Question:medium

In the modern industrial age, the demand for 46 technical personnel is much more than in the feudal age because the demand for goods is much more owing to increase in population and other factors. Hence, the traditional feudal method of teaching a craft, in which only a handful of persons were taught, would no longer 47 for modern society.

Now, technical institutes or engineering colleges, where a large number of students are taught technical skills, have become 48. Obviously, all these students could not be sons of the teacher. This 49 the very basis of the caste system in which one had no option in choosing one's vocation and had to follow one's father's profession. The caste system, in which one's vocation is chosen by one's birth, is thus totally 50 in the modern age.

From the following select the appropriate word to replace number 49 in the above passage.

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The phrase "very basis" signals a complete undoing, not a partial change.
Updated On: Jul 21, 2026
  • Destroyed
  • Cleared
  • Smothered
  • Diluted
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The Correct Option is A

Solution and Explanation

Focus on the phrase "the very basis," which signals the foundation of the system, not a surface feature.

  1. (a) Destroyed: Training non-sons in institutes removes the core rule that vocation passes only from father to son, so the foundation is destroyed.
  2. (b) Cleared: This word fits removing physical obstacles, not undoing a social foundation.
  3. (c) Smothered: Smothering suggests the basis still exists but is suppressed, which understates the change described.
  4. (d) Diluted: Dilution suggests the basis is only weakened, but the passage points to a complete break in inherited vocation.

The strongest and most fitting word is "destroyed," option (a).

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