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Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions:
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. This sentiment also undergirds a standard movie trope: the father who works so much that he never sees his kids.
But while Hollywood knows that work—which is ultimately futile—is one of the chief threats to a meaningful life and a flourishing family, public policy in the United States treats both of those aspirations as irrelevant. In most advanced countries, birth rates are very low by both historical and contemporary global standards, and both ends of the political spectrum promote greater labour-force participation. Progressives focus on providing benefits explicitly aimed at supporting working parents, such as paid leave and public child care. Conservatives fixate on “welfare dependency,” and demand that the social safety net be structured to actively encourage work. 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.
This pervasive focus on work reflects broader attitudes in society. When countries on the whole shift toward valuing work more, birth rates fall. And, the shortfall in births will lead to significant negative economic effects. Forced to choose between the family they want and the career they want, people are opting for the latter, nudged along by policymakers hoping to encourage work. All too often, people then end up in workplaces and on career paths hostile to family, and in social spheres whose norms treat work as meaningful and family as burdensome.
In countries with low incomes and short life expectancies, more work-focused attitudes are associated with higher fertility, perhaps because in these countries, material precarity and extreme poverty are very common. In India, Brazil, or Tanzania, assigning a lot of value to work makes a lot of sense given that the life prospects of people without work in lower-income countries are extremely bad in objective terms. 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.
There are other problems associated with societies placing a high value on work. 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. Also, 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.
Q. The central idea of the passage is that
  • a)
    When work becomes the centerpiece of life, the most valuable things in life suffer.
  • b)
    Societies, by engaging in high-value work, risk causing adverse socioeconomic effects.
  • c)
    Societies that place an overly high value on work risk triggering adverse social effects.
  • d)
    The current status quo in highly developed countries promotes job-friendly families rather than family-friendly jobs.
Correct answer is option 'C'. Can you explain this answer?
Verified Answer
Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions:For thou...
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.
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Most Upvoted Answer
Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions:For thou...
Central Idea of the Passage:
The central idea of the passage is that societies that place an overly high value on work risk triggering adverse social effects.
Explanation:

Impact of Valuing Work Over Everything Else:
- The passage highlights how societies that prioritize work above all else can lead to negative consequences for individuals and families.
- It discusses how the focus on careerism can compete with love, romance, and familial pursuits, as depicted in popular culture and public policy.

Different Perspectives on Work and Family:
- Progressives focus on providing benefits for working parents, while conservatives emphasize reducing welfare dependency and promoting work.
- Both sides offer policies that are marketed as family-friendly but may inadvertently encourage more focus on work at the expense of family life.

Global Trends in Work and Fertility:
- The passage notes that countries valuing work more tend to have lower birth rates, leading to economic challenges.
- In highly developed countries, where basic material needs are met, placing a high importance on work can lead to a prioritization of career over family.

Challenges of High Work Value Societies:
- Policies that channel benefits through employment may inadvertently disadvantage non-working parents.
- Individuals may feel pressured to prioritize work over family, leading to conflicts between personal and professional goals.
In conclusion, the passage emphasizes the potential pitfalls of societies that excessively value work, suggesting that a balance between work and family is essential for overall well-being and societal health.
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Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions: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. This sentiment also undergirds a standard movie trope: the father who works so much that he never sees his kids.But while Hollywood knows that work—which is ultimately futile—is one of the chief threats to a meaningful life and a flourishing family, public policy in the United States treats both of those aspirations as irrelevant. In most advanced countries, birth rates are very low by both historical and contemporary global standards, and both ends of the political spectrum promote greater labour-force participation. Progressives focus on providing benefits explicitly aimed at supporting working parents, such as paid leave and public child care. Conservatives fixate on “welfare dependency,” and demand that the social safety net be structured to actively encourage work. 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.This pervasive focus on work reflects broader attitudes in society. When countries on the whole shift toward valuing work more, birth rates fall. And, the shortfall in births will lead to significant negative economic effects. Forced to choose between the family they want and the career they want, people are opting for the latter, nudged along by policymakers hoping to encourage work. All too often, people then end up in workplaces and on career paths hostile to family, and in social spheres whose norms treat work as meaningful and family as burdensome.In countries with low incomes and short life expectancies, more work-focused attitudes are associated with higher fertility, perhaps because in these countries, material precarity and extreme poverty are very common. In India, Brazil, or Tanzania, assigning a lot of value to work makes a lot of sense given that the life prospects of people without work in lower-income countries are extremely bad in objective terms. 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.There are other problems associated with societies placing a high value on work. 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. Also, 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.Q.The author is most likely to agree with which of the following statements?

Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions: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. This sentiment also undergirds a standard movie trope: the father who works so much that he never sees his kids.But while Hollywood knows that work—which is ultimately futile—is one of the chief threats to a meaningful life and a flourishing family, public policy in the United States treats both of those aspirations as irrelevant. In most advanced countries, birth rates are very low by both historical and contemporary global standards, and both ends of the political spectrum promote greater labour-force participation. Progressives focus on providing benefits explicitly aimed at supporting working parents, such as paid leave and public child care. Conservatives fixate on “welfare dependency,” and demand that the social safety net be structured to actively encourage work. 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.This pervasive focus on work reflects broader attitudes in society. When countries on the whole shift toward valuing work more, birth rates fall. And, the shortfall in births will lead to significant negative economic effects. Forced to choose between the family they want and the career they want, people are opting for the latter, nudged along by policymakers hoping to encourage work. All too often, people then end up in workplaces and on career paths hostile to family, and in social spheres whose norms treat work as meaningful and family as burdensome.In countries with low incomes and short life expectancies, more work-focused attitudes are associated with higher fertility, perhaps because in these countries, material precarity and extreme poverty are very common. In India, Brazil, or Tanzania, assigning a lot of value to work makes a lot of sense given that the life prospects of people without work in lower-income countries are extremely bad in objective terms. 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.There are other problems associated with societies placing a high value on work. 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. Also, 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.Q.Which of the following is NOT a problem associated with developed societies placing a high value on work?

Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions: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. This sentiment also undergirds a standard movie trope: the father who works so much that he never sees his kids.But while Hollywood knows that work—which is ultimately futile—is one of the chief threats to a meaningful life and a flourishing family, public policy in the United States treats both of those aspirations as irrelevant. In most advanced countries, birth rates are very low by both historical and contemporary global standards, and both ends of the political spectrum promote greater labour-force participation. Progressives focus on providing benefits explicitly aimed at supporting working parents, such as paid leave and public child care. Conservatives fixate on “welfare dependency,” and demand that the social safety net be structured to actively encourage work. 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.This pervasive focus on work reflects broader attitudes in society. When countries on the whole shift toward valuing work more, birth rates fall. And, the shortfall in births will lead to significant negative economic effects. Forced to choose between the family they want and the career they want, people are opting for the latter, nudged along by policymakers hoping to encourage work. All too often, people then end up in workplaces and on career paths hostile to family, and in social spheres whose norms treat work as meaningful and family as burdensome.In countries with low incomes and short life expectancies, more work-focused attitudes are associated with higher fertility, perhaps because in these countries, material precarity and extreme poverty are very common. In India, Brazil, or Tanzania, assigning a lot of value to work makes a lot of sense given that the life prospects of people without work in lower-income countries are extremely bad in objective terms. 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.There are other problems associated with societies placing a high value on work. 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. Also, 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.Q.Which of the following is the primary characteristic of Netflixs The One because of which it has been cited in the passage?

Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow.Revolutions are extreme changes in a country that can have far- reaching effects for its neighbors. For this reason, many countries pay close attention to revolutions as they play out to decide whether or not to assist or impede revolutionary progress to protect their own interests. Predicting the course of such events therefore becomes essential to determining foreign policy towards areas in turmoil. Scholars largely agree that revolutions tend to play out in similar ways. However, revolutionary theorists are still at odds over how successful revolutionary states form. Some historians such as Theda Skocpol argue that social revolutions are a product of socioeconomic and political conditions and therefore are predictable in at-risk countries. Others, like Greg McCarthy claim that this view fails to take into account social class and the struggle resulting from socioeconomic differences, factors that have been driving forces in revolutions instigated by the lower class, as in France and Russia. I contend that, although the preceding government and society are significant in causing a revolution and creating revolutionaries, the ideological mindset of the revolutionary group is itself a major factor in determining the outcome of the revolution.There may be some objections to the idea of generalizing the outcomes of revolutions beyond individual cases. Logic seems to dictate that every country has different political and socioeconomic conditions, all of which impact how a given revolution plays out.However, social revolution is a specific form of upheaval in the national political and social structure that can emerge from religious and economic motivations. These events are, according to Skocpol basic transformations of a societys state and class structures; and they are accompanied and in part carried through by class-based revolts from below. Such upheavals involve not only political and governmental shifts, but also socioeconomic changes.By gathering intelligence about revolutionary groups at the forefront of upheaval in a nation, we can deduce their ideologies. From their ideology, revolutionary tendencies can be applied to predict possible actions that may be taken during a revolution. For example, a communist group is likely to create a bureaucratic government based on the lower class, which could be effective at quick mass- mobilization in times of war. Using this sort of analysis, with emphasis on the structural and ideological distinctions of various revolutions, general trends for other revolutionary varieties, such as Islamic revolutions in the Middle East, can be found and refined.This information could be used to determine whether or not intervention is necessary for national security and if so, what sort. A country with an interest in oil in a region, for example, would not be keen on allowing communists to seize power, as the new regime would likely not be receptive to private investors. During a revolution led by religious zealots, onlookers may be less likely to deem intervention worth the trouble if such revolutionaries tend to create large, destructive armies. The guidelines when applied to more revolutions, could provide a way to better predict the formation of governments in the critical stage of revolution.Q.Skocpol is likely to support the following statements, except

Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions:Over the last decade, an increasingly confident right wing has presented disillusioned voters with a simple choice: elitist, neoliberal hyper-globalisation or popular, patriotic nationalism. This new fault-line pits economic and social liberalism against social conservatism and the promise of muscular economic intervention. Despite the defeat of Donald Trump in 2020, progressives have yet to find a strategy to combat this potent—if false—divide.The traditional right-left dividing line—economic liberalism and social conservatism on the right, economic interventionism and social liberalism on the left—forced working-class nationalists to choose between their socially conservative instincts (including hostility to immigration) and their support for state intervention in the economy. In essence, they had to decide which liberalism—social or economic—to reject.The 2016 Brexit referendum freed such voters from this restraint—and it certainly set back the old liberal order. But despite many jumping to the conclusion that fervent nationalism explained the whole Brexit phenomenon, it was not clear which liberalism was being rejected. Many of the towns that repudiated the EU were voting just as much against the deindustrialisation that took place during the years Britain was in the EU as they were voting to restore a supposedly Edenic 1950s. Back in the conventional world of parliamentary elections, in 2017 Labour’s anti-neoliberal economic programme under Jeremy Corbyn added 3.5m votes to its 2015 general election tally. But by 2019, identity trumped economics—on which the Tories, Labours opponents, had anyway begun to change their tune under Boris Johnson—and the red wall crumbled.The British right was not alone in affecting to spurn both liberalisms. From