CAT 2018 Question Papers | CAT 2018 Question Papers Slot 2
CAT/2018.2(Verbal Ability)
Question. 1
The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4) given below, when properly sequenced would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequence of the order of the sentences and key in the sequence of the four numbers as your answer.
1. It was his taxpayers who had to shell out as much as $1.6bn over 10 years to employees of failed companies.
2. Companies in many countries routinely engage in such activities which means that the employees are left with unpaid entitlements.
3. Deliberate and systematic liquidation of a company to avoid liabilities and then restarting the business is called phoenixing.
4. The Australian Minister for Revenue and Services discovered in an audit that phoenixing had cost the Australian economy between 2.9bn and 2.9bn and 5.1bn last year.
CAT/2018.2(Verbal Ability)
Question. 2
The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4) given below, when properly sequenced would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequence of the order of the sentences and key in the sequence of the four numbers as your answer.
1. Self-management is thus defined as the ‘individual’s ability to manage the symptoms, treatment, physical and psychosocial consequences and lifestyle changes inherent in living with a chronic condition’.
2. Most people with progressive diseases like dementia prefer to have control over their own lives and health-care for as long as possible.
3. Having control means, among other things, that patients themselves perform self-management activities.
4. Supporting people in decisions and actions that promote self-management is called self-management support requiring a cooperative relationship between the patient, the family, and the professionals.
CAT/2018.2(Verbal Ability)
Question. 3
The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4) given below, when properly sequenced would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequence of the order of the sentences and key in the sequence of the four numbers as your answer.
1. They would rather do virtuous side projects assiduously as long as these would not compel them into doing their day jobs more honourably or reduce the profit margins.
2. They would fund a million of the buzzwordy programs rather than fundamentally question the rules of their game or alter their own behavior to reduce the harm of the existing distorted, inefficient and unfair rules.
3. Like the dieter who would rather do anything to lose weight than actually eat less, the business elite would save the world through social-impact-investing and philanthro-capitalism.
4. Doing the right thing — and moving away from their win-win mentality — would involve real sacrifice; instead, it’s easier to focus on their pet projects and initiatives.
CAT/2018.2(Verbal Ability)
Question. 4
The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4) given below, when properly sequenced would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequence of the order of the sentences and key in the sequence of the four numbers as your answer.
1. In the era of smart world, however, ‘Universal Basic Income’ is an ineffective instrument which cannot address the potential breakdown of the social contract when large swathes of the population would effectively be unemployed.
2. In the era of industrial revolution, the abolition of child labour, poor laws and the growth of trade unions helped families cope with the pressures of mechanised work.
3. Growing inequality could be matched by a creeping authoritarianism that is bolstered by technology that is increasingly able to peer into the deepest vestiges of our lives.
4. New institutions emerge which recognise ways in which workers could contribute to and benefit by economic growth when, rather than if, their jobs are automated.
CAT/2018.2(Verbal Ability)
Question. 5
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
The early optimism about sport's deterrent effects on delinquency was premature as researchers failed to find any consistent relationships between sports participation and deviance. As the initial studies were based upon cross-sectional data and the effects captured -were short-term, it was problematic to test and verify the temporal sequencing of events suggested by the deterrence theory. The correlation bet-ween sport and delinquency could not be disentangled from class and cultural variables known. Choosing individuals to play sports in the first place was problematic, which became more acute in the subsequent decades as researchers began to document Just how closely sports participation was linked to social class indicators.
CAT/2018.2(Verbal Ability)
Question. 6
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Should the moral obligation to rescue and aid persons in grave peril, felt by a few, be enforced by the criminal law? Should we follow the lead of a number of European countries and enact bad Samaritan laws? Proponents of bad Samaritan laws must overcome at least three different sorts of obstacles. First, they must show the laws are morally legitimate in principle, that is, that the duty to aid others is a proper candidate for legal enforcement. Second, they must show that this duty to aid can be defined in a way that can be fairly enforced by the courts. Third, they must show that the benefits of the laws are worth their problems, risks and costs.
CAT/2018.2(Verbal Ability)
Question. 7
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
A Japanese government panel announced that it recommends regulating only genetically modified organisms that have had foreign genes permanently introduced into their genomes and not those whose endogenous genes have been edited. The only stipulation is that researchers and businesses will have to register their modifications to plants or animals with the government, with the exception of microbes cultured in contained environments. Reactions to the decision are mixed. While lauding the potential benefits of genome editing, an editorial opposes across-the-board permission. Unforeseen risks in gene editing cannot be ruled out. All genetically modified products must go through the same safety and labeling processes regardless of method.
CAT/2018.2(Verbal Ability)
Question. 8
Five sentences related to a topic are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a meaningful and coherent short paragraph. Identify the odd one out. Choose its number as your answer and key it in.
1. As India looks to increase the number of cities, our urban planning must factor in potential natural disasters and work out contingencies in advance.
2. Authorities must revise data and upgrade infrastructure and mitigation plans even if their local area hasn’t been visited by a natural calamity yet.
3. Extreme temperatures, droughts, and forest fires have more than doubled since 1980.
4. There is no denying the fact that our baseline normal weather is changing.
5. It is no longer a question of whether we will be hit by nature’s fury but rather when.
CAT/2018.2(Verbal Ability)
Question. 9
Five sentences related to a topic are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a meaningful and coherent short paragraph. Identify the odd one out. Choose its number as your answer and key it in.
1. Much has been recently discovered about the development of songs in birds.
2. Some species are restricted to a single song learned by all individuals, others have a range of songs.
3. The most important auditory stimuli for the birds are the sounds of other birds.
4. For all bird species there is a prescribed path to development of the final song,
5. A bird begins with the subsong, passes through plastic song, until it achieves the species song.
CAT/2018.2(Verbal Ability)
Question. 10
Five sentences related to a topic are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a meaningful and coherent short paragraph. Identify the odd one out. Choose its number as your answer and key it in.
1. Our smartphones can now track our diets, our biological cycles, even our digestive systems and sleep-patterns.
2. Researchers have even coined a new term, “orthosomnia”, to describe the insomnia brought on by paying too much attention to smartphones and sleep-tracking apps.
3. Sleep, nature’s soft nurse, is a blissful, untroubled state all too easily disturbed by earthly worries or a guilty conscience.
4. The existence of a market for such apps is unsurprising: shift work, a long-hours culture and blue light from screens have conspired to rob many of us of sufficient rest.
5. A new threat to a good night’s rest has emerged – smart-phones, with sleep-tracking apps.
Comprehension
Directions for question: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly
Will a day come when India’s poor can access government services as easily as drawing cash from an ATM? No country in the world has made accessing education or health or policing or dispute resolution as easy as an ATM, because the nature of these activities requires individuals to use their discretion in a positive way. Technology can certainly facilitate this in a variety of ways if it is seen as one part of an overall approach, but the evidence so far in education, for instance, is that just adding computers alone doesn’t make education any better.
The dangerous illusion of technology is that it can create stronger, top down accountability of service providers in implementation-intensive services within existing public sector organisations. One notion is that electronic management information systems (EMIS) keep better track of inputs and those aspects of personnel that are ‘EMIS visible’ can lead to better services. A recent study examined attempts to increase attendance of Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANMs) at clinics in Rajasthan, which involved high-tech time clocks to monitor attendance. The study’s title says it all: Band-Aids on a Corpse. E-governance can be just as bad as any other governance when the real issue is people and their motivation.
For services to improve, the people providing the services have to want to do a better job with the skills they have. A study of medical care in Delhi found that even though providers, in the public sector had much better skills than private sector providers their provision of care in actual practice was much worse.
In implementation-intensive services the key to success is face-to-face interactions between a teacher, a nurse, a policeman, an extension agent and a citizen. This relationship is about power. Amartya Sen’s report on education in West Bengal had a supremely telling anecdote in which the villagers forced the teacher to attend school, but then, when the parents went off to work, the teacher did not teach, but forced the children to massage his feet. As long as the system empowers providers over citizens, technology is irrelevant.
The answer to successfully providing basic services is to create systems that provide both autonomy and accountability. In basic education for instance, the answer to poor teaching is not controlling teachers more. The key is to hire teachers who want to teach and let them teach, expressing their professionalism and vocation as a teacher through autonomy in the classroom. This autonomy has to be matched with accountability for results—not just narrowly measured through test scores, but broadly for the quality of the education they provide.
A recent study in Uttar Pradesh showed that if, somehow, all civil service teachers could be replaced with contract teachers, the state could save a billion dollars a year in revenue and double student learning. Just the additional autonomy and accountability of contracts through local groups—even without complementary system changes in information and empowerment—led to that much improvement. The first step to being part of the solution is to create performance information accessible to those outside of the government.
CAT/2018.2(RC)
Question. 11
In the context of the passage, we can infer that the title “Band Aids on a Corpse” (in paragraph 2) suggests that:
Comprehension
Directions for question: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly
Will a day come when India’s poor can access government services as easily as drawing cash from an ATM? No country in the world has made accessing education or health or policing or dispute resolution as easy as an ATM, because the nature of these activities requires individuals to use their discretion in a positive way. Technology can certainly facilitate this in a variety of ways if it is seen as one part of an overall approach, but the evidence so far in education, for instance, is that just adding computers alone doesn’t make education any better.
The dangerous illusion of technology is that it can create stronger, top down accountability of service providers in implementation-intensive services within existing public sector organisations. One notion is that electronic management information systems (EMIS) keep better track of inputs and those aspects of personnel that are ‘EMIS visible’ can lead to better services. A recent study examined attempts to increase attendance of Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANMs) at clinics in Rajasthan, which involved high-tech time clocks to monitor attendance. The study’s title says it all: Band-Aids on a Corpse. E-governance can be just as bad as any other governance when the real issue is people and their motivation.
For services to improve, the people providing the services have to want to do a better job with the skills they have. A study of medical care in Delhi found that even though providers, in the public sector had much better skills than private sector providers their provision of care in actual practice was much worse.
In implementation-intensive services the key to success is face-to-face interactions between a teacher, a nurse, a policeman, an extension agent and a citizen. This relationship is about power. Amartya Sen’s report on education in West Bengal had a supremely telling anecdote in which the villagers forced the teacher to attend school, but then, when the parents went off to work, the teacher did not teach, but forced the children to massage his feet. As long as the system empowers providers over citizens, technology is irrelevant.
The answer to successfully providing basic services is to create systems that provide both autonomy and accountability. In basic education for instance, the answer to poor teaching is not controlling teachers more. The key is to hire teachers who want to teach and let them teach, expressing their professionalism and vocation as a teacher through autonomy in the classroom. This autonomy has to be matched with accountability for results—not just narrowly measured through test scores, but broadly for the quality of the education they provide.
A recent study in Uttar Pradesh showed that if, somehow, all civil service teachers could be replaced with contract teachers, the state could save a billion dollars a year in revenue and double student learning. Just the additional autonomy and accountability of contracts through local groups—even without complementary system changes in information and empowerment—led to that much improvement. The first step to being part of the solution is to create performance information accessible to those outside of the government.
Comprehension
Directions for question: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly
Will a day come when India’s poor can access government services as easily as drawing cash from an ATM? No country in the world has made accessing education or health or policing or dispute resolution as easy as an ATM, because the nature of these activities requires individuals to use their discretion in a positive way. Technology can certainly facilitate this in a variety of ways if it is seen as one part of an overall approach, but the evidence so far in education, for instance, is that just adding computers alone doesn’t make education any better.
The dangerous illusion of technology is that it can create stronger, top down accountability of service providers in implementation-intensive services within existing public sector organisations. One notion is that electronic management information systems (EMIS) keep better track of inputs and those aspects of personnel that are ‘EMIS visible’ can lead to better services. A recent study examined attempts to increase attendance of Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANMs) at clinics in Rajasthan, which involved high-tech time clocks to monitor attendance. The study’s title says it all: Band-Aids on a Corpse. E-governance can be just as bad as any other governance when the real issue is people and their motivation.
