2021 CSAT — Q32

Locate. This asks for the best-supported inference — the conclusion the passage forces, not merely one that’s plausible; find the lines the inference must rest on. The passage: offences are imputed “to the bad state of a dominion,” not the wickedness of subjects; “men are not born fit for citizenship, but must be made so”; and a dominion with more wickedness “has neither enough pursued the end of unity, nor framed its laws with sufficient forethought.”

Test — find the line, then match it. Flip the failure condition into its positive: if a dominion fails by neglecting unity and good laws, then the good dominion is the one that pursues unity and frames laws for good citizenship. (c) states exactly that. It is the contrapositive of the passage’s diagnosis.

Eliminate by anatomy. (a) is too strong for what the passage says — “inevitable in every dominion” contradicts the passage, which makes offences depend on the dominion’s state (better states have fewer). (b) is too strong and brings in something the passage doesn’t — “the sovereign… responsible for all the problems” personalises and totalises what the passage attributes to the dominion’s pursuit of unity and laws. (d) gets the direction backwards — “impossible to establish a good dominion” denies the passage’s premise that men “must be made” fit, i.e., good dominions are made. The transferable rule: when a passage says “X fails by lacking Y,” the forced inference is “the good X is the one that has Y.” Key: (c).

“Men are not born fit for citizenship, but must be made so… if wickedness more prevails… in one commonwealth than in another, it is certain that the former has neither enough pursued the end of unity, nor framed its laws with sufficient forethought.” — a dominion fails when it neglects unity and good laws; by contrast the good dominion is the one that pursues unity and frames laws that make men fit for citizenship → (c). (a) “inevitable in every dominion” is over-strong and contradicts the passage (offences depend on the dominion’s state); (b) “the sovereign… all problems” over-attributes; (d) “impossible to establish a good dominion” inverts the passage’s whole point.

The passage blames disorder on a dominion’s bad state — its failure to pursue unity and frame forethoughtful laws that make men fit for citizenship.

• (c) is the positive of that: the best dominion pursues unity and has laws for good citizenship. Correct.
• (a) says disorder is inevitable everywhere — the passage says it varies with the dominion’s state.
• (b) pins “all the problems” on “the sovereign,” over-totalising the passage’s claim.
• (d) says a good dominion is impossible — against “men must be made [fit].”

Answer: (c).

The move that scores is reading a diagnosis as a prescription. The passage states the failure condition (neglect unity and good laws → disorder). The most rational inference is its mirror: the best dominion meets that condition (pursues unity, has good-citizenship laws) — option (c). The distractors all mishandle quantifiers: (a) “every/inevitable,” (b) “all… sovereign,” (d) “impossible.” On “most logical inference” items in archaic political prose, the safe answer is usually the measured contrapositive of the stated failure, not an absolutist extrapolation.