The actual Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension section from CAT 2023, Slot 1 — 24 questions in original paper order, each with a full worked solution. Tap an option (or type your answer) to check yourself before reading the solution.
24 questions20 MCQ · 4 TITA40 min section0/24 attempted
Q1Para SummaryMCQ
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Manipulating information was a feature of history long before modern journalism established rules of integrity. A record dates back to ancient Rome, when Antony met Cleopatra and his political enemy Octavian launched a smear campaign against him with “short, sharp slogans written upon coins.” The perpetrator became the first Roman Emperor and “fake news had allowed Octavian to hack the republican system once and for all”. But the 21st century has seen the weaponization of information on an unprecedented scale. Powerful new technology makes the fabrication of content simple, and social networks amplify falsehoods peddled by States, populist politicians, and dishonest corporate entities. The platforms have become fertile ground for computational propaganda, ‘trolling’ and ‘troll armies’.
Show solution
Correct answer: C
A good summary must carry both halves of the paragraph — the old truth and the new twist.
The paragraph makes two moves:
Twisting information for power is ancient — Octavian's coin-slogans against Antony, where "fake news had allowed Octavian to hack the republican system."
The 21st century has weaponised this "on an unprecedented scale," with new tech making fabrication easy and social networks amplifying it.
So the essence is: an age-old tactic for grabbing power, now supercharged by technology — option C ("a practice that is as old as the Octavian era... is currently fueled by technology").
Why the others fail:
(A) drops the purpose (for power) and the scale; it reads as a weak "not new" claim.
(B) adds a prescription ("people need to become critical") the passage never makes.
(D) over-focuses on Octavian and underplays the technology point.
RESIDENTS of Lozère, a hilly department in southern France, recite complaints familiar to many rural corners of Europe. In remote hamlets and villages, with names such as Le Bacon and Le Bacon Vieux, mayors grumble about a lack of local schools, jobs, or phone and internet connections. Farmers of grazing animals add another concern: the return of wolves. Eradicated from France last century, the predators are gradually creeping back to more forests and hillsides. “The wolf must be taken in hand,” said an aspiring parliamentarian, Francis Palombi, when pressed by voters in an election campaign early this summer. Tourists enjoy visiting a wolf park in Lozère, but farmers fret over their livestock and their livelihoods. . . .
As early as the ninth century, the royal office of the Luparii—wolf-catchers—was created in France to tackle the predators. Those official hunters (and others) completed their job in the 1930s, when the last wolf disappeared from the mainland. Active hunting and improved technology such as rifles in the 19th century, plus the use of poison such as strychnine later on, caused the population collapse. But in the early 1990s the animals reappeared. They crossed the Alps from Italy, upsetting sheep farmers on the French side of the border. Wolves have since spread to areas such as Lozère, delighting environmentalists, who see the predators’ presence as a sign of wider ecological health. Farmers, who say the wolves cause the deaths of thousands of sheep and other grazing animals, are less cheerful. They grumble that green activists and politically correct urban types have allowed the return of an old enemy.
Various factors explain the changes of the past few decades. Rural depopulation is part of the story. In Lozère, for example, farming and a once-flourishing mining industry supported a population of over 140,000 residents in the mid-19th century. Today the department has fewer than 80,000 people, many in its towns. As humans withdraw, forests are expanding. In France, between 1990 and 2015, forest cover increased by an average of 102,000 hectares each year, as more fields were given over to trees. Now, nearly one-third of mainland France is covered by woodland of some sort. The decline of hunting as a sport also means more forests fall quiet. In the mid-to-late 20th century over 2m hunters regularly spent winter weekends tramping in woodland, seeking boars, birds and other prey. Today the Fédération Nationale des Chasseurs, the national body, claims 1.1m people hold hunting licences, though the number of active hunters is probably lower. The mostly protected status of the wolf in Europe—hunting them is now forbidden, other than when occasional culls are sanctioned by the state —plus the efforts of NGOs to track and count the animals, also contribute to the recovery of wolf populations.
As the lupine population of Europe spreads westwards, with occasional reports of wolves seen closer to urban areas, expect to hear of more clashes between farmers and those who celebrate the predators’ return. Farmers’ losses are real, but are not the only economic story. Tourist venues, such as parks where wolves are kept and the animals’ spread is discussed, also generate income and jobs in rural areas.
Q2Reading ComprehensionMCQ
Which one of the following has NOT contributed to the growing wolf population in Lozère?
