EPFO EO/AO 2023 General Ability Test · Question 19 of 120

Correct — C, (c) The natural resources necessary to sustain life are reducing drastically. Take the quoted phrase to pieces and translate each piece. ‘The world’s life-supporting resources’ means the resources of the earth that sustain life — which is what option (c) says in the words ‘the natural resources necessary to sustain life’. ‘Are being depleted’ means are being used up or run down, which is ‘are reducing’. ‘At a faster rate than ever before’, with the exclamation mark the author puts on it, marks the loss as steep and accelerating, which is ‘drastically’. Every element of the phrase is carried across and nothing has been added. The sentences immediately after it confirm the reading. The author goes straight on to say that we have to change our practices and those of the world as a whole towards a more sustainable future, and then to introduce Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals. That is a response to a general loss of the earth’s resources — not to a shortage of one commodity, not to a failure of a service, and not to anything about technology. A paraphrase that fits the sentences on either side of the quoted line is almost always the right one. The scope of the claim is the other thing to weigh. The author writes about the world’s resources, in the plural and without qualification, and that generality is part of what has to survive the translation. An option that swaps a general claim for one particular case of it has narrowed the author’s meaning, and narrowing is as much a mistranslation as reversing.

• (a)Today we are facing an acute shortage of food products — ‘Today we are facing an acute shortage of food products’ is the narrowing trap. Food is indeed a life-supporting resource, so the option is not absurd — it is a single instance dressed as a translation of a general claim. The passage never mentions food, and it speaks of the world’s resources as a class. There is also a shift of kind hidden in it: the author describes a process, resources being depleted at an accelerating rate, whereas the option describes a present state, a shortage now being faced. An option may be consistent with a passage and still not be what the passage says.
• (b)Medical health systems are deteriorating at a fast pace — ‘Medical health systems are deteriorating at a fast pace’ is built on a deliberate misreading of the compound ‘life-supporting’. In a hospital the phrase ‘life support’ names equipment that keeps a patient alive, and an option can be constructed by reading the passage’s words in that unrelated sense. Context forbids it: the sentence is about the world’s resources, and the paragraph that follows is about sustainability, Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals. Health systems appear nowhere in the passage. When a phrase can be read in two senses, the surrounding sentences decide which one the author is using.
• (d)Human life is becoming more dependent on the support of technology — ‘Human life is becoming more dependent on the support of technology’ borrows the word ‘support’ from the quoted phrase and attaches it to something the passage does not discuss at all. Technology is never mentioned. The option also reverses the shape of the claim: the author is describing something being lost, and this describes something being acquired. A distractor that keeps one word of the original and changes the direction of the sentence is common in this section, and the guard against it is to check the verb as carefully as the nouns.

This is a paraphrase item, and it turns on three things a candidate can be trained to check. Scope. A general claim must be rendered by a general statement. If the passage says resources and the option says food, the option has narrowed it; if the passage says a country and the option says the world, the option has widened it. Both are errors, and narrowing is the harder to see because the narrowed statement is usually consistent with the passage. Sense of the words. English is full of compounds that carry more than one sense — life support, security cover, service charge, running account. A comprehension option can be manufactured by taking the sense the passage does not intend. The surrounding sentences settle which sense is meant, which is why the paragraph, and not the quoted line, is the unit to read. Direction. Every claim has a direction — something is increasing or decreasing, being gained or lost, caused or prevented. Reversing it while keeping the vocabulary produces an option that looks familiar and says the opposite. Against those three, option (c) is a translation that keeps the scope general, takes ‘life-supporting’ in the sense the passage’s own next sentence requires, and preserves the direction of loss.

Q19 is the fourth item of the comprehension set that closes Part A, and like the other followers it prints only its question; the Directions and the passage stand above Q16. The quoted sentence is the passage’s opening line, and it is the one place where the author uses an exclamation mark. That punctuation is worth reading as evidence. It tells you the sentence is meant as an alarm rather than as a neutral observation, and it supports an option that describes the loss as drastic over one that would soften it. The Directions require the answer to rest on the content of the passage and the opinion of the author only, and an author’s emphasis is part of his opinion. Whether the world’s resources are in fact being depleted faster than ever before is a question about the world; the item asks only what the author is saying, and answers to it are found in his words and in the argument he builds on them in the sentences that follow.

• The quoted sentence is the passage’s opening line and the only sentence in it that ends with an exclamation mark, which marks the claim as an alarm.
• The author follows it immediately by saying we have to change our practices and those of the world as a whole towards a more sustainable future.
• The passage speaks of the world’s life-supporting resources as a class, without naming any particular resource; food is never mentioned.
• ‘Life-supporting’ in this passage means sustaining life on earth, not the medical sense of life support; the surrounding sentences fix the reading.
• Neither health systems nor technology appears anywhere in the passage.

• Choosing an option that is consistent with the passage rather than one that states what the passage says. A shortage of food is compatible with the sentence and is not a translation of it.
• Reading a compound in its commoner everyday sense. ‘Life support’ suggests hospitals, and the passage is talking about the earth.
• Keeping the vocabulary and losing the direction. An option about growing dependence on technological support inverts a sentence about resources being lost.
• Ignoring the author’s emphasis. The exclamation mark is part of the evidence about how strong a claim he is making.

Paraphrase items in this set quote a whole sentence or a clause and ask what it means in the passage, and the wrong options are manufactured by three standard operations — narrowing the claim to one instance, re-reading a compound in a different sense, and keeping a key word while reversing the direction. Because each operation leaves most of the sentence intact, none of the options can be dismissed at a glance, and the marks go to candidates who translate the quoted words piece by piece before reading the choices.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  A passage reads : ‘The establishment’s records are being computerised at a pace no one anticipated.’ Which of the following restates this sentence ?

  • (a)The establishment has bought a large number of computers
  • (b)The establishment’s records are being converted to electronic form unexpectedly quickly
  • (c)The establishment’s wage register has been computerised
  • (d)The establishment’s staff have been trained in computers

  Answer(b) The establishment’s records are being converted to electronic form unexpectedly quickly — it keeps the scope general, the process ongoing, and the note of surprise. The other three narrow the claim to one register, or substitute related activities the sentence does not mention.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Why is an option that is merely consistent with a comprehension passage still liable to be wrong ?

  • (a)Because consistency is irrelevant to comprehension
  • (b)Because the question asks what the passage states, and a consistent statement may be narrower, wider or about something else entirely
  • (c)Because every option in a comprehension set is designed to be inconsistent
  • (d)Because only quotations from the passage may be chosen

  Answer(b) Because the question asks what the passage states, and a consistent statement may be narrower, wider or about something else entirely — a general claim about resources is not restated by a particular claim about food, even though the two can both be true.