CAT 2020 Slot 1: Previous Year Question Paper with Solution

 Page 1


CAT 2020 question paper (slot-1) 
 
 
 
Direction for Reading Comprehension: The passages given here are followed by some 
questions that have four answer choices; read the passage carefully and pick the option 
whose answer best aligns with the passage 
In the late 1960s, while studying the northern-elephant-seal population along the coasts of 
Mexico and California, Burney Le Boeuf and his colleagues couldn’t help but notice that the 
threat calls of males at some sites sounded different from those of males at other sites. . .. 
That was the first time dialects were documented in a nonhuman mammal. . .. 
All the northern elephant seals that exist today are descendants of the small herd that 
survived on Isla Guadalupe [after the near extinction of the species in the nineteenth 
century]. As that tiny population grew, northern elephant seals started to recolonize former 
breeding locations. It was precisely on the more recently colonized islands where Le Boeuf 
found that the tempos of the male vocal displays showed stronger differences to the ones 
from Isla Guadalupe, the founder colony. 
In order to test the reliability of these dialects over time, Le Boeuf and other researchers 
visited Año Nuevo Island in California—the island where males showed the slowest pulse 
rates in their calls—every winter from 1968 to 1972. “What we found is that the pulse rate 
increased, but it still remained relatively slow compared to the other colonies we had 
measured in the past” Le Boeuf told me. 
At the individual level, the pulse of the calls stayed the same: A male would maintain his 
vocal signature throughout his lifetime. But the average pulse rate was changing. 
Immigration could have been responsible for this increase, as in the early 1970s, 43 percent 
of the males on Año Nuevo had come from southern rookeries that had a faster pulse rate. 
This led Le Boeuf and his collaborator, Lewis Petrinovich, to deduce that the dialects were, 
perhaps, a result of isolation over time, after the breeding sites had been recolonized. For 
instance, the first settlers of Año Nuevo could have had, by chance, calls with low pulse 
rates. At other sites, where the scientists found faster pulse rates, the opposite would have 
happened—seals with faster rates would have happened to arrive first. 
CAT VARC Section 
Page 2


CAT 2020 question paper (slot-1) 
 
 
 
Direction for Reading Comprehension: The passages given here are followed by some 
questions that have four answer choices; read the passage carefully and pick the option 
whose answer best aligns with the passage 
In the late 1960s, while studying the northern-elephant-seal population along the coasts of 
Mexico and California, Burney Le Boeuf and his colleagues couldn’t help but notice that the 
threat calls of males at some sites sounded different from those of males at other sites. . .. 
That was the first time dialects were documented in a nonhuman mammal. . .. 
All the northern elephant seals that exist today are descendants of the small herd that 
survived on Isla Guadalupe [after the near extinction of the species in the nineteenth 
century]. As that tiny population grew, northern elephant seals started to recolonize former 
breeding locations. It was precisely on the more recently colonized islands where Le Boeuf 
found that the tempos of the male vocal displays showed stronger differences to the ones 
from Isla Guadalupe, the founder colony. 
In order to test the reliability of these dialects over time, Le Boeuf and other researchers 
visited Año Nuevo Island in California—the island where males showed the slowest pulse 
rates in their calls—every winter from 1968 to 1972. “What we found is that the pulse rate 
increased, but it still remained relatively slow compared to the other colonies we had 
measured in the past” Le Boeuf told me. 
At the individual level, the pulse of the calls stayed the same: A male would maintain his 
vocal signature throughout his lifetime. But the average pulse rate was changing. 
Immigration could have been responsible for this increase, as in the early 1970s, 43 percent 
of the males on Año Nuevo had come from southern rookeries that had a faster pulse rate. 
This led Le Boeuf and his collaborator, Lewis Petrinovich, to deduce that the dialects were, 
perhaps, a result of isolation over time, after the breeding sites had been recolonized. For 
instance, the first settlers of Año Nuevo could have had, by chance, calls with low pulse 
rates. At other sites, where the scientists found faster pulse rates, the opposite would have 
happened—seals with faster rates would have happened to arrive first. 
CAT VARC Section 
CAT 2020 question paper (slot-1) 
 
