IPMAT Indore 2024 · Verbal Ability · Question 4

IPMAT Indore 2024 previous year question on RC Inference Questions, with the answer and a step-by-step solution.

RC Inference QuestionsReading Comprehension - Question TypesMultiple choiceMedium

RC passage 1: Passage 1 – India’s air quality and the right to clean air — this question belongs to a set. Read the full set with all 6 questions →

Read the following passage and choose the answer that is closest to each of the questions that are based on the passage.

Recently, India was in the news again as a world leader – but this time for the wrong reason. According to the Swiss firm IQAir’s assessment of the air quality of world cities 2023, New Delhi is back to being the world’s most polluted capital. New Delhi’s annual air quality rating is 19 times the World Health Organization’s annual limit recommended in 2021 for its pollutant level. The picture is no better as far as the larger Union Territory of Delhi is considered – its annual record of pollutant levels makes it the third most polluted region globally.

Delhi may have hogged the headlines on air pollution, but the problem is far from unique to metropolises. IQAir’s findings reveal that even lower-tier cities and towns in India are choking because of very poor air quality. Indeed, Begusarai in Bihar is the world’s most polluted city. Partly industrialized, housing among others an oil refinery, Begusarai is primarily agrarian. And Begusarai is not an outlier: Mullanpur in Punjab, which is transitioning to an urban settlement, and Siwan in Bihar are among the 42 Indian cities/towns that are among the 50 most polluted globally.

Many judicial pronouncements have upheld “the right to clean air” as a corollary to the fundamental right to life and pushed governments to act. But Delhi’s bad air is despite the introduction of CNG in public transport and the building of a metro network in the early years of this decade, and in spite of the presence of a Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) that kicks in when the air quality turns bad and becomes more stringent as the air quality worsens.

Improving air quality across Indian cities requires three fundamental changes. One, governments must turn to science to understand, measure, and monitor the problem. Two, they have to understand that the response will have to include behavioural changes and use a combination of incentives and penalties to achieve this. And three, clean air has to be seen as a common public good. To be sure, it is not just the responsibility of the Centre or a battle for courts to wage, but a fight that states and municipal governments have to be a part of. This is the battle for our future.

The first sentence in the passage mentions that India was in the news again as a world leader. What is the writer’s intention in pointing this out?
  1. A
    To create confusion.
  2. B
    To be critical.
  3. C
    To be negative.
  4. D
    To be judgemental.
Pick an option, then check.
Answer & solution

Answer: Option B

Step 1 — note the device. The opening reads: “India was in the news again as a world leader – but this time for the wrong reason.”

“World leader” normally signals praise; the dash reverses it. This is irony — praise-shaped language used to deliver a rebuke.

Step 2 — identify the purpose. The writer is holding India’s governments to account for a failure. That is criticism.

Step 3 — separate the near-synonyms. The three wrong options are all vaguely negative, so the distinction matters:

(a) To create confusion — a writer never intends to confuse; the irony is immediately resolved by the same sentence.

(c) To be negative — too weak and too unfocused. “Negative” describes a mood; the passage has a specific target (policy failure) and goes on to propose remedies, which a merely negative piece would not.

(d) To be judgemental — this implies condemning people unfairly. The writer evaluates a measurable outcome against WHO limits, which is reasoned criticism, not personal judgement.

(b) To be critical ✔ — precise and supported.

Answer: Option 2

Shortcut. When the options are near-synonyms, pick the most precise, not the strongest. Critical is the neutral, accurate description of evidence-based fault-finding; negative and judgemental both carry extra baggage the passage does not earn.

And note the giveaway in the question stem itself: “for the wrong reason” is in the sentence being asked about, so the intention must be fault-finding. That alone removes (a).

More RC Inference Questions questions

All RC Inference Questions PYQs →

Take this paper as a timed test
Real exam timing, instant score, rank and topic-wise analysis.

Practice timed →