EPFO APFC 2023 General Studies · Question 10 of 120

Correct — A, (a) 'Smug and self-satisfied'. The word underlined in the booklet is 'complacency', the last of the five items governed by the Directions block printed above item 6. Complacency is a feeling of uncritical satisfaction with oneself or with one's achievements — a satisfaction so settled that it stops the person examining their position or making any further effort. The standard dictionary gloss is 'smug or uncritical satisfaction with oneself or one's achievements', and option (a) reproduces both of its halves: the smugness, which is the outward air of the thing, and the self-satisfaction, which is its substance. The sentence is constructed to display exactly that danger. 'Notwithstanding our victory today we must be careful to avoid a feeling of complacency' is a concessive sentence — 'notwithstanding' means 'in spite of' — and it sets a success against a warning. What follows a victory and has to be guarded against is the sense that nothing further need be done. That is complacency and not any of the other three states offered. Note also that the key is an adjective phrase glossing a noun, while two of the distractors are nouns. The Directions ask for the option closest in meaning, not for one that matches the underlined word's part of speech, so a candidate who screens the options by grammatical form here will screen out the answer.

• (b)A defensive attitude — Names the opposite posture. A defensive person is alert to threat, quick to justify themselves and uncomfortable under criticism; a complacent person registers no threat at all, which is precisely what makes the state dangerous. The sentence asks the audience to stay 'careful' after a win, and defensiveness is not what a victory typically produces. This is the option a candidate reaches for after deciding that the word must name some unattractive attitude without recalling which one.
• (c)Pride — The nearest of the wrong options, and it fails on a real distinction. Pride is satisfaction taken in an achievement, and it may be entirely warranted, publicly expressed and perfectly compatible with continued effort — a team can be proud of a win and train harder the next morning. Complacency is satisfaction that has stopped being examined and has therefore stopped producing effort; you cannot be complacent and still be pushing. Pride is also not inherently a fault in ordinary English usage, whereas complacency always is, and the sentence treats the feeling as something to be avoided.
• (d)Feeling of superiority — Measures the wrong thing. A feeling of superiority is comparative — it places oneself above other people, and is what English calls conceit, arrogance or condescension. Complacency involves no comparison at all: the complacent person is pleased with their own state and simply does not look further, whether or not anyone else is doing better. The two can occur together but neither entails the other, and a candidate who has fixed on 'smug' as the key word can be pulled towards this option by the overlap in tone.

Four English words cluster around being pleased with oneself, and separating them is what this item tests. Pride is satisfaction in an achievement, and can be earned, proportionate and active. Smugness is the outward manner of self-satisfaction, the air of it, and is always disparaging. Conceit — or a feeling of superiority — is self-regard measured against other people. Complacency is self-satisfaction that has become uncritical and so has stopped producing effort; its defining consequence is inaction, which is why it is almost always used as a warning. The collocations show it: 'no room for complacency', 'a dangerous complacency', 'we must not grow complacent'. Keep 'complacent' apart from its near-twin 'complaisant', which comes from the same Latin root, 'complacere', to please greatly, but means willing to please others, obliging to the point of acquiescence. A complacent official is satisfied with himself; a complaisant one is too eager to satisfy everybody else. The pair is a standing favourite in usage tests, and the difference is worth fixing by the sentence 'the complacent do nothing, the complaisant do whatever they are asked'.

This closes the five-item vocabulary set of the APFC paper's English section, and it is a good example of what the set is really measuring. Every candidate at this level knows roughly what 'complacency' means; the item is decided by whether that rough knowledge is precise enough to reject 'pride', which shares the feeling of satisfaction, and 'feeling of superiority', which shares the tone. The way to make the decision is to ask what each word predicts. Complacency predicts that no further effort will be made; pride predicts nothing of the kind; superiority predicts a comparison with others. Only complacency's prediction fits a sentence that begins by conceding a victory and then urges care. Note too the small structural point in this item's options: the key is an adjective phrase where the underlined word is a noun, while two wrong options are nouns. Matching part of speech is a habit worth suppressing in this section, because the Commission is glossing meaning rather than supplying a substitutable word.

• Complacency is a feeling of smug or uncritical satisfaction with oneself or one's achievements. Its distinguishing consequence is that it stops further effort or scrutiny, which is why the word is nearly always used as a warning rather than a description.
• The adjective is 'complacent'. Its near-twin 'complaisant' means willing to please, obliging or acquiescent; both descend from the Latin 'complacere', to please greatly, but a complacent person is pleased with himself while a complaisant one is anxious to please others.
• The neighbouring words divide by what they measure: pride is satisfaction in an achievement and may be warranted; smugness is the outward air of self-satisfaction; conceit or a feeling of superiority is self-regard measured against other people; complacency is uncritical satisfaction measured against nothing.
• 'Notwithstanding' means 'in spite of' and marks the sentence as concessive: a success is granted in the first clause and a warning is issued in the second. The structure tells the reader that the underlined word names a risk arising from the success itself.
• Two of the four options are nouns and the key is an adjective phrase, although the underlined word is a noun. The Directions ask only for the option closest in meaning, so part-of-speech matching is not a legitimate filter in this set.

• Settling for 'pride' because both words involve satisfaction. Pride can be earned and can coexist with further effort, while complacency is defined by the effort it prevents.
• Choosing by tone rather than by content. 'Feeling of superiority' shares the disparaging tone of 'smug' and still measures the wrong thing, since complacency involves no comparison with others.
• Filtering options by grammatical form. The key here is an adjective phrase glossing a noun, and two of the wrong options are the nouns a form-matcher would keep.

The last item of an APFC vocabulary set is usually built on a word every candidate believes they know, with the difficulty moved entirely into the distractors: one option gives a neighbouring state, one gives an opposite posture, one gives the right tone attached to the wrong measure. The surrounding sentence is then written so that only the key's implication fits — here, a warning issued in spite of a victory. Reading the sentence for what the word must predict about behaviour, rather than for what it feels like, is the technique that separates the key from its neighbours across this whole section.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Choose the option closest in meaning to the underlined word: 'The audit report warned that the branch had grown complacent about verifying claims.'

  • (a)uncritically satisfied and no longer vigilant
  • (b)openly hostile to supervision
  • (c)eager to please every claimant
  • (d)unusually proud of its record

  Answer(a) uncritically satisfied and no longer vigilant — complacency is satisfaction that has stopped examining itself, and the report's concern is precisely the lapse in verification that follows. Option (c) describes 'complaisant', the word's near-twin; option (d) describes pride, which is compatible with continued vigilance; and option (b) describes a defensive or obstructive attitude, not a complacent one.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following sentences uses 'complaisant' correctly?

  • (a)After three straight wins the team became complaisant and stopped training.
  • (b)The complaisant clerk agreed to every change the visitor suggested.
  • (c)She was complaisant about her results and refused to review them.
  • (d)A complaisant attitude to risk had left the fund badly exposed.

  Answer(b) The complaisant clerk agreed to every change the visitor suggested — 'complaisant' means obliging to the point of acquiescence, which is what agreeing to every suggestion illustrates. The other three sentences all describe self-satisfaction that has stopped effort or scrutiny, and each of them requires 'complacent'.