For services to improve, the people providing the services have to want to do a better job with the skills they have. A study of medical care in Delhi found that even though providers, in the public sector had much better skills than private sector providers their provision of care in actual practice was much worse.
In implementation-intensive services the key to success is face-to-face interactions between a teacher, a nurse, a policeman, an extension agent and a citizen. This relationship is about power. Amartya Sen’s report on education in West Bengal had a supremely telling anecdote in which the villagers forced the teacher to attend school, but then, when the parents went off to work, the teacher did not teach, but forced the children to massage his feet. As long as the system empowers providers over citizens, technology is irrelevant.
The answer to successfully providing basic services is to create systems that provide both autonomy and accountability. In basic education for instance, the answer to poor teaching is not controlling teachers more. The key is to hire teachers who want to teach and let them teach, expressing their professionalism and vocation as a teacher through autonomy in the classroom. This autonomy has to be matched with accountability for results—not just narrowly measured through test scores, but broadly for the quality of the education they provide.
A recent study in Uttar Pradesh showed that if, somehow, all civil service teachers could be replaced with contract teachers, the state could save a billion dollars a year in revenue and double student learning. Just the additional autonomy and accountability of contracts through local groups—even without complementary system changes in information and empowerment—led to that much improvement. The first step to being part of the solution is to create performance information accessible to those outside of the government.
CAT/2018.2(RC)
Question. 13
Which of the following, IF TRUE, would undermine the passage’s main argument?
Comprehension
Directions for question: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly
Will a day come when India’s poor can access government services as easily as drawing cash from an ATM? No country in the world has made accessing education or health or policing or dispute resolution as easy as an ATM, because the nature of these activities requires individuals to use their discretion in a positive way. Technology can certainly facilitate this in a variety of ways if it is seen as one part of an overall approach, but the evidence so far in education, for instance, is that just adding computers alone doesn’t make education any better.
The dangerous illusion of technology is that it can create stronger, top down accountability of service providers in implementation-intensive services within existing public sector organisations. One notion is that electronic management information systems (EMIS) keep better track of inputs and those aspects of personnel that are ‘EMIS visible’ can lead to better services. A recent study examined attempts to increase attendance of Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANMs) at clinics in Rajasthan, which involved high-tech time clocks to monitor attendance. The study’s title says it all: Band-Aids on a Corpse. E-governance can be just as bad as any other governance when the real issue is people and their motivation.
For services to improve, the people providing the services have to want to do a better job with the skills they have. A study of medical care in Delhi found that even though providers, in the public sector had much better skills than private sector providers their provision of care in actual practice was much worse.
In implementation-intensive services the key to success is face-to-face interactions between a teacher, a nurse, a policeman, an extension agent and a citizen. This relationship is about power. Amartya Sen’s report on education in West Bengal had a supremely telling anecdote in which the villagers forced the teacher to attend school, but then, when the parents went off to work, the teacher did not teach, but forced the children to massage his feet. As long as the system empowers providers over citizens, technology is irrelevant.
The answer to successfully providing basic services is to create systems that provide both autonomy and accountability. In basic education for instance, the answer to poor teaching is not controlling teachers more. The key is to hire teachers who want to teach and let them teach, expressing their professionalism and vocation as a teacher through autonomy in the classroom. This autonomy has to be matched with accountability for results—not just narrowly measured through test scores, but broadly for the quality of the education they provide.
A recent study in Uttar Pradesh showed that if, somehow, all civil service teachers could be replaced with contract teachers, the state could save a billion dollars a year in revenue and double student learning. Just the additional autonomy and accountability of contracts through local groups—even without complementary system changes in information and empowerment—led to that much improvement. The first step to being part of the solution is to create performance information accessible to those outside of the government.
CAT/2018.2(RC)
Question. 14
The author questions the use of monitoring systems in services that involve face-to-face interaction between service providers and clients because such systems:
Comprehension
Directions for question: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly
Will a day come when India’s poor can access government services as easily as drawing cash from an ATM? No country in the world has made accessing education or health or policing or dispute resolution as easy as an ATM, because the nature of these activities requires individuals to use their discretion in a positive way. Technology can certainly facilitate this in a variety of ways if it is seen as one part of an overall approach, but the evidence so far in education, for instance, is that just adding computers alone doesn’t make education any better.
The dangerous illusion of technology is that it can create stronger, top down accountability of service providers in implementation-intensive services within existing public sector organisations. One notion is that electronic management information systems (EMIS) keep better track of inputs and those aspects of personnel that are ‘EMIS visible’ can lead to better services. A recent study examined attempts to increase attendance of Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANMs) at clinics in Rajasthan, which involved high-tech time clocks to monitor attendance. The study’s title says it all: Band-Aids on a Corpse. E-governance can be just as bad as any other governance when the real issue is people and their motivation.
For services to improve, the people providing the services have to want to do a better job with the skills they have. A study of medical care in Delhi found that even though providers, in the public sector had much better skills than private sector providers their provision of care in actual practice was much worse.
In implementation-intensive services the key to success is face-to-face interactions between a teacher, a nurse, a policeman, an extension agent and a citizen. This relationship is about power. Amartya Sen’s report on education in West Bengal had a supremely telling anecdote in which the villagers forced the teacher to attend school, but then, when the parents went off to work, the teacher did not teach, but forced the children to massage his feet. As long as the system empowers providers over citizens, technology is irrelevant.
The answer to successfully providing basic services is to create systems that provide both autonomy and accountability. In basic education for instance, the answer to poor teaching is not controlling teachers more. The key is to hire teachers who want to teach and let them teach, expressing their professionalism and vocation as a teacher through autonomy in the classroom. This autonomy has to be matched with accountability for results—not just narrowly measured through test scores, but broadly for the quality of the education they provide.
A recent study in Uttar Pradesh showed that if, somehow, all civil service teachers could be replaced with contract teachers, the state could save a billion dollars a year in revenue and double student learning. Just the additional autonomy and accountability of contracts through local groups—even without complementary system changes in information and empowerment—led to that much improvement. The first step to being part of the solution is to create performance information accessible to those outside of the government.
Comprehension
Directions for question: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly
Grove snails as a whole are distributed all over Europe, but a specific variety of the snail, with a distinctive white-lipped shell, is found exclusively in Ireland and in the Pyrenees mountains that lie on the border between France and Spain. The researchers sampled a total of 423 snail specimens from 36 sites distributed across Europe, with an emphasis on gathering large numbers of the white-lipped variety. When they sequenced genes from the mitochondrial DNA of each of these snails and used algorithms to analyze the genetic diversity between them, they found that a distinct lineage (the snails with the white-lipped shells) was indeed endemic to the two very specific and distant places in question.
Explaining this is tricky. Previously, some had speculated that the strange distributions of creatures such as the white-lipped grove snails could be explained by convergent evolution—in which two populations evolve the same trait by coincidence—but the underlying genetic similarities between the two groups rules that out. Alternately, some scientists had suggested that the white-lipped variety had simply spread over the whole continent, then been wiped out everywhere besides Ireland and the Pyrenees, but the researchers say their sampling and subsequent DNA analysis eliminate that possibility too.
“If the snails naturally colonized Ireland, you would expect to find some of the same genetic type in other areas of Europe, especially Britain. We just don’t find them,” Davidson, the lead author, said in a press statement.
Moreover, if they’d gradually spread across the continent, there would be some genetic variation within the white-lipped type, because evolution would introduce variety over the thousands of years it would have taken them to spread from the Pyrenees to Ireland. That variation doesn’t exist, at least in the genes sampled. This means that rather than the organism gradually expanding its range, large populations instead were somehow moved en mass to the other location within the space of a few dozen generations, ensuring a lack of genetic variety.
“There is a very clear pattern, which is difficult to explain except by involving humans,” Davidson said. Humans, after all, colonized Ireland roughly 9,000 years ago, and the oldest fossil evidence of grove snails in Ireland dates to roughly the same era. Additionally, there is archaeological evidence of early sea trade between the ancient peoples of Spain and Ireland via the Atlantic and even evidence that humans routinely ate these types of snails before the advent of agriculture, as their burnt shells have been found in Stone Age trash heaps.
The simplest explanation, then? Boats. These snails may have inadvertently traveled on the floor of the small, coast-hugging skiffs these early humans used for travel, or they may have been intentionally carried to Ireland by the seafarers as a food source. “The highways of the past were rivers and the ocean–as the river that flanks the Pyrenees was an ancient trade route to the Atlantic, what we’re actually seeing might be the long lasting legacy of snails that hitched a ride as humans travelled from the South of France to Ireland 8,000 years ago,” Davidson said.
CAT/2018.2(RC)
Question. 16
All of the following evidence supports the passage’s explanation of sea travel/trade EXCEPT:
Comprehension
Directions for question: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly
Grove snails as a whole are distributed all over Europe, but a specific variety of the snail, with a distinctive white-lipped shell, is found exclusively in Ireland and in the Pyrenees mountains that lie on the border between France and Spain. The researchers sampled a total of 423 snail specimens from 36 sites distributed across Europe, with an emphasis on gathering large numbers of the white-lipped variety. When they sequenced genes from the mitochondrial DNA of each of these snails and used algorithms to analyze the genetic diversity between them, they found that a distinct lineage (the snails with the white-lipped shells) was indeed endemic to the two very specific and distant places in question.
Explaining this is tricky. Previously, some had speculated that the strange distributions of creatures such as the white-lipped grove snails could be explained by convergent evolution—in which two populations evolve the same trait by coincidence—but the underlying genetic similarities between the two groups rules that out. Alternately, some scientists had suggested that the white-lipped variety had simply spread over the whole continent, then been wiped out everywhere besides Ireland and the Pyrenees, but the researchers say their sampling and subsequent DNA analysis eliminate that possibility too.
“If the snails naturally colonized Ireland, you would expect to find some of the same genetic type in other areas of Europe, especially Britain. We just don’t find them,” Davidson, the lead author, said in a press statement.
Moreover, if they’d gradually spread across the continent, there would be some genetic variation within the white-lipped type, because evolution would introduce variety over the thousands of years it would have taken them to spread from the Pyrenees to Ireland. That variation doesn’t exist, at least in the genes sampled. This means that rather than the organism gradually expanding its range, large populations instead were somehow moved en mass to the other location within the space of a few dozen generations, ensuring a lack of genetic variety.
“There is a very clear pattern, which is difficult to explain except by involving humans,” Davidson said. Humans, after all, colonized Ireland roughly 9,000 years ago, and the oldest fossil evidence of grove snails in Ireland dates to roughly the same era. Additionally, there is archaeological evidence of early sea trade between the ancient peoples of Spain and Ireland via the Atlantic and even evidence that humans routinely ate these types of snails before the advent of agriculture, as their burnt shells have been found in Stone Age trash heaps.
The simplest explanation, then? Boats. These snails may have inadvertently traveled on the floor of the small, coast-hugging skiffs these early humans used for travel, or they may have been intentionally carried to Ireland by the seafarers as a food source. “The highways of the past were rivers and the ocean–as the river that flanks the Pyrenees was an ancient trade route to the Atlantic, what we’re actually seeing might be the long lasting legacy of snails that hitched a ride as humans travelled from the South of France to Ireland 8,000 years ago,” Davidson said.
CAT/2018.2(RC)
Question. 17
The passage outlines several hypotheses and evidence related to white-lipped grove snails to arrive at the most convincing explanation for:
Comprehension
Directions for question: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly
Grove snails as a whole are distributed all over Europe, but a specific variety of the snail, with a distinctive white-lipped shell, is found exclusively in Ireland and in the Pyrenees mountains that lie on the border between France and Spain. The researchers sampled a total of 423 snail specimens from 36 sites distributed across Europe, with an emphasis on gathering large numbers of the white-lipped variety. When they sequenced genes from the mitochondrial DNA of each of these snails and used algorithms to analyze the genetic diversity between them, they found that a distinct lineage (the snails with the white-lipped shells) was indeed endemic to the two very specific and distant places in question.