 
As the population continued to expand and the islands kept on receiving immigrants from 
the original population, the calls in all locations would have eventually regressed to the 
average pulse rate of the founder colony. In the decades that followed, scientists noticed 
that the geographical variations reported in 1969 were not obvious anymore. . . . In the 
early 2010s, while studying northern elephant seals on Año Nuevo Island, [researcher 
Caroline] Casey noticed, too, that what Le Boeuf had heard decades ago was not what she 
heard now. . . . By performing more sophisticated statistical analyses on both sets of data, 
[Casey and Le Boeuf] confirmed that dialects existed back then but had vanished. Yet there 
are other differences between the males from the late 1960s and their great-great-
grandsons: Modern males exhibit more individual diversity, and their calls are more 
complex. While 50 years ago the drumming pattern was quite simple and the dialects 
denoted just a change in tempo, Casey explained, the calls recorded today have more 
complex structures, sometimes featuring doublets or triplets. . . . 
Q.1 From the passage it can be inferred that the call pulse rate of male northern elephant 
seals in the southern rookeries was faster because: 
1. a large number of male northern elephant seals from Año Nuevo Island might have 
migrated to the southern rookeries to recolonise them. 
2. a large number of male northern elephant seals migrated from the southern rookeries 
to Año Nuevo Island in the early 1970s. 
3. the male northern elephant seals of Isla Guadalupe with faster call pulse rates might 
have been the original settlers of the southern rookeries. 
4. the calls of male northern elephant seals in the southern rookeries have more 
sophisticated structures, containing doublets and triplets. 
Q.2 Which one of the following conditions, if true, could have ensured that male northern 
elephant seal dialects did not disappear? 
1. The call tempo of individual immigrant male seals changed to match the average tempo 
of resident male seals in the host colony. 
2. Besides Isla Guadalupe, there was one more founder colony with the same average male 
call tempo from which male seals migrated to various other colonies. 
Page 3


CAT 2020 question paper (slot-1) 
 
 
 
Direction for Reading Comprehension: The passages given here are followed by some 
questions that have four answer choices; read the passage carefully and pick the option 
whose answer best aligns with the passage 
In the late 1960s, while studying the northern-elephant-seal population along the coasts of 
Mexico and California, Burney Le Boeuf and his colleagues couldn’t help but notice that the 
threat calls of males at some sites sounded different from those of males at other sites. . .. 
That was the first time dialects were documented in a nonhuman mammal. . .. 
All the northern elephant seals that exist today are descendants of the small herd that 
survived on Isla Guadalupe [after the near extinction of the species in the nineteenth 
century]. As that tiny population grew, northern elephant seals started to recolonize former 
breeding locations. It was precisely on the more recently colonized islands where Le Boeuf 
found that the tempos of the male vocal displays showed stronger differences to the ones 
from Isla Guadalupe, the founder colony. 
In order to test the reliability of these dialects over time, Le Boeuf and other researchers 
visited Año Nuevo Island in California—the island where males showed the slowest pulse 
rates in their calls—every winter from 1968 to 1972. “What we found is that the pulse rate 
increased, but it still remained relatively slow compared to the other colonies we had 
measured in the past” Le Boeuf told me. 
At the individual level, the pulse of the calls stayed the same: A male would maintain his 
vocal signature throughout his lifetime. But the average pulse rate was changing. 
Immigration could have been responsible for this increase, as in the early 1970s, 43 percent 
of the males on Año Nuevo had come from southern rookeries that had a faster pulse rate. 
This led Le Boeuf and his collaborator, Lewis Petrinovich, to deduce that the dialects were, 
perhaps, a result of isolation over time, after the breeding sites had been recolonized. For 
instance, the first settlers of Año Nuevo could have had, by chance, calls with low pulse 
rates. At other sites, where the scientists found faster pulse rates, the opposite would have 
happened—seals with faster rates would have happened to arrive first. 
CAT VARC Section 
CAT 2020 question paper (slot-1) 
 
