pragmatic message conveyed by the passage?
Thinking pathway
Locate. This asks for the central idea, so find the author’s own verdict line and check its temperature. After the facts (consumption quadrupled, <9% reused, batteries hold pricey materials), the author states the verdict plainly and moderately: “Reusing materials makes sense.” That measured line is the anchor.
Test (thesis-vs-detail + scope-fit). A central-idea key on a measured passage must itself be measured — it says “can be beneficial,” not “is the only way” or “must happen everywhere immediately.” (c) — “Circular economy can be beneficial for sustainable growth” — matches the author’s calibrated endorsement.
Eliminate by anatomy. (a) over-states the case — “not possible without” is an impossibility claim the moderate passage never makes. (b) over-states the case — “every sector… immediately” universalises and urgent-ises a claim the passage states calmly and about materials like batteries. (d) over-states the case — “the only option… for survival” is an existential absolutism absent from the text. All three overheat the author’s measured “makes sense.” The transferable rule: a measured passage takes a measured key. Key: (c).
Evidence in the text
“Reusing materials makes sense. Once batteries reach the ends of their lives, they should go back to a factory where their ingredients can be recovered and put into new batteries.” The passage’s measured message is that reusing materials (circular use) is beneficial — exactly (c).
Worked rationale
The passage observes that raw-material use has quadrupled while under 9% is reused, that battery materials are valuable and hard to source, and concludes — moderately — “Reusing materials makes sense,” with batteries returning to factories for recovery. The central message is that circular (reuse-based) economy is beneficial for sustainable growth.
(c) captures this calibrated claim. Answer: (c).
Why the other options miss
- A over-states the case: “not possible without reusing critical minerals” is an impossibility the passage never asserts; it argues reuse “makes sense,” not that nothing works without it.
- B over-states the case: “every sector… immediately” universalises and adds urgency the measured passage does not carry.
- D over-states the case: “the only option… for survival” is an existential claim with no textual basis.
Specialist insight
This is a calibration item: all three distractors are directionally correct (pro-reuse) but temperature-wrong — they convert “makes sense” into “not possible without / every sector immediately / only option for survival.” The scoring move on a central-idea question is to match not just the author’s topic but the author’s strength of claim. The moderate option that says reuse “can be beneficial” wins over three absolutist versions of the same sentiment.
(a)/(b)/(d) all overheat the author's measured "reusing makes sense" into absolutes; (c) keeps the temperature right.