Explaining this is tricky. Previously, some had speculated that the strange distributions of creatures such as the white-lipped grove snails could be explained by convergent evolution—in which two populations evolve the same trait by coincidence—but the underlying genetic similarities between the two groups rules that out. Alternately, some scientists had suggested that the white-lipped variety had simply spread over the whole continent, then been wiped out everywhere besides Ireland and the Pyrenees, but the researchers say their sampling and subsequent DNA analysis eliminate that possibility too.
“If the snails naturally colonized Ireland, you would expect to find some of the same genetic type in other areas of Europe, especially Britain. We just don’t find them,” Davidson, the lead author, said in a press statement.
Moreover, if they’d gradually spread across the continent, there would be some genetic variation within the white-lipped type, because evolution would introduce variety over the thousands of years it would have taken them to spread from the Pyrenees to Ireland. That variation doesn’t exist, at least in the genes sampled. This means that rather than the organism gradually expanding its range, large populations instead were somehow moved en mass to the other location within the space of a few dozen generations, ensuring a lack of genetic variety.
“There is a very clear pattern, which is difficult to explain except by involving humans,” Davidson said. Humans, after all, colonized Ireland roughly 9,000 years ago, and the oldest fossil evidence of grove snails in Ireland dates to roughly the same era. Additionally, there is archaeological evidence of early sea trade between the ancient peoples of Spain and Ireland via the Atlantic and even evidence that humans routinely ate these types of snails before the advent of agriculture, as their burnt shells have been found in Stone Age trash heaps.
The simplest explanation, then? Boats. These snails may have inadvertently traveled on the floor of the small, coast-hugging skiffs these early humans used for travel, or they may have been intentionally carried to Ireland by the seafarers as a food source. “The highways of the past were rivers and the ocean–as the river that flanks the Pyrenees was an ancient trade route to the Atlantic, what we’re actually seeing might be the long lasting legacy of snails that hitched a ride as humans travelled from the South of France to Ireland 8,000 years ago,” Davidson said.
CAT/2018.2(RC)
Question. 18
Which one of the following makes the author eliminate convergent evolution as a probable explanation for why white-lipped grove snails are found in Ireland and the Pyrenees?
Comprehension
Directions for question: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly
Grove snails as a whole are distributed all over Europe, but a specific variety of the snail, with a distinctive white-lipped shell, is found exclusively in Ireland and in the Pyrenees mountains that lie on the border between France and Spain. The researchers sampled a total of 423 snail specimens from 36 sites distributed across Europe, with an emphasis on gathering large numbers of the white-lipped variety. When they sequenced genes from the mitochondrial DNA of each of these snails and used algorithms to analyze the genetic diversity between them, they found that a distinct lineage (the snails with the white-lipped shells) was indeed endemic to the two very specific and distant places in question.
Explaining this is tricky. Previously, some had speculated that the strange distributions of creatures such as the white-lipped grove snails could be explained by convergent evolution—in which two populations evolve the same trait by coincidence—but the underlying genetic similarities between the two groups rules that out. Alternately, some scientists had suggested that the white-lipped variety had simply spread over the whole continent, then been wiped out everywhere besides Ireland and the Pyrenees, but the researchers say their sampling and subsequent DNA analysis eliminate that possibility too.
“If the snails naturally colonized Ireland, you would expect to find some of the same genetic type in other areas of Europe, especially Britain. We just don’t find them,” Davidson, the lead author, said in a press statement.
Moreover, if they’d gradually spread across the continent, there would be some genetic variation within the white-lipped type, because evolution would introduce variety over the thousands of years it would have taken them to spread from the Pyrenees to Ireland. That variation doesn’t exist, at least in the genes sampled. This means that rather than the organism gradually expanding its range, large populations instead were somehow moved en mass to the other location within the space of a few dozen generations, ensuring a lack of genetic variety.
“There is a very clear pattern, which is difficult to explain except by involving humans,” Davidson said. Humans, after all, colonized Ireland roughly 9,000 years ago, and the oldest fossil evidence of grove snails in Ireland dates to roughly the same era. Additionally, there is archaeological evidence of early sea trade between the ancient peoples of Spain and Ireland via the Atlantic and even evidence that humans routinely ate these types of snails before the advent of agriculture, as their burnt shells have been found in Stone Age trash heaps.
The simplest explanation, then? Boats. These snails may have inadvertently traveled on the floor of the small, coast-hugging skiffs these early humans used for travel, or they may have been intentionally carried to Ireland by the seafarers as a food source. “The highways of the past were rivers and the ocean–as the river that flanks the Pyrenees was an ancient trade route to the Atlantic, what we’re actually seeing might be the long lasting legacy of snails that hitched a ride as humans travelled from the South of France to Ireland 8,000 years ago,” Davidson said.
CAT/2018.2(RC)
Question. 19
In paragraph 4, the evidence that “humans routinely ate these types of snails before the advent of agriculture” can be used to conclude that:
Comprehension
Directions for question: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly
The complexity of modern problems often precludes any one person from fully understanding them. Factors contributing to rising obesity levels, for example, include transportation systems and infrastructure, media, convenience foods, changing social norms, human biology and psychological factors. The multidimensional or layered character of complex problems also undermines the principle of meritocracy: the idea that the ‘best person’ should be hired. There is no best person. When putting together an oncological research team, a biotech company such as Gilead or Genentech would not construct a multiple-choice test and hire the top scorers, or hire people whose resumes score highest according to some performance criteria. Instead, they would seek diversity. They would build a team of people who bring diverse knowledge bases, tools and analytic skills.
Believers in a meritocracy might grant that teams ought to be diverse but then argue that meritocratic principles should apply within each category. Thus the team should consist of the ‘best’ mathematicians, the ‘best’ oncologists, and the ‘best’ biostatisticians from within the pool. That position suffers from a similar flaw.
Even with a knowledge domain, no test or criteria applied to individuals will produce the best team. Each of these domains possesses such depth and breadth, that no test can exist. Consider the field of neuroscience. Upwards of 50,000 papers were published last year covering various techniques, domains of enquiry and levels of analysis, ranging from molecules and synapses up through networks of neurons. Given that complexity, any attempt to rank a collection of neuroscientists from best to worst, as if they were competitors in the 50-metre butterfly, must fail. What could be true is that given a specific task and the composition of a particular team, one scientist would be more likely to contribute than another. Optimal hiring depends on context. Optimal teams will be diverse.
Evidence for this claim can be seen in the way that papers and patents that combine diverse ideas tend to rank as high-impact. It can also be found in the structure of the so-called random decision forest, a state-of-the-art machine-learning algorithm.
Random forests consist of ensembles of decision trees. If classifying pictures, each tree makes a vote: is that a picture of a fox or a dog? A weighted majority rules. Random forests can serve many ends. They can identify bank fraud and diseases, recommend ceiling fans and predict online dating behaviour. When building a forest, you do not select the best trees as they tend to make similar classifications. You want diversity. Programmers achieve that diversity by training each tree on different data, a technique known as bagging. They also boost the forest ‘cognitively’ by training trees on the hardest cases – those that the current forest gets wrong. This ensures even more diversity and accurate forests."
Yet the fallacy of meritocracy persists. Corporations, non-profits, governments, universities and even preschools test, score and hire the ‘best’. This all but guarantees not creating the best team. Ranking people by common criteria produces homogeneity. That’s not likely to lead to breakthroughs.
CAT/2018.2(RC)
Question. 20
The author critiques meritocracy for all the following reasons EXCEPT that:
Comprehension
Directions for question: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly
The complexity of modern problems often precludes any one person from fully understanding them. Factors contributing to rising obesity levels, for example, include transportation systems and infrastructure, media, convenience foods, changing social norms, human biology and psychological factors. The multidimensional or layered character of complex problems also undermines the principle of meritocracy: the idea that the ‘best person’ should be hired. There is no best person. When putting together an oncological research team, a biotech company such as Gilead or Genentech would not construct a multiple-choice test and hire the top scorers, or hire people whose resumes score highest according to some performance criteria. Instead, they would seek diversity. They would build a team of people who bring diverse knowledge bases, tools and analytic skills.
Believers in a meritocracy might grant that teams ought to be diverse but then argue that meritocratic principles should apply within each category. Thus the team should consist of the ‘best’ mathematicians, the ‘best’ oncologists, and the ‘best’ biostatisticians from within the pool. That position suffers from a similar flaw.
Even with a knowledge domain, no test or criteria applied to individuals will produce the best team. Each of these domains possesses such depth and breadth, that no test can exist. Consider the field of neuroscience. Upwards of 50,000 papers were published last year covering various techniques, domains of enquiry and levels of analysis, ranging from molecules and synapses up through networks of neurons. Given that complexity, any attempt to rank a collection of neuroscientists from best to worst, as if they were competitors in the 50-metre butterfly, must fail. What could be true is that given a specific task and the composition of a particular team, one scientist would be more likely to contribute than another. Optimal hiring depends on context. Optimal teams will be diverse.
Evidence for this claim can be seen in the way that papers and patents that combine diverse ideas tend to rank as high-impact. It can also be found in the structure of the so-called random decision forest, a state-of-the-art machine-learning algorithm.
Random forests consist of ensembles of decision trees. If classifying pictures, each tree makes a vote: is that a picture of a fox or a dog? A weighted majority rules. Random forests can serve many ends. They can identify bank fraud and diseases, recommend ceiling fans and predict online dating behaviour. When building a forest, you do not select the best trees as they tend to make similar classifications. You want diversity. Programmers achieve that diversity by training each tree on different data, a technique known as bagging. They also boost the forest ‘cognitively’ by training trees on the hardest cases – those that the current forest gets wrong. This ensures even more diversity and accurate forests."
Yet the fallacy of meritocracy persists. Corporations, non-profits, governments, universities and even preschools test, score and hire the ‘best’. This all but guarantees not creating the best team. Ranking people by common criteria produces homogeneity. That’s not likely to lead to breakthroughs.
CAT/2018.2(RC)
Question. 21
Which of the following conditions would weaken the efficacy of a random decision forest?
Comprehension
Directions for question: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly
The complexity of modern problems often precludes any one person from fully understanding them. Factors contributing to rising obesity levels, for example, include transportation systems and infrastructure, media, convenience foods, changing social norms, human biology and psychological factors. The multidimensional or layered character of complex problems also undermines the principle of meritocracy: the idea that the ‘best person’ should be hired. There is no best person. When putting together an oncological research team, a biotech company such as Gilead or Genentech would not construct a multiple-choice test and hire the top scorers, or hire people whose resumes score highest according to some performance criteria. Instead, they would seek diversity. They would build a team of people who bring diverse knowledge bases, tools and analytic skills.
Believers in a meritocracy might grant that teams ought to be diverse but then argue that meritocratic principles should apply within each category. Thus the team should consist of the ‘best’ mathematicians, the ‘best’ oncologists, and the ‘best’ biostatisticians from within the pool. That position suffers from a similar flaw.
Even with a knowledge domain, no test or criteria applied to individuals will produce the best team. Each of these domains possesses such depth and breadth, that no test can exist. Consider the field of neuroscience. Upwards of 50,000 papers were published last year covering various techniques, domains of enquiry and levels of analysis, ranging from molecules and synapses up through networks of neurons. Given that complexity, any attempt to rank a collection of neuroscientists from best to worst, as if they were competitors in the 50-metre butterfly, must fail. What could be true is that given a specific task and the composition of a particular team, one scientist would be more likely to contribute than another. Optimal hiring depends on context. Optimal teams will be diverse.
