Test: CAT Verbal & Reading Comprehension- 2 (October 12) - CAT MCQ

"The generalist and the specialist are on the same continuum; there are degrees of specialization in a subject. There’s a difference between someone who specializes in teaching history and someone who specializes in teaching the history of the American Civil war, for example.."

The author mentions the 'continuum' here to indicate that there are degrees of specialization in a subject, and a person can be called both a generalist and a specialist when compared to different people in the same field. Then the author gives an example that how a history teacher is a specialist in the teaching profession but more of a generalist compared to someone who exclusively teaches the history of the American Civil War. Thus the author wants to highlight that the classification of generalist and specialist is relative. Option B captures this point correctly.

The author does not mention the continuum to indicate that generalists and specialists work in similar areas. That is not the main purpose of the author. Hence Option A can be eliminated.

No contrast has been highlighted in the statement. Hence Option C can be eliminated.

The author introduces various examples to explain the point, and hence his main point was to explain how the classification of generalist and specialist is relative using examples and not the other way around. Hence Option D is a distortion and can be eliminated.

At the beginning of the passage, the author mentions how the negative impact of placing a high value on work has been commonly accepted and understood. This idea has made its way into cultural elements and has been a recurrent movie trope. The author then delineates the difference between this portrayal and the public policies for the people (especially in the US). According to the author, the precedence of work over family has had a certain observable impact on society. In this regard, the discussion associated with declining birth rate is undertaken, wherein the author remarks that this might "lead to significant negative economic effects". In the penultimate para, the author attempts to rationalise the high emphasis on work in most countries. While lower-income nations attach more value to work due to material needs, the reasons for the same in developed nations could vary - social prestige being one of them. The feeling among non-employed parents of being discriminated against is another issue that the author adds. Thus, the negative impact on societies originating from the high emphasis on work is presented in the passage. The adverse social effects are mentioned and discussed briefly. Option C correctly captures this and is hence the correct choice.

 In the passage, the author attempts to relate a work-focused attitude with a drop in birth rates and outlines its social repercussions. He also talks about the role of societal institutions in the same. Hence the central idea reflects both the repercussions and societal imposition of such norms.
Comparing the options, option C correctly captures the author's idea. 
Option A is too subjective. The author does not highlight any one element of life as most valuable in the passage. Hence, option A can be eliminated.
Option B is a distortion. It talks about societies being engaged in high-value work, while the passage talks about higher value being placed on work. These two are different things. Hence B can be eliminated.
Option D highlights the current scenario in highly developed countries but fails to mention the consequences or the role of institutions. Hence D can be eliminated.
Hence, option C is the answer.

{...Policies that try to help families by routing benefits through employment, or giving extra benefits to working parents, will sow the seeds of their own failure. While some families will use public child care or paid parental leave to ease the achievement of their family goals, others will become more deeply enmeshed in workplaces that do not value family at all...} Option A is a direct inference from the latter part of the above paragraph.
In the last paragraph, the author posits that {...parents who are not employed—and therefore are locked out of policies designed to help working parents—may correctly perceive that they are facing discrimination on the basis of their family model...} Hence, option B can be inferred.
{...When countries on the whole shift toward valuing work more, birth rates fall...} Option C can be inferred as well. 
{...But in highly developed countries—defined as those with a Human Development Index greater than 0.80—the relationship flips. In countries such as Sweden, the Netherlands, Canada, and the United States, placing a high importance on work is unlikely to be associated with basic material needs and more likely to be associated with finding meaning or social prestige from work. Both men and women are deriving more value from work, which often directly competes with family for time and attention...} Option D is a distorted interpretation from the passage. The author presents how, unlike lower-income countries, individuals in developed nations are more likely to value work based on social prestige instead of material needs. No form of inverse relationship is presented in this regard. The inverse relationship is suggested regarding the importance placed on work and fertility rates. The author does not clarify that developed nations do not attach material needs to the excess emphasis on work. Hence, we cannot infer Option D as a problem associated with developed societies placing a high value on work. 