Warsaw via Workington to Wisconsin, working-class voters received promises from right-wing populists that their economic interests would not be sacrificed on the altar of neoliberalism. Poland’s Law and Justice Party adopted an economic and social programme that would win over “left-behind” Poles. Marine Le Pen’s National Front professed to abandon its fascist past and moved the spotlight onto protecting French industry. Johnson committed his party to an interventionist “levelling-up” agenda. And Trump promised industrial protection against overseas competition, as well as the biggest programme of public works since the New Deal.This new fault-line not only redrew the political map: it fractured the old consensus around core democratic values—stretching from right to left—that had existed since the Second World War. These values were rooted in the French Revolution and European Enlightenment and comprised an alliance of liberty, equality and solidarity, which could accommodate Christian Democrats, liberals, social democrats and orthodox socialists, albeit in different proportions.The nationalist far-right rejects these values. Echoing the rhetorical tropes of anti-democratic forces from the interwar years, populists like Trump promote conspiracy theories in which liberal politicians plot to destroy national sovereignty in the interests of global financial capital. A politics of demonisation, exclusion and “othering” has seeped into mainstream right-wing parties. In the United States, it culminated in Trump’s incitement of his supporters to storm the Capitol on 6th January to overturn the result of the 2020 election.In a recent essay, Timothy Garton Ash argues that “liberals need to join both conservatives and socialists in full-heartedly embracing the value of solidarity.” But for intellectual conservatives like the late Roger Scruton (whom Garton Ash quotes) as well as chauvinist politicians—like Trump, Le Pen, Viktor Orbán and the Italian League’s Matteo Salvini—solidarity always has to rely on an inherently exclusionary notion of identity: we’re who we are because you’re not. Progressive social solidarity is, by contrast, accepting of difference. However, socialists and liberals have much in common in the battle against the far right: together, they can build on the social gains of the Harold Wilson and Tony Blair governments, allying around social and political liberty as well as the economics of equality.Which of the following statements is definitely TRUE according to the passage?

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Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions: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. This sentiment also undergirds a standard movie trope: the father who works so much that he never sees his kids.But while Hollywood knows that work—which is ultimately futile—is one of the chief threats to a meaningful life and a flourishing family, public policy in the United States treats both of those aspirations as irrelevant. In most advanced countries, birth rates are very low by both historical and contemporary global standards, and both ends of the political spectrum promote greater labour-force participation. Progressives focus on providing benefits explicitly aimed at supporting working parents, such as paid leave and public child care. Conservatives fixate on “welfare dependency,” and demand that the social safety net be structured to actively encourage work. 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.This pervasive focus on work reflects broader attitudes in society. When countries on the whole shift toward valuing work more, birth rates fall. And, the shortfall in births will lead to significant negative economic effects. Forced to choose between the family they want and the career they want, people are opting for the latter, nudged along by policymakers hoping to encourage work. All too often, people then end up in workplaces and on career paths hostile to family, and in social spheres whose norms treat work as meaningful and family as burdensome.In countries with low incomes and short life expectancies, more work-focused attitudes are associated with higher fertility, perhaps because in these countries, material precarity and extreme poverty are very common. In India, Brazil, or Tanzania, assigning a lot of value to work makes a lot of sense given that the life prospects of people without work in lower-income countries are extremely bad in objective terms. 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.There are other problems associated with societies placing a high value on work. 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. Also, 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.Q.The central idea of the passage is thata)When work becomes the centerpiece of life, the most valuable things in life suffer.b)Societies, by engaging in high-value work, risk causing adverse socioeconomic effects.c)Societies that place an overly high value on work risk triggering adverse social effects.d)The current status quo in highly developed countries promotes job-friendly families rather than family-friendly jobs.Correct answer is option 'C'. Can you explain this answer?
