Sample Reading Comprehension - 2 | Reading Comprehension for UGC NET PDF Download

- The passage states that between September 2017 and April 2018, the economy added 4.1 million new jobs.
- This figure is specified by a CSO report, which highlights the number of jobs that provide certain government-financed benefits.
- Therefore, the correct answer is 4.1 million, which corresponds to Option C.

- The text states that in the factory sector, establishments employing 20 or more workers are required to provide EPF.
- This means that once a factory reaches 20 workers, it must enroll all of them in the EPF scheme.
- Therefore, the correct answer is 20 workers, as this is the minimum number needed to trigger the requirement for EPF enrollment.

Skepticism means a skeptical attitude; doubt as to the truth of something.
I and III are synonyms while II and IV are antonyms.
Hence, option C is correct.

Statements I and II are correct and weaken the impact of the report. Both state that the informal employment stats have not been provided and that this area forms the majority of the employment in India.
Statement III is incorrect. It reinforces the importance of the report by stating it strengthens other similar data.
Only I and II are correct.
Hence, option C is correct.

Paragraph 3 talks about how the social schemes are applicable to a firm only once it reaches a certain threshold and how this shows that the people under a particular scheme may have increase by a huge amount but that does not correspond with an increase in actual employment. Basically, social security database is not a good source to understand about employment data.
This eliminates option B.
Option C is also incorrect as the paragraph does not state that enrolling is voluntary. Option D is incorrect as there is no matching of numbers as stated in the paragraph.
Only option A gives the best gist and states that the databases simply have the list of workers under the scheme but do not depict correct employment figures.
Hence, option A is correct.

All of the statements above are valid/plausible reasons for the job growth to be less than the growth in economy.
Hence, option E is correct.

Spawned means to produce or generate a large number of.
II, III and IV are all synonyms and hence incorrect. Only destroyed is the opposite of spawned.
Hence, option A is correct.

Refer to:
‘..the estimates are based on administrative records of implementing the social security schemes, whose completeness, consistency and accuracy are unknown; and since a formal sector worker, in principle, can legitimately access more than one social security scheme, double counting is a distinct possibility. The release does not explain how the problem is addressed in the database. Therefore, rightly, experts have demanded the release of the administrative data for independent verification.’
As per the highlighted fragments, I and II are correct while III is not. Hence, option B is correct.

Refer to:
‘The remaining workers are in the non-farm informal sector, spread across rural and urban areas. In fact, it is this sector that has grown in recent decades at the expense of the other two sectors mentioned above. Moreover, nearly half of the informal labour workers are selfemployed in household (or own account) enterprises, often engaging unpaid family labour. Varying degrees of under-employment or disguised unemployment are the defining feature of informal labour markets.’
Only I and III are correct. II is incorrect as the paragraph states only about half of the workers are self employed or engaged in unpaid labour and not ‘almost all’.
Hence, option D is correct.

Refer to:
‘. The Labour Bureau under the Ministry of Labour and Employment has been carrying out household surveys somewhat similar to the EUS since 2010-11.’
Hence, I is incorrect.
‘The household surveys somewhat similar to the EUS since 2010-11. They show a decline in worker-population ratio between 2013-14 and 2015-16, suggesting a deteriorating employment situation’.
II is correct.
‘Since 1972-73, the five-yearly Employment-Unemployment Surveys (EUS) conducted by the National Sample Survey (NSS) have been the mainstay for analysing labour market trends.’
Biennial refers to an event that takes place every other year while this used to occur every five years. III is incorrect.
Only II is correct.
Hence, option B is correct.