CSAT Solved Papers/ 2023/Q52
2023 CSAT — Q52
Passage
While awareness on use/misuse and abuse of antibiotics is common knowledge, as is the impact of dosing poultry with antibiotics, the environmental impact of antibiotics-manufacturing companies not treating their waste has scarcely been discussed at any length or seriousness thus far. Pollution from antibiotics factories is fuelling the rise of drug-resistant infections. The occurrence of drug-resistant bacteria surrounding the pharma manufacturing plants is well known.
Which one of the following statements best reflects the most logical and practical message conveyed by the passage?
Thinking pathway
Locate. This asks for the author’s view: find the practical message tied to the stated problem. The passage: awareness of antibiotic use/misuse is “common knowledge,” but the under-discussed problem is that “antibiotics-manufacturing companies not treating their waste” causes pollution, and “pollution from antibiotics factories is fuelling the rise of drug-resistant infections.” The committed concern is untreated factory effluent driving drug resistance.
Test (commitment test). The practical fix for untreated waste is to treat it: (a) “put proper effluent treatment protocols in place” addresses the stated cause head-on. Test others: (b) “promote environmental awareness” misreads the passage, which says awareness is already common knowledge — the gap is action on factory waste, not awareness; (c) “drug-resistant bacteria cannot be done away with… inherent in modern medical care” reverses the passage, which blames factory pollution, not medical care; (d) “set up pharma plants in remote rural areas” is a relocation remedy never proposed.
Eliminate by anatomy. (b) is half right, half wrong and a claim the passage never makes — awareness is acknowledged as existing, so promoting it isn’t the message; (c) gets the direction backwards — it re-attributes resistance to “modern medical care” rather than factory pollution; (d) is a claim the passage never makes — relocation isn’t raised. The transferable rule on author-view questions: the practical message targets the specific stated cause (untreated effluent), not a generic awareness drive or an alternative culprit. Key: (a).
Evidence in the text
“the environmental impact of antibiotics-manufacturing companies not treating their waste has scarcely been discussed… Pollution from antibiotics factories is fuelling the rise of drug-resistant infections.” The stated problem is untreated factory waste, so the practical message is to put proper effluent treatment in place — exactly (a). (b) misreads the passage (it says awareness is already “common knowledge”); (c) reverses (the passage attributes resistance to factory pollution, not “inherent in medical care”); (d) is a relocation remedy never proposed → (a).
Worked rationale
The passage isolates a neglected cause of drug resistance: antibiotics factories not treating their waste. The practical message is to fix that — proper effluent treatment.
(a) addresses the stated cause directly. (b) mistakes awareness for the gap, though the passage says awareness is already common knowledge. (c) reverses the causal claim by calling resistance “inherent in modern medical care,” not factory pollution. (d) proposes relocating plants, a remedy the passage never raises.
Answer: (a).
Why the other options miss
- B half right, half wrong: “promote environmental awareness” sounds reasonable, but the passage explicitly says awareness is “common knowledge”; the missing action is treating factory waste, not raising awareness.
- C cause and effect reversed: “drug-resistant bacteria… inherent in modern medical care” re-attributes resistance away from the passage’s stated cause (factory pollution) and treats it as unavoidable.
- D a claim the passage never makes: “set up pharma plants in remote rural areas” is a relocation fix the passage never proposes; it merely tackles location, not the untreated-waste cause.
Specialist insight
The passage names a precise cause — untreated antibiotics-factory effluent — and the practical message must hit that cause. (a) does. The distractors each miss it: (b) promotes awareness the passage says already exists, (c) blames the wrong agent (medical care, not pollution), and (d) relocates rather than treats. Matching the remedy to the stated cause, and noticing the passage already concedes awareness, lands (a).
The stated cause is untreated factory effluent; (b) promotes awareness the passage says already exists and (c) reverses the cause to "medical care" — the practical fix is effluent treatment — (a).