2023 CSAT — Q3
Passage
In India, a majority of farmers are marginal and small, less educated and possess low adaptive capabilities to climate change, perhaps because of credit and other constraints. So, one cannot expect autonomous adaptation to climate change. Even if it was possible, it would not be sufficient to offset losses from climate change. To deal with this, adaptation to climate change is paramount, alongside a fast mitigation response. Another solution is to have a planned or policy-driven adaptation, which would require the government to come up with policy recommendations. Perception is a necessary pre-requisite for adaptation. Whether farmers are adapting agricultural practices to climate change depends on whether they perceive it or not. However, this is not always enough for adaptation. It is important how a farmer perceives the risks associated with climate change.
Which one of the following statements best reflects the most logical and rational message conveyed by the author of the passage?
Thinking pathway
Locate. This asks for the author’s view: separate what the author asserts and emphasises from claims merely adjacent. The passage closes on a clear emphasis: “Perception is a necessary pre-requisite for adaptation. Whether farmers are adapting… depends on whether they perceive it or not… It is important how a farmer perceives the risks associated with climate change.” The author keeps returning to farmers’ risk perception as the driver of adaptation.
Test (commitment test). Ask which option the author is committed to by an asserting line. (c) “risk perceptions of farmers are important for motivating them for taking adaptation decisions” is a near-direct restatement of the closing emphasis — the author is committed. Test the others: (a) attributes adaptation and mitigation to government responsibility — the passage mentions policy-driven adaptation as one option, not as the message; (d) claims “mitigation is not possible” — the passage actually calls for “a fast mitigation response,” so (d) reverses it; (b) is a stray detail mis-statement.
Eliminate by anatomy. (a) offers a supporting detail as if it were the main point, over-stated — policy-driven adaptation is one mentioned route, not the central message, and “basically the responsibilities of the government” overstates it. (b) is a step the text doesn’t license — “climate change causes a change in government land-use policies” is not stated. (d) gets the direction backwards — it asserts mitigation is impossible, the opposite of “alongside a fast mitigation response.” The transferable rule on author-view questions: pick the line the author drives home (here, perception), not a sub-clause they merely list. Key: (c).
Evidence in the text
“Perception is a necessary pre-requisite for adaptation. Whether farmers are adapting agricultural practices to climate change depends on whether they perceive it or not… It is important how a farmer perceives the risks associated with climate change.” The author’s load-bearing message is that farmers’ RISK PERCEPTION drives their adaptation decisions — exactly (c). (a) over-attributes everything to government; (b) is a detail/mis-statement; (d) asserts “mitigation is not possible,” which the passage never says (it calls for “a fast mitigation response”) → (c).
Worked rationale
The passage argues that autonomous adaptation can’t be expected from marginal, credit-constrained farmers; adaptation is paramount alongside fast mitigation; planned/policy-driven adaptation is another route; and — emphatically — “perception is a necessary pre-requisite for adaptation,” with the closing stress on “how a farmer perceives the risks.”
(c) captures this central, repeated message: farmers’ risk perception drives adaptation. (a) over-credits government with the whole task; policy-driven adaptation is one mentioned option, not the thesis. (b) asserts an unstated causal claim about land-use policy. (d) says mitigation is “not possible,” directly contradicting “alongside a fast mitigation response.”
Answer: (c).
Why the other options miss
- A a detail, not the main idea: elevates the passage’s one mention of policy-driven adaptation into “basically the responsibilities of the government,” overstating a sub-point as the message.
- B sounds reasonable, but unsupported: “climate change causes a change in government land-use policies” is not asserted; a plausible-sounding line the passage never makes.
- D cause and effect reversed: claims “mitigation is not possible,” the reverse of the passage’s call for “a fast mitigation response”; a reader who skims may invert the mitigation point.
Specialist insight
The author-view here is settled by emphasis and repetition. “Perception” recurs three times in the closing lines and is called “a necessary pre-requisite” — that is the author’s committed message, and (c) restates it. The distractors each grab a different thread: government’s role (over-stated), a land-use causal claim (invented), or mitigation’s impossibility (reversed). Reading where the author lands, not where they pass through, is the move. (c).
The author repeatedly stresses farmers' risk perception as the driver of adaptation; (a) over-credits government, (d) reverses the mitigation point — (c).