CATLab

CAT 2024 VARC Questions — Slot 1

The actual Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension section from CAT 2024, 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 questions22 MCQ · 2 TITA40 min section0/24 attempted
Q1Para SummaryMCQ

17. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage. Cartographers design and create maps to communicate information about phenomena located somewhere on our planet. In the past, cartographers did not worry too much about who was going to read their maps. Although some simple “usability” research was done—like comparing whether circle or bar symbols worked best—cartographers knew how to make maps. This has changed now, however, due to all kinds of societal and technological developments. Today, map readers are more demanding—mostly because of the tools they use to read maps. Cartographers, who are also influenced by these trends, are now more interested in seeing if their products are efficient, effective, and appreciated.

Show solution

Correct answer: A

A para-summary: the winning option states the main point and the cause the paragraph gives for it.

Main point. Cartographers used to not worry much about who read their maps. That has changed: "due to all kinds of societal and technological developments," readers are now more demanding — largely because of the tools they use — so cartographers now care whether their maps are efficient, effective and appreciated (i.e. usable).

Why A is right. "Today, cartographers also need to look into the usability of maps because of the new technological developments" states both the shift (usability now matters) and its cause (technological developments).

Why the others fail.

  • B adds "through a series of experiments" — the passage never says cartographers run experiments; that detail is unsupported.
  • C keeps only the readers-are-more-demanding half and drops the cartographers' usability response and the technological cause.
  • D reframes the change as cartographers "experimenting with innovations," but the point is reader usability, not playing with new technology.

Answer: A

Practice more Para Summary ↗Ask in Doubts ↗
Q2Para SummaryMCQ

5. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage. Scientific research shows that many animals are very intelligent and have sensory and motor abilities that dwarf ours. Dogs are able to detect diseases such as cancer and diabetes and warn humans of impending heart attacks and strokes. Elephants, whales, hippopotamuses, giraffes, and alligators use low-frequency sounds to communicate over long distances, often miles. Many animals also display wide-ranging emotions, including joy, happiness, empathy, compassion, grief, and even resentment and embarrassment. It’s not surprising that animals share many emotions with us because we also share brain structures, located in the limbic system, that are the seat of our emotions.

Show solution

Correct answer: B

A para-summary: the best summary carries the paragraph's main point together with its cause — not just one true-sounding detail.

Main point. The paragraph lists striking animal abilities (dogs detecting disease, elephants and whales communicating over miles) but its real payoff is the last line: animals share many emotions with us because we share brain structures in the limbic system, "the seat of our emotions." Shared brain structure (cause) explains shared emotions (effect).

Why B is right. "The similarity in brain structure explains why animals show emotions typically associated with humans" captures precisely that cause-to-effect link.

Why the others fail.

  • A pins the emotions on "sensory and motor abilities" — the wrong cause; the passage gives brain structure.
  • C states a true sub-point (animals show human-like emotions) but drops the why — it misses the brain-structure explanation that is the paragraph's whole point.
  • D narrows everything to intelligence and disease-detection and omits the emotion-and-brain core entirely.

Answer: B

Practice more Para Summary ↗Ask in Doubts ↗
Q3Para CompletionMCQ

11. 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: Understanding central Asia’s role helps developments make more sense not only across Asia but in Europe, the Americas and Africa. Paragraph: The nations of the Silk Roads are sometimes called ‘developing countries’, but they are actually some of the world’s most highly developed countries, the very crossroads of civilization, in advanced states of disrepair. ___(1)___. These countries lie at the centre of global affairs: they have since the beginning of history. Running across the spine of Asia, they form a web of connections fanning out in every direction, routes along which pilgrims and warriors, nomads and merchants have travelled, goods and produce have been bought and sold, and ideas exchanged, adapted and refined. ___(2)___. They have carried not only prosperity, but also death and violence, disease and disaster. ___(3)___. The Silk Roads are the world’s central nervous system, connecting otherwise far-flung peoples and places…. ___(4)___. It allows us to see patterns and links, causes and effects that remain invisible if one looks only at Europe, or North America.

Show solution

Correct answer: D

A sentence-insertion question: look for the slot where the inserted sentence gives the next sentence's pronoun something to refer to, and where its wording is echoed straight after.

Missing sentence: "Understanding central Asia's role helps developments make more sense not only across Asia but in Europe, the Americas and Africa."

Try slot 4: "The Silk Roads are the world's central nervous system… [insert] It allows us to see patterns and links, causes and effects that remain invisible if one looks only at Europe, or North America."

