The CAT VARC section requires good reading skills, critical thinking, and attention to detail, along with a thorough understanding of the Para Summary. This article provides a set of MCQs on Para Summary to help you understand the topic and enhance your verbal ability with the help of detailed solutions, which will help you in the CAT 2025 exam preparation.
Whether you're revising the basics or testing your knowledge, these MCQs will serve as a valuable practice resource.
The CAT 2025 exam is expected to follow a similar trend to the CAT 2024, with 24 questions from the VARC section out of a total of 68 questions.
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CAT MCQs on Para Summary
1. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Manipulating information was a feature of history long before modern journalism established rules of integrity. A record dates back to ancient Rome, when Antony met Cleopatra and his political enemy Octavian launched a smear campaign against him with "short, sharp slogans written upon coins." The perpetrator became the first Roman Emperor and "fake news had allowed Octavian to hack the republican system once and for all". But the 21st century has seen the weaponization of information on an unprecedented scale. Powerful new technology makes the fabrication of content simple, and social networks amplify falsehoods peddled by States, populist politicians, and dishonest corporate entities. The platforms have become fertile ground for computational propaganda, 'trolling' and 'troll armies'.
A
People need to become critical of what they read, since historically, weaponization of information has led to corruption.
B
Octavian used fake news to manipulate people and attain power and influence, just as people do today
C
Disinformation, which is mediated by technology today, is not new and has existed since ancient times.
D
Use of misinformation for attaining power, a practice that is as old as the Octavian era, is currently fueled by technology.
2. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Colonialism is not a modern phenomenon. World history is full of examples of one society gradually expanding by incorporating adjacent territory and settling its people on newly conquered territory. In the sixteenth century, colonialism changed decisively because of technological developments in navigation that began to connect more remote parts of the world. The modern European colonial project emerged when it became possible to move large numbers of people across the ocean and to maintain political control in spite of geographical dispersion. The term colonialism is used to describe the process of European settlement, violent dispossession and political domination over the rest of the world, including the Americas, Australia, and parts of Africa and Asia.
A
Colonialism surged in the 16th century due to advancements in navigation, enabling British settlements abroad and global dominance.
B
As a result of developments in navigation technology, European colonialism, led to the displacement of indigenous populations and global political changes in the 16th century.
C
Colonialism, conceptualized in the 16th century, allowed colonizers to expand their territories, establish settlements, and exercise political power.
D
Technological advancements in navigation in the 16th century, transformed colonialism, enabling Europeans to establish settlements and exert political dominance over distant regions.
3. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Heatwaves are becoming longer, frequent and intense due to climate change. The impacts of extreme heat are unevenly experienced; with older people and young children, those with pre-existing medical conditions and on low incomes significantly more vulnerable. Adaptation to heatwaves is a significant public policy concern. Research conducted among at-risk people in the UK reveals that even vulnerable people do not perceive themselves as at risk of extreme heat; therefore, early warnings of extreme heat events do not perform as intended. This suggests that understanding how extreme heat is narrated is very important. The news media play a central role in this process and can help warn people about the potential danger, as well as about impacts on infrastructure and society.
A
Heatwaves pose an enormous risk; the media plays a pivotal role in alerting people to this danger.
B
People are vulnerable to heatwaves caused due to climate change, measures taken are ineffective.
C
Protection from heat waves is important but current reports and public policies seem ineffective.
D
News stories help in warning about heatwaves, but they have to become more effective.
4. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
People spontaneously create counterfactual alternatives to reality when they think “if only” or “what if” and imagine how the past could have been different. The mind computes counterfactuals for many reasons. Counterfactuals explain the past and prepare for the future, they implicate various relations including causal ones, and they affect intentions and decisions. They modulate emotions such as regret and relief, and they support moral judgments such as blame. The ability to create counterfactuals develops throughout childhood and contributes to reasoning about other people's beliefs, including their false beliefs.
