RCs: 41 to 50 Questions for CAT with Answers PDF

Instructions: Read the following passage and answer the questions given below:
Suspicion is a beast with a thousand eyes, but most of them are blind, or colour-blind, or askew, or rolling, or yellow. It is a beast with a thousand ears, but most of them are like the ears of the deaf man in the comic recitation who, when you say “whiskers” hears “solicitors,” and when you are talking about the weather thinks you are threatening to murder him. It is a beast with a thousand tongues, and they are all slanderous.
On the whole, it is the most loathsome monster outside the pages of “The Faërie Queene”. Just as the ugliest ape that ever was born is all the more repellent for being so like a man, so suspicion is all the more hideous because it is so close a caricature of the passion for truth. It is a leering perversion of that passion which sent Columbus looking for a lost continent and urged Galileo to turn his telescope on the heavens.
Columbus may, in a sense, be said to have suspected that America was there, and Galileo suspected more than was good for his comfort about the conduct of the stars. But these were noble suspicions–leaps into the light. They are no more comparable to the suspicions which are becoming a feature of public life than the energies of an explorer of the South Pole are comparable to the energies of one of those private detectives who are paid to grub after evidence in divorce cases.
One might put it a good deal more strongly, indeed, for the private detective may in his own way be an officer of truth and humanity, while the suspicious politician is the prophet only of party disreputableness. He is like the average suspicious husband, in the case of whom, even when his suspicions are true, one is inclined to sympathise with the wife for being married to so green-eyed a fool. Suspicion, take it all in all, is the most tedious and scrannel of the sins.
It would be folly, of course, to suggest that there is no such thing as justifiable suspicion. If you see a man in a Tube lift with his hand on some old gentleman’s watch-chain, you are justified in suspecting that his object is something less innocent than to persuade the old gentleman to become a Plymouth Brother. But the man of suspicious temperament is not content with cases of this sort. He is the sort of man who, if it were not for the law of libel, would suspect the Rev. F. B. Meyer of having stolen La Gioconda from the Louvre.
Q1: What is the main point of the paragraph?
(a) Suspicious men are rarely justified in their suspicions and almost never listen to reason
(b) Suspicion is nothing like passion for truth as the latter is the domain of intellectuals while the former is the domain of rabblerousers
(c) Suspicion is a loathsome monster, all the more loathsome for its close resemblance to the pursuit of truth
(d) Though some suspicions are justified, most of them are fancies of unstable minds
Ans: (c)
Sol: The main point of the passage is the repulsiveness of suspicion and how it is a gross caricature of passion for truth. Option C most appropriately captures this point.

Q2: Which of the following can be inferred from the paragraph?
(a) Suspicion was personified in some tales of “The Faërie Queene” as a green monster
(b) The misgivings of a suspicious mind often extend to cases where there is little to no reason for there to be doubt
(c) The author believes that women cheat on their husbands because they have suspicious fools for husbands
(d) The Rev. F.B. Meyer was the victim of a malicious campaign driven by a suspicious mind
Ans: (b)
Sol: We can infer statement B from the last paragraph where the author states that “But the man of suspicious temperament is not content with cases of this sort”. Hence this implies that a man with a suspicious temperament suspects even in cases where there is no reason to suspect.

Q3: Which of the following would strengthen the author’s main point?
(a) Most of the world’s discoveries and inventions have been made by curious minds, not by suspicious minds
(b) Galileo was dismissed by his peers as having an unsound mind
(c) The passion for truth involves some amount of danger as it involves challenging socially accepted view of things
(d) Women with suspicious husbands are far more likely to cheat as compared to women with trusting husbands
Ans: (a)
Sol: The main point of the paragraph is that Suspicion is repulsive and unlike the passion for truth has no noble qualities. The first option ties in with the assertion of the author that the likes of Galileo and Columbus had a passion for truth and not a suspicious temperament.

Q4: What is the author’s attitude towards Galileo?
(a) The author believes that Galileo had a passion for truth and pursued truth even though it put him danger
(b) The author thinks Galileo had a suspicious mind but believes his suspicions were justified
(c) The author thinks Galileo had a suspicious temperament but forgives this folly due to Galileo’s other considerable gifts
(d) The author considers Galileo in the same league as the ordinary private detective who is hired to dig up dirt in divorce cases
Ans: (a)
Sol: We can infer the author’s attitude towards Galileo from the line “Galileo suspected more than was good for his comfort about the conduct of the stars”. The line implies that Galileo’s ideas put him in danger.

Q5: What is the main point of the example of the “man in the Tube” in the last paragraph?
(a) When there is incontrovertible evidence against suspected party, suspicion is justified
(b) Suspicion can rot the best of minds and make them see things that did not occur
(c) Suspicion of theft can at times be justified but mud-slinging can never be justified
(d) Some suspicions are perfectly justified
Ans: (d)
Sol: The example states that not all suspicions are baseless and some may be perfectly justified. The author does not insist on incontrovertible evidence but just the appearance of impropriety.