 
As the population continued to expand and the islands kept on receiving immigrants from 
the original population, the calls in all locations would have eventually regressed to the 
average pulse rate of the founder colony. In the decades that followed, scientists noticed 
that the geographical variations reported in 1969 were not obvious anymore. . . . In the 
early 2010s, while studying northern elephant seals on Año Nuevo Island, [researcher 
Caroline] Casey noticed, too, that what Le Boeuf had heard decades ago was not what she 
heard now. . . . By performing more sophisticated statistical analyses on both sets of data, 
[Casey and Le Boeuf] confirmed that dialects existed back then but had vanished. Yet there 
are other differences between the males from the late 1960s and their great-great-
grandsons: Modern males exhibit more individual diversity, and their calls are more 
complex. While 50 years ago the drumming pattern was quite simple and the dialects 
denoted just a change in tempo, Casey explained, the calls recorded today have more 
complex structures, sometimes featuring doublets or triplets. . . . 
Q.1 From the passage it can be inferred that the call pulse rate of male northern elephant 
seals in the southern rookeries was faster because: 
1. a large number of male northern elephant seals from Año Nuevo Island might have 
migrated to the southern rookeries to recolonise them. 
2. a large number of male northern elephant seals migrated from the southern rookeries 
to Año Nuevo Island in the early 1970s. 
3. the male northern elephant seals of Isla Guadalupe with faster call pulse rates might 
have been the original settlers of the southern rookeries. 
4. the calls of male northern elephant seals in the southern rookeries have more 
sophisticated structures, containing doublets and triplets. 
Q.2 Which one of the following conditions, if true, could have ensured that male northern 
elephant seal dialects did not disappear? 
1. The call tempo of individual immigrant male seals changed to match the average tempo 
of resident male seals in the host colony. 
2. Besides Isla Guadalupe, there was one more founder colony with the same average male 
call tempo from which male seals migrated to various other colonies. 
CAT 2020 question paper (slot-1) 
 
 
3. The call tempo of individual male seals in host colonies changed to match the average 
call tempo of immigrant male seals. 
4. Besides Isla Guadalupe, there was one more surviving colony with the same average 
male call tempo from which no migration took place. 
Q.3 Which one of the following best sums up the overall history of transformation of male 
northern elephant seal calls? 
1. The calls have transformed from exhibiting simple composition, great individual variety, 
and less regional variety to complex composition, less individual variety, and great 
regional variety. 
2. Owing to migrations in the aftermath of near species extinction, the average call pulse 
rates in the recolonised breeding locations exhibited a gradual increase until they 
matched the tempo at the founding colony. 
3. The calls have transformed from exhibiting simple composition, less individual variety, 
and great regional variety to complex composition, great individual variety, and less 
regional variety. 
4. Owing to migrations in the aftermath of near species extinction, the calls have 
transformed from exhibiting complex composition, less individual variety, and great 
regional variety to simple composition, less individual variety, and great regional variety. 
Q.4 All of the following can be inferred from Le Boeuf’s study as described in the passage 
EXCEPT that: 
1. male northern elephant seals might not have exhibited dialects had they not become 
nearly extinct in the nineteenth century. 
2. the average call pulse rate of male northern elephant seals at Año Nuevo Island 
increased from the early 1970s till the disappearance of dialects. 
3. the influx of new northern elephant seals into Año Nuevo Island would have soon made 
the call pulse rate of its male seals exceed that of those at Isla Guadalupe. 
4. changes in population and migration had no effect on the call pulse rate of individual 
male northern elephant seals. 
Page 4


CAT 2020 question paper (slot-1) 
 
 
 