A
Counterfactuals help people to prepare for the future by understanding intentions and making decisions.
B
People create counterfactual alternatives to reality for various reasons, including reasoning about other people's beliefs.
C
Counterfactual alternatives to reality are created for a variety of reasons and is part of one's developmental process.
D
Counterfactual thinking helps to reverse past and future actions and reason out false beliefs.
5. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
The weight of society's expectations is hardly a new phenomenon but it has become particularly draining over recent decades, perhaps because expectations themselves are so multifarious and contradictory. The perfectionism of the 1950 s was rooted in the norms of mass culture and captured in famous advertising images of the ideal white American family that now seem self-satirising. In that era, perfectionism meant seamlessly conforming to values, behaviour and appearance: chiselled confidence for men, demure graciousness for women. The perfectionist was under pressure to look like everyone else, only more so. The perfectionists of today, by contrast, feel an obligation to stand out through their idiosyncratic style and wit if they are to gain a foothold in the attention economy.
A
Though long-standing, the pressure to appear perfect and thereby attract attention, has evolved over time from one of conformism to one of non-conformism.
B
The image of perfectionism is reflected in and perpetuated by the media; and people do their best to adhere to these ideals.
C
The pressure to appear perfect has been the cause of tension and conflict because the idea itself has been in a state of flux and hard to define.
D
The desire to attract attention is so deep-rooted in individual consciousness that people are willing to go to any lengths to achieve it.
6. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Gradually, life for the island's birds is improving. Antarctic prions and white-headed petrels, which also nest in burrows, had managed to cling on in some sites while pests were on the island. Their numbers are now increasing. "It's fantastic and so exciting," Shaw says. As birds return to breed, they also poo. This adds nutrients to the soil, which in turn helps the plants to grow back stronger. Tall plants then help burrowing birds hide from predatory skuas. "It's this wonderful feedback loop," Shaw says. Today, the "pretty paddock" that Houghton first experienced has been transformed. "The tussock is over your head, and you're dodging all these penguin tunnels," she says. The orchids and tiny herb that had been protected by fencing have started turning up all over the place.
A
There is an increasing number of predatory birds and plants on the island despite the presence of pests which is a positive development.
B
Flowering plants, herbs and birds are now being protected on this wonderful Antarctic island.
C
There is a huge positive transformation of the ecosystem of the island when brought under environmental protection.
D
In the absence of pests, life on the island is now protected, and there has been a revival of a variety of birds and plants.
7. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Brown et al. (2001) suggest that ‘metabolic theory may provide a conceptual foundation for much of ecology just as genetic theory provides a foundation for much of evolutionary biology’. One of the successes of genetic theory is the diversity of theoretical approaches and models that have been developed and applied. A Web of Science (v. 5.9. Thomson Reuters) search on genetic* + theor* + evol* identifies more than 12000 publications between 2005 and 2012. Considering only the 10 most-cited papers within this 12000 publication set, genetic theory can be seen to focus on genome dynamics, phylogenetic inference, game theory and the regulation of gene expression. There is no one fundamental genetic equation, but rather a wide array of genetic models, ranging from simple to complex, with differing inputs and outputs, and divergent areas of application, loosely connected to each other through the shared conceptual foundation of heritable variation.
A
Genetic theory has a wide range of theoretical approaches and applications and Metabolic theory must have the same in the field of ecology.
B
Genetic theory has evolved to spawn a wide range of theoretical models and applications but Metabolic theory need not evolve in a similar manner in the field of ecology.
C
Genetic theory has a wide range of theoretical approaches and application and is foundational to evolutionary biology and Metabolic theory has the potential to do the same for ecology.
D
Genetic theory provides an example of how a range of theoretical approaches and applications can make a theory successful.
8. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
The dominant hypotheses in modern science believe that language evolved to allow humans to exchange factual information about the physical world. But an alternative view is that language evolved, in modern humans at least, to facilitate social bonding. It increased our ancestors’ chances of survival by enabling them to hunt more successfully or to cooperate more extensively. Language meant that things could be explained and that plans and past experiences could be shared efficiently.