Thus, Option D is the correct choice.

The first four sentences talk about the approach of modern finance in business schools and the risk associated with it. Last sentence, talks about some becker theory related to workers and hence, is a misfit here.

In the second paragraph, the author states the following- {Capitalism is confined within the oxygen tent of central bank money. The more central banks print money, the cheaper it is to borrow. And yet the real economy, its dynamism flattened after the 2008 crash and its capacity scarred by the Covid-19 pandemic, remains sluggish. So the free money created by governments - and yes, central banks are ultimately part of the state - can only flow upwards.} Hence, the money flow is not equal. Option A can be inferred.

The author states the following about revenue sharing in a cartelised competition-{They would operate the same “capitalist communism” as the National Football League in the US - sharing the revenue more evenly than in a truly competitive competition.} Hence, the author implies that there is a lack of true competition in a cartelised sport, which will lead to many players earning the same irrespective of their individual play. Hence, Option B can be inferred.

In the last paragraph, the author asserts that cartels kill capitalism, innovation, and choice. Hence, option D can be inferred as there is less scope for innovation.

Option C talks about cartels catering to the demands/needs of their important customers. But in the last paragraph, the author posits that consumers have no choice on the matter. Hence, Option C contradicts the author's view. Option C is the answer.

{"It is the league in which fans have least control, but where players have gamed the system to achieve a high degree of autonomy, and political salience."}The author makes the above statement about the players in the English league. In the next paragraph, he highlights the plight of US gridiron football (and many other sports), which are run as cartels - {...the US sports cartel model works. There is no international basketball, baseball or gridiron football for a reason: these are American-owned cartel sports, staged as a circus for global entertainment. They work because they embody the essential principles of monopoly capitalism: the cartel is more powerful than the companies within it; the companies more powerful than the employees (the players); and the consumers have no choice...}. Hence, the difference in the power dynamics, especially on the part of the players, is made evident. Thus, Option A can be inferred. 

{"What we really need is public ownership, regulation, and control of the national football infrastructure."} The author does condemn cartelization but does not advocate capitalism in its place. Instead, he advocates public ownership of football infrastructure. Hence, Option B is not a valid inference that can be drawn from the passage.

The author does not talk about ownership of the clubs. The 'capitalist communism' mentioned in the passage arises from the semi-feudal operation of the league. Hence, C is incorrect.

In the second paragraph, the author does allude to a semi-feudal relationship between European Super League and the clubs, but the information presented is insufficient to draw any conclusions on the clubs becoming sub-parts of the league. Hence Option D can be eliminated.

"...Berlin divides great thinkers into two categories: hedgehogs, who have one perspective on the world, and foxes, who have many different viewpoints..."

From the above lines, we can see that Berling mentioned 'hedgehog' and 'fox' in his essay to refer to thinkers with one perspective and thinkers with many viewpoints, respectively. Hence Option A is the answer.

Options B and D are derived later in the passage. These distinctions are not mentioned in the essay. Hence, they can be eliminated.

Option C refers to the thoughts of Archilocus on the basis of which the essay was named. But the essay by Berlin diverges from this interpretation and does not talk about knowledge but the viewpoints of thinkers. Hence Option C can be eliminated.

Though one of the differences, we cannot say for sure that the way reincarnation is interpreted is the only difference between ancient and modern Buddhism. Hence Option A can be eliminated.

Option B mentions that the views preceding Buddhism were markedly different from the Buddist conception of reincarnation. The author comments the following: "And it’s worth recalling that part of the origin of Buddhism was to challenge prevailing theories of reincarnation in the place where Siddhartha Gautama was born. In these belief systems, some part of the person (which part is interpreted differently both across and within religious movements) would live on in a cycle of rebirth called samsara." The author adds that: "There’s also diversity of thought about the meaning of this cycle, but Gautama and his followers criticised a variety of their contemporaries’ ideas. One was the notion that only a few were able to leave this cycle and become part of the divine. Another was that the aim was, indeed, to become part of something." Hence, he presents two distinct elements associated with the Buddhist view of reincarnation and how this was markedly distinct from the prevailing belief system at that time. Hence, Option B can be inferred from the passage. 