Direction for Reading Comprehension: The passages given here are followed by some 
questions that have four answer choices; read the passage carefully and pick the option 
whose answer best aligns with the passage 
In the late 1960s, while studying the northern-elephant-seal population along the coasts of 
Mexico and California, Burney Le Boeuf and his colleagues couldn’t help but notice that the 
threat calls of males at some sites sounded different from those of males at other sites. . .. 
That was the first time dialects were documented in a nonhuman mammal. . .. 
All the northern elephant seals that exist today are descendants of the small herd that 
survived on Isla Guadalupe [after the near extinction of the species in the nineteenth 
century]. As that tiny population grew, northern elephant seals started to recolonize former 
breeding locations. It was precisely on the more recently colonized islands where Le Boeuf 
found that the tempos of the male vocal displays showed stronger differences to the ones 
from Isla Guadalupe, the founder colony. 
In order to test the reliability of these dialects over time, Le Boeuf and other researchers 
visited Año Nuevo Island in California—the island where males showed the slowest pulse 
rates in their calls—every winter from 1968 to 1972. “What we found is that the pulse rate 
increased, but it still remained relatively slow compared to the other colonies we had 
measured in the past” Le Boeuf told me. 
At the individual level, the pulse of the calls stayed the same: A male would maintain his 
vocal signature throughout his lifetime. But the average pulse rate was changing. 
Immigration could have been responsible for this increase, as in the early 1970s, 43 percent 
of the males on Año Nuevo had come from southern rookeries that had a faster pulse rate. 
This led Le Boeuf and his collaborator, Lewis Petrinovich, to deduce that the dialects were, 
perhaps, a result of isolation over time, after the breeding sites had been recolonized. For 
instance, the first settlers of Año Nuevo could have had, by chance, calls with low pulse 
rates. At other sites, where the scientists found faster pulse rates, the opposite would have 
happened—seals with faster rates would have happened to arrive first. 
CAT VARC Section 
CAT 2020 question paper (slot-1) 
 
 
As the population continued to expand and the islands kept on receiving immigrants from 
the original population, the calls in all locations would have eventually regressed to the 
average pulse rate of the founder colony. In the decades that followed, scientists noticed 
that the geographical variations reported in 1969 were not obvious anymore. . . . In the 
early 2010s, while studying northern elephant seals on Año Nuevo Island, [researcher 
Caroline] Casey noticed, too, that what Le Boeuf had heard decades ago was not what she 
heard now. . . . By performing more sophisticated statistical analyses on both sets of data, 
[Casey and Le Boeuf] confirmed that dialects existed back then but had vanished. Yet there 
are other differences between the males from the late 1960s and their great-great-
grandsons: Modern males exhibit more individual diversity, and their calls are more 
complex. While 50 years ago the drumming pattern was quite simple and the dialects 
denoted just a change in tempo, Casey explained, the calls recorded today have more 
complex structures, sometimes featuring doublets or triplets. . . . 
Q.1 From the passage it can be inferred that the call pulse rate of male northern elephant 
seals in the southern rookeries was faster because: 
1. a large number of male northern elephant seals from Año Nuevo Island might have 
migrated to the southern rookeries to recolonise them. 
2. a large number of male northern elephant seals migrated from the southern rookeries 
to Año Nuevo Island in the early 1970s. 
3. the male northern elephant seals of Isla Guadalupe with faster call pulse rates might 
have been the original settlers of the southern rookeries. 
4. the calls of male northern elephant seals in the southern rookeries have more 
sophisticated structures, containing doublets and triplets. 
Q.2 Which one of the following conditions, if true, could have ensured that male northern 
elephant seal dialects did not disappear? 
1. The call tempo of individual immigrant male seals changed to match the average tempo 
of resident male seals in the host colony. 
2. Besides Isla Guadalupe, there was one more founder colony with the same average male 
call tempo from which male seals migrated to various other colonies. 
CAT 2020 question paper (slot-1) 
 