Show solution
Correct answer: C
This is a "which factor does NOT belong" question, so sort the passage's causes into two piles and find the one on the wrong side.
The passage tells two separate stories: how wolves were wiped out (up to the 1930s) and how they have come back (1990s onward). The question asks only about the comeback, so any cause that belongs to the extinction story is your answer.
Growth factors the passage names:
(A) rural depopulation — Lozère fell from over 140,000 people to under 80,000, so humans withdrew and forests spread.
(B) more woodland — forest cover grew about 102,000 hectares a year, giving wolves cover.
(D) protected status — hunting wolves is now largely forbidden, and NGOs track and count them.
Why C is the odd one: the royal office of the Luparii — the official wolf-catchers — "completed their job in the 1930s, when the last wolf disappeared." Shutting them down belongs to the eradication story, and in any case they were the ones killing wolves, so their end is not a driver of the recent growth.
The inhabitants of Lozère have to grapple with all of the following problems, EXCEPT:
Show solution
Correct answer: D
Find the item that is not a hardship the people of Lozère themselves face.
Check each against the text:
(A) lack of schools — "mayors grumble about a lack of local schools." A real problem.
(B) poor phone/internet — "a lack of... phone and internet connections." A real problem.
(C) livestock losses — "farmers fret over their livestock," and wolves cause "the deaths of thousands of sheep." A real problem.
That leaves D, the decline in hunting licences. The passage does mention fewer hunters, but as a nationwide background reason the forests fell quiet and wolves recovered — not as a problem the residents of Lozère complain about. So it is the exception.
Which one of the following statements, if true, would weaken the author’s claims?
Show solution
Correct answer: C
To weaken an author, find the statement that clashes with something they actually assert.
The author's picture of tourism is upbeat: tourists "enjoy visiting a wolf park," and "tourist venues... generate income and jobs," offered as an economic bright side to set against the farmers' losses. Nowhere does the author suggest wolves are dangerous to visitors.
Why C weakens it: if "wolf attacks on tourists in Lozère are on the rise," that strikes straight at the rosy tourism claim — the wolves would be attacking the very visitors the economic argument depends on.
Why the others don't wound the author:
(A) just restates the passage (wolves gone last century, back now) — it fits.
(B) unemployment worrying residents is already implied by "lack of... jobs."
(D) old mines now used for grazing fits the mining-decline story.
The author presents a possible economic solution to an existing issue facing Lozère that takes into account the divergent and competing interests of:
Show solution
Correct answer: C
Name the two groups whose clash the tourism idea is meant to soften.
The passage sets two camps against each other: farmers, who blame wolves for "the deaths of thousands of sheep," and environmentalists, who "see the predators' presence as a sign of wider ecological health."
The author then offers tourism as the peace-maker — "Farmers' losses are real, but... Tourist venues... generate income and jobs in rural areas" — a way to give farmers an economic return while the wolves the environmentalists prize stay protected. So the competing interests being bridged are farmers and environmentalists.
For early postcolonial literature, the world of the novel was often the nation. Postcolonial novels were usually [concerned with] national questions. Sometimes the whole story of the novel was taken as an allegory of the nation, whether India or Tanzania. This was important for supporting anti-colonial nationalism, but could also be limiting - land-focused and inward-looking.
My new book “Writing Ocean Worlds” explores another kind of world of the novel: not the village or nation, but the Indian Ocean world. The book describes a set of novels in which the Indian Ocean is at the centre of the story. It focuses on the novelists Amitav Ghosh, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Lindsey Collen and Joseph Conrad [who have] centred the Indian Ocean world in the majority of their novels. . . . Their work reveals a world that is outward-looking - full of movement, border-crossing and south-south interconnection. They are all very different - from colonially inclined (Conrad) to radically anti-capitalist (Collen), but together draw on and shape a wider sense of Indian Ocean space through themes, images, metaphors and language. This has the effect of remapping the world in the reader’s mind, as centred in the interconnected global south. . . .
The Indian Ocean world is a term used to describe the very long-lasting connections among the coasts of East Africa, the Arab coasts, and South and East Asia. These connections were made possible by the geography of the Indian Ocean. For much of history, travel by sea was much easier than by land, which meant that port cities very far apart were often more easily connected to each other than to much closer inland cities. Historical and archaeological evidence suggests that what we now call globalisation first appeared in the Indian Ocean. This is the interconnected oceanic world referenced and produced by the novels in my book. . . .