"People who want to really understand Buddhism in all of its complexity should (...) study the works of scholars who offer a more detailed history of Buddhism and Buddhists."

The author does not recommend reading texts by scholars due to the modernised take on Buddhist doctrines in them. The detailed manner of capturing Buddist ideas is perhaps why the author recommends reading these texts. Option C introduces distortion and hence, can be eliminated. 

"Their religion isn’t about ritual or belief, but a dedicated exploration into what causes suffering and how to end it through meditation and compassion. Although there’s some basis for this image, Buddhists and scholars of Buddhism have been at pains for decades to show that it’s largely untrue, or at least very partial."

The main contention in the above lines is that Buddhism is not all about meditation and compassion but also has rituals and beliefs. This does not hint that the rituals and beliefs make up for the most part of Buddhism, just that their role is not negligible. Hence Option D can be eliminated.

Hence, Option B is the correct answer.

"For example, in Tibet, probably beginning in the 13th century, the doctrine of rebirth took a significant twist: it was used to identify the consciousness of a deceased monk in a newborn child, and thus grant to that child the religious and political title of the previous monk."

The above-mentioned process was specific to Tibet and cannot be generalized to Buddhism around the world. Hence, Option A cannot be inferred.

"The Buddhism that non-Buddhists know today is less an accurate vision of its history than a creation of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In that time period, Buddhists and their sympathisers created this modernised Buddhism. They discarded from it the elements of Buddhist history that didn’t fit the rational, scientific worldview that accompanied colonisation and modernisation. In a remarkable feat of historical reinvention, Buddhism went from degraded other to uplifted saviour in a matter of decades."

The above line says that the elements that did not go hand in hand with the rational and scientific ideas of colonization and modernization were removed to modernize Buddhism. This is not the same as incorporating new elements. Hence, Option B cannot be inferred.

The passage entirely talks about reincarnation as interpreted by Buddhism specifically. It does not present any commonly held interpretations of the idea. Hence, Option C cannot be inferred. 

"According to Gautama, everyone, regardless of their place of birth, is capable of exiting the cycle of reincarnation. And to do so doesn’t mean joining with something; it means disjoining entirely, or ‘extinguishing’ the fire of life. In one image, consciousness is like a flame being passed from candle to candle. After enlightenment, no more candles will be lit."

Based on the above description, Option D can be inferred. 

The odd sentence out is:5

Explanation: The other sentences discuss the issue of organ transplants in India, focusing on the limitations of heart transplants, the involvement of foreigners in organ transplants, and the high costs at corporate hospitals. Sentence 5, however, shifts the focus to the history of heart transplants and does not fit cohesively with the main topic discussed in the other sentences.

"In countries with low incomes and short life expectancies, more work-focused attitudes are associated with higher fertility"

Option A is a distortion. Though the author says that higher fertility rates and work-focused attitudes are associated, he does not say that one leads to the other. The option also turns the speculation done by the author into a rigid argument. Hence Option A can be eliminated

In the second paragraph, the author discusses how both Progressives and Conservatives promote greater labour-force participation. And in the last line of the same paragraph, the author opines that "From both sides, policies are being hawked to a credulous public as family-friendly, even though persuading people to focus even more on work is a terrible way to help family life." Hence, the author is likely to agree with option B.

The author does not say that the relationship between the value placed on work and the attention given to family has another factor which is the country a person lives in. He merely alludes to a trend that is generally seen in developed and under-developed countries, a strict relation cannot be derived. Hence Option C is a distortion.

Option D is a distortion. Deriving less value from work does not necessarily mean that a person will be able to spend more time with their family. This is the case in poor countries, where people generally do not place a high value on work, but have to work to support material needs. Hence Option D can be eliminated.