 
3. The call tempo of individual male seals in host colonies changed to match the average 
call tempo of immigrant male seals. 
4. Besides Isla Guadalupe, there was one more surviving colony with the same average 
male call tempo from which no migration took place. 
Q.3 Which one of the following best sums up the overall history of transformation of male 
northern elephant seal calls? 
1. The calls have transformed from exhibiting simple composition, great individual variety, 
and less regional variety to complex composition, less individual variety, and great 
regional variety. 
2. Owing to migrations in the aftermath of near species extinction, the average call pulse 
rates in the recolonised breeding locations exhibited a gradual increase until they 
matched the tempo at the founding colony. 
3. The calls have transformed from exhibiting simple composition, less individual variety, 
and great regional variety to complex composition, great individual variety, and less 
regional variety. 
4. Owing to migrations in the aftermath of near species extinction, the calls have 
transformed from exhibiting complex composition, less individual variety, and great 
regional variety to simple composition, less individual variety, and great regional variety. 
Q.4 All of the following can be inferred from Le Boeuf’s study as described in the passage 
EXCEPT that: 
1. male northern elephant seals might not have exhibited dialects had they not become 
nearly extinct in the nineteenth century. 
2. the average call pulse rate of male northern elephant seals at Año Nuevo Island 
increased from the early 1970s till the disappearance of dialects. 
3. the influx of new northern elephant seals into Año Nuevo Island would have soon made 
the call pulse rate of its male seals exceed that of those at Isla Guadalupe. 
4. changes in population and migration had no effect on the call pulse rate of individual 
male northern elephant seals. 
CAT 2020 question paper (slot-1) 
 
 
Direction for Reading Comprehension: The pass ages given here are followed by some 
questions that have four answer choices; read the passage carefully and pick the option 
whose answer best aligns with the passage 
Vocabulary used in speech or writing organizes itself in seven parts of speech (eight, if you 
count interjections such as Oh! and Gosh! and Fuhgeddaboudit!). Communication 
composed of these parts of speech must be organized by rules of grammar upon which we 
agree. When these rules break down, confusion and misunderstanding result. Bad grammar 
produces bad sentences. My favorite example from Strunk and White is this one: “As a 
mother of five, with another one on the way, my ironing board is always up.” 
Nouns and verbs are the two indispensable parts of writing. Without one of each, no group 
of words can be a sentence, since a sentence is, by definition, a group of words containing a 
subject (noun) and a predicate (verb); these strings of words begin with a capital letter, end 
with a period, and combine to make a complete thought which starts in the writer’s head 
and then leaps to the reader’s. 
Must you write complete sentences each time, every time? Perish the thought. If your work 
consists only of fragments and floating clauses, the Grammar Police aren’t going to come 
and take you away. Even William Strunk, that Mussolini of rhetoric, recognized the delicious 
pliability of language. “It is an old observation,” he writes, “that the best writers sometimes 
disregard the rules of rhetoric.” Yet he goes on to add this thought, which I urge you to 
consider: “Unless he is certain of doing well, [the writer] will probably do best to follow the 
rules.” 
The telling clause here is Unless he is certain of doing well. If you don’t have a rudimentary 
grasp of how the parts of speech translate into coherent sentences, how can you be certain 
that you are doing well? How will you know if you’re doing ill, for that matter? The answer, 
of course, is that you can’t, you won’t. One who does grasp the rudiments of grammar finds 
a comforting simplicity at its heart, where there need be only nouns, the words that name, 
and verbs, the words that act. 
Take any noun, put it with any verb, and you have a sentence. It never fails. Rocks explode. 
Jane transmits. Mountains float. These are all perfect sentences. Many such thoughts make 
Page 5


CAT 2020 question paper (slot-1) 
 
 
 
Direction for Reading Comprehension: The passages given here are followed by some 
questions that have four answer choices; read the passage carefully and pick the option 
whose answer best aligns with the passage 
In the late 1960s, while studying the northern-elephant-seal population along the coasts of 
Mexico and California, Burney Le Boeuf and his colleagues couldn’t help but notice that the 
threat calls of males at some sites sounded different from those of males at other sites. . .. 
That was the first time dialects were documented in a nonhuman mammal. . .. 
All the northern elephant seals that exist today are descendants of the small herd that 
survived on Isla Guadalupe [after the near extinction of the species in the nineteenth 
century]. As that tiny population grew, northern elephant seals started to recolonize former 
breeding locations. It was precisely on the more recently colonized islands where Le Boeuf 
found that the tempos of the male vocal displays showed stronger differences to the ones 
from Isla Guadalupe, the founder colony. 
In order to test the reliability of these dialects over time, Le Boeuf and other researchers 
visited Año Nuevo Island in California—the island where males showed the slowest pulse 
rates in their calls—every winter from 1968 to 1972. “What we found is that the pulse rate 
increased, but it still remained relatively slow compared to the other colonies we had 
measured in the past” Le Boeuf told me. 
At the individual level, the pulse of the calls stayed the same: A male would maintain his 
vocal signature throughout his lifetime. But the average pulse rate was changing. 
Immigration could have been responsible for this increase, as in the early 1970s, 43 percent 
of the males on Año Nuevo had come from southern rookeries that had a faster pulse rate. 
This led Le Boeuf and his collaborator, Lewis Petrinovich, to deduce that the dialects were, 
perhaps, a result of isolation over time, after the breeding sites had been recolonized. For 
instance, the first settlers of Año Nuevo could have had, by chance, calls with low pulse 
rates. At other sites, where the scientists found faster pulse rates, the opposite would have 
happened—seals with faster rates would have happened to arrive first. 
CAT VARC Section 
CAT 2020 question paper (slot-1) 
 