For their part Ghosh, Gurnah, Collen and even Conrad reference a different set of histories and geographies than the ones most commonly found in fiction in English. Those [commonly found ones] are mostly centred in Europe or the US, assume a background of Christianity and whiteness, and mention places like Paris and New York. The novels in [my] book highlight instead a largely Islamic space, feature characters of colour and centralise the ports of Malindi, Mombasa, Aden, Java and Bombay. . . . It is a densely imagined, richly sensory image of a southern cosmopolitan culture which provides for an enlarged sense of place in the world.
This remapping is particularly powerful for the representation of Africa. In the fiction, sailors and travellers are not all European. . . . African, as well as Indian and Arab characters, are traders, nakhodas (dhow ship captains), runaways, villains, missionaries and activists. This does not mean that Indian Ocean Africa is romanticised. Migration is often a matter of force; travel is portrayed as abandonment rather than adventure, freedoms are kept from women and slavery is rife. What it does mean is that the African part of the Indian Ocean world plays an active role in its long, rich history and therefore in that of the wider world.
Q6Reading ComprehensionMCQ
Which one of the following statements is not true about migration in the Indian Ocean world?
Show solution
Correct answer: A
"Not true about migration" — find the statement the passage actually contradicts.
Why A is the answer: The passage is emphatic that the Indian Ocean world is a south–south network: the novels' world is "outward-looking — full of movement, border-crossing and south-south interconnection," "centred in the interconnected global south." The connections listed — "the coasts of East Africa, the Arab coasts, and South and East Asia" — are all within the global south. So a claim that these networks "connected the global north with the global south" reverses the passage's central point. That is the false statement.
Why the others are true:
Location rather than proximity determined destinations — "port cities very far apart were often more easily connected to each other than to much closer inland cities."
Networks shaped by religious and commercial histories — the world is "a largely Islamic space" threaded by trade and the ports of Malindi, Mombasa, Aden, Java, Bombay.
Migration was an ambivalent experience — it is "often a matter of force," travel "portrayed as abandonment rather than adventure," slavery "rife" — plainly mixed.
On the basis of the nature of the relationship between the items in each pair below, choose the odd pair out:
Show solution
Correct answer: B
An odd-pair-out: three pairs correctly link a group to a defining trait; one pair attaches the trait to the wrong group. Test each link against the passage.
A — Indian Ocean novels: Outward-looking — holds; these novels "reveal a world that is outward-looking."
C — Indian Ocean world: Slavery — holds; of this world, "slavery is rife."
D — Postcolonial novels: Anti-colonial nationalism — holds; early postcolonial novels were "concerned with national questions" and "important for supporting anti-colonial nationalism."
That leaves B — Postcolonial novels: Border-crossing. The passage attaches "border-crossing" not to postcolonial novels but to Indian Ocean novels ("outward-looking — full of movement, border-crossing and south-south interconnection"). Postcolonial novels are described as the opposite — "land-focused and inward-looking." So B pins a trait on the wrong group; it is the odd pair.
All of the following statements, if true, would weaken the passage’s claim about the relationship between mainstream English-language fiction and Indian Ocean novels EXCEPT:
Show solution
Correct answer: D
The passage draws a contrast between mainstream English fiction (Euro/US-centred, Christian, white) and Indian Ocean novels (Islamic, non-white, global-south). The question asks which statement would NOT weaken that contrast — i.e. the one that actually reinforces it.
Why D is the answer: "most mainstream English-language novels have historically privileged the Christian, white, male experience of travel and adventure" restates the author's own claim almost verbatim — that mainstream fiction has "privileged" a "Christian" and "white" experience (Paris, New York). Supporting the contrast is the opposite of weakening it, so D is the EXCEPT.
Why the others would weaken it:
Indian Ocean novels' Africa is driven by postcolonial nostalgia for an idyllic past — undermines their authenticity, denting the contrast.
Indian Ocean novels' Africa is driven by an Orientalist imagination — pins on them the very charge the author levels at mainstream fiction, collapsing the contrast.
Very few mainstream novels were set in American/European metropolitan centres — contradicts the author's claim about their Euro/US centre.
All of the following claims contribute to the “remapping” discussed by the passage, EXCEPT:
Show solution
Correct answer: C
"Remapping" here means re-centring the world on the interconnected global south / Indian Ocean, with globalisation beginning there, not in the West. Find the claim that works against this remapping.
