2021 CSAT — Q33

Locate. This is a valid-assumptions question: test each statement against the passage’s entities, mechanism and qualifier strength. The passage: “Inequality violates a basic democratic norm : the equal standing of citizens”; equality is “morally speaking, a default principle”; persons “should not be discriminated”; respect for persons “because persons are human beings, is by now part of commonsense morality.”

Test (negation + boundary).

• St1 — equality lets people participate from “a position of confidence.” Equal standing of citizens is precisely what enables equal, confident participation; the inference stays inside the passage’s equal-standing claim. VALID (fair inference).
• St4 — incorporate the right to equality into our values/political vocabulary. Equality as a “default principle” + respect-for-persons as “commonsense morality” licenses this. VALID.
• St2 — inequality is “detrimental to the survival of democracy.” The passage says inequality violates a democratic norm — a normative breach, not an existential threat to democracy’s survival. Over-strong → INVALID.
• St3 — equal standing “cannot actually be realised even in a democracy.” The passage treats equal standing as a default principle and commonsense morality, not an unrealisable ideal. Reversed → INVALID.

Eliminate by anatomy. (a)/(b) seat St2 — an over-strong claim: “violates a norm” inflated to “threatens democracy’s survival.” (b)/(d) seat St3 — a reversed claim: the passage’s aspirational equality recast as unrealisable. The transferable rule: keep statements that match the passage’s strength (St1, St4) and drop those that over-strengthen (St2) or invert it (St3). Key: (c).

Statement 1 — “Inequality violates a basic democratic norm : the equal standing of citizens… persons should not be discriminated… because persons are human beings, is by now part of commonsense morality”: equal standing is what lets citizens participate as equals/with confidence — a fair inference inside the passage → VALID. Statement 4 — equality as a “default principle” and respect-for- persons as “commonsense morality” licenses incorporating the right to equality into our values/political vocabulary → VALID. Statement 2 over-strengthens — the passage says inequality “violates a… norm,” not that it is “detrimental to the survival of democracy” → INVALID. Statement 3 reverses the passage’s aspirational stance (“cannot actually be realised”) → INVALID. → (c).

The passage argues equality is a moral default and equal standing a basic democratic norm, with respect for persons-as-humans now commonsense morality.

• St1 — equal standing underwrites confident, equal participation in society. Valid.
• St4 — equality being a default principle supports writing the right to equality into our values and political vocabulary. Valid.
• St2 — “detrimental to the survival of democracy” over-states “violates a democratic norm.” Invalid.
• St3 — “cannot be realised even in a democracy” reverses the passage’s aspirational treatment of equality. Invalid.

Answer: (c) 1 and 4 only.

The discriminating reads are St2 and St3, and both are about direction and degree. St2 upgrades a normative claim (“inequality violates a norm”) into a causal-existential one (“detrimental to the survival of democracy”) — an overreach on both the causal link and the strength of the claim. St3 inverts the passage’s hopeful default-principle framing into a counsel of impossibility. St1 and St4 stay inside the passage’s stated strength. St1 (“position of confidence,” “multiple transactions of society”) uses language the passage does not literally contain — it is a generous-but-fair inference from “equal standing of citizens” → confident equal participation. Crucially, the key does not hang on resolving St1’s softness: St2 and St3 are both independently dead (St2 over-strong, St3 reversed), which kills options (a), (b) and (d) and leaves (c) the only survivor regardless. So the answer is forced by elimination, and the disagreement from an independent re-solve (which preferred St2 over St4) is a documented contest for the founder, not a crack in the key. Key confirmed = official (c).