Two signals lock it in. First, "It" in the following sentence now has a clean referent — understanding central Asia's role. Second, the continents named in the inserted sentence (Europe, the Americas, Africa) are immediately echoed by "Europe, or North America." No other slot offers both a pronoun match and this geographic echo.

Answer: Option 4 (D)

Practice more Para Completion ↗Ask in Doubts ↗
Q4Para CompletionMCQ

10. 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: Comprehending a wide range of emotions, Renaissance music nevertheless portrayed all emotions in a balanced and moderate fashion. Paragraph: A volume of translated Italian madrigals were published in London during the year of 1588. This sudden public interest facilitated a surge of English Madrigal writing as well as a spurt of other secular music writing and publication. ___(1)___. This music boom lasted for thirty years and was as much a golden age of music as British literature was with Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth I. ___(2)___. The rebirth in both literature and music originated in Italy and migrated to England; the English madrigal became more humorous and lighter in England as compared to Italy. Renaissance music was mostly polyphonic in texture. ___(3)___. Extreme use of and contrasts in dynamics, rhythm, and tone colour do not occur. ___(4)___. The rhythms in Renaissance music tend to have a smooth, soft flow instead of a sharp, well-defined pulse of accents.

Show solution

Correct answer: B

A sentence-insertion question: the missing sentence belongs where the sentence right after it develops the very idea it introduces.

Missing sentence: "Comprehending a wide range of emotions, Renaissance music nevertheless portrayed all emotions in a balanced and moderate fashion."

Try slot 3: "Renaissance music was mostly polyphonic in texture. [insert] Extreme use of and contrasts in dynamics, rhythm, and tone colour do not occur. The rhythms… tend to have a smooth, soft flow…"

The inserted sentence supplies the theme — balanced and moderate — and the sentence immediately after ("Extreme use… do not occur") is its direct elaboration: no extremes is what balanced and moderate means. No other slot gives "balanced and moderate" anything to attach to; slots 1, 2 and 4 sit among ideas about the music boom and polyphony, which the inserted line does not continue.

Answer: Option 3 (B)

Practice more Para Completion ↗Ask in Doubts ↗
Passage · Literature & Arts
In the summer of 2022, subscribers to the US streaming service HBO MAX were alarmed to discover that dozens of the platform’s offerings - from the Covid-themed heist thriller Locked Down to the recent remake of The Witches - had been quietly removed from the service . . . The news seemed like vindication to those who had long warned that streaming was more about controlling access to the cultural commons than expanding it, as did reports (since denied by the show’s creators) that Netflix had begun editing old episodes of Stranger Things to retroactively improve their visual effects. What’s less clear is whether the commonly prescribed cure for these cultural ills - a return to the material pleasures of physical media - is the right one. While the makers of Blu-ray discs claim they have a shelf life of 100 years, such statistics remain largely theoretical until they come to pass, and are dependent on storage conditions, not to mention the continued availability of playback equipment. The humble DVD has already proved far less resilient, with many early releases already beginning to deteriorate in quality Digital movie purchases provide even less security. Any film “bought” on iTunes could disappear if you move to another territory with a different rights agreement and try to redownload it. It’s a bold new frontier in the commodification of art: the birth of the product recall. After a man took to Twitter to bemoan losing access to Cars 2 after moving from Canada to Australia, Apple clarified that users who downloaded films to their devices would retain permanent access to those downloads, even if they relocated to a hemisphere where the [content was] subject to a different set of rights agreements. Thanks to the company’s ironclad digital rights management technology, however, such files cannot be moved or backed up, locking you into watching with your Apple account. Anyone who does manage to acquire Digital Rights Management free (DRM-free) copies of their favourite films must nonetheless grapple with ever-changing file format standards, not to mention data decay - the gradual process by which electronic information slowly but surely corrupts. Only the regular migration of files from hard drive to hard drive can delay the inevitable, in a sisyphean battle against the ravages of digital time. In a sense, none of this is new. Charlie Chaplin burned the negative of his 1926 film A Woman of the Sea as a tax write-off. Many more films have been lost through accident, negligence or plain indifference. During a heatwave in July 1937, a Fox film vault in New Jersey burned down, destroying a majority of the silent films produced by the studio. Back then, at least, cinema was defined by its ephemerality: the sense that a film was as good as gone once it left your local cinema. Today, with film studios keen to stress the breadth of their back catalogues (or to put in Hollywood terms, the value of their IPs), audiences may start to wonder why those same studios seem happy to set the vault alight themselves if it’ll help next quarter’s numbers.
Q5Reading ComprehensionMCQ

21. Which one of the following statements about art best captures the arguments made in the passage?

Show solution

Correct answer: B

A main-argument question: trace the passage's spine end to end and pick the option that names the mechanism it keeps returning to.

