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UPSC Prelims 2025 CSAT, question 54

Topic: Reading comprehension

Directions · Q51 to Q54

Directions for the following 4 (four) items :
Read the following two passages and answer the items that follow the passages. Your answer to these items should be based on the passages only.

Passage · Q53 to Q54

“A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But, though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense. The national unity of free people depends upon a sufficiently even balance of political power to make it impracticable for the administration to be arbitrary and for opposition to be revolutionary and irreconcilable.”

Q54

With reference to the above passage, the following assumptions have been made :

I. In a democracy, a strong opposition is required only if the Head of Government is indifferent.

II. The more aggressive the opposition, the better is the governance in a democracy.

Which of the above assumptions is/are valid ?

  1. (a) I only
  2. (b) II only
  3. (c) Both I and II
  4. (d) Neither I nor IICorrect answer

Solution.

Answer: (d) Neither I nor II

  1. Statement I is incorrect: the passage states that even a 'good' and 'wise' statesman needs opponents to show him where dangers lie, not only an indifferent head of government.
  2. Statement II is incorrect: the closing sentence warns against an opposition becoming 'revolutionary and irreconcilable' and calls instead for a balanced political equilibrium.