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UPSC CSE Prelims Paper 2 CSAT Question Paper (May 20, 2012);

UPSC CSE 2012 Prelims CSAT (Paper 2) was conducted on 20 May 2012. This paper, known as the Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT), is qualifying in nature and assesses candidates on comprehension, logical reasoning, analytical ability, and quantitative aptitude. It consists of 80 multiple-choice questions with a total weightage of 200 marks, requiring candidates to secure at least 33% (66 marks) to qualify. The exam is designed to test problem-solving skills and decision-making abilities essential for future civil servants.

Free
UPSC CSE 2012 (Prelims) CSAT Previous Year Paper (20-May-2012)
120 Minutes
80 Questions
200 Marks
English, Hindi
Showing 1 - 5 of 80 questions
Page 1 of 16

Q1.

Read the following passages and answer the items that follow each passages. your answer to these items should be based on passage on the only.

Education, without a doubt, has an important functional, instrumental and utilitarian dimensions. This is revealed when one asked questions such as what is the purpose of education ? The answers, too often, are to acquire qualifications for employment/upward mobility. Wider/hirer (in terms of income) opportunities and to meet the needs for trained human power in diverse field for national development. But in its deepest sense education is not instrumentalist, that is to say, it is not to be justified outside of itself because it leads to the acquisition of formal skills or of certain desired psychological - social attributes. It must be respected in itself. Education is, thus, not a commodity to be acquired or possessed and then used; but a process of inestimable importance to individual and society, although it can and does have enormous use value. Education then, is a process of expansion and conversion not in the sense of converting or turning student into doctor or engineer, but the widening and turning out of the mind the creation, sustenance and development of self-critical awareness and independence of thought. It is an inner process of moral - intellectual development.

What do you understand by the 'instrumentalist' view of education ?

Q2.

Read the following passages and answer the items that follow each passages. your answer to these items should be based on passage on the only.

Education, without a doubt, has an important functional, instrumental and utilitarian dimensions. This is revealed when one asked questions such as what is the purpose of education ? The answers, too often, are to acquire qualifications for employment/upward mobility. Wider/hirer (in terms of income) opportunities and to meet the needs for trained human power in diverse field for national development. But in its deepest sense education is not instrumentalist, that is to say, it is not to be justified outside of itself because it leads to the acquisition of formal skills or of certain desired psychological - social attributes. It must be respected in itself. Education is, thus, not a commodity to be acquired or possessed and then used; but a process of inestimable importance to individual and society, although it can and does have enormous use value. Education then, is a process of expansion and conversion not in the sense of converting or turning student into doctor or engineer, but the widening and turning out of the mind the creation, sustenance and development of self-critical awareness and independence of thought. It is an inner process of moral - intellectual development.

According to the passage, education must be respected in itself because

Q3.

Read the following passages and answer the items that follow each passages. your answer to these items should be based on passage on the only.

Education, without a doubt, has an important functional, instrumental and utilitarian dimensions. This is revealed when one asked questions such as what is the purpose of education ? The answers, too often, are to acquire qualifications for employment/upward mobility. Wider/hirer (in terms of income) opportunities and to meet the needs for trained human power in diverse field for national development. But in its deepest sense education is not instrumentalist, that is to say, it is not to be justified outside of itself because it leads to the acquisition of formal skills or of certain desired psychological - social attributes. It must be respected in itself. Education is, thus, not a commodity to be acquired or possessed and then used; but a process of inestimable importance to individual and society, although it can and does have enormous use value. Education then, is a process of expansion and conversion not in the sense of converting or turning student into doctor or engineer, but the widening and turning out of the mind the creation, sustenance and development of self-critical awareness and independence of thought. It is an inner process of moral - intellectual development.

Education is a process in which

Q4.

Read the following passages and answer the items that follow the passage.

