2022 CSAT — Q11

Locate. This asks for the author’s view: find the line the author is committed to, not a line he merely raises. The passage runs an analogy: for shoe-making and medicine we demand trained competence (“we do not ask for the handsomest physician”), yet “in politics, we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a State,” and closes with the rhetorical “should we not look for the service and guidance of the wisest and the best?”

Test (commitment test). The author is committed to the closing call: governance, like medicine, should be entrusted to the competent — which means screening out the unfit. (a) “any politician is qualified” is the presumption the author is attacking, not his view. (b) “selected from those trained in administration” over-specifies — the passage asks for the “wisest and best,” not a trained- administrator credential. (c) “devise a method of barring incompetence from public office” is the author’s prescription in plain terms. (d) “eligibility cannot be questioned” is the direct opposite of the author’s whole point.

Eliminate by anatomy. (a) is the reader’s own view smuggled in, mistaking criticism for thesis — it states the view the passage refutes; (b) over-states the case and strays out of scope — it narrows “wisest and best” to a specific training credential; (d) reverses the passage’s relation — it asserts what the author denies. Only (c) carries the author’s commitment without over-narrowing it. Key: (c).

“…in politics, we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a State… well then, when the whole State is ill should we not look for the service and guidance of the wisest and the best?” The author’s rhetorical question CRITICISES the presumption that vote-getting equals fitness-to-govern and CALLS for the wisest/best — i.e., a way to keep the incompetent out of office. (c) “devise a method of barring incompetence from public office” restates that prescription. (a) restates the criticised presumption, not the message; (b) over-specifies (“trained in administration” vs the passage’s “wisest and best”); (d) reverses the author → (c).

The author’s analogy is an argument by parallel: we screen for competence in skilled work and medicine, so we should screen for it in governance too — instead of presuming that vote-getting proves fitness to govern.

• (a) restates the presumption the author rejects. Wrong target.
• (b) narrows the author’s “wisest and best” into “trained in administration” — a specific credential the passage never demands.
• (c) captures the author’s actual call: a way to keep incompetence out of public office.
• (d) flatly contradicts the author, who does question that eligibility.

Answer: (c).

The decisive distinction is criticism vs prescription. (a) is seductive because its words appear in the passage — but they appear as the presumption being attacked, not the author’s view. The author-view discipline: pin the line the author endorses (the call for the wisest and best), then choose the option that restates that endorsement at the passage’s own breadth — neither over-narrowing it (b) nor inverting it (d). (c) alone does this. (c).