The author supplements the statement by stating that printing more money makes borrowing cheaper. Capitalism is ultimately dependent on the supply of money from the central banks. Here we can infer that the supply of money from the central banks is crucial to capitalism.

Option A is extreme. It is not possible to conclude that capitalism would become extinct in the absence of money supply from central banks.

Option B conveys that money supplied by the central banks is crucial to capitalism's survival. It does not go to extreme ends and captures the author's stance correctly. Hence it is the answer.

Option C takes the metaphor in a literal sense. It distorts what the author wants to convey and implies that an equivalent relationship with central banks is important (the author, however, limits the functioning of capitalism with regard to the central banks). Hence C is incorrect.

Option D is out of scope. It talks about unrestrained supply of money, which has not been implied in the passage.

"And it’s worth recalling that part of the origin of Buddhism was to challenge prevailing theories of reincarnation in the place where Siddhartha Gautama was born. In these belief systems, some part of the person (which part is interpreted differently both across and within religious movements) would live on in a cycle of rebirth called samsara."

In the above lines, it has been mentioned that a part of the origin of Buddhism was to challenge prevailing theories, which had 'samsara' as a prevalent concept. Hence we can infer Options A and D from this.

The above lines also define 'samsara', which is in line with Option C. Hence C can be inferred.

From the passage, we can infer that reincarnation is a part of samsara but not enlightenment. Enlightenment is said to be part of the Buddhist ideology of rebirth - different from that of samsara. Hence, B cannot be inferred.

{And an increasing number of companies are choosing to have a core group of generalists on staff, and hire freelance specialists only when necessary. The métiers at the lowest risk of automation in the future tend to be those which require a diverse, nuanced skill set.} Option A can be inferred from these lines.

{The generalist and the specialist are on the same continuum; there are degrees of specialization in a subject.} Option B can be inferred as well.

The author remarks the following about generalizing specialists in the last paragraph- {By many accounts, it’s being a specialist in one area, while retaining a few general iterative skills-a generalizing specialist}. So, this group of people develop core competency in one area while also building a knowledge base on several general areas, i.e. interdisciplinary knowledge. Hence, Option D can be inferred.

{...And an increasing number of companies are choosing to have a core group of generalists on staff, and hire freelance specialists only when necessary...} While the author presents a commonly observed trend, he does not make a conclusive distinction between generalists and specialists based on the length of their employment or project durations at a company. Hence, Option C cannot be inferred and is the correct answer.

"For thousands of years, people have understood the pervasive hold that work has on our lives. Just this year, Netflix’s The One explicitly dramatized how the pride and power of careerism compete with love, romance, and familial pursuits."

The author cites the example of 'The One' here as a recent development in a long-standing thought. The thought of work and its effects on life has been there for ages but has been raised again in a dramatized manner, making it relevant today and allowing the author to expound on the matter. If the event was not relevant, the author would not have had a recent event to cite to the readers to increase their familiarity with what the author is writing about and what triggered the author to write in the first place. Hence, 'The One' provides a recent dramatic take on an abiding thought and helps the author highlight the relevance of the subject. Option A captures this correctly and is the answer.

The author has not mentioned that the movie presents a logical argument about the matter. He simply says that a portrayal of the same has been done. Moreover, Option B does not capture the main reason why the author mentions the work. Hence Option B can be eliminated.

"This sentiment also undergirds a standard movie trope: the father who works so much that he never sees his kids."

Though it helps the author introduce the topic, 'The One' highlighting a particular genre is given as an additional feature in the above lines. Emphasizing the movie theme is not the main contention of the author. Hence Option C cannot be the answer.

Option D mentions only a part of the characteristic. It is an incomplete reason and cannot be the answer.

"Why did they think the players, the fans, Uefa, Fifa and the national governments of Europe would let them walk away with a £4bn cartel, leaving the eviscerated corpse of ordinary football on the dressing room floor?"

The author mentions in the first paragraph that the executives had messed up chasing after the European Super League. He asks a rhetorical question: why did the executives think that the fans and other entities would let them go forward with a plan that would leave an eviscerated corpse of ordinary football, along with other things. This highlights the deleterious impact of the ESL plan on ordinary football. Option D captures this point correctly.
Option A: The author does not discuss that ordinary football had undesirable elements (nor does the ESL plan claim to eliminate these). We can eliminate Option A since it contains undiscussed ideas. 
Option B: The statement here indicates that the ESL plan would have benefitted ordinary football; however, the author claims the opposite. Hence, Option B can be eliminated. 
Option C: This option talks about the loss of capital, which has not been implied in the first paragraph. Hence, we can discard Option C.

Thus, Option D is the correct choice.

The most appropriate summary would be:
(c) No song can capture the whole scope of feelings of a person. How is it then conceivable for a song to speak of the idea of their country to a huge number of people in England.

The passage discusses the limitations of using a single song as a national anthem due to the diverse range of emotions and moods it cannot encompass.

The sentence best fitting in the blank is: (d) 4
Explanation: This sentence follows logically after sentence 3, as it describes another significant diplomatic move by China, reinforcing the idea of China's expanding influence globally.

The author mentions the presence of complexities and changes in Buddhism to get to the concept of reincarnation, which is his prime focus. The author first highlights the changes that have taken place and how understanding reincarnation can help grasp these completely. The author then propounds on reincarnation, linking it to Buddhism. Hence, the main focus of the author is the link between the concept of reincarnation and Buddhism, and the correct option should highlight this.

The concept of reincarnation is already present in the modern form of Buddhism. So Option A is incorrect.

As explained above, Option B can be the purpose of the author behind writing the passage.

Option C talks about modern Buddhism only, which is only a part of the author's purpose. Hence Option B is still the better option.

The author does not want to propagate the concept of reincarnation. If this were the case, the author would've mentioned Buddhism as a supporting point briefly. But since the whole concept is explained in terms of Buddhism, we see that Buddhism is also a major point the author is talking about. Hence, Option D is incorrect.

A generalist should have divergent useful skills and capabilities as per the passage. Hence the example should convey that the person possesses various skills/capabilities.

The psychologist described in statement I is a generalist as he has interdisciplinary knowledge and possesses transferrable skills. Hence he can be classified as a generalist.

Since the scientist specialises in one domain, we cannot say that he is a generalist. Statement II can be eliminated.

In the third paragraph, the author states that " Managers and leaders are often generalists because they need a comprehensive perspective of their entire organization." Hence, the manager mentioned in Statement III is a generalist.

 A swimmer specialises in one sport and therefore, we cannot say that he is a generalist. Statement IV can be eliminated.

Hence, only Statements I and III are valid. Option A is the answer.

The proper sequence of the sentences to form a coherent paragraph is:

2, 3, 4, 1

Here's the paragraph with the correct sequence:

2. One way of destroying the mosquitoes is by spraying and a powerful poison called DDT was developed that could be sprayed on ponds and stagnant water.

3. DDT can be sprayed by hand or spread by an aeroplane over areas that are difficult to reach.

4. For a time, DDT worked wonders in reducing the number of mosquitoes but the promise of DDT did not last long.

1. It became evident that the mosquitoes were developing an immunity to the poison and a different approach is required to combat this challenge.

Sentence 1 sets the stage by describing the train burglary incident. Sentence 2 provides details of the robbery, including the attackers' actions and the resistance by some passengers. Sentence 4 describes a passenger's courageous act to alert others. Sentence 3 follows this by describing the futile attempt of some passengers to resist the attackers.

(c) Despite the difficulty in cultivating them, orchids belong to a large family, of which some species can grow well in various locations when cared for correctly.

The passage highlights the diversity and adaptability of orchids, despite the challenges in cultivation, suggesting that some species can thrive in different environments if properly cared for.

Option 1 is the best choice to fit in the given sentence. The given sentence discusses the conclusion of the study: that the newfound species could significantly impact our understanding of evolutionary history. The sentence following option 1 talks about the distribution of the newfound species, suggesting its significance. So, option 1 is the correct choice.