Question Description
Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions: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. This sentiment also undergirds a standard movie trope: the father who works so much that he never sees his kids.But while Hollywood knows that work—which is ultimately futile—is one of the chief threats to a meaningful life and a flourishing family, public policy in the United States treats both of those aspirations as irrelevant. In most advanced countries, birth rates are very low by both historical and contemporary global standards, and both ends of the political spectrum promote greater labour-force participation. Progressives focus on providing benefits explicitly aimed at supporting working parents, such as paid leave and public child care. Conservatives fixate on “welfare dependency,” and demand that the social safety net be structured to actively encourage work. 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.This pervasive focus on work reflects broader attitudes in society. When countries on the whole shift toward valuing work more, birth rates fall. And, the shortfall in births will lead to significant negative economic effects. Forced to choose between the family they want and the career they want, people are opting for the latter, nudged along by policymakers hoping to encourage work. All too often, people then end up in workplaces and on career paths hostile to family, and in social spheres whose norms treat work as meaningful and family as burdensome.In countries with low incomes and short life expectancies, more work-focused attitudes are associated with higher fertility, perhaps because in these countries, material precarity and extreme poverty are very common. In India, Brazil, or Tanzania, assigning a lot of value to work makes a lot of sense given that the life prospects of people without work in lower-income countries are extremely bad in objective terms. 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.There are other problems associated with societies placing a high value on work. 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. Also, 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.Q.The central idea of the passage is thata)When work becomes the centerpiece of life, the most valuable things in life suffer.b)Societies, by engaging in high-value work, risk causing adverse socioeconomic effects.c)Societies that place an overly high value on work risk triggering adverse social effects.d)The current status quo in highly developed countries promotes job-friendly families rather than family-friendly jobs.Correct answer is option 'C'. Can you explain this answer? for CAT 2024 is part of CAT preparation. The Question and answers have been prepared according to the CAT exam syllabus. Information about Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions: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. This sentiment also undergirds a standard movie trope: the father who works so much that he never sees his kids.But while Hollywood knows that work—which is ultimately futile—is one of the chief threats to a meaningful life and a flourishing family, public policy in the United States treats both of those aspirations as irrelevant. In most advanced countries, birth rates are very low by both historical and contemporary global standards, and both ends of the political spectrum promote greater labour-force participation. Progressives focus on providing benefits explicitly aimed at supporting working parents, such as paid leave and public child care. Conservatives fixate on “welfare dependency,” and demand that the social safety net be structured to actively encourage work. 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.This pervasive focus on work reflects broader attitudes in society. When countries on the whole shift toward valuing work more, birth rates fall. And, the shortfall in births will lead to significant negative economic effects. Forced to choose between the family they want and the career they want, people are opting for the latter, nudged along by policymakers hoping to encourage work. All too often, people then end up in workplaces and on career paths hostile to family, and in social spheres whose norms treat work as meaningful and family as burdensome.In countries with low incomes and short life expectancies, more work-focused attitudes are associated with higher fertility, perhaps because in these countries, material precarity and extreme poverty are very common. In India, Brazil, or Tanzania, assigning a lot of value to work makes a lot of sense given that the life prospects of people without work in lower-income countries are extremely bad in objective terms. 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.There are other problems associated with societies placing a high value on work. 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. Also, 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.Q.The central idea of the passage is thata)When work becomes the centerpiece of life, the most valuable things in life suffer.b)Societies, by engaging in high-value work, risk causing adverse socioeconomic effects.c)Societies that place an overly high value on work risk triggering adverse social effects.d)The current status quo in highly developed countries promotes job-friendly families rather than family-friendly jobs.Correct answer is option 'C'. Can you explain this answer? covers all topics & solutions for CAT 2024 Exam. Find important definitions, questions, meanings, examples, exercises and tests below for Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions: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. This sentiment also undergirds a standard movie trope: the father who works so much that he never sees his kids.But while Hollywood knows that work—which is ultimately futile—is one of the chief threats to a meaningful life and a flourishing family, public policy in the United States treats both of those aspirations as irrelevant. In most advanced countries, birth rates are very low by both historical and contemporary global standards, and both ends of the political spectrum promote greater labour-force participation. Progressives focus on providing benefits explicitly aimed at supporting working parents, such as paid leave and public child care. Conservatives fixate on “welfare dependency,” and demand that the social safety net be structured to actively encourage work. 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.This pervasive focus on work reflects broader attitudes in society. When countries on the whole shift toward valuing work more, birth rates fall. And, the shortfall in births will lead to significant negative economic effects. Forced to choose between the family they want and the career they want, people are opting for the latter, nudged along by policymakers hoping to encourage work. All too often, people then end up in workplaces and on career paths hostile to family, and in social spheres whose norms treat work as meaningful and family as burdensome.In countries with low incomes and short life expectancies, more work-focused attitudes are associated with higher fertility, perhaps because in these countries, material precarity and extreme poverty are very common. In India, Brazil, or Tanzania, assigning a lot of value to work makes a lot of sense given that the life prospects of people without work in lower-income countries are extremely bad in objective terms. 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.There are other problems associated with societies placing a high value on work. 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. Also, 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.Q.The central idea of the passage is thata)When work becomes the centerpiece of life, the most valuable things in life suffer.b)Societies, by engaging in high-value work, risk causing adverse socioeconomic effects.c)Societies that place an overly high value on work risk triggering adverse social effects.d)The current status quo in highly developed countries promotes job-friendly families rather than family-friendly jobs.Correct answer is option 'C'. Can you explain this answer?.