Why C is the answer: "cosmopolitanism originated in the West and travelled to the East through globalisation" is precisely the Eurocentric story the remapping overturns. The passage instead celebrates "a southern cosmopolitan culture" and says globalisation "first appeared in the Indian Ocean." So C does the opposite of contributing to the remapping — it is the exception.
Why the others contribute:
Indian Ocean novels go beyond national concerns to explore rich regional pasts — moving beyond the nation to a wider oceanic world is the remapping.
Early trade was not the sole domain of white Europeans — traders were "African, as well as Indian and Arab," which re-centres commerce.
The global south was the first centre of globalisation — "what we now call globalisation first appeared in the Indian Ocean."
The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3 and 4) given below, when properly sequenced, would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequencing of the order of the sentences and key in the sequence of the four numbers as your answer.
1. Algorithms hosted on the internet are accessed by many, so biases in AI models have resulted in much larger impact, adversely affecting far larger groups of people.
2. Though “algorithmic bias” is the popular term, the foundation of such bias is not in algorithms, but in the data; algorithms are not biased, data is, as algorithms merely reflect persistent patterns that are present in the training data.
3. Despite their widespread impact, it is relatively easier to fix AI biases than human-generated biases, as it is simpler to identify the former than to try to make people unlearn behaviors learnt over generations.
4. The impact of biased decisions made by humans is localised and geographically confined, but with the advent of AI, the impact of such decisions is spread over a much wider scale.
Show solution
Correct answer: 4123
Lock the opening idea, then let the repeated phrases chain the rest.
4 opens with the core contrast: human bias is "localised... but with the advent of AI, the impact... is spread over a much wider scale."
1 explains why AI's reach is wider — "Algorithms hosted on the internet are accessed by many, so biases... have resulted in much larger impact." Its "much larger impact" picks up 4's "much wider scale."
2 then corrects where the bias really sits: "the foundation of such bias is not in algorithms, but in the data."
3 must come last: its opening "Despite their widespread impact" refers back to that same wide impact, and it ends on the hopeful note that AI bias is easier to fix than human bias.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Colonialism is not a modern phenomenon. World history is full of examples of one society gradually expanding by incorporating adjacent territory and settling its people on newly conquered territory. In the sixteenth century, colonialism changed decisively because of technological developments in navigation that began to connect more remote parts of the world. The modern European colonial project emerged when it became possible to move large numbers of people across the ocean and to maintain political control in spite of geographical dispersion. The term colonialism is used to describe the process of European settlement, violent dispossession and political domination over the rest of the world, including the Americas, Australia, and parts of Africa and Asia.
Show solution
Correct answer: C
Catch the paragraph's spine — what changed, when, and why.
The paragraph says colonialism is old, but it "changed decisively" in the sixteenth century because of navigation technology, which let Europeans move large numbers of people across oceans and hold political control over distant lands. So the essence is: navigation advances transformed colonialism into the European project of settlement and domination over far-off regions — option C.
Why the others fail:
(A) misplaces the change ("global political changes in the 16th century") and over-weights the displacement of native peoples, which is only one strand.
(B) is wrong on a key word — colonialism was not "conceptualized" in the 16th century; it already existed and was transformed.
(D) wrongly narrows to "British" settlements when the passage says European.
Many human phenomena and characteristics - such as behaviors, beliefs, economies, genes, incomes, life expectancies, and other things - are influenced both by geographic factors and by non-geographic factors. Geographic factors mean physical and biological factors tied to geographic location, including climate, the distributions of wild plant and animal species, soils, and topography. Non-geographic factors include those factors subsumed under the term culture, other factors subsumed under the term history, and decisions by individual people. . . . [
T]he differences between the current economies of North and South Korea . . . cannot be attributed to the modest environmental differences between [them] . . . They are instead due entirely to the different [government] policies . . . At the opposite extreme, the Inuit and other traditional peoples living north of the Arctic Circle developed warm fur clothes but no agriculture, while equatorial lowland peoples around the world never developed warm fur clothes but often did develop agriculture. The explanation is straightforwardly geographic, rather than a cultural or historical quirk unrelated to geography. . . . Aboriginal Australia remained the sole continent occupied only by hunter/gatherers and with no indigenous farming or herding . . . [Here the] explanation is biogeographic: the Australian continent has no domesticable native animal species and few domesticable native plant species. Instead, the crops and domestic animals that now make Australia a food and wool exporter are all non-native (mainly Eurasian) species such as sheep, wheat, and grapes, brought to Australia by overseas colonists.
