UPSC Prelims 2018— Question 68

**Concept and analysis:** Bengal's eighteenth-century export basket under the English East India Company's trade included important textiles and commodities such as cotton goods, silk, saltpetre and opium. These commodities linked Bengal's production to European and Asian markets. The other combinations include commodities that do not represent the principal staple export basket described in the question. The question is testing precise UPSC-level identification rather than a broad association. The key is to distinguish the exact institutional, constitutional, historical, geographical, economic or scientific feature being asked. **Option-wise evaluation** **Option A:** Incorrect. Raw cotton, oil-seeds and opium is a different institution, place, definition, proposition or description and does not satisfy the specific requirement of the question. **Option B:** Incorrect. Sugar, salt, zinc and lead is a different institution, place, definition, proposition or description and does not satisfy the specific requirement of the question. **Option C:** Incorrect. Copper, silver, gold, spices and tea is a different institution, place, definition, proposition or description and does not satisfy the specific requirement of the question. **Option D:** Correct. Cotton, silk, saltpetre and opium directly matches the concept or factual identification established in the analysis. **UPSC takeaway:** The safest way to solve this type of question is to anchor the answer in the defining feature of the concept and then test every option against that feature. Closely related institutions or terms are often used as distractors. In statement-based questions, do not judge the option as a whole before checking each statement independently. In factual questions, compare the wording of each option with the exact definition, location, institutional role, chronology or scientific property. The correct answer follows from that verification rather than from familiarity with a keyword.