NDA (I) 2018 GAT Q30: Give the benefit of

Q: What is the answer to NDA (I) 2018 GAT Q30?

C. Correct — C, Regard someone as innocent until proven otherwise. To give the benefit of the doubt is to decide in someone's favour while the evidence is still incomplete, so the doubt works for them rather than against them. Option (c) states that principle in the words most people know it by.

NDA (I) 2018 General Ability Test · Question 30 of 150

Question text verified against the official NDA question paper.

Give the benefit of doubt

(a)To be partial to someone
(b)To be judgmental
(c)Regard someone as innocent until proven otherwise
(d)Say something exactly right

Answer

Why

Correct — C, Regard someone as innocent until proven otherwise. To give the benefit of the doubt is to decide in someone's favour while the evidence is still incomplete, so the doubt works for them rather than against them. Option (c) states that principle in the words most people know it by.

Why the others are wrong

(a)To be partial to someone — Partiality means favouring a person regardless of the evidence. The phrase describes a rule applied because the evidence has run out, and it would be applied to anyone in the same position.
(b)To be judgmental — This is the opposite. Someone judgmental settles the question against a person before the facts are in, while giving the benefit of the doubt is holding back from that verdict.
(d)Say something exactly right — That is the sense of hitting the nail on the head. It is a comment on accuracy of speech, and the phrase in the question is about how to treat a person whose conduct is unclear.

Concept

An idiom item on 'the benefit of the doubt', a favourable judgement given where the evidence is incomplete.

The key word is 'benefit', and the question to ask is who gets it. The doubt is real, so nobody is claiming the person is proved innocent; what is being said is that until the case is proved, the person keeps the advantage. That is why the option about partiality is wrong even though it also sounds favourable, because partiality ignores evidence while this phrase responds to the absence of it.

Key facts

Wiktionary defines it as 'a favorable judgement given in the absence of full evidence', and notes that it is almost always used with the verb 'give'.
It also records a related sense of trusting that something will turn out as hoped for, in spite of misgivings.
A cricketing use is recorded too, in which an umpire who is not sure whether a batsman is out must decide in the batsman's favour.

Study next

Idioms drawn from courtroom and legal languageTelling apart fairness, favouritism and leniency in option wordingFixed phrases built around the verb 'give' — give ground, give way, give someone their dueSpotting the option that reverses the sense of the phrase

Common traps

Reading any favourable treatment as partiality.
Picking an option that names a manner of speaking when the phrase describes a way of judging a person.

Asked as an idiom item in which one option flatters the phrase into favouritism and another states its plain opposite.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Choose the meaning of the phrase — to give someone their due
- (a)to pay someone's debt
- (b)to acknowledge what someone deserves
- (c)to punish someone fairly
- (d)to hand over a duty
Answer(b) to acknowledge what someone deserves.
practice — not a real PYQ
Choose the meaning of the phrase — to hit the nail on the head
- (a)to work with great effort
- (b)to describe something exactly right
- (c)to injure oneself carelessly
- (d)to end an argument abruptly
Answer(b) to describe something exactly right.