Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions based on the passage:
The Viksit Bharat - Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act (VB-GRAM G), 2025, has been replaced by the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The goal of this modification is to improve Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, which protects the right to life. MGNREGA has improved socioeconomic conditions by facilitating wage payments, providing unemployment benefits, and promoting equal earnings. There has been sustainable development, and research has confirmed the impact of this program to raise earnings, alleviate poverty, and encourage school enrollment. In the past five years, women have comprised 58% of the workforce, significantly contributing to rural development, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Given these factors, it is important to assess both the benefits and current challenges of the system.
Despite MGNREGA’s successes, the program has faced implementation challenges, mainly due to inadequate funding, as acknowledged by the Ministry of Finance. Delays in wage payments and fewer work opportunities have resulted from this lack of funds. Recent rules, such as introducing an attendance application that uses photos, have created new problems and made corruption easier. Due to these issues, the VB-GRAM G Act has introduced important changes, including sections 5(1) and 4(5), which give the Union Government greater control over the public works program.
The author's tone regarding new rules (e.g., photo-based attendance) is best described as?
- (a)Cautiously critical, admitting the benefits of innovation while pointing out the dangers of abuse in bureaucracies
- (b)It is a direct rejection that states tech solutions do not work in rural welfare activities because the officials are illiterate
- (c)Detachedly descriptive, outlining reforms to procedures without evaluative judgments.
- (d)Digital interventions will resolve longstanding governance issues.
Answer
Why
Correct — A. The deciding sentence: 'Recent rules, such as introducing an attendance application that uses photos, have created new problems and made corruption easier.'
That is criticism: new problems and easier corruption are the 'dangers of abuse' in option (a).
It is also measured. It faults what these rules did, not technology as a whole, and it names no sweeping cause. That restraint is the 'cautiously' half.
Why the others are wrong
- (b)It is a direct rejection that states tech solutions do not work in rural welfare activities because the officials are illiterate — Too extreme, and invented. The passage never says tech solutions 'do not work', and it says nothing about officials being illiterate. It faults specific rules.
- (c)Detachedly descriptive, outlining reforms to procedures without evaluative judgments. — 'Made corruption easier' is an evaluative judgment, so the author is not detached. The sentence judges the rules; it does not merely describe them.
- (d)Digital interventions will resolve longstanding governance issues. — This is a claim, not a tone, and the passage argues against it: the photo-based rule 'created new problems', so the author does not expect digital fixes to settle governance issues.
Concept
A tone question asks for the author's attitude, read from word choice. Here the words are 'created new problems' and 'made corruption easier' — plainly negative.
Each option pairs an attitude with a reason, so test both halves. The attitude must match the words, and the reason must be something the passage says or clearly implies.
The passage names no benefit of the photo app itself. The 'admitting the benefits of innovation' half of option (a) fits the author's frame, which weighs 'both the benefits and current challenges of the system', rather than any sentence about the app.
Option (a) still wins: its critical half is what the passage says, and each rival is contradicted or invented.
Key facts
- Evaluative words, such as 'made corruption easier', rule out a detached or neutral tone.
- A tone answer names an attitude — critical, hopeful, detached. A bare prediction is not a tone.
- An option that adds a cause the passage never gives, such as illiterate officials, is unsupported however confident it sounds.
Study next
Common traps
- Choosing option (c) because the sentence sounds factual — 'made corruption easier' is a judgment.
- Rejecting option (a) because the passage lists no benefit of the app, without checking that every rival fails.
The banking passage in this paper asks tone too, at 19 Jan 2026, 11:00 AM, English Q.40. The Tier-I tone keys at 18 Sep 2025, 12:30, English Q.20 ('Reflective and critical') and 14 Sep 2025, 12:30, English Q.18 ('Hopeful and critical') also pair 'critical' with a second word.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.