Evidence for this claim can be seen in the way that papers and patents that combine diverse ideas tend to rank as high-impact. It can also be found in the structure of the so-called random decision forest, a state-of-the-art machine-learning algorithm.
Random forests consist of ensembles of decision trees. If classifying pictures, each tree makes a vote: is that a picture of a fox or a dog? A weighted majority rules. Random forests can serve many ends. They can identify bank fraud and diseases, recommend ceiling fans and predict online dating behaviour. When building a forest, you do not select the best trees as they tend to make similar classifications. You want diversity. Programmers achieve that diversity by training each tree on different data, a technique known as bagging. They also boost the forest ‘cognitively’ by training trees on the hardest cases – those that the current forest gets wrong. This ensures even more diversity and accurate forests."
Yet the fallacy of meritocracy persists. Corporations, non-profits, governments, universities and even preschools test, score and hire the ‘best’. This all but guarantees not creating the best team. Ranking people by common criteria produces homogeneity. That’s not likely to lead to breakthroughs.
CAT/2018.2(RC)
Question. 22
Which of the following conditions, if true, would invalidate the passage’s main argument?
Comprehension
Directions for question: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly
The complexity of modern problems often precludes any one person from fully understanding them. Factors contributing to rising obesity levels, for example, include transportation systems and infrastructure, media, convenience foods, changing social norms, human biology and psychological factors. The multidimensional or layered character of complex problems also undermines the principle of meritocracy: the idea that the ‘best person’ should be hired. There is no best person. When putting together an oncological research team, a biotech company such as Gilead or Genentech would not construct a multiple-choice test and hire the top scorers, or hire people whose resumes score highest according to some performance criteria. Instead, they would seek diversity. They would build a team of people who bring diverse knowledge bases, tools and analytic skills.
Believers in a meritocracy might grant that teams ought to be diverse but then argue that meritocratic principles should apply within each category. Thus the team should consist of the ‘best’ mathematicians, the ‘best’ oncologists, and the ‘best’ biostatisticians from within the pool. That position suffers from a similar flaw.
Even with a knowledge domain, no test or criteria applied to individuals will produce the best team. Each of these domains possesses such depth and breadth, that no test can exist. Consider the field of neuroscience. Upwards of 50,000 papers were published last year covering various techniques, domains of enquiry and levels of analysis, ranging from molecules and synapses up through networks of neurons. Given that complexity, any attempt to rank a collection of neuroscientists from best to worst, as if they were competitors in the 50-metre butterfly, must fail. What could be true is that given a specific task and the composition of a particular team, one scientist would be more likely to contribute than another. Optimal hiring depends on context. Optimal teams will be diverse.
Evidence for this claim can be seen in the way that papers and patents that combine diverse ideas tend to rank as high-impact. It can also be found in the structure of the so-called random decision forest, a state-of-the-art machine-learning algorithm.
Random forests consist of ensembles of decision trees. If classifying pictures, each tree makes a vote: is that a picture of a fox or a dog? A weighted majority rules. Random forests can serve many ends. They can identify bank fraud and diseases, recommend ceiling fans and predict online dating behaviour. When building a forest, you do not select the best trees as they tend to make similar classifications. You want diversity. Programmers achieve that diversity by training each tree on different data, a technique known as bagging. They also boost the forest ‘cognitively’ by training trees on the hardest cases – those that the current forest gets wrong. This ensures even more diversity and accurate forests."
Yet the fallacy of meritocracy persists. Corporations, non-profits, governments, universities and even preschools test, score and hire the ‘best’. This all but guarantees not creating the best team. Ranking people by common criteria produces homogeneity. That’s not likely to lead to breakthroughs.
CAT/2018.2(RC)
Question. 23
On the basis of the passage, which of the following teams is likely to be most effective in solving the problem of rising obesity levels?
Comprehension
Directions for question: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly
The complexity of modern problems often precludes any one person from fully understanding them. Factors contributing to rising obesity levels, for example, include transportation systems and infrastructure, media, convenience foods, changing social norms, human biology and psychological factors. The multidimensional or layered character of complex problems also undermines the principle of meritocracy: the idea that the ‘best person’ should be hired. There is no best person. When putting together an oncological research team, a biotech company such as Gilead or Genentech would not construct a multiple-choice test and hire the top scorers, or hire people whose resumes score highest according to some performance criteria. Instead, they would seek diversity. They would build a team of people who bring diverse knowledge bases, tools and analytic skills.
Believers in a meritocracy might grant that teams ought to be diverse but then argue that meritocratic principles should apply within each category. Thus the team should consist of the ‘best’ mathematicians, the ‘best’ oncologists, and the ‘best’ biostatisticians from within the pool. That position suffers from a similar flaw.
Even with a knowledge domain, no test or criteria applied to individuals will produce the best team. Each of these domains possesses such depth and breadth, that no test can exist. Consider the field of neuroscience. Upwards of 50,000 papers were published last year covering various techniques, domains of enquiry and levels of analysis, ranging from molecules and synapses up through networks of neurons. Given that complexity, any attempt to rank a collection of neuroscientists from best to worst, as if they were competitors in the 50-metre butterfly, must fail. What could be true is that given a specific task and the composition of a particular team, one scientist would be more likely to contribute than another. Optimal hiring depends on context. Optimal teams will be diverse.
Evidence for this claim can be seen in the way that papers and patents that combine diverse ideas tend to rank as high-impact. It can also be found in the structure of the so-called random decision forest, a state-of-the-art machine-learning algorithm.
Random forests consist of ensembles of decision trees. If classifying pictures, each tree makes a vote: is that a picture of a fox or a dog? A weighted majority rules. Random forests can serve many ends. They can identify bank fraud and diseases, recommend ceiling fans and predict online dating behaviour. When building a forest, you do not select the best trees as they tend to make similar classifications. You want diversity. Programmers achieve that diversity by training each tree on different data, a technique known as bagging. They also boost the forest ‘cognitively’ by training trees on the hardest cases – those that the current forest gets wrong. This ensures even more diversity and accurate forests."
Yet the fallacy of meritocracy persists. Corporations, non-profits, governments, universities and even preschools test, score and hire the ‘best’. This all but guarantees not creating the best team. Ranking people by common criteria produces homogeneity. That’s not likely to lead to breakthroughs.
CAT/2018.2(RC)
Question. 24
Which of the following best describes the purpose of the example of neuroscience?
Comprehension
Directions for question: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly
More and more companies, government agencies, educational institutions and philanthropic organisations are today in the grip of a new phenomenon: ‘metric fixation’. The key components of metric fixation are the belief that it is possible – and desirable – to replace professional judgment (acquired through personal experience and talent) with numerical indicators of comparative performance based upon standardised data (metrics); and that the best way to motivate people within these organisations is by attaching rewards and penalties to their measured performance.
The rewards can be monetary, in the form of pay for performance, say, or reputational, in the form of college rankings, hospital ratings, surgical report cards and so on. But the most dramatic negative effect of metric fixation is its propensity to incentivise gaming: that is, encouraging professionals to maximise the metrics in ways that are at odds with the larger purpose of the organisation. If the rate of major crimes in a district becomes the metric according to which police officers are promoted, then some officers will respond by simply not recording crimes or downgrading them from major offences to misdemeanours. Or take the case of surgeons. When the metrics of success and failure are made public – affecting their reputation and income – some surgeons will improve their metric scores by refusing to operate on patients with more complex problems, whose surgical outcomes are more likely to be negative. Who suffers? The patients who don’t get operated upon.
When reward is tied to measured performance, metric fixation invites just this sort of gaming. But metric fixation also leads to a variety of more subtle unintended negative consequences. These include goal displacement, which comes in many varieties: when performance is judged by a few measures, and the stakes are high (keeping one’s job, getting a pay rise or raising the stock price at the time that stock options are vested), people focus on satisfying those measures – often at the expense of other, more important organisational goals that are not measured. The best-known example is ‘teaching to the test’, a widespread phenomenon that has distorted primary and secondary education in the United States since the adoption of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
Short-termism is another negative. Measured performance encourages what the US sociologist Robert K Merton in 1936 called ‘the imperious immediacy of interests where the actor’s paramount concern with the foreseen immediate consequences excludes consideration of further or other consequences’. In short, advancing short-term goals at the expense of long-range considerations. This problem is endemic to publicly traded corporations that sacrifice long-term research and development, and the development of their staff, to the perceived imperatives of the quarterly report.
CAT/2018.2(RC)
Question. 25
Of the following, which would have added the least depth to the author’s argument?
Comprehension
Directions for question: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly
More and more companies, government agencies, educational institutions and philanthropic organisations are today in the grip of a new phenomenon: ‘metric fixation’. The key components of metric fixation are the belief that it is possible – and desirable – to replace professional judgment (acquired through personal experience and talent) with numerical indicators of comparative performance based upon standardised data (metrics); and that the best way to motivate people within these organisations is by attaching rewards and penalties to their measured performance.
The rewards can be monetary, in the form of pay for performance, say, or reputational, in the form of college rankings, hospital ratings, surgical report cards and so on. But the most dramatic negative effect of metric fixation is its propensity to incentivise gaming: that is, encouraging professionals to maximise the metrics in ways that are at odds with the larger purpose of the organisation. If the rate of major crimes in a district becomes the metric according to which police officers are promoted, then some officers will respond by simply not recording crimes or downgrading them from major offences to misdemeanours. Or take the case of surgeons. When the metrics of success and failure are made public – affecting their reputation and income – some surgeons will improve their metric scores by refusing to operate on patients with more complex problems, whose surgical outcomes are more likely to be negative. Who suffers? The patients who don’t get operated upon.
When reward is tied to measured performance, metric fixation invites just this sort of gaming. But metric fixation also leads to a variety of more subtle unintended negative consequences. These include goal displacement, which comes in many varieties: when performance is judged by a few measures, and the stakes are high (keeping one’s job, getting a pay rise or raising the stock price at the time that stock options are vested), people focus on satisfying those measures – often at the expense of other, more important organisational goals that are not measured. The best-known example is ‘teaching to the test’, a widespread phenomenon that has distorted primary and secondary education in the United States since the adoption of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
Short-termism is another negative. Measured performance encourages what the US sociologist Robert K Merton in 1936 called ‘the imperious immediacy of interests where the actor’s paramount concern with the foreseen immediate consequences excludes consideration of further or other consequences’. In short, advancing short-term goals at the expense of long-range considerations. This problem is endemic to publicly traded corporations that sacrifice long-term research and development, and the development of their staff, to the perceived imperatives of the quarterly report.
CAT/2018.2(RC)
Question. 26
Which of the following is NOT a consequence of the 'metric fixation' phenomenon mentioned in the passage?
Comprehension
Directions for question: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly
More and more companies, government agencies, educational institutions and philanthropic organisations are today in the grip of a new phenomenon: ‘metric fixation’. The key components of metric fixation are the belief that it is possible – and desirable – to replace professional judgment (acquired through personal experience and talent) with numerical indicators of comparative performance based upon standardised data (metrics); and that the best way to motivate people within these organisations is by attaching rewards and penalties to their measured performance.
The rewards can be monetary, in the form of pay for performance, say, or reputational, in the form of college rankings, hospital ratings, surgical report cards and so on. But the most dramatic negative effect of metric fixation is its propensity to incentivise gaming: that is, encouraging professionals to maximise the metrics in ways that are at odds with the larger purpose of the organisation. If the rate of major crimes in a district becomes the metric according to which police officers are promoted, then some officers will respond by simply not recording crimes or downgrading them from major offences to misdemeanours. Or take the case of surgeons. When the metrics of success and failure are made public – affecting their reputation and income – some surgeons will improve their metric scores by refusing to operate on patients with more complex problems, whose surgical outcomes are more likely to be negative. Who suffers? The patients who don’t get operated upon.
