2022 CSAT — Q23

Locate. This is a valid-assumptions question: find the premise the passage stands on. The passage opens on a supply problem: yields have plateaued, “neither new strains nor fancy agrochemicals are raising the yields,” little arable land is left, and rising temperatures will make some places unsuitable for farming — then prescribes extending best practices to raise “availability of food for humanity.”

Test (negation test). Statement 1 — “growing enough food for future generations will be a challenge.” Negate it: if feeding future generations were not a challenge, the passage’s whole catalogue of obstacles (plateau, no new land, climate risk) and its urgent prescription would be pointless. The passage cannot make its argument without assuming the challenge is real. VALID. Statement 2 — “corporate farming is a viable option for food security in poor countries.” Scan the passage for corporate farming: it is never mentioned. The passage’s actors are smallholders and subsistence farmers, and its levers are fertilizer practice, roads and storage. INVALID — a whole new actor (corporate farms) the text never raises.

Eliminate by anatomy. (b)/(c) seat Statement 2 — a claim that brings in something the passage doesn’t: an option that names a plausible real-world solution (corporate farming) the passage simply never invokes. (d) drops the load-bearing St.1. The transferable rule: if you cannot point to a passage word for the load-bearing noun (“corporate farming”), the assumption is out of scope no matter how reasonable; and an assumption whose negation guts the passage’s purpose (St.1) is exactly the valid one. Key: (a).

Statement 1 — “the productivity of staples such as rice and wheat has reached a plateau. Neither new strains nor fancy agrochemicals are raising the yields. Nor is there much unfarmed land left… If global temperature continues to rise, some places will become unsuitable for farming.” The whole passage is premised on a looming food-supply difficulty; negate St.1 (growing enough food is NOT a challenge) and the passage’s entire concern with plateaus, climate and lost land has no point → VALID (load-bearing). Statement 2 — “corporate farming” appears NOWHERE in the passage; it speaks only of smallholders, subsistence farmers, fertilizers, roads and storage → ENTITY boundary fails → out of scope → INVALID. → (a).

The passage is built on a food-supply anxiety — plateaued yields, no spare farmland, climate threat — and recommends spreading good agricultural practice to raise food availability.

Statement 1 — that feeding future generations will be hard — is precisely the unstated premise animating the passage; remove it and the passage has nothing to worry about. Valid.

Statement 2 — corporate farming as a food-security option — introduces an actor and a solution the passage never mentions. The passage’s frame is smallholders and subsistence farmers, not corporates. Invalid.

Answer: (a) 1 only.

Two clean, opposite tests resolve this. The negation test confirms St.1 (kill the “challenge” and the passage collapses). The entity check kills St.2 (no passage word for “corporate farming”). This is the recurring pattern on valid-assumptions items: one statement the argument cannot live without, one statement that is a world-plausible idea the passage never touches. The discipline is to refuse the plausible-but-absent every time. (a).