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Introduction to Public Administration Questions and Answers

11.

Assertion (A) and Reason (R) pattern :

Assertion (A) : Public Administration is more comprehensive than Private Administration.
Reason (R) : Public Administration regulates Private Administration.

Codes :

Exam Year(s)

MH SET - 2019, SET Exam - 2019,

Answer: B

Both statements are true but the Reason is not the correct explanation, so the answer is Both (A) and (R) are true but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A).

The Assertion is the usual comparison: public administration is wider in scope and impact than private administration because it covers the whole range of state activity, touches every citizen and serves public purposes. The Reason is also true: the state regulates private business through laws on companies, labour, taxation, pollution and so on.

But regulation is only one of the many functions that make public administration comprehensive. Its breadth comes from its public character and the range of services it provides, not from the fact that it regulates private firms, so (R) does not explain (A). Options saying either statement is false are wrong because both are accepted.

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12.

Decentralisation results from :

Exam Year(s)

MH SET - 2019, SET Exam - 2019,

Answer: B

Decentralisation results from delegation.

Delegation is the act of a superior entrusting part of his authority to a subordinate. When authority is delegated systematically and widely down the levels of an organisation, the result is decentralisation; when it is kept at the top, the organisation is centralised. Decentralisation is therefore the extension of delegation to the organisation as a whole.

Span of control is the number of subordinates one superior can supervise; it affects the shape of the hierarchy but does not itself pass authority down. Coordination is the integration of effort, and leadership is the influence a superior exerts. Neither transfers decision-making authority, so neither produces decentralisation.

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13.

In modern times merit system of recruitment was first introduced in :

Exam Year(s)

MH SET - 2019, SET Exam - 2019,

Answer: A

The merit system was first introduced in Prussia.

In the eighteenth century the Prussian kings, Frederick William I and Frederick the Great, built a professional bureaucracy recruited through examinations and trained in the cameral sciences. Prussia is therefore usually cited as the first modern state to recruit civil servants on merit.

The other countries came later. In India, open competition for the Indian Civil Service began in 1855 under the Charter Act of 1853. In England, the Northcote-Trevelyan Report (1853) proposed it and open competition became the rule by the Order in Council of 1870. In the USA, the Pendleton Act of 1883 introduced the merit system to replace the spoils system.

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14.

‘It does not command; its job is to sell, not tell’, has been said for :

Exam Year(s)

MH SET - 2019, SET Exam - 2019,

Answer: D

The remark describes advisory staff.

Staff agencies in the classical sense have no authority of command. Their role is to study problems, gather information and give advice to the line officials who take decisions. Because they cannot order anyone, they must persuade: they 'sell' their ideas to the line rather than 'tell' it what to do, which is exactly the point of the quotation.

Functional staff, in the sense used by Taylor and others, can exercise authority over a specialised function, so they do command in that field. Control staff and technical staff (such as audit or engineering units) may also carry delegated authority over procedures. The defining feature of pure advisory staff is the lack of any power to command.

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15.

Self enforcing discipline is a function of :

Exam Year(s)

MH SET - 2019, SET Exam - 2019,

Answer: C

Self enforcing discipline is a function of high morale.

Morale is the attitude of employees towards their work, their group and the organisation. Where morale is high, people identify with the organisation's goals and follow its rules willingly, so discipline comes from within rather than being imposed. That is what self-enforcing discipline means.

Command, authority and control all describe discipline imposed from above: an order given, a right to give it, and the checking of results against standards. They can secure obedience, but obedience obtained that way is enforced by the superior, not by the employee, so none of them is the source of self-enforcing discipline.

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16.

Match List I with List II and select the correct answer from the codes given below :

List IList II
(a) Hatch Act(1) 1833
(b) Northcote Trevelyan Report(2) 1976
(c) Pendleton Act(3) 1939
(d) Kothari Committee Report(4) 1853

Exam Year(s)

MH SET - 2019, SET Exam - 2019,

Answer: B

The correct code is (a)-(3), (b)-(4), (c)-(1), (d)-(2).

  • (a) The Hatch Act, which restricts the political activity of US federal employees, was passed in 1939.
  • (b) The Northcote-Trevelyan Report on the organisation of the British civil service is dated 1853.
  • (c) The Pendleton Act, which introduced the merit system in the USA, was passed in 1883; the list prints 1833, which is the only date left for it.
  • (d) The Kothari Committee on recruitment policy and selection methods for the civil services reported in 1976.

Pairs (a), (b) and (d) are firm, and only this code has all three, so every other code is wrong.

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17.

Development of Public Administration is characterised according to 'locus' or 'focus', in which locus is the institutional :

Exam Year(s)

MH SET - 2020, SET Exam - 2020,

Answer: C

Locus is the institutional 'where' of the field.

In Nicholas Henry's well-known account of the paradigms of public administration (building on Robert Golembiewski), each phase is described by its locus and its focus. The locus is the institutional 'where' of the discipline, for example the government bureaucracy, and the focus is the specialised 'what', such as the principles of administration or management techniques.

So 'what' belongs to focus, not locus. 'When' and 'how' are not part of the locus-focus scheme at all.

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18.

Assertion (A) : Instrumentality role subsumes the subordination of the administrative system to the political control.

Reason (R) : In Parliamentary democracy executive is accountable to the legislature.

Answer the question using the below given codes :

Codes :

Exam Year(s)

MH SET - 2020, SET Exam - 2020,

Answer: A

The key is A: both statements are true and R explains A.

'Instrumentality' describes the administrative system as an instrument of the political executive: it carries out decisions it did not make, and so it is subordinate to political control (A). In a parliamentary democracy the executive sits in and answers to the legislature, and the permanent administration answers to the executive, so the chain of accountability that runs up to the legislature is why political control over administration is accepted (R).

I found no published source that uses the phrase 'instrumentality role' with this reasoning, so the link from R to A is the logic of the statements and not a confirmed textbook line. Options B, C and D each call one statement false or unrelated, which does not hold for either.

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19.

According to Pfiffner the following is not the kind of staff :

Exam Year(s)

MH SET - 2020, SET Exam - 2020,

Answer: D

The one that is not a kind of staff is line.

John Pfiffner classified staff agencies into three kinds: general staff, who advise the chief executive on overall policy; technical (specialised) staff, who give expert advice in a particular field; and auxiliary staff, who provide common services such as personnel, purchasing and accounts to the whole organisation.

Line agencies are not staff at all. They carry out the primary purposes of the organisation and exercise command, while staff agencies advise and assist them. So line is the odd one out.

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20.

T-group developed by National Training Labs, USA is cited as an example of :

Exam Year(s)

MH SET - 2020, SET Exam - 2020,

Answer: B

The T-group is an example of sensitivity training.

The T-group (training group) was developed in 1947 at the National Training Laboratories in Bethel, Maine, from the work of Kurt Lewin's associates. Small unstructured groups discuss their own interactions here and now, so that members become aware of how they affect others and how others see them. That is the method known as sensitivity training.

Role play and management games simulate work situations; the syndicate method divides trainees into small groups that study an assigned problem and report back; 'incidence training' is not the name of the T-group method. None of them describes the unstructured self-awareness group.

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