CAT 2019 VARC Slot 1 Question Paper(Available):Download Solutions with Answer Key

Question 1:

Which of the following hypothetical statements would add the least depth to the author's prediction of the fate of start-ups offering few product options?

• (A) An exponential surge in their sales enables start-ups to meet their desired profit goals without expanding their product catalogue
• (B) With the motive of promoting certain rival companies, the government decides to double the tax-rates for these start-ups.
• (C) With Casper and Glossier venturing into new product ranges, their regular customers start losing trust in the companies and their products.
• (D) Start-ups with few product options are no exception to the American consumer market that is deeply divided along class lines.

Which one of the following best sums up the overall purpose of the examples of Casper and Glossier in the passage?

• (A) They are increasing the purchasing power of poor Americans.
• (B) They are exceptions to a dominant trend in consumer markets.
• (C) They are facilitating a uniform distribution of commodities in the market.
• (D) They might transform into what they were exceptions to.

A new food brand plans to launch a series of products in the American market. Which of the following product plans is most likely to be supported by the author of the passage?

• (A) A range of 10 products priced between(5 and10).
• (B) A range of 25 products priced between(10 and25).
• (C) A range of 25 products priced between(5 and10).
• (D) A range of 10 products priced between(10 and 25).

All of the following, IF TRUE, would weaken the author's claims EXCEPT:

• (A) Product options increased market competition, bringing down the prices of commodities, which, in turn, increased purchasing power of the poor.
• (B) The annual sales growth of companies with fewer product options were higher than that of companies which curated their products for target consumers.
• (C) The annual sale of companies that hired lifestyle influencers on Instagram for marketing their products were 40% less than those that did not.
• (D) The empowerment felt by purchasers in buying a commodity were directly proportional to the number of options they could choose from.

Based on the passage, all of the following can be inferred about consumer behaviour EXCEPT that:

• (A) Too many options have made it difficult for consumers to trust products.
• (B) Consumers are susceptible to marketing images that they see on social media.
• (C) Having too many product options can be overwhelming for consumers.
• (D) Consumers tend to prefer products by start-ups over those by established companies.

In the last sentence of paragraph 3, "slightly warmer air" and "at a slightly colder temperature" refer to ...................AND ....................... respectively:

• (A) The air inside penguins' bodies kept warm because of metabolism of food AND the fall in temperature of the body air after it transfers some heat to the plumage.
• (B) The cold Antarctic air which becomes warmer because of the heat radiated out from penguins' bodies AND the fall in temperature of the surrounding air after thermal convection.
• (C) The air trapped in the plumage which is warmer than the Antarctic air AND the fall in temperature of the trapped plumage air after it radiates out some heat.
• (D) The cold Antarctic air whose temperature is higher than that of the plumage AND the fall in temperature of the Antarctic air after it has transmitted some heat to the plumage.

Which of the following best explains the purpose of the word "paradoxically" as used by the author?

• (A) Keeping their body colder helps penguins keep their plumage warmer.
• (B) Keeping a part of their body colder helps penguins keep their bodies warmer.
• (C) Heat gain through radiation happens despite the heat loss through convection.
• (D) Heat loss through radiation happens despite the heat gain through convection.

All of the following, if true, would negate the findings of the study reported in the passage EXCEPT:

• (A) The penguins' plumage were made of a material that did not allow any heat transfer through convection or radiation.
• (B) The average air temperature recorded during the month of June 2008 in the area of study were -10 degrees Fahrenheit.
• (C) The temperature of the plumage on the penguins' heads, chests and backs were found to be 1.84, 7.24 and 9.76 degrees Fahrenheit respectively.
• (D) The average temperature of the feet of penguins in the month of June 2008 were found to be 2.76 degrees Fahrenheit.

Which of the following can be responsible for Emperor Penguins losing body heat?

• (A) Food metabolism.
• (B) Reproduction process.
• (C) Plumage.
• (D) Thermal convection.

The author says that folk "may often appear a cosy, fossilised form" because:

• (A) of its nostalgic association with a pre-industrial past.
• (B) it has been arrogated for various political and cultural purposes.
• (C) folk is a sonic "shabby chic" with an antique veneer.
• (D) the notion of folk has led to several debates and disagreements.

All of the following are causes for plurality and diversity within the British folk tradition EXCEPT:

• (A) The fluidity of folk forms owing to their history of oral mode of transmission.
• (B) Paradoxically, folk forms are both popular and unpopular.
• (C) That British folk forms can be traced to the remote past of the country.
• (D) That British folk continues to have traces of pagan influence from the dark ages.

