CSAT Solved Papers/ 2022/Q62
2022 CSAT — Q62
Passage
The majority of people who fail to accumulate money sufficient for their needs, are generally, easily influenced by the opinions of others. They permit the newspapers and the gossiping neighbours to do their thinking for them. Opinions are the cheapest commodities on the earth. Everyone has a flock of opinions ready to be wished upon anyone who will accept them. If you are influenced by opinions when you reach decisions, you will not succeed in any undertaking.
What is the main idea of the passage?
Thinking pathway
Locate. This asks for the central idea: fix the passage’s load-bearing thesis sentence, not a supporting detail. The passage builds to: “If you are influenced by opinions when you reach decisions, you will not succeed in any undertaking.” The main idea: don’t let others’ opinions drive your decisions.
Test (thesis-vs-detail + qualifier-watch). (a) “people should not be influenced by the opinions of others” restates the thesis. Test the others: (c) “neither give nor accept opinions” over-extends — the passage is about being influenced in decisions, not about giving opinions; (d) “will succeed if they do not accept any opinion at all” flips the negative conditional (“influenced → won’t succeed”) into a positive guarantee (“no opinion → success”), an over-strong reversal; (b) “accumulate as much money as they can” lifts a framing detail (the failers-to-save example) into the thesis.
Eliminate by anatomy. (c) over-states the case — it extends to giving opinions and to a blanket ban. (d) gets the direction backwards — it turns a necessary-failure claim into a sufficiency-for-success claim. (b) offers a supporting detail as if it were the main point — the money example was the entry point, not the message. Key: (a).
Evidence in the text
“If you are influenced by opinions when you reach decisions, you will not succeed in any undertaking.” — the passage’s thesis is that being swayed by others’ opinions in your decisions leads to failure; i.e., one should not be so influenced. (a) “people should not be influenced by the opinions of others” states this. (c) over-extends to “neither give nor accept”; (d) flips the conditional into a guarantee of success; (b) is a side detail, not the main idea → (a).
Worked rationale
The passage’s controlling claim is that letting others’ opinions influence your decisions dooms your undertakings — so the message is: don’t be so influenced.
- (a) states that directly. Correct.
- (b) elevates the money-saving framing detail to the thesis.
- (c) over-extends into “neither give nor accept opinions.”
- (d) converts “influenced → won’t succeed” into “no opinion → will succeed.”
Answer: (a).
Why the other options miss
- B a detail, not the main idea: the passage opens with people who fail to accumulate money, but that is the illustration, not the point (which is about being swayed by opinions).
- C too strong for what the passage says: “neither give nor accept the opinions” widens the message into a blanket ban on opinions, including giving them — beyond “don’t be influenced when deciding.”
- D cause and effect reversed: the passage says being influenced causes failure; it does not promise that rejecting all opinion guarantees success — that is the converse, over-strengthened.
Specialist insight
The seductive wrong answer is (d) — it uses the passage’s own success/failure language. But the passage states only one direction: influence → failure. It does not state the reverse (no influence → success), and (d) also hardens it with “any opinion at all.” The central idea is the modest, stated claim (a): don’t be influenced by others’ opinions. Beware options that flip a one-directional conditional into a guarantee. (a).
The thesis is "don't be influenced by others' opinions" (a); (d) flips it into a guaranteed-success converse the passage never states.