Solutions for Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions: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. This sentiment also undergirds a standard movie trope: the father who works so much that he never sees his kids.But while Hollywood knows that work—which is ultimately futile—is one of the chief threats to a meaningful life and a flourishing family, public policy in the United States treats both of those aspirations as irrelevant. In most advanced countries, birth rates are very low by both historical and contemporary global standards, and both ends of the political spectrum promote greater labour-force participation. Progressives focus on providing benefits explicitly aimed at supporting working parents, such as paid leave and public child care. Conservatives fixate on “welfare dependency,” and demand that the social safety net be structured to actively encourage work. 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.This pervasive focus on work reflects broader attitudes in society. When countries on the whole shift toward valuing work more, birth rates fall. And, the shortfall in births will lead to significant negative economic effects. Forced to choose between the family they want and the career they want, people are opting for the latter, nudged along by policymakers hoping to encourage work. All too often, people then end up in workplaces and on career paths hostile to family, and in social spheres whose norms treat work as meaningful and family as burdensome.In countries with low incomes and short life expectancies, more work-focused attitudes are associated with higher fertility, perhaps because in these countries, material precarity and extreme poverty are very common. In India, Brazil, or Tanzania, assigning a lot of value to work makes a lot of sense given that the life prospects of people without work in lower-income countries are extremely bad in objective terms. 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.There are other problems associated with societies placing a high value on work. 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. Also, 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.Q.The central idea of the passage is thata)When work becomes the centerpiece of life, the most valuable things in life suffer.b)Societies, by engaging in high-value work, risk causing adverse socioeconomic effects.c)Societies that place an overly high value on work risk triggering adverse social effects.d)The current status quo in highly developed countries promotes job-friendly families rather than family-friendly jobs.Correct answer is option 'C'. Can you explain this answer? in English & in Hindi are available as part of our courses for CAT. Download more important topics, notes, lectures and mock test series for CAT Exam by signing up for free.
