UPSC Prelims 2018— Question 46

**Concept and analysis:** Legal tender is money that, under law, a creditor is obliged to accept for settlement of a monetary debt when tendered in the legally prescribed form. The concept is not restricted to coins or to payments made in courts. Cheques and bills of exchange are not automatically legal tender merely because they can be used for payment. 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. The money which is tendered in courts of law to defray the fee of legal cases is a different institution, place, definition, proposition or description and does not satisfy the specific requirement of the question. **Option B:** Correct. The money which a creditor is under compulsion to accept in settlement of his claims directly matches the concept or factual identification established in the analysis. **Option C:** Incorrect. The bank money in the form of cheques, drafts, bills of exchange, etc. is a different institution, place, definition, proposition or description and does not satisfy the specific requirement of the question. **Option D:** Incorrect. The metallic money in circulation in a country is a different institution, place, definition, proposition or description and does not satisfy the specific requirement of the question. **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.