In the given passage, some words have been deleted. Read the passage intently and choose the most appropriate option to fill in each blank:
Global sustainability discourse has not so much evolved as ossified into a lexicon of managerial (1) _____—terms engineered more for reputational lubrication than ecological redress. What was once a moral reckoning with planetary precarity now traffics in dashboards and metrics, calibrated less to redistribute power than to launder it. Words like “resilience,” ”stakeholder engagement,” and “net-zero” populate position papers, their meanings stretched until they acquire the elasticity of (2) _____.In this semantic economy, language ceases to be revelatory and becomes performative. Reports teeter on euphemism; declarations bristle with procedural piety. Crises are not named; they are (3) _____ into ‘developmental challenges.’ The grammar of suffering is bleached, even as the facts remain uncompromising. What emerges is not truth, but a choreography of credibility—an affective simulation of care. Meanwhile, epistemic asymmetries persist: indigenous knowledge is (4) _____ as “local insight,” offered just enough space to decorate, never to reorient. Environmental justice, once confrontational, now wears a diplomatic smile, folded neatly into intergovernmental communiqués. If sustainability is to escape the orbit of self-congratulation, it must surrender its obsession with optics and inhabit the discomfort of history. Anything less is not stewardship—it is semantic (5) _____ masquerading as progress.
What should come in the place of blank number (4)?
- (a)silenced
- (b)extracted
- (c)tokenized
- (d)discarded
Answer
Why
Correct — C. The sentence reads: "indigenous knowledge is (4) _____ as “local insight,” offered just enough space to decorate, never to reorient."
The trigger is just enough space to decorate, never to reorient. The knowledge is let in, but only for show, with no power to change direction.
Including something as a symbolic gesture is tokenism: the knowledge is tokenized → option (c).
Why the others are wrong
- (a)silenced — Silenced means given no voice at all. The sentence says the knowledge is 'offered just enough space to decorate', so it is present and on display, not shut out.
- (b)extracted — Extracted means drawn out of a source and taken away. The clause describes the place the knowledge is given, room to decorate but not to reorient, which extraction does not describe.
- (d)discarded — Discarded means thrown away. A discarded thing gets no space, yet the sentence says the knowledge is labelled 'local insight' and given room to decorate.
Concept
A token gesture is one made for the sake of appearances. Tokenism is including a person or group only symbolically, so as to look inclusive.
The passage describes exactly that. Indigenous knowledge is admitted under the polite label 'local insight' and placed where it can decorate, never where it can reorient.
The sentence opens with 'epistemic asymmetries persist', meaning unequal standing between kinds of knowledge. Tokenism keeps that inequality while appearing to remove it.
Tokenize also has technical senses: splitting text into units in computing, and turning assets into digital tokens in finance. Neither fits here. The passage uses the sense built on a token gesture.
Key facts
- Token (adjective): done for the sake of appearances, as in a token gesture.
- Tokenism: a symbolic effort to include a group, made to give the appearance of equality.
- Epistemic: relating to knowledge.
Study next
Common traps
- Choosing silenced because the passage is critical, although the sentence says the knowledge is given space.
- Rejecting tokenized because the computing sense, splitting text into tokens, is the one you know.
Blank (3) of the same passage, 22 Sep 2025, 09:00, English Q.11, turns on the same move: something kept in view but made harmless, there crises renamed 'developmental challenges'.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.