Point out the true statement from the following :

Concept. In a passage-based “point out the true statement” item the passage is the only authority. A statement is accepted only when the text asserts it or plainly entails it, and it is rejected the moment one detail in the text contradicts it. Outside knowledge is admissible only where the passage is silent, never to overrule what the text says.

Application. Test each statement against the text, one at a time:

• “Marble was not used for the construction of the Taj Mahal.” The opening sentence calls the monument a domed white marble structure, and the farmans of 1632–1637 order masons and carts to bring marble from the mines at Makrana to Agra. The text asserts the opposite of this statement.

• “Red sand stone is non-visible in the Taj Mahal complex.” The passage never discusses the complex’s stone other than the tomb’s marble; in the complex itself the great gateway, the mosque and the jawab are of red sandstone and are plainly visible. Nothing in the text supports the claim and the monument contradicts it.

• “The Taj Mahal is surrounded by a four-quartered garden known as Chahr Bagh.” The passage describes exactly this setting: a four-quartered garden evoking the gardens of paradise, enclosed within walls measuring 305 by 549 metres, with the tomb raised on a high plinth at its southern end. A four-quartered Mughal garden of this type is precisely what Persian usage calls a chahar bagh, so the statement names, in standard terminology, the garden the text itself describes.

• “The Taj Mahal was constructed to celebrate the ‘Urs ceremony for Mumtaz Mahal’.” The text gives the purpose as a mausoleum for Mumtaz Mahal, who died in 1631, with work commenced early in 1632; the lavish ‘Urs of 1643 is mentioned only as a ceremony held by that date, when the complex was already virtually complete. It is a later commemoration, not the reason for building.

Cross-check. Reverse the test as a check: three of the statements each collide with something the passage says outright, such as the white marble fabric or a tomb begun in 1632 whose ‘Urs came eleven years later, or with the monument itself, where red sandstone forms the gateway, the mosque and the jawab; only the garden statement restates, in standard terminology, a setting the passage actually describes.

Answer. So the true statement is that the Taj Mahal stands within a four-quartered garden known as Chahr Bagh, the only one of the four statements the passage supports. Read it as the paper intends: the tomb sits inside the walled char bagh complex, placed at one end of the garden rather than at its centre, which is the riverfront variant of the char bagh plan. Each of the other three statements is contradicted outright.