About this quiz
50 questions covering every section of the note on the meaning, origin, principles, bureaucracy, agencies, functions, New Public Management and federal structure of public administration.
This Lok Sewa practice set has 50 multiple-choice questions (Subject: Administration and Law · For: Nayab Subba, Section Officer · Level: Medium). Take the quiz above first; after that, use the study list below to revise every question with its correct answer and a short explanation.
Study list: all 50 questions with answers and explanations
Which statement best describes public administration?
- A) The study of how private firms earn profit
- B) The organisation and management of people and resources to carry out government policies and laws ✔
- C) The making of laws by the legislature alone
- D) The settling of disputes by courts
Why: Public administration is the machinery that puts the policies and laws of the government into action.
According to the broad (integral) view, public administration includes which activities?
- A) All activities done to fulfil public purposes, whether manual, clerical, technical or managerial ✔
- B) Only the managerial work of senior officials
- C) Only the work of the judiciary
- D) Only work done by private contractors
Why: The integral view counts every kind of work done for public purposes, not just managerial work.
The view that public administration is about actual services such as education, health and defence is called what?
- A) The managerial view
- B) The POSDCORB view
- C) The subject-matter view ✔
- D) The charismatic view
Why: The subject-matter view defines scope by the services the state provides, unlike the POSDCORB view.
Who wrote the essay "The Study of Administration", usually seen as the start of public administration as a discipline?
- A) Max Weber
- B) Luther Gulick
- C) Christopher Hood
- D) Woodrow Wilson ✔
Why: Woodrow Wilson wrote the essay, which is why he is often called the father of public administration.
In which year was "The Study of Administration" published?
- A) 1887 ✔
- B) 1937
- C) 1911
- D) 1991
Why: Wilson's essay appeared in Political Science Quarterly in 1887.
The idea that administration should be kept separate from party politics is known as what?
- A) Unity of command
- B) Span of control
- C) Politics-administration dichotomy ✔
- D) Devolution
Why: Wilson argued for a separation of politics and administration, called the politics-administration dichotomy.
Which feature belongs to public administration rather than private administration?
- A) Its main aim is profit for owners
- B) It must treat all citizens equally and is accountable to the people and the legislature ✔
- C) It may freely choose its customers
- D) Its success is measured mainly by profit
Why: Public administration serves public welfare, treats everyone equally and answers to the people, legislature and courts.
Who coined the word POSDCORB?
- A) Woodrow Wilson
- B) Max Weber
- C) Christopher Hood
- D) Luther Gulick ✔
Why: Luther Gulick coined POSDCORB in 1937.
In POSDCORB, what does the letter S stand for?
- A) Supervising
- B) Strategy
- C) Staffing ✔
- D) Spending
Why: S stands for Staffing, which means recruiting, training and keeping suitable personnel.
In POSDCORB, the function of keeping superiors and the public informed through records and inspection is which one?
- A) Reporting ✔
- B) Directing
- C) Coordinating
- D) Budgeting
Why: R stands for Reporting, which keeps those to whom the executive is responsible informed.
POSDCORB appeared in which 1937 book that Gulick edited with Lyndall Urwick?
- A) Economy and Society
- B) The Study of Administration
- C) A Public Management for All Seasons
- D) Papers on the Science of Administration ✔
Why: Gulick's paper with POSDCORB was published in Papers on the Science of Administration, edited by Gulick and Urwick.
An officer receives orders from two different bosses and gets confused. Which principle is being broken?
- A) Span of control
- B) Unity of command ✔
- C) Delegation
- D) Decentralisation
Why: Unity of command says each employee should get orders from only one superior.
The number of subordinates that one superior can supervise effectively is called what?
- A) Span of control ✔
- B) Hierarchy
- C) Coordination
- D) Deconcentration
Why: Span of control refers to how many subordinates a superior can manage well.
When a superior delegates authority to a subordinate, what happens to responsibility?
- A) It passes fully to the subordinate
- B) It disappears
- C) It passes to the public
- D) The superior still remains ultimately responsible ✔
Why: Authority can be delegated, but final responsibility stays with the superior.
Authority flowing step by step from the top to the bottom like a ladder is which principle?
- A) Coordination
- B) Delegation
- C) Hierarchy (scalar principle) ✔
- D) Span of control
Why: Hierarchy, or the scalar principle, describes a graded chain of authority from top to bottom.
Transferring real power to elected local governments is called what?
- A) Centralisation
- B) Devolution ✔
- C) Deconcentration
- D) Hierarchy
Why: Devolution transfers real power to elected bodies, while deconcentration only shifts work to field offices of the centre.
Max Weber linked his model of bureaucracy with which type of authority?
- A) Traditional authority
- B) Charismatic authority
- C) Military authority
- D) Legal-rational authority ✔
Why: Weber's bureaucracy rests on legal-rational authority, where people obey rules and offices rather than persons.
Which of the following is a feature of Weber's ideal bureaucracy?
- A) Impersonal work based on written rules and selection by merit ✔
- B) Appointment of officials by personal loyalty
- C) Decisions made without any records
- D) Mixing official property with private property
Why: Weber's model stresses rules, impersonality, merit, hierarchy and written records.
Why is Weber's bureaucracy called an "ideal type"?
- A) Because it is free of all faults in practice
- B) Because it was designed only for Nepal
- C) Because it is a pure model, not a description of any real office ✔
- D) Because it rejects the use of rules
Why: An ideal type is a pure conceptual model used for comparison, not a picture of an actual office.
An agency that gives advice, research and planning support to the chief executive, without giving orders to the public, is what kind of agency?
- A) Line agency
- B) Staff agency ✔
- C) Auxiliary agency
- D) Judicial agency
Why: Staff agencies think and advise; they do not command or deal directly with the public.