A
From the belief that humans invented language to process factual information, scholars now think that language was the outcome of the need to ensure social cohesion and thus human survival.
B
Since its origin, language has been continuously evolving to higher forms, from being used to identify objects to ensuring human survival by enabling our ancestors to bond and cooperate.
C
Most believe that language originated from a need to articulate facts, but others think it emerged from the need to promote social cohesion and cooperation, thus enabling human survival.
D
Experts are challenging the narrow view of the origin of language, as being merely used to describe facts and label objects, to being necessary to promote more complex interactions among humans.
9. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Aesthetic political representation urges us to realize that ‘the representative has autonomy with regard to the people represented’ but autonomy then is not an excuse to abandon one’s responsibility. Aesthetic autonomy requires cultivation of ‘disinterestedness’ on the part of actors which is not indifference. To have disinterestedness, that is, to have comportment towards the beautiful that is devoid of all ulterior references to use – requires a kind of aesthetic commitment; it is the liberation of ourselves for the release of what has proper worth only in itself.
A
Disinterestedness is different from indifference as the former means a non-subjective evaluation of things which is what constitutes aesthetic political representation.
B
Aesthetic political representation advocates autonomy for the representatives manifested through disinterestedness which itself is different from indifference.
C
Disinterestedness, as distinct from indifference, is the basis of political representation.
D
Aesthetic political representation advocates autonomy for the representatives drawing from disinterestedness, which itself is different from indifference
10. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
With the Treaty of Westphalia, the papacy had been confined to ecclesiastical functions, and the doctrine of sovereign equality reigned. What political theory could then explain the origin and justify the functions of secular political order? In his Leviathan, published in 1651, three years after the Peace of Westphalia, Thomas Hobbes provided such a theory. He imagined a “state of nature” in the past when the absence of authority produced a “war of all against all.” To escape such intolerable insecurity, he theorized, people delivered their rights to a sovereign power in return for the sovereign’s provision of security for all within the state’s border. The sovereign state’s monopoly on power was established as the only way to overcome the perpetual fear of violent death and war.
A
Thomas Hobbes theorized the emergence of sovereign states based on a transactional relationship between people and sovereign state that was necessitated by a sense of insecurity of the people.
B
Thomas Hobbes theorized the voluntary surrender of rights by people as essential for emergence of sovereign states.
C
Thomas Hobbes theorized the emergence of sovereign states as a form of transactional governance to limit the power of the papacy.
D
Thomas Hobbes theorized that sovereign states emerged out of people’s voluntary desire to overcome the sense of insecurity and establish the doctrine of sovereign equality.
11. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
All humans make decisions based on one or a combination of two factors. This is either intuition or information. Decisions made through intuition are usually fast, people don’t even think about the problem. It is quite philosophical, meaning that someone who made a decision based on intuition will have difficulty explaining the reasoning behind it. The decision-maker would often utilize her senses in drawing conclusions, which again is based on some experience in the field of study. On the other side of the spectrum, we have decisions made based on information. These decisions are rational — it is based on facts and figures, which unfortunately also means that it can be quite slow. The decision-maker would frequently use reports, analyses, and indicators to form her conclusion. This methodology results in accurate, quantifiable decisions, meaning that a person can clearly explain the rationale behind it.
A
We make decisions based on intuition or information on the basis of the time available.
B
It is better to make decisions based on information because it is more accurate, and the rationale behind it can be explained.
C
Decisions based on intuition and information result in differential speed and ability to provide a rationale.
D
While decisions based on intuition can be made fast, the reasons that led to these cannot be spelt out.
12. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
The rural-urban continuum and the heterogeneity of urban settings pose an obvious challenge to identifying urban areas and measuring urbanization rates in a consistent way within and across countries. An objective methodology for distinguishing between urban and rural areas that is based on one or two metrics with fixed thresholds may not adequately capture the wide diversity of places. A richer combination of criteria would better describe the multifaceted nature of a city’s function and its environment, but the joint interpretation of these criteria may require an element of human judgment.
A
The difficulty of accurately identifying urban areas means that we need to create a rich combination of criteria that can be applied to all urban areas.
B
With the diversity of urban landscapes, measurable criteria for defining urban areas may need to be supplemented with human judgement.
C
Current methodologies used to define urban and rural areas are no longer relevant to our being able to study trends in urbanisation.
D
Distinguishing between urban and rural areas might call for some judgement on the objective methodology being used to define a city’s functions.
13. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage. All that we think we know about how life hangs together is really some kind of illusion that we have perpetrated on ourselves because of our limited vision. What appear to be inanimate objects such as stones turn out not only to be alive in the same way that we are, but also in many infinitesimal ways to be affected by stimuli just as humans are. The distinction between animate and inanimate simply cannot be made when you enter the world of quantum mechanics and try to determine how those apparent subatomic particles, of which you and everything else in our universe is composed, are all tied together. The point is that physics and metaphysics show there is a pattern to the universe that goes beyond our capacity to grasp it with our brains.
A
The inanimate world is both sentient and cognizant like its animate counterpart.
B
The effect of stimuli is similar in inanimate objects when compared to animate objects or living beings.
C
Quantum physics indicates that an astigmatic view of reality results in erroneous assumptions about the universe.
D
Arbitrary distinctions between inanimate and animate objects disappear at the scale at which quantum mechanics works.
14. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage. It’s not that modern historians of medieval Africa have been ignorant about contacts between Ethiopia and Europe; they just had the power dynamic reversed. The traditional narrative stressed Ethiopia as weak and in trouble in the face of aggression from external forces, so Ethiopia sought military assistance from their fellow Christians to the north. But the real story, buried in plain sight in medieval diplomatic texts, simply had not yet been put together by modern scholars. Recent research pushes scholars of medieval Europe to imagine a much more richly connected medieval world: at the beginning of the so-called Age of Exploration, there is evidence that the kings of Ethiopia were sponsoring their own missions of diplomacy, faith and commerce.
A
Medieval historical sources selectively promoted the narrative that powerful European forces were called on to protect weak African civilisations such as Ethiopia, but this is far from reality.
B
Historians were under the illusion that Ethiopia needed military protection from their neighbours, but in fact the country had close commercial and religious connections with them
C
Medieval texts have documented how strong connections between the Christian communities of Ethiopia and Europe were invaluable in establishing military and trade links between the two civilisations.
D
Medieval texts have been ‘cherry-picked’ to promote a view of Ethiopia as weak and in need of Europe’s military help with aggressive neighbours, but recent studies reveal it was a well-connected and outwardlooking culture.
15. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage. Petitioning is an expeditious democratic tradition, used frequently in prior centuries, by which citizens can bring issues directly to governments. As expressions of collective voice, they support procedural democracy by shaping agendas. They can also recruit citizens to causes, give voice to the voteless, and apply the discipline of rhetorical argument that clarifies a point of view. By contrast, elections are limited in several respects: they involve only a few candidates, and thus fall far short of a representative democracy. Further, voters’ choices are not specific to particular policies or laws, and elections are episodic, whereas the voice of the people needs to be heard and integrated constantly into democratic government.
A
By giving citizens greater control over shaping political and democratic agendas, political petitions are invaluable as they represent an ideal form of a representative democracy.
B
Petitioning has been important to democratic functioning, as it supplements the electoral process by enabling ongoing engagement with the government.
C
Petitioning is definitely more representative of the collective voice, and the functioning of democratic government could improve if we relied more on petitioning rather than holding periodic elections.
D
Citizens become less inclined to petitioning as it enables vocal citizens to shape political agendas, but this needs to change to strengthen democracies today.
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