2023 CSAT — Q12

Locate. This is a valid-assumption question: find the argument’s load-bearing logic. The passage: environmental problems cause health problems; substantial lifestyle changes could reduce both, but this is “almost impossible to adopt”; with environmental problems individual effort feels negligible (→ inertia), and even with health — literally life-and-death — there is “the same collective lethargy.” The passage laments that preventive lifestyle change is not happening.

Test (rational-assumption + three-boundary check). The question asks for the rational assumption that best follows. If prevention (lifestyle change) is not adopted due to lethargy, the unstated consequence the passage’s concern rests on is that the problems — and their costs — arrive anyway: we end up paying for cure rather than preventing. (a) “we are likely to spend more money on cure than prevention” is exactly that rational assumption, staying inside the passage’s prevention-vs-cure logic. Test others against the boundaries: (c) “health can be protected even if environmental problems go on unattended” reverses the passage’s opening (“environmental problems cause health problems”); (b) adds the “government” entity the passage never names; (d) asserts an unstated cause (“western values”).

Eliminate by anatomy. (b) introduces a person, thing, or remedy the passage never mentions — government appears nowhere; (c) gets the direction backwards — it denies the causal link the passage opens with; (d) is a step the text doesn’t license — “western values led to unhealthy living” is never stated. The transferable rule: the rational assumption is the unstated step the passage’s worry depends on (prevention foregone → cure paid for), not a new actor or a reversed cause. Key: (a).

“Substantial changes in lifestyle can reduce environmental or health problems, but this idea appears almost impossible to adopt… barring a few, there seems to be the same collective lethargy towards making their choices.” The passage says preventive lifestyle change (which would forestall problems) is not adopted due to lethargy; the rational assumption underlying that worry is that we will instead bear the later cost — i.e. spend more on cure than prevention — exactly (a). (c) reverses the passage (environment causes health problems); (b) adds the government entity; (d) is an unstated causal claim → (a).

The passage’s grief is that the preventive route — substantial lifestyle change — is not taken, out of inertia and “collective lethargy,” even where health is life-and-death.

(a) The rational assumption underlying that worry: if we won’t prevent, we will pay later — more on cure than on prevention. This is the unstated premise the passage’s concern leans on. Valid.

(b) introduces “the government” as the solver — an entity the passage never raises. (c) asserts health can be protected while ignoring environment — the reverse of “environmental problems cause health problems.” (d) blames “western values” — an unstated cause.

Answer: (a).

The “most rational assumption” is not the most agreeable statement — it is the unstated step the passage’s argument needs. The passage’s argument is: prevention is available but not adopted (lethargy). The step that makes that lament meaningful is that the cost lands later as cure (a). The distractors are each attractive policy or cultural opinions — government’s job, western values — but none is the premise the passage leans on, and two of them (c, b) cross boundaries (reversed cause; added entity). (a).