NDA (II) 2025 General Ability Test · Question 2 of 147

Correct — A, Population growth. A rising population is the classic pressure that forces cultivation onto marginal land — when existing fields cannot feed growing numbers, farmers move onto hillsides, arid tracts and other places ill-suited to agriculture. Of the four options this is the demographic push-factor the question points to.

• (b)Industrialisation — Industrialisation tends to take land out of farming and draw labour to cities; it is not the force that pushes farmers onto unsuitable land in the passage's argument.
• (c)Water scarcity — Water scarcity is a constraint or consequence of poor land use, not the driver that pushes cultivation onto marginal ground.
• (d)Desertification — Desertification is an outcome of degradation (land turning to desert) — an effect, not the cause that pushes farmers into unsuitable areas.

A reading-comprehension inference item: the driver that pushes cultivation onto land unsuited to agriculture is population growth.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Cultivating steep hillsides and dry marginal tracts most directly reflects which pressure?

  • (a)Population growth
  • (b)Falling food prices
  • (c)Farm mechanisation
  • (d)Urban migration

  Answer(a) Population growth — more mouths to feed forces farming onto land that is barely suitable.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  'Marginal land' in an agricultural context means land that is —

  • (a)highly fertile
  • (b)barely suitable for farming
  • (c)legally protected
  • (d)already irrigated

  Answer(b) barely suitable for farming — marginal land yields little and is easily degraded.