CSS Political Science chapter 2: Political thought MCQs with answers

By Team Megalecture · Updated 4 Nov 2026

60 exam-style questions on Political thought, each with the answer and a short explanation. Ten of them are below to try. The chapter test draws ten fresh questions each time and is marked the moment you finish, with your score by topic.

60 questions · 4 topics · 10 per test

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What chapter 2 covers

Ten Political thought questions with answers

Try each one, then open the answer. These ten stay the same; the test draws new ones every time.

1. Maududi's idea of a 'theo-democracy' means a state in which

  1. A
    scholars alone make every decision on behalf of the people
  2. B
    the people act as agents of God, whose sovereignty is supreme
  3. C
    sovereignty belongs to an elected monarch for life
  4. D
    religion and politics are kept entirely apart from each other
Show answer

Answer: B. Maududi held that sovereignty belongs to God and that Muslims act as His vicegerents, choosing rulers and legislating within divine limits.

2. Which description fits Hobbes's state of nature, as set out in 'Leviathan'?

  1. A
    A peaceful condition in which everyone enjoys equal rights and the few disputes that arise are settled by reason alone
  2. B
    A golden age of innocent freedom, later corrupted by private property
  3. C
    A war of every man against every man, in which life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short
  4. D
    A society governed by the elected representatives of a free assembly
Show answer

Answer: C. Hobbes saw people as driven by fear and desire for power, so without a common authority there is constant insecurity. The peaceful and innocent versions belong to Locke and Rousseau.

3. In whose account did inequality and corruption arise only after the rise of private property and organised society?

  1. A
    Rousseau's
  2. B
    Hobbes's
  3. C
    Machiavelli's
  4. D
    Bodin's
Show answer

Answer: A. Rousseau's 'Discourse on Inequality' portrays natural man as free and innocent and traces inequality to property. Hobbes's natural man is in constant conflict.

4. Which scholar's 'Al-Siyasa al-Shar'iyya' stresses that rulers must govern according to the Shariah and fulfil the trust owed to the people?

  1. A
    Al-Farabi
  2. B
    Ibn Khaldun
  3. C
    Al-Mawardi
  4. D
    Ibn Taymiyyah
Show answer

Answer: D. Ibn Taymiyyah (1263-1328) held that justice and the trust of office, under the Shariah, are the foundation of rule.

5. Which contract thinker argued that sovereignty remains with the people through the general will and cannot be represented?

  1. A
    Hobbes
  2. B
    Rousseau
  3. C
    Locke
  4. D
    Bodin
Show answer

Answer: B. For Rousseau the people are sovereign and the general will cannot be delegated, so he distrusted representative government. Hobbes placed sovereignty in the ruler, and Locke gave the legislature a trust.

6. 'The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles' is a sentence from

  1. A
    The Wealth of Nations
  2. B
    The Social Contract
  3. C
    The Spirit of the Laws
  4. D
    the Communist Manifesto
Show answer

Answer: D. The Manifesto, written by Marx and Engels in 1848, opens its first section with this claim.

7. Aquinas divided law into eternal, divine, natural and

  1. A
    customary law
  2. B
    human law
  3. C
    international law
  4. D
    civil-service law
Show answer

Answer: B. Aquinas placed human (positive) law at the lowest level, valid only when consistent with natural law.

8. Which scholar wrote the 'Ihya Ulum al-Din' (Revival of the Religious Sciences)?

  1. A
    Al-Farabi
  2. B
    Ibn Khaldun
  3. C
    Al-Ghazali
  4. D
    Al-Mawardi
Show answer

Answer: C. The Ihya is Al-Ghazali's great work on faith, worship and ethical life.

9. Which thinker is correctly matched with his work?

  1. A
    Thomas Hobbes and The Social Contract
  2. B
    Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Leviathan
  3. C
    Niccolo Machiavelli and the Two Treatises of Government
  4. D
    John Locke and the Two Treatises of Government
Show answer

Answer: D. Locke wrote the Two Treatises, Hobbes the Leviathan, Rousseau The Social Contract and Machiavelli The Prince.

10. The sentence 'Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains' opens the main work of

  1. A
    Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  2. B
    John Locke
  3. C
    Thomas Hobbes
  4. D
    Montesquieu
Show answer

Answer: A. It is the opening line of 'The Social Contract' (1762), where Rousseau asks how legitimate authority can exist among free people.

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Political thought: questions students ask

How many Political thought MCQs are there?

60, each with the answer and a short explanation, across 4 topics: Ancient and medieval thought, Machiavelli and the social contract thinkers, Montesquieu, Bentham, Mill, Hegel and Marx, Muslim political thought. Every chapter test draws ten of them, so you can take it many times.

Is the CSS Political Science chapter 2 test free?

Yes. The test, the answers and the explanations are free and need no sign-up. Sign in only if you want your scores kept across devices.

How is the chapter test marked?

The moment you press Finish: your score, the right answer and an explanation for every question, and the ones you got wrong saved in My mistakes to retry.

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