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Social Science (087) — AI-generated practice question

AI-generated practice question — model-generated for extra practice, not a previous-year CBSE board question.

Q1. [1] medium thorough-understanding
Which of the following best explains why Indian weavers and artisans lost their export markets in the second half of the nineteenth century? (A) They refused to adopt new weaving techniques introduced by the colonial government (B) Machine-made British cloth flooded Indian and global markets, undercutting handmade goods on price (C) The colonial government imposed high export duties specifically on Indian handloom products (D) Indian merchants chose to focus exclusively on the China trade rather than exporting textiles
  1. A Indian merchants lacked the capital or skills needed to produce manufactured goods for export.
  2. B Colonial control over trade barred Indian merchants from trading manufactured goods with Europe, pushing them toward raw material and food grain exports.
  3. C Indian industrialists voluntarily chose to focus on raw materials because the profit margins were higher than in manufacturing.
  4. D The East India Company actively encouraged Indian merchants to modernise and move into factory production.
Generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 · 2026-06-26 15:01 · grounding rag
Model Answer

(B) Machine-made British cloth flooded Indian and global markets, undercutting handmade goods on price.

Indian weavers lost export markets because British cotton manufactures, produced cheaply by machines, flooded Indian and international markets, making handmade cloth uncompetitive on price.

Source: The Age of Industrialisation, Section 3.3 – Manchester Comes to India / Section 2.6, Chapter 4.

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Explanation

The passage from Section 3.3 directly states: "their export market collapsed, and the local market shrank, being glutted with Manchester imports. Produced by machines at lower costs, the imported cotton goods were so cheap that weavers could not easily compete." Option B captures this precisely. Options A, C, and D are either unsupported or contradicted by the text — the colonial government actually removed barriers to British goods entering India, not imposed duties on Indian handlooms for export. Examiners expect you to identify the price undercutting by machine-made British cloth as the core reason.

Previous-year CBSE Grade 10 board exam questions, organised by subject and chapter, each with a model answer — free to read and print.