Inference on Goodness and Temptation
XAT 2025 · Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning · Medium · Reading Comprehension
Read the following passage and answer the question that follows. No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness — they have lived a sheltered life by always giving in.
Which of the following options can be BEST concluded from the passage?
- A.
To claim to know anything we must apply it in a situation and then judge ourselves.
- B.
How we label ourselves depends entirely on how much we have fought for that label.
- C.
Unless we are put to test for our beliefs, we do not know what our true beliefs are
- D.
Most of the population does not know what being bad or being good actually is.
- E.
To claim to be good people, we should know what temptation means
C
Explanation
The core thesis is that character/beliefs are only truly tested and understood when resisted/fought against; thus C captures the broader conclusion.
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