When reward is tied to measured performance, metric fixation invites just this sort of gaming. But metric fixation also leads to a variety of more subtle unintended negative consequences. These include goal displacement, which comes in many varieties: when performance is judged by a few measures, and the stakes are high (keeping one’s job, getting a pay rise or raising the stock price at the time that stock options are vested), people focus on satisfying those measures – often at the expense of other, more important organisational goals that are not measured. The best-known example is ‘teaching to the test’, a widespread phenomenon that has distorted primary and secondary education in the United States since the adoption of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
Short-termism is another negative. Measured performance encourages what the US sociologist Robert K Merton in 1936 called ‘the imperious immediacy of interests where the actor’s paramount concern with the foreseen immediate consequences excludes consideration of further or other consequences’. In short, advancing short-term goals at the expense of long-range considerations. This problem is endemic to publicly traded corporations that sacrifice long-term research and development, and the development of their staff, to the perceived imperatives of the quarterly report.
CAT/2018.2(RC)
Question. 27
What main point does the author want to convey through the examples of the police officer and the surgeon?
Comprehension
Directions for question: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly
More and more companies, government agencies, educational institutions and philanthropic organisations are today in the grip of a new phenomenon: ‘metric fixation’. The key components of metric fixation are the belief that it is possible – and desirable – to replace professional judgment (acquired through personal experience and talent) with numerical indicators of comparative performance based upon standardised data (metrics); and that the best way to motivate people within these organisations is by attaching rewards and penalties to their measured performance.
The rewards can be monetary, in the form of pay for performance, say, or reputational, in the form of college rankings, hospital ratings, surgical report cards and so on. But the most dramatic negative effect of metric fixation is its propensity to incentivise gaming: that is, encouraging professionals to maximise the metrics in ways that are at odds with the larger purpose of the organisation. If the rate of major crimes in a district becomes the metric according to which police officers are promoted, then some officers will respond by simply not recording crimes or downgrading them from major offences to misdemeanours. Or take the case of surgeons. When the metrics of success and failure are made public – affecting their reputation and income – some surgeons will improve their metric scores by refusing to operate on patients with more complex problems, whose surgical outcomes are more likely to be negative. Who suffers? The patients who don’t get operated upon.
When reward is tied to measured performance, metric fixation invites just this sort of gaming. But metric fixation also leads to a variety of more subtle unintended negative consequences. These include goal displacement, which comes in many varieties: when performance is judged by a few measures, and the stakes are high (keeping one’s job, getting a pay rise or raising the stock price at the time that stock options are vested), people focus on satisfying those measures – often at the expense of other, more important organisational goals that are not measured. The best-known example is ‘teaching to the test’, a widespread phenomenon that has distorted primary and secondary education in the United States since the adoption of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
Short-termism is another negative. Measured performance encourages what the US sociologist Robert K Merton in 1936 called ‘the imperious immediacy of interests where the actor’s paramount concern with the foreseen immediate consequences excludes consideration of further or other consequences’. In short, advancing short-term goals at the expense of long-range considerations. This problem is endemic to publicly traded corporations that sacrifice long-term research and development, and the development of their staff, to the perceived imperatives of the quarterly report.
CAT/2018.2(RC)
Question. 28
All of the following can be a possible feature of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, EXCEPT:
Comprehension
Directions for question: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly
More and more companies, government agencies, educational institutions and philanthropic organisations are today in the grip of a new phenomenon: ‘metric fixation’. The key components of metric fixation are the belief that it is possible – and desirable – to replace professional judgment (acquired through personal experience and talent) with numerical indicators of comparative performance based upon standardised data (metrics); and that the best way to motivate people within these organisations is by attaching rewards and penalties to their measured performance.
The rewards can be monetary, in the form of pay for performance, say, or reputational, in the form of college rankings, hospital ratings, surgical report cards and so on. But the most dramatic negative effect of metric fixation is its propensity to incentivise gaming: that is, encouraging professionals to maximise the metrics in ways that are at odds with the larger purpose of the organisation. If the rate of major crimes in a district becomes the metric according to which police officers are promoted, then some officers will respond by simply not recording crimes or downgrading them from major offences to misdemeanours. Or take the case of surgeons. When the metrics of success and failure are made public – affecting their reputation and income – some surgeons will improve their metric scores by refusing to operate on patients with more complex problems, whose surgical outcomes are more likely to be negative. Who suffers? The patients who don’t get operated upon.
When reward is tied to measured performance, metric fixation invites just this sort of gaming. But metric fixation also leads to a variety of more subtle unintended negative consequences. These include goal displacement, which comes in many varieties: when performance is judged by a few measures, and the stakes are high (keeping one’s job, getting a pay rise or raising the stock price at the time that stock options are vested), people focus on satisfying those measures – often at the expense of other, more important organisational goals that are not measured. The best-known example is ‘teaching to the test’, a widespread phenomenon that has distorted primary and secondary education in the United States since the adoption of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
Short-termism is another negative. Measured performance encourages what the US sociologist Robert K Merton in 1936 called ‘the imperious immediacy of interests where the actor’s paramount concern with the foreseen immediate consequences excludes consideration of further or other consequences’. In short, advancing short-term goals at the expense of long-range considerations. This problem is endemic to publicly traded corporations that sacrifice long-term research and development, and the development of their staff, to the perceived imperatives of the quarterly report.
CAT/2018.2(RC)
Question. 29
What is the main idea that the author is trying to highlight in the passage?
Comprehension
Directions for question: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly
NOT everything looks lovelier the longer and closer its inspection. But Saturn does. It is gorgeous through Earthly telescopes. However, the 13 years of close observation provided by Cassini, an American spacecraft, showed the planet, its moons and its remarkable rings off better and better, revealing finer structures, striking novelties and greater drama.
By and large the big things in the solar system—planets and moons—are thought of as having been around since the beginning. The suggestion that rings and moons are new is, though, made even more interesting by the fact that one of those moons, Enceladus, is widely considered the most promising site in the solar system on which to look for alien life. If Enceladus is both young and bears life, that life must have come into being quickly. This is also believed to have been the case on Earth. Were it true on Enceladus, that would encourage the idea that life evolves easily when conditions are right.
One reason for thinking Saturn’s rings are young is that they are bright. The solar system is suffused with comet dust, and comet dust is dark. Leaving Saturn’s ring system (which Cassini has shown to be more than 90% water ice) out in such a mist is like leaving laundry hanging on a line downwind from a smokestack: it will get dirty. The lighter the rings are, the faster this will happen, for the less mass they contain, the less celestial pollution they can absorb before they start to discolour Jeff Cuzzi, a scientist at America’s space agency, NASA, who helped run Cassini, told the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston that combining the mass estimates with Cassini’s measurements of the density of comet-dust near Saturn suggests the rings are no older than the first dinosaurs, nor younger than the last of them—that is, they are somewhere between 200m and 70m years old.
That timing fits well with a theory put forward in 2016, by Matija Cuk of the SETI Institute, in California and his colleagues. They suggest that at around the same time as the rings came into being an old set of moons orbiting Saturn destroyed themselves, and from their remains emerged not only the rings but also the planet’s current suite of inner moons—Rhea, Dione, Tethys, Enceladus and Mimas.
Dr Cuk and his colleagues used computer simulations of Saturn’s moons’ orbits as a sort of time machine. Looking at the rate at which tidal friction is causing these orbits to lengthen they extrapolated backwards to find out what those orbits would have looked like in the past. They discovered that about 100m years ago the orbits of two of them, Tethys and Dione, would have interacted in a way that left the planes in which they orbit markedly tilted. But their orbits are untilted. The obvious, if unsettling, conclusion was that this interaction never happened—and thus that at the time when it should have happened, Dione and Tethys were simply not there. They must have come into being later.
Comprehension
Directions for question: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly
NOT everything looks lovelier the longer and closer its inspection. But Saturn does. It is gorgeous through Earthly telescopes. However, the 13 years of close observation provided by Cassini, an American spacecraft, showed the planet, its moons and its remarkable rings off better and better, revealing finer structures, striking novelties and greater drama.
By and large the big things in the solar system—planets and moons—are thought of as having been around since the beginning. The suggestion that rings and moons are new is, though, made even more interesting by the fact that one of those moons, Enceladus, is widely considered the most promising site in the solar system on which to look for alien life. If Enceladus is both young and bears life, that life must have come into being quickly. This is also believed to have been the case on Earth. Were it true on Enceladus, that would encourage the idea that life evolves easily when conditions are right.
One reason for thinking Saturn’s rings are young is that they are bright. The solar system is suffused with comet dust, and comet dust is dark. Leaving Saturn’s ring system (which Cassini has shown to be more than 90% water ice) out in such a mist is like leaving laundry hanging on a line downwind from a smokestack: it will get dirty. The lighter the rings are, the faster this will happen, for the less mass they contain, the less celestial pollution they can absorb before they start to discolour Jeff Cuzzi, a scientist at America’s space agency, NASA, who helped run Cassini, told the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston that combining the mass estimates with Cassini’s measurements of the density of comet-dust near Saturn suggests the rings are no older than the first dinosaurs, nor younger than the last of them—that is, they are somewhere between 200m and 70m years old.
That timing fits well with a theory put forward in 2016, by Matija Cuk of the SETI Institute, in California and his colleagues. They suggest that at around the same time as the rings came into being an old set of moons orbiting Saturn destroyed themselves, and from their remains emerged not only the rings but also the planet’s current suite of inner moons—Rhea, Dione, Tethys, Enceladus and Mimas.
Dr Cuk and his colleagues used computer simulations of Saturn’s moons’ orbits as a sort of time machine. Looking at the rate at which tidal friction is causing these orbits to lengthen they extrapolated backwards to find out what those orbits would have looked like in the past. They discovered that about 100m years ago the orbits of two of them, Tethys and Dione, would have interacted in a way that left the planes in which they orbit markedly tilted. But their orbits are untilted. The obvious, if unsettling, conclusion was that this interaction never happened—and thus that at the time when it should have happened, Dione and Tethys were simply not there. They must have come into being later.
Comprehension
Directions for question: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly
NOT everything looks lovelier the longer and closer its inspection. But Saturn does. It is gorgeous through Earthly telescopes. However, the 13 years of close observation provided by Cassini, an American spacecraft, showed the planet, its moons and its remarkable rings off better and better, revealing finer structures, striking novelties and greater drama.
By and large the big things in the solar system—planets and moons—are thought of as having been around since the beginning. The suggestion that rings and moons are new is, though, made even more interesting by the fact that one of those moons, Enceladus, is widely considered the most promising site in the solar system on which to look for alien life. If Enceladus is both young and bears life, that life must have come into being quickly. This is also believed to have been the case on Earth. Were it true on Enceladus, that would encourage the idea that life evolves easily when conditions are right.
One reason for thinking Saturn’s rings are young is that they are bright. The solar system is suffused with comet dust, and comet dust is dark. Leaving Saturn’s ring system (which Cassini has shown to be more than 90% water ice) out in such a mist is like leaving laundry hanging on a line downwind from a smokestack: it will get dirty. The lighter the rings are, the faster this will happen, for the less mass they contain, the less celestial pollution they can absorb before they start to discolour Jeff Cuzzi, a scientist at America’s space agency, NASA, who helped run Cassini, told the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston that combining the mass estimates with Cassini’s measurements of the density of comet-dust near Saturn suggests the rings are no older than the first dinosaurs, nor younger than the last of them—that is, they are somewhere between 200m and 70m years old.
That timing fits well with a theory put forward in 2016, by Matija Cuk of the SETI Institute, in California and his colleagues. They suggest that at around the same time as the rings came into being an old set of moons orbiting Saturn destroyed themselves, and from their remains emerged not only the rings but also the planet’s current suite of inner moons—Rhea, Dione, Tethys, Enceladus and Mimas.