Today, no scholar would be silly enough to deny that culture, history, and individual choices play a big role in many human phenomena. Scholars don’t react to cultural, historical, and individual-agent explanations by denouncing “cultural determinism,” “historical determinism,” or “individual determinism,” and then thinking no further. But many scholars do react to any explanation invoking some geographic role, by denouncing “geographic determinism” . . .
Several reasons may underlie this widespread but nonsensical view. One reason is that some geographic explanations advanced a century ago were racist, thereby causing all geographic explanations to become tainted by racist associations in the minds of many scholars other than geographers. But many genetic, historical, psychological, and anthropological explanations advanced a century ago were also racist, yet the validity of newer non-racist genetic etc. explanations is widely accepted today.
Another reason for reflex rejection of geographic explanations is that historians have a tradition, in their discipline, of stressing the role of contingency (a favorite word among historians) based on individual decisions and chance. Often that view is warranted . . . But often, too, that view is unwarranted. The development of warm fur clothes among the Inuit living north of the Arctic Circle was not because one influential Inuit leader persuaded other Inuit in 1783 to adopt warm fur clothes, for no good environmental reason.
A third reason is that geographic explanations usually depend on detailed technical facts of geography and other fields of scholarship . . . Most historians and economists don’t acquire that detailed knowledge as part of the professional training.
Q12Reading ComprehensionMCQ
All of the following are advanced by the author as reasons why non-geographers disregard geographic influences on human phenomena EXCEPT their:
Show solution
Correct answer: D
The author gives three distinct reasons why non-geographers dismiss geographic explanations. Find the option that is not one of those reasons.
The three reasons:
Past racist geographic explanations "tainted" all such explanations → matches "lingering impressions of past geographic analyses that were politically offensive."
Historians' tradition of stressing contingency, "individual decisions and chance" → matches the human-centred belief that people, not surroundings, drive phenomena.
Geographic explanations need "detailed technical facts" that "most historians and economists don't acquire... as part of the professional training" → matches the disciplinary-training option.
Why D is the answer: "dismissal of explanations that involve geographical causes" is not a reason for the dismissal — it is the dismissal itself, the very thing being explained. Offering it as a reason would be circular. So D is the exception.
The author criticises scholars who are not geographers for all of the following reasons EXCEPT:
Show solution
Correct answer: B
Find the option that is NOT a criticism the author actually makes of non-geographers.
A is a criticism: he faults them for rejecting biogeographic factors ("denouncing 'geographic determinism'").
C is a criticism: he chides historians for over-weighting "individual decisions and chance" ("often, too, that view is unwarranted").
D is a criticism: he objects to their labelling geographic explanations "deterministic."
Why B is the answer: "their outdated interpretations of past cultural and historical phenomena" is never said. The passage discusses outdated racist geographic explanations, but it does not accuse non-geographers of holding outdated cultural or historical interpretations. That charge is invented by the option.
💡 Teacher tip: In "author criticises X for all EXCEPT" questions, the wrong option often takes a real theme (here, "outdated racist explanations") and quietly re-points it at a target the author never criticised.
All of the following can be inferred from the passage EXCEPT:
Show solution
Correct answer: C
Find the statement the passage does not support.
A is supported: Inuit fur clothing "was not because one influential Inuit leader persuaded other Inuit in 1783" — i.e. not individual dictat/contingency, but geography.
B is supported: Aboriginal Australia had no farming; "the crops and domestic animals that now make Australia a food and wool exporter are all non-native... brought... by overseas colonists" — agriculture changed after colonisation.
D is supported: "many genetic, historical, psychological, and anthropological explanations advanced a century ago were also racist."
Why C is the answer: the passage never says "most" human phenomena result from culture/individual choice with only "some" from biogeography. Its whole argument is that geographic factors are systematically under-credited and are major causes; it opens by saying many phenomena are influenced both by geographic and non-geographic factors. Conceding that "most" are cultural is a distortion the passage does not make.
The examples of the Inuit and Aboriginal Australians are offered in the passage to show:
Show solution
Correct answer: B
The question asks what job the Inuit and Aboriginal-Australian examples do in the argument.
Both are introduced as the "opposite extreme" to the North/South Korea case — situations where "the explanation is straightforwardly geographic" or "biogeographic." The Inuit developed fur clothes but no agriculture because of the Arctic; Aboriginal Australians developed no farming or herding because the continent "has no domesticable native animal species and few domesticable native plant species." The point is that physical circumstances dictated these outcomes.
