Read the passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions from 1...

Read the passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions from 12 to 21.

        After the pandemic’s convulsions, many countries reconsidered how to underwrite decent lives in a world where paid work may be ineluctably scarce or intermittently available. Post-work guarantees combine Participation Income – recognising socially useful activity – with Universal Basic Services (UBS), which set collective floors under living standards. If governments must prevent slippage beneath a dignified minimum, they can mix unconditional income with guaranteed services to reduce precarity while respecting autonomy. [I] In this framing, the point is not to abolish markets or labour, but to ensure that no citizen falls below what a prosperous society deems tolerable.

        UBI – an unconditional, individual, tax-free payment sufficient for a frugal but decent life – alters incentives bedevilling conditional welfare. People keep the payment while earning, so low-paid offers need not trigger unemployment traps. Participation Income, a cousin sometimes proposed for post-work settlements, remunerates care, community work, and learning without forcing people into unsuitable jobs. [II] Because transfers are not withdrawn upon accepting work, households can plan, invest in skills, and avoid benefit cliffs that previously punished risk-taking.

        UBS insists on unconditional, collectively funded access to essentials – healthcare, education, housing, transport – delivered at a reliable minimum standard. In Ireland and elsewhere, patchy provision and market-first ideologies have produced avoidable scarcities and fees, making participation costly for the least advantaged. The better and cheaper the services, the smaller the basic income required. [III] Robust, well-funded systems thus anchor living standards, reduce volatility, and make income supports fiscally lighter while protecting social rights shared by all residents.

        Affordability hinges on parameters: which benefits UBI replaces, tax design, and how far UBS lowers private outlays. Evidence suggests revenue-neutral partial basic incomes are feasible under unified rates, while service upgrades compress necessary cash transfers. [IV] Beyond budgets, post-work guarantees also serve environmental and civic aims: if livelihoods are secured, societies need not chase perpetual GDP expansion or coerced employment, and people can allocate time among paid work, care, volunteering, study, and rest without jeopardising dignity.

(Adapted from Social Justice Ireland, “Basic Income and UBS key to improving living standards after COVID-19”)

Question 12. The word ineluctably in paragraph 1 mostly means ______.

A. loosely optional                                        B. easily circumvented

C. inescapably fated                                        D. marginally uncertain