Agencies that provide common services such as recruitment, purchasing, accounts and printing to all line agencies are called what?
- A) Regulatory agencies
- B) Constitutional agencies
- C) Auxiliary agencies ✔
- D) Political agencies
Why: Auxiliary or housekeeping agencies supply common services needed by line agencies.
Building roads, irrigation and electricity projects and reducing poverty fall under which function of public administration in Nepal?
- A) Maintaining law and order
- B) Policy advice
- C) Revenue collection
- D) Development administration ✔
Why: In a developing country, administration acts as an agent of change by planning and carrying out development work.
Which is a general feature of New Public Management?
- A) Focus on results, treating citizens as customers and using competition ✔
- B) Strict focus on rules with no attention to results
- C) Ending all contact with the private sector
- D) Making government as large as possible
Why: NPM stresses performance, customer focus, competition and managerial freedom.
How many levels of government does Nepal's federal structure have?
- A) Two: central and local
- B) Three: federal, provincial and local ✔
- C) Four: federal, provincial, district and ward
- D) One: federal only
Why: The Constitution of Nepal 2072 created three levels of government: federal, provincial and local.
In Nepali, public administration is:
- A) सार्वजनिक प्रशासन ✔
- B) विकास प्रशासन
- C) स्थानीय प्रशासन
- D) निजी प्रशासन
Why: सार्वजनिक प्रशासन.
The word 'public' in public administration shows that the goal is:
- A) The welfare of the people ✔
- B) Private profit
- C) Military power
- D) Party benefit
Why: Public purpose.
The narrow (managerial) view includes:
- A) Only managerial work of executive officials ✔
- B) All manual and clerical work
- C) Work of private companies
- D) Court judgments
Why: Narrow view = managerial work.
Woodrow Wilson later became:
- A) President of the United States ✔
- B) Prime Minister of the UK
- C) UN Secretary-General
- D) A judge in India
Why: He became US President.
Wilson's essay was published in:
- A) Political Science Quarterly ✔
- B) The Economist
- C) Harvard Business Review
- D) Nature
Why: The journal named in the note.
Wilson saw administration as:
- A) The practical execution of public law ✔
- B) Party politics
- C) Private business
- D) Religious duty
Why: His definition.
The main aim of private administration is:
- A) Profit for owners ✔
- B) Public welfare
- C) Equal treatment of all citizens
- D) Legislative control
Why: Profit motive.
Public administration is accountable to:
- A) The people, the legislature and the courts ✔
- B) Only shareholders
- C) No one
- D) Only donors
Why: Public accountability.
Success in public administration is:
- A) Hard to measure only in money ✔
- B) Measured only by profit
- C) Never measured
- D) Measured by weather
Why: Public value is broad.
In POSDCORB, D stands for:
- A) Directing ✔
- B) Delegating
- C) Deciding only
- D) Developing
Why: Directing.
In POSDCORB, Co stands for:
- A) Coordinating ✔
- B) Controlling
- C) Commanding
- D) Counselling
Why: Coordinating.
In POSDCORB, B stands for:
- A) Budgeting ✔
- B) Banking
- C) Bargaining
- D) Building
Why: Budgeting.
A criticism of POSDCORB is that it:
- A) Covers only managerial tools and ignores subject matter ✔
- B) Is too long
- C) Covers only budgeting
- D) Ignores planning
Why: Main criticism.
Orders go down and reports go up through proper channels under:
- A) Hierarchy (scalar principle) ✔
- B) Unity of command only
- C) Span of control
- D) Decentralisation
Why: Scalar chain.
Max Weber's bureaucracy is based on:
- A) Legal-rational authority ✔
- B) Charismatic authority
- C) Traditional authority
- D) Military authority
Why: Rules-based authority.
Line agencies in government:
- A) Directly carry out the main functions of government ✔
- B) Only advise
- C) Only provide common services
- D) Are private companies
Why: Line = direct execution.
Staff agencies:
- A) Give advice and planning support without command authority ✔
- B) Directly deliver services
- C) Run courts
- D) Collect taxes only
Why: Advisory role.
Auxiliary (housekeeping) agencies provide:
- A) Common services like recruitment, purchasing and accounts ✔
- B) Defence only
- C) Court decisions
- D) Elections
Why: Support services.
Maintaining law and order is a:
- A) Traditional (regulatory) function of public administration ✔
- B) Private function
- C) Developmental function only
- D) Function of NGOs only
Why: Basic state function.
Building roads, irrigation and reducing poverty are:
- A) Developmental functions ✔
- B) Regulatory only
- C) Private functions
- D) Judicial functions
Why: Development functions.
New Public Management emphasises:
- A) Results, efficiency and treating citizens as customers ✔
- B) Only rules
- C) Secrecy
- D) Centralisation
Why: NPM features.
Public administration differs from private administration because it must treat citizens:
- A) Equally ✔
- B) By profit potential
- C) By choice
- D) Randomly
Why: Equal treatment.
Public scrutiny of public administration is:
- A) High, through audit, media and citizens ✔
- B) Very low
- C) Nil
- D) Only internal
Why: Open to scrutiny.
Transferring real power to elected local governments is:
- A) Devolution ✔
- B) Centralisation
- C) Delegation to a clerk
- D) Privatisation
Why: Devolution.
Public administration turns laws and policies into:
- A) Real action for citizens ✔
- B) Novels
- C) Profits
- D) Secrets
Why: Implementation.
Which body plays the main role of public administration in Nepal?
- A) Civil service and government agencies ✔
- B) Private banks
- C) Political parties
- D) Foreign NGOs
Why: Government agencies implement policy.