Here you can find the meaning of Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions: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. This sentiment also undergirds a standard movie trope: the father who works so much that he never sees his kids.But while Hollywood knows that work—which is ultimately futile—is one of the chief threats to a meaningful life and a flourishing family, public policy in the United States treats both of those aspirations as irrelevant. In most advanced countries, birth rates are very low by both historical and contemporary global standards, and both ends of the political spectrum promote greater labour-force participation. Progressives focus on providing benefits explicitly aimed at supporting working parents, such as paid leave and public child care. Conservatives fixate on “welfare dependency,” and demand that the social safety net be structured to actively encourage work. 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.This pervasive focus on work reflects broader attitudes in society. When countries on the whole shift toward valuing work more, birth rates fall. And, the shortfall in births will lead to significant negative economic effects. Forced to choose between the family they want and the career they want, people are opting for the latter, nudged along by policymakers hoping to encourage work. All too often, people then end up in workplaces and on career paths hostile to family, and in social spheres whose norms treat work as meaningful and family as burdensome.In countries with low incomes and short life expectancies, more work-focused attitudes are associated with higher fertility, perhaps because in these countries, material precarity and extreme poverty are very common. In India, Brazil, or Tanzania, assigning a lot of value to work makes a lot of sense given that the life prospects of people without work in lower-income countries are extremely bad in objective terms. 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.There are other problems associated with societies placing a high value on work. 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. Also, 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.Q.The central idea of the passage is thata)When work becomes the centerpiece of life, the most valuable things in life suffer.b)Societies, by engaging in high-value work, risk causing adverse socioeconomic effects.c)Societies that place an overly high value on work risk triggering adverse social effects.d)The current status quo in highly developed countries promotes job-friendly families rather than family-friendly jobs.Correct answer is option 'C'. Can you explain this answer? defined & explained in the simplest way possible. Besides giving the explanation of Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions: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. This sentiment also undergirds a standard movie trope: the father who works so much that he never sees his kids.But while Hollywood knows that work—which is ultimately futile—is one of the chief threats to a meaningful life and a flourishing family, public policy in the United States treats both of those aspirations as irrelevant. In most advanced countries, birth rates are very low by both historical and contemporary global standards, and both ends of the political spectrum promote greater labour-force participation. Progressives focus on providing benefits explicitly aimed at supporting working parents, such as paid leave and public child care. Conservatives fixate on “welfare dependency,” and demand that the social safety net be structured to actively encourage work. 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.This pervasive focus on work reflects broader attitudes in society. When countries on the whole shift toward valuing work more, birth rates fall. And, the shortfall in births will lead to significant negative economic effects. Forced to choose between the family they want and the career they want, people are opting for the latter, nudged along by policymakers hoping to encourage work. All too often, people then end up in workplaces and on career paths hostile to family, and in social spheres whose norms treat work as meaningful and family as burdensome.In countries with low incomes and short life expectancies, more work-focused attitudes are associated with higher fertility, perhaps because in these countries, material precarity and extreme poverty are very common. In India, Brazil, or Tanzania, assigning a lot of value to work makes a lot of sense given that the life prospects of people without work in lower-income countries are extremely bad in objective terms. 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.There are other problems associated with societies placing a high value on work. 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. Also, 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.Q.The central idea of the passage is thata)When work becomes the centerpiece of life, the most valuable things in life suffer.b)Societies, by engaging in high-value work, risk causing adverse socioeconomic effects.c)Societies that place an overly high value on work risk triggering adverse social effects.d)The current status quo in highly developed countries promotes job-friendly families rather than family-friendly jobs.Correct answer is option 'C'. Can you explain this answer?, a detailed solution for Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions: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. This sentiment also undergirds a standard movie trope: the father who works so much that he never sees his kids.But while Hollywood knows that work—which is ultimately futile—is one of the chief threats to a meaningful life and a flourishing family, public policy in the United States treats both of those aspirations as irrelevant. In most advanced countries, birth rates are very low by both historical and contemporary global standards, and both ends of the political spectrum promote greater labour-force participation. Progressives focus on providing benefits explicitly aimed at supporting working parents, such as paid leave and public child care. Conservatives fixate on “welfare dependency,” and demand that the social safety net be structured to actively encourage work. 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.This pervasive focus on work reflects broader attitudes in society. When countries on the whole shift toward valuing work more, birth rates fall. And, the shortfall in births will lead to significant negative economic effects. Forced to choose between the family they want and the career they want, people are opting for the latter, nudged along by policymakers hoping to encourage work. All too often, people then end up in workplaces and on career paths hostile to family, and in social spheres whose norms treat work as meaningful and family as burdensome.In countries with low incomes and short life expectancies, more work-focused attitudes are associated with higher fertility, perhaps because in these countries, material precarity and extreme poverty are very common. In India, Brazil, or Tanzania, assigning a lot of value to work makes a lot of sense given that the life prospects of people without work in lower-income countries are extremely bad in objective terms. 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.There are other problems associated with societies placing a high value on work. 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. Also, 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.Q.The central idea of the passage is thata)When work becomes the centerpiece of life, the most valuable things in life suffer.b)Societies, by engaging in high-value work, risk causing adverse socioeconomic effects.c)Societies that place an overly high value on work risk triggering adverse social effects.d)The current status quo in highly developed countries promotes job-friendly families rather than family-friendly jobs.Correct answer is option 'C'. Can you explain this answer? has been provided alongside types of Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions: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. This sentiment also undergirds a standard movie trope: the father who works so much that he never sees his kids.But while Hollywood knows that work—which is ultimately futile—is one of the chief threats to a meaningful life and a flourishing family, public policy in the United States treats both of those aspirations as irrelevant. In most advanced countries, birth rates are very low by both historical and contemporary global standards, and both ends of the political spectrum promote greater labour-force participation. Progressives focus on providing benefits explicitly aimed at supporting working parents, such as paid leave and public child care. Conservatives fixate on “welfare dependency,” and demand that the social safety net be structured to actively encourage work. 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.This pervasive focus on work reflects broader attitudes in society. When countries on the whole shift toward valuing work more, birth rates fall. And, the shortfall in births will lead to significant negative economic effects. Forced to choose between the family they want and the career they want, people are opting for the latter, nudged along by policymakers hoping to encourage work. All too often, people then end up in workplaces and on career paths hostile to family, and in social spheres whose norms treat work as meaningful and family as burdensome.In countries with low incomes and short life expectancies, more work-focused attitudes are associated with higher fertility, perhaps because in these countries, material precarity and extreme poverty are very common. In India, Brazil, or Tanzania, assigning a lot of value to work makes a lot of sense given that the life prospects of people without work in lower-income countries are extremely bad in objective terms. 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.There are other problems associated with societies placing a high value on work. 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. Also, 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.Q.The central idea of the passage is thata)When work becomes the centerpiece of life, the most valuable things in life suffer.b)Societies, by engaging in high-value work, risk causing adverse socioeconomic effects.c)Societies that place an overly high value on work risk triggering adverse social effects.d)The current status quo in highly developed countries promotes job-friendly families rather than family-friendly jobs.Correct answer is option 'C'. Can you explain this answer? theory, EduRev gives you an ample number of questions to practice Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions: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. This sentiment also undergirds a standard movie trope: the father who works so much that he never sees his kids.But while Hollywood knows that work—which is ultimately futile—is one of the chief threats to a meaningful life and a flourishing family, public policy in the United States treats both of those aspirations as irrelevant. In most advanced countries, birth rates are very low by both historical and contemporary global standards, and both ends of the political spectrum promote greater labour-force participation. Progressives focus on providing benefits explicitly aimed at supporting working parents, such as paid leave and public child care. Conservatives fixate on “welfare dependency,” and demand that the social safety net be structured to actively encourage work. 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.This pervasive focus on work reflects broader attitudes in society. When countries on the whole shift toward valuing work more, birth rates fall. And, the shortfall in births will lead to significant negative economic effects. Forced to choose between the family they want and the career they want, people are opting for the latter, nudged along by policymakers hoping to encourage work. All too often, people then end up in workplaces and on career paths hostile to family, and in social spheres whose norms treat work as meaningful and family as burdensome.In countries with low incomes and short life expectancies, more work-focused attitudes are associated with higher fertility, perhaps because in these countries, material precarity and extreme poverty are very common. In India, Brazil, or Tanzania, assigning a lot of value to work makes a lot of sense given that the life prospects of people without work in lower-income countries are extremely bad in objective terms. 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.There are other problems associated with societies placing a high value on work. 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. Also, 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.Q.The central idea of the passage is thata)When work becomes the centerpiece of life, the most valuable things in life suffer.b)Societies, by engaging in high-value work, risk causing adverse socioeconomic effects.c)Societies that place an overly high value on work risk triggering adverse social effects.d)The current status quo in highly developed countries promotes job-friendly families rather than family-friendly jobs.Correct answer is option 'C'. Can you explain this answer? tests, examples and also practice CAT tests.
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