CAT 2016 Question Paper VARC Slot 2(Available):Download Solutions with Answer Key PDF

CAT Questions

• 1.

  The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
  A distinguishing feature of language is our ability to refer to absent things, known as displaced reference. A speaker can bring distant referents to mind in the absence of any obvious stimuli. Thoughts, not limited to the here and now, can pop into our heads for unfathomable reasons. This ability to think about distant things necessarily precedes the ability to talk about them. Thought precedes meaningful referential communication. A prerequisite for the emergence of human-like meaningful symbols is that the mental categories they relate to can be invoked even in the absence of immediate stimuli.

  • Thoughts are essential to communication and only humans have the ability to think about objects not present in their surroundings.
  • The ability to think about objects not present in our environment precedes the development of human communication.
  • Displaced reference is particular to humans and thoughts pop into our heads for no real reason.
  • Thoughts precede all speech acts and these thoughts pop up in our heads even in the absence of any stimulus. 

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• 2.

  Directions: There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (Option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit. 
  
  Sentence: This philosophical cut at one's core beliefs, values, and way of life is difficult enough.  
  
  Paragraph:
  The experience of reading philosophy is often disquieting. When reading philosophy, the values around which one has heretofore organised one's life may come to look provincial, flatly wrong, or even evil. __(1)__ When beliefs previously held as truths are rendered implausible, new beliefs, values, and ways of living may be required. __(2)__ What's worse, philosophers admonish each other to remain unsutured until such time as a defensible new answer is revealed or constructed. Sometimes philosophical writing is even strictly critical in that it does not even attempt to provide an alternative after tearing down a cultural or conceptual citadel. __(3)__ The reader of philosophy must be prepared for the possibility of this experience. While reading philosophy can help one clarify one's values, and even make one self-conscious for the first time of the fact that there are good reasons for believing what one believes, it can also generate Un remediated doubt that is difficult to live with.

  • Option 1
  • Option 3
  • Option 4
  • Option 2
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• 3.

  The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the author’s position.
  Production and legitimation of scientific knowledge can be approached from a number of perspectives. To study knowledge production from the sociology of professions perspective would mean a focus on the institutionalization of a body of knowledge. The professions-approach informed earlier research on managerial occupation, business schools and management knowledge. It however tends to reify institutional power structures in its understanding of the links between knowledge and authority. Knowledge production is restricted in the perspective to the selected members of the professional community, most notably to the university faculties and professional colleges. Power is understood as a negative mechanism, which prevents the non-professional actors from offering their ideas and information as legitimate knowledge.

  • Professions-approach aims at the institutionalization of knowledge but restricts knowledge production as a function of a select few.
  • The study of knowledge production can be done through many perspectives
  • Professions-approach focuses on the creation of institutions of higher education and disciplines to promote knowledge production
  • The professions-approach has been one of the most relied upon perspective in the study of management knowledge production.
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• 4.

  The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
  For nearly a century most psychologists have embraced one view of intelligence. Individuals are born with more or less intelligence potential (I.Q.); this potential is heavily influenced by heredity and difficult to alter; experts in measurement can determine a person’s intelligence early in life, currently from paper-and-pencil measures, perhaps eventually from examining the brain in action or even scrutinizing his/her genome. Recently, criticism of this conventional wisdom has mounted. Biologists ask if speaking of a single entity called “intelligence” is coherent and question the validity of measures used to estimate heritability of a trait in humans, who, unlike plants or animals, are not conceived and bred under controlled conditions.

  • Biologists have questioned the long-standing view that ‘intelligence’ is a single entity and the attempts to estimate its heritability.
  • Biologists have started questioning psychologists' view of 'intelligence' as a measurable immutable characteristic of an individual.
  • Biologists have questioned the view that ‘intelligence’ is a single entity and the ways in which what is inherited.
  • Biologists have criticised that conventional wisdom that individuals are born with more or less intelligence potential.
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• 5.

  The only way in which the education system can be improved is by 
   

  • decentralising education planning and implementation.
    
  • introducing fresh blood in the planning body.
    
  • injecting funds into the exchequer solely for the purpose.
    
  • educating the people on the need for primary education.
    
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• 6.

  According to the passage, the fundamental change in U.S. foreign policy directed towards Latin America 
   

  • resulted in a deterioration of U.S. Latin American relations.
    
  • was responsible for Peron remaining as a dictator in Peru.
    
  • recognized that economic aid alone would prevent social revolutions.
    
  • provided for increased military and economic aid to prevent the spread of communism in Latin Americ(a)
    
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