At a conference on folk forms, the author of the passage is least likely to agree with which one of the following views?

• (A) The power of folk resides in its contradictory ability to influence and be influenced by the present while remaining rooted in the past.
• (B) Folk forms, despite their archaic origins, remain intellectually relevant in contemporary times.
• (C) Folk forms, in their ability to constantly adapt to the changing world, exhibit an unusual poise and homogeneity with each change.
• (D) The plurality and democratising impulse of folk forms emanate from the improvisation that its practitioners bring to it.

The primary purpose of the reference to William Morris and his floral prints is to show:

• (A) the pervasive influence of folk on contemporary art, culture, and fashion.
• (B) that what is once regarded as radical in folk, can later be seen as conformist.
• (C) that what was once derided as genteel is now considered revolutionary.
• (D) that despite its archaic origins, folk continues to remain a popular tradition.

Which of the following statements about folk revivalism of the 1940s and 1960s cannot be inferred from the passage?

• (A) Freedom and rebellion were popular themes during the second wave of folk revivalism.
• (B) Electrification of music would not have happened without the influence of rock music.
• (C) Even though it led to folk-rock's golden age, it wasn't entirely free from critique.
• (D) It reinforced Cecil Sharp's observation about folk's constant transformation.

The word "topophobia" in the passage is used:

• (A) to represent a feeling of dread towards particular spaces and places.
• (B) as a metaphor expressing the failure of the homeland to accommodate non-citizens.
• (C) to signify the fear of studying the complex discipline of topography.
• (D) to signify feelings of fear or anxiety towards topophilic people.

In the last paragraph, the author uses the example of "Residents of upscale residential developments" to illustrate the:

• (A) introduction of nationalist projects by such elites to produce a sense of dread or topophobia.
• (B) manner in which environments are designed to minimise the social exclusion of their clientele.
• (C) sensitive response to race and class problems in upscale residential developments.
• (D) social exclusivism practised by such residents in order to enforce a sense of racial or class superiority.

Which one of the following best captures the meaning of the statement, "Topophilia is difficult to design for and impossible to quantify . . . "?

• (A) Philosopher-architects are uniquely suited to develop topophilic design.
• (B) People's responses to their environment are usually subjective and so cannot be rendered in design.
• (C) Architects have to objectively quantify spaces and hence cannot be topophilic.
• (D) The deep anomie of modern urbanisation led to new urbanism's intricate sense of place.

Which one of the following comes closest in meaning to the author's understanding of topophilia?

• (A) The French are not overly patriotic, but they will refuse to use English as far as possible, even when they know it well.
• (B) The tendency of many cultures to represent their land as "motherland" or "fatherland" may be seen as an expression of their topophilia.
• (C) Scientists have found that most creatures, including humans, are either born with or cultivate a strong sense of topography.
• (D) Nomadic societies are known to have the least affinity for the lands through which they traverse because they tend to be topophobic.

Which of the following statements, if true, could be seen as not contradicting the arguments in the passage?

• (A) Generally speaking, in a given culture, the ties of the people to their environment vary little in significance or intensity.
• (B) Patriotism, usually seen as a positive feeling, is presented by the author as a darker form of topophilia.
• (C) New Urbanism succeeded in those designs where architects collaborated with their clients.
• (D) The most important, even fundamental, response to our environment is our tactile and olfactory response.

Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders alerted the public to the psychoanalytical techniques used by the advertising industry. Its premise was that advertising agencies were using depth interviews to identify hidden consumer motivations, which were then used to entice consumers to buy goods. Critics and reporters often wrongly assumed that Packard was writing mainly about subliminal advertising. Packard never mentioned the word subliminal, however, and devoted very little space to discussions of "subthreshold" effects. Instead, his views largely aligned with the notion that individuals do not always have access to their conscious thoughts and can be persuaded by supraliminal messages without their knowledge.

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.

Physics is a pure science that seeks to understand the behavior of matter without regard to whether it will afford any practical benefit. Engineering is the correlative applied science in which physical theories are put to some specific use, such as building a bridge or a nuclear reactor. Engineers obviously rely heavily on the discoveries of physicists, but an engineer's knowledge of the world is not the same as the physicist's knowledge. In fact, an engineer's know-how will often depend on physical theories that, from the point of view of pure physics, are false. There are some reasons for this. First, theories that are false in the purest and strictest sense are still sometimes very good approximations to the true ones, and often have the added virtue of being much easier to work with. Second, sometimes the true theories apply only under highly idealized conditions which can only be created under controlled experimental situations. The engineer finds that in the real world, theories rejected by physicists yield more accurate predictions than the ones that they accept.