Dr Cuk and his colleagues used computer simulations of Saturn’s moons’ orbits as a sort of time machine. Looking at the rate at which tidal friction is causing these orbits to lengthen they extrapolated backwards to find out what those orbits would have looked like in the past. They discovered that about 100m years ago the orbits of two of them, Tethys and Dione, would have interacted in a way that left the planes in which they orbit markedly tilted. But their orbits are untilted. The obvious, if unsettling, conclusion was that this interaction never happened—and thus that at the time when it should have happened, Dione and Tethys were simply not there. They must have come into being later.
Comprehension
Directions for question: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly
NOT everything looks lovelier the longer and closer its inspection. But Saturn does. It is gorgeous through Earthly telescopes. However, the 13 years of close observation provided by Cassini, an American spacecraft, showed the planet, its moons and its remarkable rings off better and better, revealing finer structures, striking novelties and greater drama.
By and large the big things in the solar system—planets and moons—are thought of as having been around since the beginning. The suggestion that rings and moons are new is, though, made even more interesting by the fact that one of those moons, Enceladus, is widely considered the most promising site in the solar system on which to look for alien life. If Enceladus is both young and bears life, that life must have come into being quickly. This is also believed to have been the case on Earth. Were it true on Enceladus, that would encourage the idea that life evolves easily when conditions are right.
One reason for thinking Saturn’s rings are young is that they are bright. The solar system is suffused with comet dust, and comet dust is dark. Leaving Saturn’s ring system (which Cassini has shown to be more than 90% water ice) out in such a mist is like leaving laundry hanging on a line downwind from a smokestack: it will get dirty. The lighter the rings are, the faster this will happen, for the less mass they contain, the less celestial pollution they can absorb before they start to discolour Jeff Cuzzi, a scientist at America’s space agency, NASA, who helped run Cassini, told the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston that combining the mass estimates with Cassini’s measurements of the density of comet-dust near Saturn suggests the rings are no older than the first dinosaurs, nor younger than the last of them—that is, they are somewhere between 200m and 70m years old.
That timing fits well with a theory put forward in 2016, by Matija Cuk of the SETI Institute, in California and his colleagues. They suggest that at around the same time as the rings came into being an old set of moons orbiting Saturn destroyed themselves, and from their remains emerged not only the rings but also the planet’s current suite of inner moons—Rhea, Dione, Tethys, Enceladus and Mimas.
Dr Cuk and his colleagues used computer simulations of Saturn’s moons’ orbits as a sort of time machine. Looking at the rate at which tidal friction is causing these orbits to lengthen they extrapolated backwards to find out what those orbits would have looked like in the past. They discovered that about 100m years ago the orbits of two of them, Tethys and Dione, would have interacted in a way that left the planes in which they orbit markedly tilted. But their orbits are untilted. The obvious, if unsettling, conclusion was that this interaction never happened—and thus that at the time when it should have happened, Dione and Tethys were simply not there. They must have come into being later.
Comprehension
Directions for question: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly
NOT everything looks lovelier the longer and closer its inspection. But Saturn does. It is gorgeous through Earthly telescopes. However, the 13 years of close observation provided by Cassini, an American spacecraft, showed the planet, its moons and its remarkable rings off better and better, revealing finer structures, striking novelties and greater drama.
By and large the big things in the solar system—planets and moons—are thought of as having been around since the beginning. The suggestion that rings and moons are new is, though, made even more interesting by the fact that one of those moons, Enceladus, is widely considered the most promising site in the solar system on which to look for alien life. If Enceladus is both young and bears life, that life must have come into being quickly. This is also believed to have been the case on Earth. Were it true on Enceladus, that would encourage the idea that life evolves easily when conditions are right.
One reason for thinking Saturn’s rings are young is that they are bright. The solar system is suffused with comet dust, and comet dust is dark. Leaving Saturn’s ring system (which Cassini has shown to be more than 90% water ice) out in such a mist is like leaving laundry hanging on a line downwind from a smokestack: it will get dirty. The lighter the rings are, the faster this will happen, for the less mass they contain, the less celestial pollution they can absorb before they start to discolour Jeff Cuzzi, a scientist at America’s space agency, NASA, who helped run Cassini, told the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston that combining the mass estimates with Cassini’s measurements of the density of comet-dust near Saturn suggests the rings are no older than the first dinosaurs, nor younger than the last of them—that is, they are somewhere between 200m and 70m years old.
That timing fits well with a theory put forward in 2016, by Matija Cuk of the SETI Institute, in California and his colleagues. They suggest that at around the same time as the rings came into being an old set of moons orbiting Saturn destroyed themselves, and from their remains emerged not only the rings but also the planet’s current suite of inner moons—Rhea, Dione, Tethys, Enceladus and Mimas.
Dr Cuk and his colleagues used computer simulations of Saturn’s moons’ orbits as a sort of time machine. Looking at the rate at which tidal friction is causing these orbits to lengthen they extrapolated backwards to find out what those orbits would have looked like in the past. They discovered that about 100m years ago the orbits of two of them, Tethys and Dione, would have interacted in a way that left the planes in which they orbit markedly tilted. But their orbits are untilted. The obvious, if unsettling, conclusion was that this interaction never happened—and thus that at the time when it should have happened, Dione and Tethys were simply not there. They must have come into being later.
Comprehension
An agency entrusted to accredit colleges looks at four parameters: faculty quality (F), reputation (R), placement quality (P), and infrastructure (I). The four parameters are used to arrive at an overall score, which the agency uses to give an accreditation to the colleges. In each parameter, there are five possible letter grades given, each carrying certain points: A (50 points), B (40 points), C (30 points), D (20 points), and F (0 points). The overall score for a college is the weighted sum of the points scored in the four parameters. The weights of the parameters are 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 in some order, but the order is not disclosed.
Accreditation is awarded based on the following scheme:
Eight colleges apply for accreditation, and receive the following grades in the four parameters (F, R, P, and I):
It is further known that in terms of overall scores:
1. High Q is better than Best Ed.
2. Best Ed is better than Cosmopolitan.
3. Education Aid is better than A-one.
Comprehension
An agency entrusted to accredit colleges looks at four parameters: faculty quality (F), reputation (R), placement quality (P), and infrastructure (I). The four parameters are used to arrive at an overall score, which the agency uses to give an accreditation to the colleges. In each parameter, there are five possible letter grades given, each carrying certain points: A (50 points), B (40 points), C (30 points), D (20 points), and F (0 points). The overall score for a college is the weighted sum of the points scored in the four parameters. The weights of the parameters are 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 in some order, but the order is not disclosed.
Accreditation is awarded based on the following scheme:
Eight colleges apply for accreditation, and receive the following grades in the four parameters (F, R, P, and I):
It is further known that in terms of overall scores:
1. High Q is better than Best Ed.
2. Best Ed is better than Cosmopolitan.
3. Education Aid is better than A-one.
Comprehension
An agency entrusted to accredit colleges looks at four parameters: faculty quality (F), reputation (R), placement quality (P), and infrastructure (I). The four parameters are used to arrive at an overall score, which the agency uses to give an accreditation to the colleges. In each parameter, there are five possible letter grades given, each carrying certain points: A (50 points), B (40 points), C (30 points), D (20 points), and F (0 points). The overall score for a college is the weighted sum of the points scored in the four parameters. The weights of the parameters are 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 in some order, but the order is not disclosed.
Accreditation is awarded based on the following scheme:
Eight colleges apply for accreditation, and receive the following grades in the four parameters (F, R, P, and I):
It is further known that in terms of overall scores:
1. High Q is better than Best Ed.
2. Best Ed is better than Cosmopolitan.
3. Education Aid is better than A-one.
Comprehension
An agency entrusted to accredit colleges looks at four parameters: faculty quality (F), reputation (R), placement quality (P), and infrastructure (I). The four parameters are used to arrive at an overall score, which the agency uses to give an accreditation to the colleges. In each parameter, there are five possible letter grades given, each carrying certain points: A (50 points), B (40 points), C (30 points), D (20 points), and F (0 points). The overall score for a college is the weighted sum of the points scored in the four parameters. The weights of the parameters are 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 in some order, but the order is not disclosed.
Accreditation is awarded based on the following scheme:
Eight colleges apply for accreditation, and receive the following grades in the four parameters (F, R, P, and I):
It is further known that in terms of overall scores:
1. High Q is better than Best Ed.
2. Best Ed is better than Cosmopolitan.
3. Education Aid is better than A-one.
Comprehension
There are only four brands of entry level smartphones called Azra, Bysi, Cxqi, and Dipq in a country. Details about their market share, unit selling price, and profitability (defined as the profit as a percentage of the revenue) for the year 2016 are given in the table below:
In 2017, sales volume of entry level smartphones grew by 40% as compared to that in 2016. Cxqi offered a 40% discount on its unit selling price in 2017, which resulted in a 15% increase in its market share. Each of the other three brands lost 5% market share. However, the profitability of Cxqi came down to half of its value in 2016. The unit selling prices of the other three brands and their profitability values remained the same in 2017 as they were in 2016.
Comprehension
There are only four brands of entry level smartphones called Azra, Bysi, Cxqi, and Dipq in a country. Details about their market share, unit selling price, and profitability (defined as the profit as a percentage of the revenue) for the year 2016 are given in the table below:
In 2017, sales volume of entry level smartphones grew by 40% as compared to that in 2016. Cxqi offered a 40% discount on its unit selling price in 2017, which resulted in a 15% increase in its market share. Each of the other three brands lost 5% market share. However, the profitability of Cxqi came down to half of its value in 2016. The unit selling prices of the other three brands and their profitability values remained the same in 2017 as they were in 2016.
Comprehension
There are only four brands of entry level smartphones called Azra, Bysi, Cxqi, and Dipq in a country. Details about their market share, unit selling price, and profitability (defined as the profit as a percentage of the revenue) for the year 2016 are given in the table below:
In 2017, sales volume of entry level smartphones grew by 40% as compared to that in 2016. Cxqi offered a 40% discount on its unit selling price in 2017, which resulted in a 15% increase in its market share. Each of the other three brands lost 5% market share. However, the profitability of Cxqi came down to half of its value in 2016. The unit selling prices of the other three brands and their profitability values remained the same in 2017 as they were in 2016.
Comprehension
There are only four brands of entry level smartphones called Azra, Bysi, Cxqi, and Dipq in a country. Details about their market share, unit selling price, and profitability (defined as the profit as a percentage of the revenue) for the year 2016 are given in the table below:
In 2017, sales volume of entry level smartphones grew by 40% as compared to that in 2016. Cxqi offered a 40% discount on its unit selling price in 2017, which resulted in a 15% increase in its market share. Each of the other three brands lost 5% market share. However, the profitability of Cxqi came down to half of its value in 2016. The unit selling prices of the other three brands and their profitability values remained the same in 2017 as they were in 2016.
Comprehension
Directions for questions: Read the given instructions carefully and answer the questions accordingly.
Fun Sports (FS) provides training in three sports - Gilli-danda (G), Kho-Kho (K), and Ludo (L). Currently it has an enrollment of 39 students each of whom is enrolled in at least one of the three sports. The following details are known:
1. The number of students enrolled only in L is double the number of students enrolled in all the three sports.
2. There are a total of 17 students enrolled in G.
3. The number of students enrolled only in G is one less than the number of students enrolled only in L.
4. The number of students enrolled only in K is equal to the number of students who are enrolled in both K and L.
5. The maximum student enrollment is in L.
6. Ten students enrolled in G are also enrolled in at least one more sport.
Comprehension
Directions for questions: Read the given instructions carefully and answer the questions accordingly.
