EPFO EO/AO 2023 General Ability Test · Question 95 of 120

Correct — C, (c) Both 1 and 2. Each numbered statement reproduces a claim made in the official announcement of this standard, so the code accepting both is the answer. The subject is the standard IS 17693 : 2022, which the Bureau of Indian Standards developed for a non-electric cooling cabinet made of clay — the product widely known by the brand name Mitticool, devised by Mansukhbhai Prajapati of Gujarat. It is a clay cabinet that keeps food cool without any electricity, working by evaporative cooling: water held in the clay body evaporates through the porous walls, and evaporation draws heat from what is inside, so the interior settles several degrees below the surrounding air. The device is significant beyond its novelty because it puts a grassroots innovation on a formal footing, giving it a specification that manufacturers can be tested against. Statement 1 describes it as a natural refrigerator made primarily to store vegetables, fruits and milk and also to cool water. That is exactly how the announcement describes the product and its intended use, so statement 1 is correct. Statement 2 says the standard helps the Bureau fulfil 6 of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. That figure of six out of seventeen is also stated in the official announcement, the goals cited being those concerning no poverty, zero hunger, gender equality, affordable and clean energy, industry, innovation and infrastructure, and responsible consumption and production. The connection is not decorative: a cooling cabinet that needs no power reduces food waste, works where the electricity supply is unreliable, costs little to buy and nothing to run, and is made by potters from local clay. Statement 2 is correct as printed. Both statements standing, the answer is option (c). A candidate who has not seen the announcement can still reason towards it: statement 1 is a plain description that would be odd to fabricate, and statement 2 carries a precise, checkable figure of the kind a press release supplies rather than one an examiner invents. Where a two-statement item offers a description and an attribution, and neither contains an internal contradiction, the 'both' code is worth serious consideration. Note the printing: the standard number is set with spaces around the colon, as 'IS 17693 : 2022', which is this booklet's convention for a colon throughout.

• (a)1 only — This code accepts the description of the product but rejects the claim about the Sustainable Development Goals. The claim is genuine: the official announcement of the standard states that it helps the Bureau in fulfilling 6 out of the 17 goals, and names them. A candidate is drawn here by suspicion of the specific number, on the general principle that precise figures in a statement are often altered — but here the number is quoted correctly, and rejecting a true statement costs the mark just as surely as accepting a false one.
• (b)2 only — This code accepts the Sustainable Development Goals claim and rejects the description of the product. The description is accurate in every part: it is a natural refrigerator, it is made primarily to store vegetables, fruits and milk, and it is also used for cooling water. The word that might trouble a careful reader is 'natural refrigerator', which sounds like a marketing phrase rather than a technical one — but it is the phrase the announcement itself uses, and the cabinet does cool by a natural process, the evaporation of water through porous clay, with no compressor, no refrigerant and no power supply.
• (d)Neither 1 nor 2 — This code rejects both statements, which would require the announcement to have said something quite different about a standard the stem itself confirms exists. The stem tells the candidate that the Bureau has developed IS 17693 : 2022 for a non-electric cooling cabinet, so the existence of the subject is not in doubt; the only question is whether the two descriptions of it are right, and both are. This option is the refuge of a candidate who has not met the item before and treats unfamiliarity as evidence of falsity — a habit that is costly in a paper where current-affairs items are drawn straight from official announcements.

The Bureau of Indian Standards is the national standards body, functioning under the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 2016 in the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution. It succeeded the Indian Standards Institution, founded in 1947, and took its present form in 1987. Its work is of three kinds: formulating Indian Standards, which are technical specifications identified by an IS number and the year of issue; operating certification schemes, of which the ISI mark on manufactured goods and the hallmark on gold jewellery are the best known; and running testing laboratories and consumer awareness programmes. A standard is ordinarily voluntary, becoming mandatory only when a government order under some other law makes it so, and it is drafted by a technical committee with producers, users, laboratories and government all represented. What makes this particular standard notable is its subject: standards are usually written for industrial products, and writing one for an artisanal clay cabinet devised by an individual innovator is a deliberate step towards bringing grassroots innovation into the formal quality system, so that such a product can be made to a consistent specification and sold with a recognised mark. The evaporative cooling on which it works is the same principle as the earthen pot that keeps drinking water cool, the desert cooler and the cooling of the human body by perspiration: evaporation absorbs latent heat, and that heat is drawn from the water and the vessel that remain.

The current-affairs strand of the EO/AO paper draws heavily on official press releases, and a standard announced by a government body with a quotable figure attached is precisely the kind of item that gets set. This one uses the two-statement code format, in which each statement must be judged separately, and it pairs a descriptive statement with a numerical one — the usual construction, because the two invite different kinds of doubt. The habit rewarded is reading government announcements for their specific figures and their named beneficiaries rather than for their general drift, since the exam quotes them exactly. Note the booklet's spacing around the colon in the standard number and before the question mark.

• IS 17693 : 2022 is the Indian Standard developed by the Bureau of Indian Standards for a non-electric cooling cabinet made of clay.
• The product is described officially as a natural refrigerator for storing vegetables, fruits and milk and for cooling water.
• The official announcement states that the standard helps BIS fulfil 6 of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
• The goals named are no poverty, zero hunger, gender equality, affordable and clean energy, industry innovation and infrastructure, and responsible consumption and production.
• The cabinet works by evaporative cooling through porous clay walls and needs no electricity, refrigerant or compressor.
• It is based on the innovation of Mansukhbhai Prajapati of Gujarat, marketed as Mitticool.
• The Bureau of Indian Standards functions under the BIS Act, 2016 and succeeded the Indian Standards Institution of 1947.
• The 17 Sustainable Development Goals were adopted by the United Nations in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda.

• Rejecting a statement because it carries a precise number, without checking whether the number is the one officially quoted.
• Reading 'natural refrigerator' as a loose phrase inserted by the examiner rather than as the official description.
• Confusing the Bureau of Indian Standards with the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India or with the National Accreditation Board.
• Assuming an Indian Standard is automatically mandatory; standards are voluntary unless a separate order makes them compulsory.

Current-affairs items in EO/AO papers are usually built directly from an official announcement, and they test either a figure or an attribution. Read the year's major press releases for the number and the named authority in each, and practise the two-statement code format, where the discipline is to decide each statement on its own before looking at the codes.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The non-electric cooling cabinet standardised by the Bureau of Indian Standards works on the principle of :

  • (a)Vapour compression refrigeration
  • (b)Evaporative cooling
  • (c)Thermoelectric cooling
  • (d)Absorption refrigeration

  Answer(b) Evaporative cooling

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Bureau of Indian Standards functions under the administrative control of the :

  • (a)Ministry of Commerce and Industry
  • (b)Ministry of Science and Technology
  • (c)Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution
  • (d)Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises

  Answer(c) Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution