Essay, Precis & Comprehension – Exact Questions & Detailed Analysis

The SEBI Grade A Phase II 2026 Descriptive English paper (held on 21st February 2026) tested structured thinking, policy awareness, sustainability understanding and clarity under time pressure.

Below are the exact questions asked in the exam.

📝 SECTION 1: Essay Writing (30 Marks)

Q.1 Write an Essay of about 250–270 words on any one of the following topics:

How Social media platforms impact public policy, discourse and elections?
Discuss how fast commerce can elevate the economic growth of India.
How can fast Railways transportation beat Airway transportation?
Several global posts are held by Indian influential people. What does this mean for the country?

Essay Section Analysis

Policy-oriented themes
Contemporary and governance-focused
Required balanced and structured argument
60-minute paper → time discipline critical

✍ SECTION 2: Precis Writing (30 Marks)

Q.2 Make a Precis of the following passage in 140–160 words and give it a suitable title.

Exact Passage Asked in Exam:

The trade agreement between the U.S. and China, the two biggest economies in the world, serves as a breather in an otherwise tense global trade environment. The U.S. has agreed to temporarily lower, for 90 days, its overall tariffs on Chinese goods from 145% to 30%, while China will cut its tariffs on American imports from 125% to 10%. Markets across the world cheered the announcement, jumping between 2%–3.8% following the news. The thaw comes on the back of tensions and tariffs being ratcheted up by both sides, starting with U.S. President Donald Trump’s February 1 announcement of a varying tariff on imports from China, Mexico and Canada. Notably, he excluded China from the 90-day pause on ‘reciprocal’ tariffs announced in early April.

One way to look at this latest development is that it shows Mr. Trump is backing down from his tariff war-footing, acknowledging the importance of China to the U.S. economy. Indeed, the joint statement by both countries begins by mentioning “the importance of their bilateral economic and trade relationship”. However, another view is that his heavy-handed approach has succeeded in convincing China to come to the negotiation table. Tariffs of 145% were unsustainable but served their purpose. The fact also is that Mr. Trump’s main grievance, of a ballooning trade deficit with China, remains unaddressed. The two sides have agreed to continue talks, which will be key in determining whether this seemingly intractable problem can be worked around or result in tensions again.

For India, this brings both uncertainties and certainties. If further talks between the U.S. and China are successful, investors who have moved to other countries will likely start viewing China favourably again. The advantages of manufacturing there — scale and costs — are still significant. The China+1 model, which India in any case has not been able to leverage adequately, might start to lose its sheen. The other uncertainty is around India’s own trade talks with the U.S. It has now informed the World Trade Organisation of potential reciprocal measures to the U.S.’s increased duties on steel and aluminium imports.

Even though talks on a U.S.-India trade deal are ongoing, this latest statement shows that tensions remain high. The certainties are two-fold. The first is that India’s trade deficit with China remains vast and rising, and the U.S.-China agreement will not reduce this. ‘Make in India’ is currently inextricably linked to ‘Import from China’. The second certainty carries over from the first. The Centre must lean heavily on States to adopt labour and land reforms that can allow scalable manufacturing to become cost-effective here. Without this, India will remain dependent on Chinese imports, regardless of its dealings with the rest of the world.

📖 SECTION 3: Reading Comprehension (40 Marks)

Q.3 Read the passage given above and answer the questions on the basis of the passage in your own words.

Exact Passage Asked in Exam:

In an era defined by the relentless expansion of the digital economy, data centers have emerged as the invisible backbone of modern civilisation. They power cloud computing, artificial intelligence, social media platforms, streaming services, and financial systems. Yet hidden behind the seamless convenience of these technologies lies an alarming and often overlooked reality: data centers are voracious consumers of one of Earth’s most precious and finite resources — fresh water. The scale of this consumption is staggering, and its implications for water security, environmental health, and sustainable development are only beginning to receive the urgent attention they deserve.

Data centers generate enormous quantities of heat as thousands of servers process and store information around the clock. To prevent this equipment from overheating — which would cause catastrophic hardware failures and data loss — facilities rely on sophisticated cooling systems. The most widely used method is evaporative cooling, in which large volumes of water are circulated through cooling towers, where they absorb heat and evaporate into the atmosphere. This process is highly effective but extraordinarily water-intensive. A single large-scale data center can consume between 1 million and 5 million gallons of water every single day — an amount comparable to the daily water usage of a mid-sized town.

The global proliferation of data centers has amplified this problem enormously. According to industry estimates, data centers worldwide consumed approximately 660 billion litres of water in 2021 alone, a figure that is projected to grow exponentially as artificial intelligence workloads intensify demand. Training a single large AI language model, for instance, can consume hundreds of thousands of litres of water — a fact that has drawn growing scrutiny from environmentalists and policymakers. Tech giants including Google, Microsoft, and Meta operate vast campus-scale data centers across the United States, Europe, and Asia, each placing enormous pressure on regional freshwater supplies.

Nevertheless, the fundamental tension between digital growth and water sustainability remains unresolved. As the world’s appetite for data, AI services, and cloud computing grows without any clear ceiling, the freshwater footprint of the digital economy will continue to expand. Without bold policy intervention, technological innovation, and corporate accountability, the hidden thirst of the digital age threatens to become one of the defining environmental crises of the twenty-first century — one that pits the demands of the virtual world directly against the survival needs of the natural one.

Questions Asked in Reading Comprehension:

Q1. Why do data centers require such large quantities of water, and what role does evaporative cooling play in their operations?

Q2. How has the rise of artificial intelligence intensified the water consumption crisis associated with data centers?

Q3. In what ways does the geographical placement of data centers worsen water stress in vulnerable regions?

Q4. Explain the dual water dependency of data centers in relation to energy consumption.

Q5. What measures are being taken by governments and technology companies to reduce the water footprint of data centers, and are they sufficient?

🎯 Overall Paper Nature

Highly policy-oriented
Sustainability + Trade diplomacy focus
Analytical depth required
Word discipline crucial
60 Minutes | 100 Marks

This was not a decorative English paper.
It was a regulatory analytical writing test.