Why B is the answer: "how physical circumstances can dictate human behaviour and cultures" states exactly that.
Why the others fail:
Human resourcefulness in adapting — misreads the examples as tales of ingenuity; the passage uses them to show determination by environment, not cleverness.
Despite isolation, traditional societies were self-sufficient and adaptive — gets it backwards; Aboriginal Australians are cited for lacking farming/herding.
Environmental factors lead to divergent paths in livelihoods and development — treats the two as a comparison with each other, but they are two separate illustrations of the same single point (geographic determination); B captures that point itself.
There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: The discovery helps to explain archeological similarities between the Paleolithic peoples of China, Japan, and the Americas.
Paragraph: The researchers also uncovered an unexpected genetic link between Native Americans and Japanese people. ___(1)___. During the deglaciation period, another group branched out from northern coastal China and travelled to Japan. ___(2)___. "We were surprised to find that this ancestral source also contributed to the Japanese gene pool, especially the indigenous Ainus," says Li. ___(3)___. They shared similarities in how they crafted stemmed projectile points for arrowheads and spears. ___(4)___. "This suggests that the Pleistocene connection among the Americas, China, and Japan was not confined to culture but also to genetics," says senior author Qing-Peng Kong, an evolutionary geneticist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Show solution
Correct answer: B
A sentence goes where its opening links cleanly back, and its close leads naturally into what follows.
The sentence to place is: "The discovery helps to explain archeological similarities between the Paleolithic peoples of China, Japan, and the Americas." Two clues fix its home.
"The discovery" needs a discovery just before it. The nearest is Li's line that "this ancestral source also contributed to the Japanese gene pool" — the genetic finding.
It mentions "archeological similarities," and the sentence right after slot 3 says, "They shared similarities in how they crafted stemmed projectile points..." — a perfect elaboration.
So the sentence sits after the Li quote and before the projectile-points line — that is Option 3. Placing it at 4 would break the tight link between the crafted-points detail and Kong's closing remark on genetics.
Five jumbled up sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5), related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd sentence and key in the number of that sentence as your answer.
1. In English, there is no systematic rule for the naming of numbers; after ten, we have "eleven" and "twelve" and then the teens: "thirteen", "fourteen", "fifteen" and so on.
2. Even more confusingly, some English words invert the numbers they refer to: the word "fourteen" puts the four first, even though it appears last.
3. It can take children a while to learn all these words, and understand that "fourteen" is different from "forty".
4. For multiples of 10, English speakers switch to a different pattern: "twenty", "thirty", "forty" and so on.
5. If you didn't know the word for "eleven", you would be unable to just guess it - you might come up with something like "one-teen".
Show solution
Correct answer: 3
Keep the sentences that are about one idea; drop the one that changes subject.
Sentences 1, 2, 4 and 5 are all about how irregular English number-words are: no systematic rule (1), the unguessable "eleven" (5), the inverted "fourteen" (2), and the switch to a new pattern for the tens — "twenty, thirty, forty" (4). Together they catalogue the messiness of the naming system itself.
Why 3 is the odd one: it shifts the topic to learners — "It can take children a while to learn all these words, and understand that 'fourteen' is different from 'forty'." That is about the effect on children, not the structure of the names, so it is the tangent.
[Fifty] years after its publication in English [in 1972], and just a year since [Marshall] Sahlins himself died—we may ask: why did [his essay] “Original Affluent Society” have such an impact, and how has it fared since? . . . Sahlins’s principal argument was simple but counterintuitive: before being driven into marginal environments by colonial powers, hunter-gatherers, or foragers, were not engaged in a desperate struggle for meager survival. Quite the contrary, they satisfied their needs with far less work than people in agricultural and industrial societies, leaving them more time to use as they wished. Hunters, he quipped, keep bankers’ hours. Refusing to maximize, many were “more concerned with games of chance than with chances of game.” . . . The so-called Neolithic Revolution, rather than improving life, imposed a harsher work regime and set in motion the long history of growing inequality . . .
Moreover, foragers had other options. The contemporary Hadza of Tanzania, who had long been surrounded by farmers, knew they had alternatives and rejected them. To Sahlins, this showed that foragers are not simply examples of human diversity or victimhood but something more profound: they demonstrated that societies make real choices. Culture, a way of living oriented around a distinctive set of values, manifests a fundamental principle of collective self- determination. . . .
