Multiple choice

What is the thematic highlight of the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Like ethics, morality, in whatever degree it exists in a mortal, sits rather easy on their wearer’s shoulders. A rascal would perhaps recount with more sadistic glee of having made a sucker out of an unsuspecting soul, than how an upright and honest official would describe his stand against corruption and the efforts to corrupt him. For an ordinary Cuban citizen, trapped in a nation battling international embargoes of all sorts, the contest between morality aided by legality, and the need to stock one’s larder is really a no-show because morality does not fill hungry stomachs. One’s amenability to shedding one’s scruples grows in direct proportion to the shortage of what one is seeking. While an over-fed American, in his native country, might turn his nose up at non-organic lettuce, and choose instead to pick up his vegetables from a store that sells ‘certified organic only’, a sterner test of his resolution would only be possible in a setting when, let’s say, he is staying in Cuba for an year. For a nation which has always been the favored child of abundance, and where power, at least in the ‘pioneer years’ flowed from the barrel of the gun, much has always been there for the asking, and the rest was obtained by force, it is easy to be moral.

  1. Americans are given to pontification on morality because they have it easy.

  2. The only difference between Cuban and American moralities is the degree of abundance.

  3. In a contest between morality and ethics, morality mostly loses.

  4. Ethics and morality are contingent upon circumstances and individuality.
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D Correct answer
Explanation

(1) Incorrect; the examples of Americans and Cubans are used only to contrast how morality comes easy to those with full tummies. (2) Incorrect; the examples of the two nationalities are used to highlight how morality is contingent on circumstances. (3) Incorrect; ethics are mentioned only in passing, it is morality which is under spotlight in the passage. (4) Correct; the passage mentions how ethics and morality sit easy on the shoulder of the wearer. It also shows how taking a higher moral ground is easy when the circumstances are favorable. (5) Incorrect but close; it presents only part of the picture because individual choice is also mentioned (how an upright…to corrupt him).

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