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UPSC CSAT Tough Reading Comprehension 21 — Why Successful Policies Are Difficult to Scale

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Sample Questions from UPSC CSAT Tough Reading Comprehension 21 — Why Successful Policies Are Difficult to Scale

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Q1. Which one of the following best expresses the central argument of the passage?

A. Pilot programmes provide unreliable evidence and should not be used as the basis for national policy.

B. A programme that succeeds on a small scale should normally be expanded gradually because gradual expansion guarantees similar results.

C. Evidence that an intervention works on a small scale does not by itself establish that it will work at a larger scale, because expansion can alter resources, incentives, prices, institutions and political conditions.

D. The principal obstacle to scaling successful policies is the inability of governments to recruit sufficiently competent administrators.

Q2. Why does the author state that a programme requiring ten outstanding administrators may face a fundamentally different problem when it requires ten thousand?

A. Because large programmes inevitably require more complicated rules than small programmes.

B. Because a resource that is available in sufficient quantity for a pilot may become a binding constraint when the programme expands.

C. Because highly skilled administrators generally refuse to work for national programmes.

D. Because administrative ability becomes less important as programme size increases.

Q3. Which one of the following assumptions is most essential to the author's distinction between efficacy and scalability?

A. The conditions under which an intervention operates can change as the number of participants or geographical coverage increases.

B. National governments are generally less efficient than local organizations.

C. Pilot programmes usually select participants who are more motivated than the general population.

D. Every successful intervention eventually produces negative general equilibrium effects.

Q4. With reference to the passage, consider the following statements: 1. General equilibrium consequences may be invisible in a small experiment because the experiment is too small to affect wider markets. 2. Scaling an intervention necessarily reduces its effectiveness because implementation becomes less intensive. 3. Replication across different locations can increase confidence in the broader usefulness of an intervention without fully resolving the scaling problem. 4. Political incentives surrounding a programme may change when its distributional consequences become larger. Which of the statements given above are consistent with the passage?

A. 1 and 3 only

B. 1, 2 and 3 only

C. 1, 3 and 4 only

D. 2, 3 and 4 only

Q5. What is the principal purpose of the agricultural subsidy example in the passage?

A. To demonstrate that agricultural subsidies are generally ineffective at increasing farmers' incomes.

B. To show how an intervention that benefits participants locally may alter market conditions when expanded and thereby change its own effects.

C. To argue that agricultural policies should always be tested nationally rather than locally.

D. To establish that changes in crop prices are more important than administrative capacity in determining scalability.

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