But the point [of the essay] is not so much the empirical validity of the data—the real interest for most readers, after all, is not in foragers either today or in the Paleolithic—but rather its conceptual challenge to contemporary economic life and bourgeois individualism. The empirical served a philosophical and political project, a thought experiment and stimulus to the imagination of possibilities.
With its title’s nod toward The Affluent Society (1958), economist John Kenneth Galbraith’s famously skeptical portrait of America’s postwar prosperity and inequality, and dripping with New Left contempt for consumerism, “The Original Affluent Society” brought this critical perspective to bear on the contemporary world. It did so through the classic anthropological move of showing that radical alternatives to the readers’ lives really exist. If the capitalist world seeks wealth through ever greater material production to meet infinitely expansive desires, foraging societies follow “the Zen road to affluence”: not by getting more, but by wanting less. If it seems that foragers have been left behind by “progress,” this is due only to the ethnocentric self-congratulation of the West. Rather than accumulate material goods, these societies are guided by other values: leisure, mobility, and above all, freedom. . . .
Viewed in today’s context, of course, not every aspect of the essay has aged well. While acknowledging the violence of colonialism, racism, and dispossession, it does not thematize them as heavily as we might today. Rebuking evolutionary anthropologists for treating present-day foragers as “left behind” by progress, it too can succumb to the temptation to use them as proxies for the Paleolithic. Yet these characteristics should not distract us from appreciating Sahlins’s effort to show that if we want to conjure new possibilities, we need to learn about actually inhabitable worlds.
Q18Reading ComprehensionMCQ
We can infer that Sahlins's main goal in writing his essay was to:
Show solution
Correct answer: C
A "main goal" answer must capture the essay's central purpose, not a side point.
The passage is explicit that Sahlins's real target was modern, acquisitive society. Its point was "its conceptual challenge to contemporary economic life and bourgeois individualism"; it was "dripping with New Left contempt for consumerism"; and it used foragers — who follow "the Zen road to affluence: not by getting more, but by wanting less" — to show that "radical alternatives to the readers' lives really exist."
That is exactly C: holding a mirror up to an acquisitive society using communities that chose non-materialism and made it work.
Why the others fall short:
(A) progress breeds inequality is a supporting point, not the main aim.
(B) "degenerated into materialism" is a decline-lament the essay does not centre.
(D) is simply false — Sahlins did not counter Galbraith; his title nods to Galbraith and joins his critique.
The author mentions Tanzania’s Hadza community to illustrate:
Show solution
Correct answer: C
Find the specific lesson the author draws from the example, not just the situation.
The text is precise: the Hadza "had long been surrounded by farmers, knew they had alternatives and rejected them. To Sahlins, this showed that foragers... demonstrated that societies make real choices."
So the Hadza are cited to prove that a foraging life was a deliberate choice, not the result of never knowing anything better — option C.
Why the others miss:
(A) survival techniques — the point is choice, not know-how.
(B) not hampering farming neighbours — not what the example argues.
(D) two ways of life coexisting — that describes the setting, not the lesson Sahlins draws from it.
The author of the passage mentions Galbraith’s “The Affluent Society” to:
Show solution
Correct answer: D
Work out the job the Galbraith reference does in the argument.
The passage calls Galbraith's The Affluent Society "a famously skeptical portrait of America's postwar prosperity and inequality," and says Sahlins's title nods to it and "brought this critical perspective to bear on the contemporary world." In other words, Sahlins is on the same side as Galbraith, extending his attack on consumerism and inequality through anthropology.
So his views complement Galbraith's criticism — option D.
Why the others fail:
(A) says Galbraith refutes Sahlins — the opposite of the truth; they are allies.
(B) states the essay's general theme but not the reason Galbraith is named.
(C) "document the influence" is close but weaker and off in tone ("cynical"); the reference's real function is to show the two critiques align.
The author of the passage criticises Sahlins’s essay for its:
Show solution
Correct answer: A
Find the author's own criticism of Sahlins, stated in the last part of the passage.
The author says it plainly: "While acknowledging the violence of colonialism, racism, and dispossession, it does not thematize them as heavily as we might today." That is a complaint that the essay treats racism and colonialism too lightly — option A.
Why the others fail:
(B) recasts the second criticism (using today's foragers "as proxies for the Paleolithic") as "outdated values," but the author frames it as a method slip, not a values problem.
(C) rebuking anthropologists is something the essay does, not a fault the author finds.
