2025 CSAT — Q12

Locate. This is a valid-assumption question, so look for the unstated bridge the argument leans on, not a quotable line. The passage’s argument is: each State has distinctive climate challenges and emission-reducing opportunities (incl. wind power) → it should build sustainable goals. The bridge that makes “harnessing wind power” belong in a climate-goals discussion is that green energy production connects to mitigation/adaptation — that is Statement I.

Test (the negation test). Negate I — suppose green energy could not be linked to mitigation/adaptation — and the passage’s move from “wind-power opportunities” to “sustainable climate goals” falls apart. So I is needed: valid. Negate II — suppose effects are not “much more severe” in coastal/mountainous regions — and nothing in the argument changes; the passage only claims challenges are distinctive per region, never that some regions are hit harder. II is not assumed.

Eliminate by anatomy. (b) and (c) admit II, which asserts a comparison the passage never draws — a hybrid of shifting the passage’s confidence level and reaching beyond it: “distinctive challenges” is silently upgraded to “much more severe,” a ranking the text never makes. (d) wrongly rejects I, the genuine bridge. The transferable move: a passage that says regions differ is not assuming one region suffers more — distinctness is not severity. Key: (a).

Statement I: the passage couples emission-reduction (“opportunities for reducing emissions”), adaptation (“protect their shores”, “prepare for variable monsoon”) and green energy (“harnessing wind power”) as parts of one set of “clear and sustainable goals” — linking green energy to mitigation/adaptation is the premise the argument rests on. Statement II: the passage says coastal, drier, Himalayan and other regions each face “distinctive” challenges, but never asserts the comparative that effects are “much more severe” in coastal and mountainous regions than elsewhere — that ranking is absent.

Statement I. The passage discusses reducing emissions, protecting shores, preparing for monsoon variability, and harnessing wind power, all as inputs to “clear and sustainable goals for the future.” For wind power (green energy) to belong in that climate-goals frame, the author must be assuming green energy production links to mitigation and adaptation. Negate it and the argument loses coherence. I is valid.

Statement II. The passage says coastal, drier, Himalayan and offshore regions each have “distinctive” or “unique” challenges and opportunities. It never claims the effects are more severe in coastal and mountainous regions than anywhere else. That is a comparative ranking the text does not make; negating it leaves the argument intact. II is invalid.

Answer: (a) I only.

The lure is II, because it “sounds right” about the world — coasts and mountains do feel climate impacts. But a valid-assumption question asks what the passage presumes, and the passage carefully says each region’s challenges are distinctive, never ranked. Distinctness is not severity. The valid assumption is the quieter one — that green energy belongs in the mitigation/adaptation toolkit — because without it the wind-power sentence wouldn’t sit inside an argument about climate goals.