Chemical pesticides lose their role in sustainable agriculture if the pests evolve resistance. The evolution of pesticide resistance is simply natural selection in action. It is almost certain to occur when vast numbers of a genetically variable population are killed. One or a few individuals may be unusually resistant (perhaps because they possess an enzyme that can detoxify the pesticide), if the pesticide is applied repeatedly, each successive generation of the pest will contain a larger proportion of resistant individuals. Pests typically have a high intrinsic rate of reproduction, and so a few individuals in one generation may give rise to hundreds or thousands in the next, and resistance spreads very rapidly in a population.

This problem was often ignored in the past, even though the first case of DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) resistance was reported as early in the numbers of invertebrates that have evolved resistance and in the number of pesticides against which resistance has evolved. Resistance has been recorded -in every family of arthropod pests (including dipterans such as mosquitoes and house flies, as well as beetles, moths, wasps, fleas, lice, and mites) as well as in weeds and plant pathogens. Take the Alabama leafworm, a moth pest of cotton, as an example. It has developed resistance in one or more regions of the world to aldrin, DDT, dielectric, endrin, lindane, and toxaphene.

If chemical pesticides brought nothing but problems - if their use was intrinsically and acutely unsustainable then they would already have fallen out of widespread use. This has not happened. Instead, their rate of production has increased rapidly. The ratio of cost to benefit for the individual agricultural producer has remained in favor of pesticide use. In the USA, insecticides have been estimated to benefit agricultural products to the tune of around $5 for every $1 spent. 

Moreover, in many poorer countries, the prospect of imminent mass starvation, or epidemic disease, is so frightening that the social and health costs of using pesticides have to be ignored. In general, the use of pesticides is justified by objective measures such as ‘lives saved’, 'economic efficiency of food production and total food produced. In these very fundamental senses, their use may be described as sustainable. In practice, sustainability depends on continually developing new pesticides that keep at least one step ahead of the pests - pesticides that are less persistent, biodegradable, and more accurately targeted at the pests.  

"The evolution of pesticide resistance is natural selection in action." What does it actually imply ?

Q5.

Read the following passages and answer the items that follow the passage.

Chemical pesticides lose their role in sustainable agriculture if the pests evolve resistance. The evolution of pesticide resistance is simply natural selection in action. It is almost certain to occur when vast numbers of a genetically variable population are killed. One or a few individuals may be unusually resistant (perhaps because they possess an enzyme that can detoxify the pesticide), if the pesticide is applied repeatedly, each successive generation of the pest will contain a larger proportion of resistant individuals. Pests typically have a high intrinsic rate of reproduction, and so a few individuals in one generation may give rise to hundreds or thousands in the next, and resistance spreads very rapidly in a population.

This problem was often ignored in the past, even though the first case of DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) resistance was reported as early in the numbers of invertebrates that have evolved resistance and in the number of pesticides against which resistance has evolved. Resistance has been recorded -in every family of arthropod pests (including dipterans such as mosquitoes and house flies, as well as beetles, moths, wasps, fleas, lice, and mites) as well as in weeds and plant pathogens. Take the Alabama leafworm, a moth pest of cotton, as an example. It has developed resistance in one or more regions of the world to aldrin, DDT, dielectric, endrin, lindane, and toxaphene.

If chemical pesticides brought nothing but problems - if their use was intrinsically and acutely unsustainable then they would already have fallen out of widespread use. This has not happened. Instead, their rate of production has increased rapidly. The ratio of cost to benefit for the individual agricultural producer has remained in favor of pesticide use. In the USA, insecticides have been estimated to benefit agricultural products to the tune of around $5 for every $1 spent. 

Moreover, in many poorer countries, the prospect of imminent mass starvation, or epidemic disease, is so frightening that the social and health costs of using pesticides have to be ignored. In general, the use of pesticides is justified by objective measures such as ‘lives saved’, 'economic efficiency of food production and total food produced. In these very fundamental senses, their use may be described as sustainable. In practice, sustainability depends on continually developing new pesticides that keep at least one step ahead of the pests - pesticides that are less persistent, biodegradable, and more accurately targeted at the pests.  

With reference to the passage, consider the following statements:

1. Use of chemical pesticides has become imperative in all the poor countries of the world.

2. Chemical pesticides should not have any role in sustainable agriculture

3. One pest can develop resistance to many pesticides,

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

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