Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.
PASSAGE 1 (Q41-45):
Nutritional poverty is the quietest inequality of all - it does not manifest in statistics alone, but in how long people live and how well they live. Addressing it requires more than subsidies or fortified foods; it demands a health system that teaches as much as it treats.
India's success story in poverty reduction often begins with economic metrics. Over the past three decades, while millions have moved above the income poverty line, the cost of disease has pushed millions into poverty. Beneath this economic narrative lies a quieter, more pervasive deprivation: nutritional poverty. Unlike income poverty, which is visible in statistics, nutritional poverty is hidden in blood reports, fatigue, and the gradual erosion of health across generations.
It is a paradox of modern India that people in both rural hamlets and urban high-rises suffer from poor nutrition. The poor are deprived of nutrient-rich food because they cannot afford it; the rich, because they do not know what to eat. The first is a poverty of access, the second a poverty of awareness. Together, they form a national crisis that no income index captures.
Choose the suggestive meaning of the word "pervasive" as has been used in the passage.
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer as per the official NTA Answer Key is Option (2) → Hidden from public statistics.
Note: The given answer is as per the official NTA Answer Key. However, none of the options gives the meaning of "pervasive". The word means widespread; present in every part of something, and a meaning such as "widespread" or "found everywhere" would be the right answer. NTA's option "Hidden from public statistics" is the closest, because the passage sets this "more pervasive deprivation" against income poverty, which is "visible in statistics"; but being hidden describes how visible a problem is, not how far it spreads.
Pervasive means spreading widely through every part of something. The passage calls nutritional poverty "a quieter, more pervasive deprivation" found in "both rural hamlets and urban high-rises".
Example: There is a pervasive smell of damp in the old house.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: Limited to a small, isolated area. — Incorrect. Opposite meaning: confined to one isolated place is the reverse of widespread; the passage says the problem reaches rural and urban people alike.
Option 3: Related only to economic metrics. — Incorrect. Contradicted: metrics are measures; the passage says nutritional poverty is a crisis "that no income index captures".
Option 4: Found among specific ethnic groups. — Incorrect. Not mentioned: the passage names no ethnic groups; it speaks of the poor and the rich, in villages and cities.