 
As the population continued to expand and the islands kept on receiving immigrants from 
the original population, the calls in all locations would have eventually regressed to the 
average pulse rate of the founder colony. In the decades that followed, scientists noticed 
that the geographical variations reported in 1969 were not obvious anymore. . . . In the 
early 2010s, while studying northern elephant seals on Año Nuevo Island, [researcher 
Caroline] Casey noticed, too, that what Le Boeuf had heard decades ago was not what she 
heard now. . . . By performing more sophisticated statistical analyses on both sets of data, 
[Casey and Le Boeuf] confirmed that dialects existed back then but had vanished. Yet there 
are other differences between the males from the late 1960s and their great-great-
grandsons: Modern males exhibit more individual diversity, and their calls are more 
complex. While 50 years ago the drumming pattern was quite simple and the dialects 
denoted just a change in tempo, Casey explained, the calls recorded today have more 
complex structures, sometimes featuring doublets or triplets. . . . 
Q.1 From the passage it can be inferred that the call pulse rate of male northern elephant 
seals in the southern rookeries was faster because: 
1. a large number of male northern elephant seals from Año Nuevo Island might have 
migrated to the southern rookeries to recolonise them. 
2. a large number of male northern elephant seals migrated from the southern rookeries 
to Año Nuevo Island in the early 1970s. 
3. the male northern elephant seals of Isla Guadalupe with faster call pulse rates might 
have been the original settlers of the southern rookeries. 
4. the calls of male northern elephant seals in the southern rookeries have more 
sophisticated structures, containing doublets and triplets. 
Q.2 Which one of the following conditions, if true, could have ensured that male northern 
elephant seal dialects did not disappear? 
1. The call tempo of individual immigrant male seals changed to match the average tempo 
of resident male seals in the host colony. 
2. Besides Isla Guadalupe, there was one more founder colony with the same average male 
call tempo from which male seals migrated to various other colonies. 
CAT 2020 question paper (slot-1) 
 
 
3. The call tempo of individual male seals in host colonies changed to match the average 
call tempo of immigrant male seals. 
4. Besides Isla Guadalupe, there was one more surviving colony with the same average 
male call tempo from which no migration took place. 
Q.3 Which one of the following best sums up the overall history of transformation of male 
northern elephant seal calls? 
1. The calls have transformed from exhibiting simple composition, great individual variety, 
and less regional variety to complex composition, less individual variety, and great 
regional variety. 
2. Owing to migrations in the aftermath of near species extinction, the average call pulse 
rates in the recolonised breeding locations exhibited a gradual increase until they 
matched the tempo at the founding colony. 
3. The calls have transformed from exhibiting simple composition, less individual variety, 
and great regional variety to complex composition, great individual variety, and less 
regional variety. 
4. Owing to migrations in the aftermath of near species extinction, the calls have 
transformed from exhibiting complex composition, less individual variety, and great 
regional variety to simple composition, less individual variety, and great regional variety. 
Q.4 All of the following can be inferred from Le Boeuf’s study as described in the passage 
EXCEPT that: 
1. male northern elephant seals might not have exhibited dialects had they not become 
nearly extinct in the nineteenth century. 
2. the average call pulse rate of male northern elephant seals at Año Nuevo Island 
increased from the early 1970s till the disappearance of dialects. 
3. the influx of new northern elephant seals into Año Nuevo Island would have soon made 
the call pulse rate of its male seals exceed that of those at Isla Guadalupe. 
4. changes in population and migration had no effect on the call pulse rate of individual 
male northern elephant seals. 
CAT 2020 question paper (slot-1) 
 
