2024 Prelims Paper 2 UPSC Question Paper

Directions for the following 4 (four) items :
Read the following two passages and answer the items that follow the passages. Your answers to these items should be based on the passages only.
Passage-1
Conventional classrooms, by emphasizing fixed duration over learning effectiveness, resign themselves to variable outcomes. The tyranny of the classroom is that every learner is subjected to the same set of lectures in the same way for the same duration. In the end, a few learners shine, some survive, and the rest are left behind. After the fixed duration, the classroom model moves on, with not a thought spared for those left behind. This is how we end up with 10 percent employability in our graduates after a decade and half of formal education. Repeating the same ineffectual script in the realm of skill education will not produce different results.

Which of the following statements best reflects/reflect the most logical and rational inference/inferences that can be made from the passage?
1. In conventional classroom learning, the central goal is duration of learning rather than attainment of competency.
2. Conventional classrooms encourage one-size-fits-all approach and stamp out all differentiation.
Select the correct answer using the code given below

Based on the above passage, the following assumptions have been made :
1. As a large number of workers in our country are employed in unorganized sector, India does not need to change its present conventional classroom system of education.
2. Even with its present conventional classroom system of education, India produces sufficient number of skilled workers to fully realize the benefits of demographic dividend.
Which of the assumptions given above is/are valid?

Passage-2
When a child reaches adolescence, there is apt to be a conflict between the parents and the child, since the latter considers himself to be by now quite capable of managing his own affairs, while the former are filled with parental solicitude, which is often a disguise for love of power. Parents consider, usually, that the various moral problems which arise in adolescence are peculiarly their province. The options they express, however, are so dogmatic that the young seldom confide in them, and usually go their own way in secret.
Based on the above passage, the following assumptions have been made :
1. The adolescent does not feel comfortable with his parents because they tend to be dominating and assertive.
2. The adolescent of modern times does not have much respect for parents.
Which of the assumptions given above is/are valid?

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

What is the number of fives used in numbering a 260-page book?

What is the sum of the first 28 terms in the following sequence?
1, 1, 2, 1, 3, 2, 1, 4, 3, 2, 1, 5, 4, 3, 2,......

A person buys three articles P, Q, and R for ₹3,330. If P costs 25% more than R and R costs 20% more than Q, then what is the cost of P?

If the sum of the two-digit numbers AB and CD is the three-digit number 1CE, where the letters A, B, C, D, E denote distinct digits, then what is the value of A?

Three numbers x, y, z are selected from the set of the first seven natural numbers such that x > 2y > 3z. How many such distinct triplets (x, y, z) are possible?

The total cost of 4 oranges, 6 mangoes and 8 apples is equal to twice the total cost of 1 orange, 2 mangoes and 5 apples. Consider the following statements :
1. The total cost of 3 oranges, 5 mangoes and 9 apples is equal to the total cost of 4 oranges, 6 mangoes and 8 apples.
2. The total cost of one orange and one mango is equal to the cost of one apple.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?