Paper 2: General Solved PYQs – UPSC Prelims

Reading Passage

Based on the passage:
The process by which countries close their labour-productivity gap with the technology leader is based on convergence theory. The convergence model divides economic eras into three phases : the breakaway, the catch-up, and the fine-tuning phase. It also divides economic entities into two categories : the technology leaders and the technology followers. The process begins with the development of a new technology, such as scavenging three million years ago (MYA), hunting—one MYA, farming—12 thousand years ago, and industrial technology—a little more than 200 years ago. During the breakaway phase, the per capita income of the technology leaders (e.g., Western Europe and North America in the industrial era) rises, but is unchanged for the technology followers. In the catch-up phase, the followers adopt the new technology and close their per capita income gap with the technology leaders. In the fine-tuning phase, where participants try to extract the remaining benefits from an increasingly exhausted technology, leaders and followers have similar per capita incomes.

Which of the following conclusions are correct?
1. In the breakaway phase, economic progress is slow for the technology followers.
2. In the catch-up phase, leaders stagnate and followers, therefore, close the gap between them and the leaders.
3. In the fine-tuning phase, technology is exhausted, as it were, and both leaders and followers attempt to extract leftover benefits, leading to more or less similar per capita income levels.
4. Industrial technology followed scavenging, which preceded hunting, which itself was followed by farming.

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Eight persons P, Q, R, S, T, U, V and W sit around a round table in eight different seats placed with equal distance between any two consecutive seats. Both P and R are adjacent to Q. Both T and R are adjacent to S. Both U and W are adjacent to V. S and W are on opposite chairs. If while going in the clockwise direction around the table from P, one meets R before T, then how many persons shall Q cross while moving in the clockwise direction around the table before meeting W?

X travels 6 km on a bicycle with average speeds of 5 km per hour, 10 km per hour and 4 km per hour during the first 1 km, the next 2 km and the remaining 3 km, respectively. Y travels the same distances with average speeds of 4 km per hour, 10 km per hour and 5 km per hour, respectively. How many minutes early will Y complete the journey if both X and Y start at the same time?

A cut on a solid object divides the object into two parts where the new surfaces thus produced are plane. On the other hand, one single cut can be used to cut more than one object at a time. In an experiment, the total number of pieces produced by applying n cuts is denoted by x_n. The experiment is performed on a solid cube where pieces remain unmoved after each cut. In this experiment, if after the third cut, the pieces are identical, then which of the following is not a possible value for x_4?

P, Q, R, S and T are ranked 1 to 5 (not necessarily in that order). The rank of P is 4, the rank of Q is not 5, the rank of R is 1, the rank of S is not 2, the rank of T is not 3. Then which of the following is/are correct?
I. If the rank of S is 3, then that of T is 2.
II. If the rank of Q is 3, then that of T is 5.

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X and Y are two runners who run for the same duration of time on the same circular track. They started running at the same time in the same direction with uniform speeds. When X completed 7 rounds, Y did exactly 5. After completing 5 rounds, Y changed his direction and started running in the opposite direction with speed which is double of his earlier speed. On the other hand, X continued to run with the same speed. They stopped running when X completed exactly 21 rounds. How many times did X and Y meet after they had started and before they finally stopped?

For 1/3 < x < y < 2, which of the following statements is/are always correct?
I. x + 1/x < y + 1/y
II. $\sqrt{1+y^2}/y < \sqrt{1+x^2}/x$

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A pattern formed by two characters a and b is repeated more than once in the following string :
x b x a x a x x a x a x b a b
What is x x in the 7th and 8th positions from the left in the above string?

What is the minimum number of times one needs to measure to get 298 litres of water from a tank, if the measuring cylinders have capacities 1 litre, 6 litres, 25 litres and 100 litres?

The class average x in a test increases by 4 when the score of a student is rectified, whose corrected score is 100 instead of 0. Later, the score of another student was found to have been recorded as 81 in place of 56. If there are no other corrections and the final corrected average is y, then y - x is

Suppose x, y and z are variables taking positive real numbers as their possible values. It is given that y is directly proportional to $x^2$ and x is inversely proportional to z. For z = 7/25, the values of x and y are 5 and 50, respectively. If y = 98, what is z equal to?

A person saves 10% of his salary every month. If his salary increases by 12% and the expenditure increases by 10%, then what will be the change in his saving per month?

A is a 2-digit number with different digits. B is also a 2-digit number and is obtained by reversing the digits of A. If A - B is a multiple of 27, where A > B, how many such different A's are possible?

If ZERO is encoded as ADSN, then how do you encode STOP?

In a recruitment process, the selection of candidates is based on their performance in three components. The weightages of the components 1, 2 and 3 are 0.2, 0.3 and 0.5, respectively. Use the data given below and find the cutoff score if exactly three candidates are to be selected :

Candidate | Score in component 1 | Score in component 2 | Score in component 3
1 | 5 | 4 | 6
2 | 4 | 6 | 5
3 | 3 | 2 | 8
4 | 9 | 4 | 3
5 | 8 | 8 | 2

Paper 2: General Studies II (CSAT)