Identify the virtuous character traits which help an individual to flourish in…
2024
Identify the virtuous character traits which help an individual to flourish in life.
A. Integrity
B. Sycophancy
C. Honesty
D. Compassion
E. Faithfulness
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer: D. A, C, D and E Only — Concept: A literal-comprehension question is settled by what the passage itself states, never by the reader's own opinion of the subject. The method is to…
- A.
A, B, C and D Only
- B.
A, C and D Only
- C.
A, B, C, D and E
- D.
A, C, D and E Only
Attempted by 1 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: D
Concept: A literal-comprehension question is settled by what the passage itself states, never by the reader's own opinion of the subject. The method is to find the sentence in which the author actually names the items, list exactly those items, and then accept only the combination that contains every named item and nothing besides. A combination can therefore fail in two independent ways: by dropping an item the author named, or by admitting an item the author never mentioned.
Application:
The relevant sentence sits in the second paragraph of the passage: “It also asks us how those character traits that help humans flourish (such as integrity, honest, faithfulness and compassion) play out in everyday living.”
The bracketed list names exactly four traits — integrity, honesty (the passage prints “honest”), faithfulness and compassion.
Matching those four traits to the labels in the stem gives integrity = A, honesty = C, compassion = D and faithfulness = E.
Sycophancy (B) appears nowhere in the passage. It means insincere flattery offered to win someone's favour, and the passage's own test — traits “that help humans flourish” — does not reach it.
So the combination the passage supports is integrity, honesty, compassion and faithfulness: A, C, D and E only.
Trait-by-trait check against the passage:
Label | Trait | Named in the passage? |
|---|---|---|
A | Integrity | Yes — inside the bracketed list |
B | Sycophancy | No — the word never occurs in the passage |
C | Honesty | Yes — the passage prints “honest” |
D | Compassion | Yes — inside the bracketed list |
E | Faithfulness | Yes — inside the bracketed list |
Cross-check and contrast:
Counting settles it independently: the bracketed list holds four traits, so the answer must carry exactly four labels, and among the four-label combinations only one leaves sycophancy out.
“A, C and D Only” stays inside the passage but stops one trait short, since faithfulness is named in the same bracket as the other three.
“A, B, C and D Only” makes the opposite pair of errors at once: it admits sycophancy, which the passage never names, and drops faithfulness, which it does.
“A, B, C, D and E” keeps every named trait but also sweeps in sycophancy, so it reaches past what the author actually wrote.
The virtuous character traits the passage identifies as helping a person flourish are therefore integrity, honesty, compassion and faithfulness — the combination A, C, D and E Only.