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CAT 2022 Question Paper | VARC Slot 1

CAT Previous Year Paper | CAT VARC Questions | Question 17

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Question 17 : The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.

Petitioning is an expeditious democratic tradition, used frequently in prior centuries, by which citizens can bring issues directly to governments. As expressions of collective voice, they support procedural democracy by shaping agendas. They can also recruit citizens to causes, give voice to the voteless, and apply the discipline of rhetorical argument that clarifies a point of view. By contrast, elections are limited in several respects: they involve only a few candidates, and thus fall far short of a representative democracy. Further, voters' choices are not specific to particular policies or laws, and elections are episodic, whereas the voice of the people needs to be heard and integrated constantly into democratic government.

  1. Petitioning has been important to democratic functioning, as it supplements the electoral process by enabling ongoing engagement with the government.
  2. Petitioning is definitely more representative of the collective voice, and the functioning of democratic government could improve if we relied more on petitioning rather than holding periodic elections.
  3. By giving citizens greater control over shaping political and democratic agendas, political petitions are invaluable as they represent an ideal form of a representative democracy.
  4. Citizens become less inclined to petitioning as it enables vocal citizens to shape political agendas, but this needs to change to strengthen democracies today.

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Explanatory Answer

The given paragraph calls petitioning an "expeditious" democratic tradition and goes on to explain why: unlike elections which are episodic, petitions can ensure the voices of people are heard and integrated constantly into democratic government. Option A covers all key ideas and is the best of the given summaries.

Option B is incorrect as the paragraph given does not say we should rely more on petitioning than on elections.

Option C is incorrect as the paragraph does not call petitions "an ideal form of a representative democracy".

Option D is easily ruled out as it is not what the paragraph is about.


The answer is 'Petitioning has been important to democratic functioning, as it supplements the electoral process by enabling ongoing engagement with the government.'

Choice A is the correct answer.

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