 
Direction for Reading Comprehension: The pass ages given here are followed by some 
questions that have four answer choices; read the passage carefully and pick the option 
whose answer best aligns with the passage 
Vocabulary used in speech or writing organizes itself in seven parts of speech (eight, if you 
count interjections such as Oh! and Gosh! and Fuhgeddaboudit!). Communication 
composed of these parts of speech must be organized by rules of grammar upon which we 
agree. When these rules break down, confusion and misunderstanding result. Bad grammar 
produces bad sentences. My favorite example from Strunk and White is this one: “As a 
mother of five, with another one on the way, my ironing board is always up.” 
Nouns and verbs are the two indispensable parts of writing. Without one of each, no group 
of words can be a sentence, since a sentence is, by definition, a group of words containing a 
subject (noun) and a predicate (verb); these strings of words begin with a capital letter, end 
with a period, and combine to make a complete thought which starts in the writer’s head 
and then leaps to the reader’s. 
Must you write complete sentences each time, every time? Perish the thought. If your work 
consists only of fragments and floating clauses, the Grammar Police aren’t going to come 
and take you away. Even William Strunk, that Mussolini of rhetoric, recognized the delicious 
pliability of language. “It is an old observation,” he writes, “that the best writers sometimes 
disregard the rules of rhetoric.” Yet he goes on to add this thought, which I urge you to 
consider: “Unless he is certain of doing well, [the writer] will probably do best to follow the 
rules.” 
The telling clause here is Unless he is certain of doing well. If you don’t have a rudimentary 
grasp of how the parts of speech translate into coherent sentences, how can you be certain 
that you are doing well? How will you know if you’re doing ill, for that matter? The answer, 
of course, is that you can’t, you won’t. One who does grasp the rudiments of grammar finds 
a comforting simplicity at its heart, where there need be only nouns, the words that name, 
and verbs, the words that act. 
Take any noun, put it with any verb, and you have a sentence. It never fails. Rocks explode. 
Jane transmits. Mountains float. These are all perfect sentences. Many such thoughts make 
CAT 2020 question paper (slot-1) 
 
 
little rational sense, but even the stranger ones (Plums deify!) have a kind of poetic weight 
that’s nice. The simplicity of noun-verb construction is useful—at the very least it can 
provide a safety net for your writing. Strunk and White caution against too many simple 
sentences in a row, but simple sentences provide a path you can follow when you fear 
getting lost in the tangles of rhetoric—all those restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses, those 
modifying phrases, those appositives and compound-complex sentences. If you start to 
freak out at the sight of such unmapped territory (unmapped by you, at least), just remind 
yourself that rocks explode, Jane transmits, mountains float, and plums deify. Grammar is . . 
. the pole you grab to get your thoughts up on their feet and walking. 
[QUESTION] 
Q.5 Inferring from the passage, the author could be most supportive of which one of the 
following practices? 
1. The critique of standardised rules of punctuation and capitalisation. 
2. A campaign demanding that a writer’s creative license should allow the breaking of 
grammatical rules. 
3. A Creative Writing course that focuses on how to avoid the use of rhetoric. 
4. The availability of language software that will standardise the rules of grammar as an aid 
to writers 
Q.6 “Take any noun, put it with any verb, and you have a sentence. It never fails. Rocks 
explode. Jane transmits. Mountains float.” None of the following statements can be seen as 
similar EXCEPT: 
1. Take an apple tree, plant it in a field, and you have an orchard. 
2. A group of nouns arranged in a row becomes a sentence. 
3. A collection of people with the same sports equipment is a sports team. 
4. Take any vegetable, put some spices in it, and you have a dish. 
Q.7 All of the following statements can be inferred from the passage EXCEPT that: 
1. the primary purpose of grammar is to ensure that sentences remain simple. 
2. the subject–predicate relation is the same as the noun–verb relation.