SarkariPYQ

SSC CGL 2025 PYQ — Question 14

SSC CGL - 22 Sep 2025 - Shift 1 • English • Q14

Back to paper

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 precariousness 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 (2)?

Show answer & explanation

Correct answer: A

Explanation

The correct answer is option 1 i.e. rhetoric.

 

The passage describes how words like “resilience” and “net-zero” have had their meanings stretched in a "semantic economy" where language is performative rather than real. It suggests these words have become tools of rhetoric-language designed to persuade or impress without being sincere or meaningful.

Meaning of the words:

Rhetoric: Language that is intended to influence people and may not be honest or reasonable.

Science: The systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world.

Sovereignty: The authority of a state to govern itself or another state.

Urgency: Importance requiring swift action.

Correct word: rhetoric

Reason: The text mentions that language has become "performative" and meanings are "stretched." Among the options, rhetoric perfectly captures the idea of using influential but hollow language to create a "choreography of credibility."

Final Sentence: Words like “resilience,” “stakeholder engagement,” and “net-zero” populate position papers, their meanings stretched until they acquire the elasticity of rhetoric in this semantic economy, language ceases to be revelatory and becomes performative.

Hence, the chosen option is correct.