SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 17 September 2025, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 21 of 99

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 13 September 2026.

Read the following passage and answer the questions based on the passage :
While financial inclusion is often praised as a driver of equitable growth, its implementation in rural India presents a paradox. On paper, schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), Aadhaar-enabled payment systems, and mobile banking have revolutionized access. Yet, in practice, access does not necessarily translate into utility. A significant number of rural account holders remain dormant users, often constrained by digital illiteracy, infrastructural limitations, and deeply entrenched socio-cultural barriers. In numerous villages, banking correspondents (BCs)—the foot soldiers of India’s rural financial architecture—are overburdened, undertrained, and often unsupported by robust technological infrastructure. The notion that a biometric fingerprint or a one-time password could substitute for financial literacy is naïve at best. Many beneficiaries, especially women, face systemic exclusion, not just due to lack of documentation, but because patriarchal norms often discourage or control women’s interactions with banking services. Moreover, while financial inclusion aims to integrate the rural poor into the formal economy, the informal credit system continues to flourish. This coexistence is not accidental but symptomatic of a trust deficit and functional inefficiencies within formal institutions. Local moneylenders, albeit exploitative, offer immediacy and familiarity, elements often absent in bureaucratic banking processes. The digital push, accelerated post-2016 demonetization and COVID-19, has undoubtedly expanded the ecosystem. However, digital penetration without digital comprehension can widen the exclusion gap. Without focused digital education, grievance redressal mechanisms, and gender-sensitive outreach, financial inclusion may remain more rhetorical than real. In essence, true inclusion cannot be measured merely by the number of accounts opened but must reflect active participation, trust, and accessibility across gender, literacy, and regional lines. Until then, the dream of a financially empowered rural India will remain aspirational.

What is implied about women’s financial inclusion in rural India?

(a)They benefit more from informal lenders
(b)Lack of Aadhaar is the main barrier
(c)Cultural factors hinder their financial agency
(d)They lead financial decisions at home

Answer

Why

Correct — C. The trigger is a not just … but sentence: women face systemic exclusion 'not just due to lack of documentation, but because patriarchal norms often discourage or control' their dealings with banks.

Patriarchal norms are cultural, and norms that discourage or control a woman's banking limit her financial agency, her ability to make her own money decisions.

'Cultural factors hinder their financial agency' is that sentence in general terms → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
They benefit more from informal lenders — The passage never compares what women get from informal lenders. Moneylenders appear in a separate sentence, called exploitative, with no word about women.
(b)
Lack of Aadhaar is the main barrier — Not just due to lack of documentation says documents are not the whole story, so they cannot be 'the main barrier'. Aadhaar itself is named only as a payment system that widened access.
(d)
They lead financial decisions at home — The reverse of the passage: patriarchal norms 'often discourage or control' women's dealings with banks. Nothing in it suggests women lead financial decisions at home.

Concept

An implied question asks for what the passage means without saying it in the option's words. The right option is a fair generalisation of a specific sentence. It adds no comparison, ranking or fact the passage never gives.

Here the specific sentence is about patriarchal norms, and cultural factors is their general name.

Words like main or more in an option claim a ranking, so check whether the passage ranks anything. It does not.

The passage returns to gender at its close, calling for 'gender-sensitive outreach' and for accessibility 'across gender, literacy, and regional lines'. Both fit the reading that women's exclusion is social, not only a matter of papers.

Key facts

Not just X but Y puts the weight of the sentence on Y.
The passage says patriarchal norms 'often discourage or control' women's interactions with banking services.
Agency means the capacity to act and make choices for oneself.

Study next

Inference questions: generalising a specific sentence without adding to itCorrelative pairs such as not just … but and not only … but alsoRanking words in options: main, more, most

Common traps

Choosing lack of Aadhaar because documentation is mentioned — 'not just' tells you it is not the main barrier.
Picking the informal-lender option because moneylenders and women both appear in the passage — the passage never links them.

The same 'What is implied about…' frame is used at 14 Sep 2025, 09:00, English Q.19, on India's Olympic aspirations. In this shift, English Q.19 uses the patriarchal-norms sentence from the other side, as a factor that does contribute to dormant accounts.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Reading comprehension — all 128 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.

Read the following passage and answer the questions based on the passage :
While financial inclusion is often praised as a driver of equitable growth, its implementation in rural India presents a paradox. On paper, schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), Aadhaar-enabled payment systems, and mobile banking have revolutionized access. Yet, in practice, access does not necessarily translate into utility. A significant number of rural account holders remain dormant users, often constrained by digital illiteracy, infrastructural limitations, and deeply entrenched socio-cultural barriers. In numerous villages, banking correspondents (BCs)—the foot soldiers of India’s rural financial architecture—are overburdened, undertrained, and often unsupported by robust technological infrastructure. The notion that a biometric fingerprint or a one-time password could substitute for financial literacy is naïve at best. Many beneficiaries, especially women, face systemic exclusion, not just due to lack of documentation, but because patriarchal norms often discourage or control women’s interactions with banking services. Moreover, while financial inclusion aims to integrate the rural poor into the formal economy, the informal credit system continues to flourish. This coexistence is not accidental but symptomatic of a trust deficit and functional inefficiencies within formal institutions. Local moneylenders, albeit exploitative, offer immediacy and familiarity, elements often absent in bureaucratic banking processes. The digital push, accelerated post-2016 demonetization and COVID-19, has undoubtedly expanded the ecosystem. However, digital penetration without digital comprehension can widen the exclusion gap. Without focused digital education, grievance redressal mechanisms, and gender-sensitive outreach, financial inclusion may remain more rhetorical than real. In essence, true inclusion cannot be measured merely by the number of accounts opened but must reflect active participation, trust, and accessibility across gender, literacy, and regional lines. Until then, the dream of a financially empowered rural India will remain aspirational.