(D) is explicitly denied — the author says the essay's point was "not so much the empirical validity of the data," so a lack of data was never the issue.
Five jumbled up sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5), related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd sentence and key in the number of that sentence as your answer.
1. Having an appreciation for the workings of another person’s mind is considered a prerequisite for natural language acquisition, strategic social interaction, reflexive thought, and moral judgment.
2. It is a ‘theory of mind’ though some scholars prefer to call it ‘mentalizing’ or ‘mindreading’, which is important for the development of one's cognitive abilities.
3. Though we must speculate about its evolutionary origin, we do have indications that the capacity evolved sometime in the last few million years.
4. This capacity develops from early beginnings in the first year of life to the adult’s fast and often effortless understanding of others’ thoughts, feelings, and intentions.
5. One of the most fascinating human capacities is the ability to perceive and interpret other people’s behaviour in terms of their mental states.
Show solution
Correct answer: 2
Four sentences share one subject; the odd one drifts or merely repeats.
Sentences 5, 4, 3 and 1 all describe a single human capacity — reading other people's minds — from different angles:
5 names it: "the ability to perceive and interpret other people's behaviour in terms of their mental states."
4 traces its development: "This capacity develops from early beginnings..." — and "this capacity" ties it back to 5.
3 turns to its evolution: "the capacity evolved... in the last few million years."
1 states its importance: a prerequisite for language, social interaction, reflexive thought, and moral judgment.
Why 2 is the misfit: its "It is a 'theory of mind'" has no clean anchor inside the group (the four never name the capacity "theory of mind"), and its tail — that the capacity "is important for the development of one's cognitive abilities" — just echoes what 1 already says. It adds nothing and interrupts.
There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: This philosophical cut at one’s core beliefs, values, and way of life is difficult enough.
Paragraph: The experience of reading philosophy is often disquieting. When reading philosophy, the values around which one has heretofore organised one’s life may come to look provincial, flatly wrong, or even evil. ___(1)___. When beliefs previously held as truths are rendered implausible, new beliefs, values, and ways of living may be required. ___(2)___. What’s worse, philosophers admonish each other to remain unsutured until such time as a defensible new answer is revealed or constructed. Sometimes, philosophical writing is even strictly critical in that it does not even attempt to provide an alternative after tearing down a cultural or conceptual citadel. ___(3)___. The reader of philosophy must be prepared for the possibility of this experience. While reading philosophy can help one clarify one’s values, and even make one self-conscious for the first time of the fact that there are good reasons for believing what one believes, it can also generate unremediated doubt that is difficult to live with. ___(4)___.
Show solution
Correct answer: D
Watch the phrase "difficult enough" — it almost always sets up an "and it gets worse" beat.
The sentence to place is: "This philosophical cut at one's core beliefs, values, and way of life is difficult enough." Right after slot 2, the paragraph continues, "What's worse, philosophers admonish each other to remain unsutured..."
The pairing "difficult enough... what's worse" is the giveaway, so the sentence belongs immediately before it — Option 2. Its opening "This philosophical cut..." also points back to the preceding lines about beliefs being "rendered implausible" and new ones "required."
The flow reads: old beliefs collapse → "this cut is difficult enough" → "what's worse, you must stay unsettled" → sometimes no alternative is offered → the reader must be ready.
The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3 and 4) given below, when properly sequenced, would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequencing of the order of the sentences and key in the sequence of the four numbers as your answer.
1. What precisely are the “unusual elements” that make a particular case so attractive to a certain kind of audience?
2 . It might be a particularly savage or unfathomable level of depravity, very often it has something to do with the precise amount of mystery involved.
3. Unsolved, and perhaps unsolvable cases offer something that “ordinary” murder doesn’t.
4. Why are some crimes destined for perpetual re-examination and others locked into permanent obscurity?
Show solution
Correct answer: 4123
Find the opener that needs nothing before it, then follow the questions and pronouns.
4 opens — a broad rhetorical question framing the whole topic: "Why are some crimes destined for perpetual re-examination and others locked into permanent obscurity?"
1 narrows that question: "What precisely are the 'unusual elements' that make a particular case so attractive...?"
2 answers 1, and its "It might be..." refers to those unusual elements: "a particularly savage... level of depravity... something to do with the... mystery involved."
3 closes the thought, explaining why such cases grip us: "Unsolved, and perhaps unsolvable cases offer something that 'ordinary' murder doesn't."