Arrange the following countries on the basis of 'Human Development Index 2022' in descending order.
Country
1. Japan
2. Russia
3. Hong Kong
4. Australia
Select the correct answer from the code given b

Question

Arrange the following countries on the basis of 'Human Development Index 2022' in descending order.
Country
1. Japan
2. Russia
3. Hong Kong
4. Australia
Select the correct answer from the code given below :
Code :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — D, 3, 4, 1, 2. That is, Hong Kong, then Australia, then Japan, then Russia. Hong Kong stands highest of the four listed here on the Human Development Index, carried by one of the world's highest life expectancies together with a high gross national income per head; Australia is immediately behind it, its score built on exceptionally strong schooling indicators; Japan is comfortably inside the very-high group but below both, its extraordinary longevity offset by lower scores on the income and expected-schooling components; and Russia is clearly the lowest of the four, with markedly lower life expectancy and per-capita income than the other three. Two honest cautions belong with this card. First, learn the ORDER, not rank numbers: the exact positions of these four move between editions and are not worth memorising. Second, the premise is shaky — the report that could be called 'HDI 2022', the Human Development Report 2021-22, was released on 8 September 2022, nearly three months AFTER this exam was held on 12 June 2022. The most recent report actually available to a candidate on exam day was the Human Development Report 2020. The key still marks (d), and the descending order it asks for is the one given above.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Inverted at both ends. It opens with Japan and closes with Hong Kong, when Hong Kong is the highest of the four and Japan the third. Its clearest error is placing Russia second: Russia is the lowest of these four on every HDI component that matters — life expectancy, schooling and income per head.  (b) The near miss, and the one worth studying. It gets the tail right — Russia last — but pushes Hong Kong down to third behind Australia and Japan. Hong Kong ranks above both. A candidate who remembers only that Russia trails the other three will find this option and (d) equally attractive, and the top of the order is what separates them.  (c) It puts Russia first, which is the plainest error available in this question, and Australia last. Both are the reverse of the truth: Australia is second of the four and Russia fourth.

Concept: The Human Development Index is a composite of three dimensions, each measured by an indicator and combined as a geometric mean: a long and healthy life, measured by life expectancy at birth; knowledge, measured by mean years of schooling of adults and expected years of schooling of children; and a decent standard of living, measured by gross national income per capita in purchasing-power terms. Because it is a geometric mean, a country cannot compensate for weakness in one dimension by excelling in another — which is why a rich country with poor longevity, or a long-lived country with modest income, lands lower than raw GDP rankings would suggest. The UNDP has published the index since the first Human Development Report in 1990.

State PCS 2022 Q29 — Economy PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2022 Q29 — Economy PYQ with Answer