Question:

Read the passage and answer the question that follows:
Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow. Multiculturalism, as a social philosophy, asserts that a society can accommodate multiple ethnic, religious, and linguistic groups without requiring any one group to abandon its distinct identity in favour of a homogenous national culture. Proponents argue that diversity enriches public life, fosters innovation through the cross-pollination of ideas, and strengthens democratic institutions by demanding that citizens negotiate difference rather than suppress it. Critics, however, contend that unchecked multiculturalism can fragment a nation into insular communities that share little beyond geography, weakening the shared civic bonds that make collective governance possible. The debate sharpened in Western Europe during the early 2000s, when several governments that had long championed multicultural policies began to reassess them. One European leader famously declared that the multicultural approach had utterly failed, pointing to segregated neighbourhoods and stalled integration as evidence. Yet defenders of multiculturalism counter that the failure lies not in diversity itself but in inadequate investment in language training, employment access, and civic education for immigrant communities. They argue that assimilation, which demands minorities dissolve into a dominant culture, is neither realistic nor desirable in an interconnected world, and that a more workable goal is integration, where communities retain distinct identities while sharing common civic obligations and opportunities. Ultimately, the controversy is less about whether diversity exists, since it plainly does in most modern states, than about how societies should manage it, and whose responsibility that management is.

According to the passage, what did critics cite as evidence that multicultural policies had failed in parts of Western Europe?

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Locate the exact sentence about the European leader's declaration and check which option restates its named evidence word for word, rather than a detail from elsewhere in the passage.
Updated On: Jul 8, 2026
  • Rising unemployment among native populations
  • A decline in overall population diversity
  • The closure of language training programmes
  • Segregated neighbourhoods and stalled integration
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The Correct Option is D

Solution and Explanation

The passage states directly that a European leader pointed to segregated neighbourhoods and stalled integration as evidence of failure. The other choices are not mentioned in the passage. Correct option: 4.
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