Fun Sports (FS) provides training in three sports - Gilli-danda (G), Kho-Kho (K), and Ludo (L). Currently it has an enrollment of 39 students each of whom is enrolled in at least one of the three sports. The following details are known:
1. The number of students enrolled only in L is double the number of students enrolled in all the three sports.
2. There are a total of 17 students enrolled in G.
3. The number of students enrolled only in G is one less than the number of students enrolled only in L.
4. The number of students enrolled only in K is equal to the number of students who are enrolled in both K and L.
5. The maximum student enrollment is in L.
6. Ten students enrolled in G are also enrolled in at least one more sport.
Comprehension
Directions for questions: Read the given instructions carefully and answer the questions accordingly.
Fun Sports (FS) provides training in three sports - Gilli-danda (G), Kho-Kho (K), and Ludo (L). Currently it has an enrollment of 39 students each of whom is enrolled in at least one of the three sports. The following details are known:
1. The number of students enrolled only in L is double the number of students enrolled in all the three sports.
2. There are a total of 17 students enrolled in G.
3. The number of students enrolled only in G is one less than the number of students enrolled only in L.
4. The number of students enrolled only in K is equal to the number of students who are enrolled in both K and L.
5. The maximum student enrollment is in L.
6. Ten students enrolled in G are also enrolled in at least one more sport.
CAT/2018.2(DILR)
Question. 45
Due to academic pressure, students who were enrolled in all three sports were asked to withdraw from one of the three sports. After the withdrawal, the number of students enrolled in G was six less than the number of students enrolled in L, while the number of students enrolled in K went down by one.After the withdrawal, how many students were enrolled in both G and K?
Comprehension
Directions for questions: Read the given instructions carefully and answer the questions accordingly.
Fun Sports (FS) provides training in three sports - Gilli-danda (G), Kho-Kho (K), and Ludo (L). Currently it has an enrollment of 39 students each of whom is enrolled in at least one of the three sports. The following details are known:
1. The number of students enrolled only in L is double the number of students enrolled in all the three sports.
2. There are a total of 17 students enrolled in G.
3. The number of students enrolled only in G is one less than the number of students enrolled only in L.
4. The number of students enrolled only in K is equal to the number of students who are enrolled in both K and L.
5. The maximum student enrollment is in L.
6. Ten students enrolled in G are also enrolled in at least one more sport.
CAT/2018.2(DILR)
Question. 46
Due to academic pressure, students who were enrolled in all three sports were asked to withdraw from one of the three sports. After the withdrawal, the number of students enrolled in G was six less than the number of students enrolled in L, while the number of students enrolled in K went down by one.After the withdrawal, how many students were enrolled in both G and L?
Comprehension
Each of the 23 boxes in the picture below represents a product manufactured by one of the following three companies: Alfa, Bravo and Charlie. The area of a box is proportional to the revenue from the corresponding product, while its centre represents the Product popularity and Market potential scores of the product (out of 20). The shadings of some of the boxes have got erased.
The companies classified their products into four categories based on a combination of scores (out of 20) on the two parameters - Product popularity and Market potential as given below:
The following facts are known:
1. Alfa and Bravo had the same number of products in the Blockbuster category.
2. Charlie had more products than Bravo but fewer products than Alfa in the No-hope category.
3. Each company had an equal number of products in the Promising category.
4. Charlie did not have any product in the Doubtful category, while Alfa had one product more than Bravo in this category.
5. Bravo had a higher revenue than Alfa from products in the Doubtful category.
6. Charlie had a higher revenue than Bravo from products in the Blockbuster category.
7. Bravo and Charlie had the same revenue from products in the No-hope category.
8. Alfa and Charlie had the same total revenue considering all products.
Comprehension
Each of the 23 boxes in the picture below represents a product manufactured by one of the following three companies: Alfa, Bravo and Charlie. The area of a box is proportional to the revenue from the corresponding product, while its centre represents the Product popularity and Market potential scores of the product (out of 20). The shadings of some of the boxes have got erased.
The companies classified their products into four categories based on a combination of scores (out of 20) on the two parameters - Product popularity and Market potential as given below:
The following facts are known:
1. Alfa and Bravo had the same number of products in the Blockbuster category.
2. Charlie had more products than Bravo but fewer products than Alfa in the No-hope category.
3. Each company had an equal number of products in the Promising category.
4. Charlie did not have any product in the Doubtful category, while Alfa had one product more than Bravo in this category.
5. Bravo had a higher revenue than Alfa from products in the Doubtful category.
6. Charlie had a higher revenue than Bravo from products in the Blockbuster category.
7. Bravo and Charlie had the same revenue from products in the No-hope category.
8. Alfa and Charlie had the same total revenue considering all products.
Comprehension
Each of the 23 boxes in the picture below represents a product manufactured by one of the following three companies: Alfa, Bravo and Charlie. The area of a box is proportional to the revenue from the corresponding product, while its centre represents the Product popularity and Market potential scores of the product (out of 20). The shadings of some of the boxes have got erased.
The companies classified their products into four categories based on a combination of scores (out of 20) on the two parameters - Product popularity and Market potential as given below:
The following facts are known:
1. Alfa and Bravo had the same number of products in the Blockbuster category.
2. Charlie had more products than Bravo but fewer products than Alfa in the No-hope category.
3. Each company had an equal number of products in the Promising category.
4. Charlie did not have any product in the Doubtful category, while Alfa had one product more than Bravo in this category.
5. Bravo had a higher revenue than Alfa from products in the Doubtful category.
6. Charlie had a higher revenue than Bravo from products in the Blockbuster category.
7. Bravo and Charlie had the same revenue from products in the No-hope category.
8. Alfa and Charlie had the same total revenue considering all products.
Comprehension
Each of the 23 boxes in the picture below represents a product manufactured by one of the following three companies: Alfa, Bravo and Charlie. The area of a box is proportional to the revenue from the corresponding product, while its centre represents the Product popularity and Market potential scores of the product (out of 20). The shadings of some of the boxes have got erased.
The companies classified their products into four categories based on a combination of scores (out of 20) on the two parameters - Product popularity and Market potential as given below:
The following facts are known:
1. Alfa and Bravo had the same number of products in the Blockbuster category.
2. Charlie had more products than Bravo but fewer products than Alfa in the No-hope category.
3. Each company had an equal number of products in the Promising category.
4. Charlie did not have any product in the Doubtful category, while Alfa had one product more than Bravo in this category.
5. Bravo had a higher revenue than Alfa from products in the Doubtful category.
6. Charlie had a higher revenue than Bravo from products in the Blockbuster category.
7. Bravo and Charlie had the same revenue from products in the No-hope category.
8. Alfa and Charlie had the same total revenue considering all products.
Comprehension
Directions for questions: Read the given instructions carefully and answer the questions accordingly.
Each visitor to an amusement park needs to buy a ticket. Tickets can be Platinum, Gold, or Economy. Visitors are classified as Old, Middle-aged, or Young. The following facts are known about visitors and ticket sales on a particular day:
1. 140 tickets were sold.
2. The number of Middle-aged visitors was twice the number of Old visitors, while the number of Young visitors was twice the number of Middle-aged visitors.
3. Young visitors bought 38 of the 55 Economy tickets that were sold, and they bought half the total number of Platinum tickets that were sold.
4. The number of Gold tickets bought by Old visitors was equal to the number of Economy tickets bought by Old visitors.
Comprehension
Directions for questions: Read the given instructions carefully and answer the questions accordingly.
Each visitor to an amusement park needs to buy a ticket. Tickets can be Platinum, Gold, or Economy. Visitors are classified as Old, Middle-aged, or Young. The following facts are known about visitors and ticket sales on a particular day:
1. 140 tickets were sold.
2. The number of Middle-aged visitors was twice the number of Old visitors, while the number of Young visitors was twice the number of Middle-aged visitors.
3. Young visitors bought 38 of the 55 Economy tickets that were sold, and they bought half the total number of Platinum tickets that were sold.
4. The number of Gold tickets bought by Old visitors was equal to the number of Economy tickets bought by Old visitors.
Comprehension
Directions for questions: Read the given instructions carefully and answer the questions accordingly.
Each visitor to an amusement park needs to buy a ticket. Tickets can be Platinum, Gold, or Economy. Visitors are classified as Old, Middle-aged, or Young. The following facts are known about visitors and ticket sales on a particular day:
1. 140 tickets were sold.
2. The number of Middle-aged visitors was twice the number of Old visitors, while the number of Young visitors was twice the number of Middle-aged visitors.
3. Young visitors bought 38 of the 55 Economy tickets that were sold, and they bought half the total number of Platinum tickets that were sold.
4. The number of Gold tickets bought by Old visitors was equal to the number of Economy tickets bought by Old visitors.
Comprehension
Directions for questions: Read the given instructions carefully and answer the questions accordingly.
Each visitor to an amusement park needs to buy a ticket. Tickets can be Platinum, Gold, or Economy. Visitors are classified as Old, Middle-aged, or Young. The following facts are known about visitors and ticket sales on a particular day:
1. 140 tickets were sold.
2. The number of Middle-aged visitors was twice the number of Old visitors, while the number of Young visitors was twice the number of Middle-aged visitors.
3. Young visitors bought 38 of the 55 Economy tickets that were sold, and they bought half the total number of Platinum tickets that were sold.
4. The number of Gold tickets bought by Old visitors was equal to the number of Economy tickets bought by Old visitors.
Comprehension
Seven candidates, Akil, Balaram, Chitra, Divya, Erina, Fatima, and Ganeshan, were invited to interview for a position. Candidates were required to reach the venue before 8 am. Immediately upon arrival, they were sent to one of three interview rooms: 101, 102, and 103. The following venue log shows the arrival times for these candidates. Some of the names have not been recorded in the log and have been marked as ‘?’.
Additionally here are some statements from the candidates:
Balaram: I was the third person to enter Room 101.
Chitra: I was the last person to enter the room I was allotted to.
Erina: I was the only person in the room I was allotted to.
Fatima: Three people including Akil were already in the room that I was allotted to when I entered it.
Ganeshan: I was one among the two candidates allotted to Room 102.
Comprehension
Seven candidates, Akil, Balaram, Chitra, Divya, Erina, Fatima, and Ganeshan, were invited to interview for a position. Candidates were required to reach the venue before 8 am. Immediately upon arrival, they were sent to one of three interview rooms: 101, 102, and 103. The following venue log shows the arrival times for these candidates. Some of the names have not been recorded in the log and have been marked as ‘?’.
Additionally here are some statements from the candidates:
Balaram: I was the third person to enter Room 101.
Chitra: I was the last person to enter the room I was allotted to.
Erina: I was the only person in the room I was allotted to.
Fatima: Three people including Akil were already in the room that I was allotted to when I entered it.
Ganeshan: I was one among the two candidates allotted to Room 102.
Comprehension
Seven candidates, Akil, Balaram, Chitra, Divya, Erina, Fatima, and Ganeshan, were invited to interview for a position. Candidates were required to reach the venue before 8 am. Immediately upon arrival, they were sent to one of three interview rooms: 101, 102, and 103. The following venue log shows the arrival times for these candidates. Some of the names have not been recorded in the log and have been marked as ‘?’.
Additionally here are some statements from the candidates:
Balaram: I was the third person to enter Room 101.
Chitra: I was the last person to enter the room I was allotted to.
Erina: I was the only person in the room I was allotted to.
Fatima: Three people including Akil were already in the room that I was allotted to when I entered it.
Ganeshan: I was one among the two candidates allotted to Room 102.
Comprehension
Seven candidates, Akil, Balaram, Chitra, Divya, Erina, Fatima, and Ganeshan, were invited to interview for a position. Candidates were required to reach the venue before 8 am. Immediately upon arrival, they were sent to one of three interview rooms: 101, 102, and 103. The following venue log shows the arrival times for these candidates. Some of the names have not been recorded in the log and have been marked as ‘?’.
Additionally here are some statements from the candidates:
Balaram: I was the third person to enter Room 101.
Chitra: I was the last person to enter the room I was allotted to.
