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UPSC Prelims 2025 CSAT, question 51

Topic: Reading comprehension

Directions · Q51 to Q54

Directions for the following 4 (four) items :
Read the following two passages and answer the items that follow the passages. Your answer to these items should be based on the passages only.

Passage · Q51 to Q52

It is hard to predict how changes in the climate and the atmosphere's chemistry will affect the prevalence and virulence of agricultural diseases. But there is a risk that such changes will make some plant infections more common in all climatic zones, perhaps catastrophically so. Part of the problem is that centuries of selective breeding have refined the genomes of most high-value crops. They are spectacular at growing in today's conditions but genetic variations that are not immediately useful to them have been bred out. This is good for yields but bad for coping with changes. A minor disease or even an unknown one could suddenly rampage through a genetically honed crop.

Q51

Which one of the following statements best reflects the central idea conveyed by the passage ?

  1. (a) Global climate change adversely affects the productivity of crops.
  2. (b) Our total dependence on genetically honed crops entails possible food insecurity.Correct answer
  3. (c) Our food security should not depend on agricultural productivity alone.
  4. (d) Genetically honed crops should be replaced with their wild varieties in our present cultivation practices.

Solution.

Answer: (b) Our total dependence on genetically honed crops entails possible food insecurity.

  1. The passage explains that selective breeding has bred out genetic variations not immediately useful for current yields, leaving genetically honed crops vulnerable to catastrophic failure when climate change alters plant diseases.
  2. Thus the central idea is that relying wholly on genetically honed crops carries a serious risk of future food insecurity.