SarkariPYQ

SSC CGL 2025 PYQ — Question 17

SSC CGL - 22 Sep 2025 - Shift 1 • English • Q17

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 (5)?

Show answer & explanation

Correct answer: B

Explanation

The correct answer is option 2 i.e. camouflage.

 

The passage argues that modern sustainability language is performative rather than revelatory. It uses terms like "reputational lubrication," "launder," "euphemism," and "simulation of care." These all point to a central theme: using words to hide the harsh reality of ecological destruction.

The final sentence reads: "Anything less is not stewardship—it is semantic (5) masquerading as progress."

  • Masquerading means pretending to be something one is not.

  • The word in the blank must represent a form of hiding or disguise that matches the "semantic" (language-based) nature of the problem.

  • Camouflage: The act of disguising something to make it blend in with its surroundings or to hide its true nature.

The word "camouflage" perfectly completes the author’s metaphor of a "choreography of credibility" and "affective simulation." It highlights that the language of sustainability has become a tool for concealment.

Hence, the chosen option is correct.