Erina: I was the only person in the room I was allotted to.
Fatima: Three people including Akil were already in the room that I was allotted to when I entered it.
Ganeshan: I was one among the two candidates allotted to Room 102.
Comprehension
Directions for questions: Read the given instructions carefully and answer the questions accordingly.
According to a coding scheme the sentence,
Peacock is designated as the national bird of India is coded as 5688999 35 1135556678 56 458 13666689 1334 79 13366
This coding scheme has the following rules:
1. The scheme is case-insensitive (does not distinguish between upper case and lower case letters).
2. Each letter has a unique code which is a single digit from among 1,2,3,......,9.
3. The digit 9 codes two letters, and every other digit codes three letters.
4. The code for a word is constructed by arranging the digits corresponding to its letters in a non-decreasing sequence.
Answer these questions on the basis of this information
Comprehension
Directions for questions: Read the given instructions carefully and answer the questions accordingly.
According to a coding scheme the sentence,
Peacock is designated as the national bird of India is coded as 5688999 35 1135556678 56 458 13666689 1334 79 13366
This coding scheme has the following rules:
1. The scheme is case-insensitive (does not distinguish between upper case and lower case letters).
2. Each letter has a unique code which is a single digit from among 1,2,3,......,9.
3. The digit 9 codes two letters, and every other digit codes three letters.
4. The code for a word is constructed by arranging the digits corresponding to its letters in a non-decreasing sequence.
Answer these questions on the basis of this information
Comprehension
Directions for questions: Read the given instructions carefully and answer the questions accordingly.
According to a coding scheme the sentence,
Peacock is designated as the national bird of India is coded as 5688999 35 1135556678 56 458 13666689 1334 79 13366
This coding scheme has the following rules:
1. The scheme is case-insensitive (does not distinguish between upper case and lower case letters).
2. Each letter has a unique code which is a single digit from among 1,2,3,......,9.
3. The digit 9 codes two letters, and every other digit codes three letters.
4. The code for a word is constructed by arranging the digits corresponding to its letters in a non-decreasing sequence.
Answer these questions on the basis of this information
Comprehension
Directions for questions: Read the given instructions carefully and answer the questions accordingly.
According to a coding scheme the sentence,
Peacock is designated as the national bird of India is coded as 5688999 35 1135556678 56 458 13666689 1334 79 13366
This coding scheme has the following rules:
1. The scheme is case-insensitive (does not distinguish between upper case and lower case letters).
2. Each letter has a unique code which is a single digit from among 1,2,3,......,9.
3. The digit 9 codes two letters, and every other digit codes three letters.
4. The code for a word is constructed by arranging the digits corresponding to its letters in a non-decreasing sequence.
Answer these questions on the basis of this information
Comprehension
The base exchange rate of a currency X with respect to a currency Y is the number of units of currency Y which is equivalent in value to one unit of currency X. Currency exchange outlets buy currency at buying exchange rates that are lower than base exchange rates, and sell currency at selling exchange rates that are higher than base exchange rates.
A currency exchange outlet uses the local currency L to buy and sell three international currencies A, B, and C, but does not exchange one international currency directly with another. The base exchange rates of A, B and C with respect to L are in the ratio 100:120:1. The buying exchange rates of each of A, B, and C with respect to L are 5% below the corresponding base exchange rates, and their selling exchange rates are 10% above their corresponding base exchange rates.
The following facts are known about the outlet on a particular day:
1. The amount of L used by the outlet to buy C equals the amount of L it received by selling C.
2. The amounts of L used by the outlet to buy A and B are in the ratio 5:3.
3. The amounts of L the outlet received from the sales of A and B are in the ratio 5:9.
4. The outlet received 88000 units of L by selling A during the day.
5. The outlet started the day with some amount of L, 2500 units of A, 4800 units of B, and 48000 units of C.
6. The outlet ended the day with some amount of L, 3300 units of A, 4800 units of B,and 51000 units of C.
Comprehension
The base exchange rate of a currency X with respect to a currency Y is the number of units of currency Y which is equivalent in value to one unit of currency X. Currency exchange outlets buy currency at buying exchange rates that are lower than base exchange rates, and sell currency at selling exchange rates that are higher than base exchange rates.
A currency exchange outlet uses the local currency L to buy and sell three international currencies A, B, and C, but does not exchange one international currency directly with another. The base exchange rates of A, B and C with respect to L are in the ratio 100:120:1. The buying exchange rates of each of A, B, and C with respect to L are 5% below the corresponding base exchange rates, and their selling exchange rates are 10% above their corresponding base exchange rates.
The following facts are known about the outlet on a particular day:
1. The amount of L used by the outlet to buy C equals the amount of L it received by selling C.
2. The amounts of L used by the outlet to buy A and B are in the ratio 5:3.
3. The amounts of L the outlet received from the sales of A and B are in the ratio 5:9.
4. The outlet received 88000 units of L by selling A during the day.
5. The outlet started the day with some amount of L, 2500 units of A, 4800 units of B, and 48000 units of C.
6. The outlet ended the day with some amount of L, 3300 units of A, 4800 units of B,and 51000 units of C.
Comprehension
The base exchange rate of a currency X with respect to a currency Y is the number of units of currency Y which is equivalent in value to one unit of currency X. Currency exchange outlets buy currency at buying exchange rates that are lower than base exchange rates, and sell currency at selling exchange rates that are higher than base exchange rates.
A currency exchange outlet uses the local currency L to buy and sell three international currencies A, B, and C, but does not exchange one international currency directly with another. The base exchange rates of A, B and C with respect to L are in the ratio 100:120:1. The buying exchange rates of each of A, B, and C with respect to L are 5% below the corresponding base exchange rates, and their selling exchange rates are 10% above their corresponding base exchange rates.
The following facts are known about the outlet on a particular day:
1. The amount of L used by the outlet to buy C equals the amount of L it received by selling C.
2. The amounts of L used by the outlet to buy A and B are in the ratio 5:3.
3. The amounts of L the outlet received from the sales of A and B are in the ratio 5:9.
4. The outlet received 88000 units of L by selling A during the day.
5. The outlet started the day with some amount of L, 2500 units of A, 4800 units of B, and 48000 units of C.
6. The outlet ended the day with some amount of L, 3300 units of A, 4800 units of B,and 51000 units of C.
Comprehension
The base exchange rate of a currency X with respect to a currency Y is the number of units of currency Y which is equivalent in value to one unit of currency X. Currency exchange outlets buy currency at buying exchange rates that are lower than base exchange rates, and sell currency at selling exchange rates that are higher than base exchange rates.
A currency exchange outlet uses the local currency L to buy and sell three international currencies A, B, and C, but does not exchange one international currency directly with another. The base exchange rates of A, B and C with respect to L are in the ratio 100:120:1. The buying exchange rates of each of A, B, and C with respect to L are 5% below the corresponding base exchange rates, and their selling exchange rates are 10% above their corresponding base exchange rates.
The following facts are known about the outlet on a particular day:
1. The amount of L used by the outlet to buy C equals the amount of L it received by selling C.
2. The amounts of L used by the outlet to buy A and B are in the ratio 5:3.
3. The amounts of L the outlet received from the sales of A and B are in the ratio 5:9.
4. The outlet received 88000 units of L by selling A during the day.
5. The outlet started the day with some amount of L, 2500 units of A, 4800 units of B, and 48000 units of C.
6. The outlet ended the day with some amount of L, 3300 units of A, 4800 units of B,and 51000 units of C.
CAT/2018.2(Quantitative Ability)
Question. 67
Points A, P, Q and B lie on the same line such that P, Q and B are, respectively, 100 km, 200 km and 300 km away from A. Cars 1 and 2 leave A at the same time and move towards B. Simultaneously, car 3 leaves B and moves towards A. Car 3 meets Car 1 at Q, and Car 2 at P. If each car is moving in uniform speed then the ratio of the speed of Car 2 to that of Car 1 is
CAT/2018.2(Quantitative Ability)
Question. 69
There are two drums, each containing a mixture of paints A and B. In drum 1, A and B are in the ratio 18 : 7. The mixtures from drums 1 and 2 are mixed in the ratio 3 : 4 and in this final mixture, A and B are in the ratio 13 : 7. In drum 2, then A and B were in the ratio
CAT/2018.2(Quantitative Ability)
Question. 76
In a tournament, there are 43 junior level and 51 senior level participants. Each pair of juniors play one match. Each pair of seniors play one match. There is no junior versus senior match. The number of girl versus girl matches in junior level is 153, while the number of boy versus boy matches in senior level is 276. The number of matches a boy plays against a girl is
CAT/2018.2(Quantitative Ability)
Question. 77
A 20% ethanol solution is mixed with another ethanol solution, say, S of unknown concentration in the proportion 1:3 by volume. This mixture is then mixed with an equal volume of 20% ethanol solution. If the resultant mixture is a 31.25% ethanol solution, then the unknown concentration of S is
CAT/2018.2(Quantitative Ability)
Question. 83
On a long stretch of east-west road, A and B are two points such that B is 350 km west of A. One car starts from A and another from B at the same time. If they move towards each other, then they meet after 1 hour. If they both move towards east, then they meet in 7 hrs. The difference between their speeds, in km per hour, is
CAT/2018.2(Quantitative Ability)
Question. 86
Points A and B are 150 km apart. Cars 1 and 2 travel from A to B, but car 2 starts from A when car 1 is already 20 km away from A. Each car travels at a speed of 100 kmph for the first 50 km, at 50 kmph for the next 50 km, and at 25 kmph for the last 50 km. The distance, in km, between car 2 and B when car 1 reaches B is
CAT/2018.2(Quantitative Ability)
Question. 87
A tank is emptied everyday at a fixed time point. Immediately thereafter, either pump A or pump B or both start working until the tank is full. On Monday, A alone completed filling the tank at 8 pm. On Tuesday, B alone completed filling the tank at 6 pm. On Wednesday, A alone worked till 5 pm, and then B worked alone from 5 pm to 7 pm, to fill the tank. At what time was the tank filled on Thursday if both pumps were used simultaneously all along?
CAT/2018.2(Quantitative Ability)
Question. 88
Ramesh and Ganesh can together complete a work in 16 days. After seven days of working together, Ramesh got sick and his efficiency fell by 30%. As a result, they completed the work in 17 days instead of 16 days. If Ganesh had worked alone after Ramesh got sick, in how many days would he have completed the remaining work?
CAT/2018.2(Quantitative Ability)
Question. 93
A water tank has inlets of two types A and B. All inlets of type A when open, bring in water at the same rate. All inlets of type B, when open, bring in water at the same rate. The empty tank is completely filled in 30 minutes if 10 inlets of type A and 45 inlets of type B are open, and in 1 hour if 8 inlets of type A and 18 inlets of type B are open. In how many minutes will the empty tank get completely filled if 7 inlets of type A and 27 inlets of type B are open?
CAT/2018.2(Quantitative Ability)
Question. 94
Gopal borrows Rs. X from Ankit at 8% annual interest. He then adds Rs. Y of his own money and lends Rs. X+Y to Ishan at 10% annual interest. At the end of the year, after returning Ankit’s dues, the net interest retained by Gopal is the same as that accrued to Ankit. On the other hand, had Gopal lent Rs. X+2Y to Ishan at 10%, then the net interest retained by him would have increased by Rs. 150. If all interests are compounded annually, then find the value of X + Y.
CAT/2018.2(Quantitative Ability)
Question. 99
The strength of a salt solution is p% if 100 ml of the solution contains p grams of salt. If three salt solutions A, B, C are mixed in the proportion 1 : 2 : 3, then the resulting solution has strength 20%. If instead the proportion is 3 : 2 : 1, then the resulting solution has strength 30%. A fourth solution, D, is produced by mixing B and C in the ratio 2 : 7. The ratio of the strength of D to that of A is