Why B is right. The passage's central claim is that as art is created, stored and distributed digitally, access to it becomes paradoxically more fragile — threatened by two forces. First, "the rapid churn in technology": changing file formats, data decay, and the "sisyphean" need to keep migrating files. Second, "the whims of host platforms": HBO Max's quiet removals, geo-blocked rights, Apple's DRM lock-in. B names both forces precisely.

Why the others fail.

  • A gestures at the theme but stays vague and never states the mechanism (tech churn plus platform whim) the whole passage builds toward.
  • C turns the editing example into a claim about creators getting lazy — not the argument; the Stranger Things edit is offered as evidence of untrustworthy custody, not of reduced effort.
  • D ("must remain available in perpetuity") is the critics' position, which the author raises as something to be tested — "whether… the right one" — not the passage's own thesis.

Answer: B

Practice more Reading Comprehension ↗Ask in Doubts ↗
Q6Reading ComprehensionMCQ

22. Which one of the following statements, if true, would best invalidate the main argument of the passage?

Show solution

Correct answer: B

To invalidate an argument you must dissolve its central worry, not just one sub-example — so first name the core claim.

The main argument: digital art access is precarious because platforms control it (removals, DRM, geo-blocking) and technology churns (formats, data decay). The strongest counter removes the platform-control half at its root.

Why B is right. If studios and streaming services "commit to giving customers perpetual and platform-independent access" to content they have paid for, then the central fears — quiet removals, Apple lock-in, losing a film when you move countries — vanish at the source. B strikes the root of the argument.

Why the others fail.

  • A only proves Blu-ray durability — it settles one physical-media sub-point and leaves the digital-access argument untouched.
  • C (VPNs to dodge geo-blocking) fixes only the geography problem, not removals or DRM.
  • D (cloud storage ending file migration) fixes only the data-decay half; platform removals would still stand.

Answer: B

Practice more Reading Comprehension ↗Ask in Doubts ↗
Q7Reading ComprehensionMCQ

23. Which of the following statements is suggested by the sentence “Back then, at least, cinema was defined by its ephemerality: the sense that a film was as good as gone once it left your local cinema”?

Show solution

Correct answer: B

The key is the phrase "Back then, at least…," which is built to set up a contrast with today — so read for the implication about the present.

Why B is right. "At least" signals that ephemerality was the accepted norm then: a film was "as good as gone once it left your local cinema." The unstated contrast is that today films are expected to remain available long after their cinema run — the very reason audiences are surprised when studios remove them. B spells out that implication: today films are expected to be available for a long time, no longer tied solely to the cinema.

Why the others fail.

  • A is plausible but stays on the past side and never draws the contrast the "at least" is designed to make.
  • C attributes the change to "improved technology," which the passage does not — the contrast is about expectations and back-catalogues, not preservation tech.
  • D is a normative overreach ("no reason studios should…"); the sentence implies an expectation, not a rule.

Answer: B

Practice more Reading Comprehension ↗Ask in Doubts ↗
Q8Reading ComprehensionMCQ

24. “Netflix had begun editing old episodes of Stranger Things to retroactively improve their visual effects.” What is the purpose of this example used in the passage?

Show solution

Correct answer: C

Ask what role the Stranger Things example plays in its own sentence — it is grouped with the HBO Max removals as "vindication" for a particular warning.

Why C is right. The sentence reads: "The news seemed like vindication to those who had long warned that streaming was… controlling access to the cultural commons…, as did reports… that Netflix had begun editing old episodes of Stranger Things." The editing example is cited to justify the fears of people who distrust streaming services as custodians of cultural artefacts — quietly altering old episodes is exactly the kind of tampering a poor custodian does. C matches that vindication role.

Why the others fail.

  • A ("controlling access… rather than expanding it") fits the HBO removal half; editing content is about altering the artefact, not access, so A does not fit this example.
  • B hinges on the reports being "unsubstantiated," but the "(since denied)" is a parenthetical aside, not the example's purpose.
  • D makes a sweeping claim that art is "no longer sacrosanct"; the example's local job is to vindicate specific distrust, not to argue a general thesis about changing tastes.

Answer: C

Practice more Reading Comprehension ↗Ask in Doubts ↗
Passage · Business & Economics
Oftentimes, when economists cross borders, they are less interested in learning from others than in invading their garden plots. Gary Becker, for instance, pioneered the idea of human capital. To do so, he famously tackled topics like crime and domesticity, applying methods honed in the study of markets to domains of nonmarket life. He projected economics outward into new realms: for example, by revealing the extent to which humans calculate marginal utilities when choosing their spouses or stealing from neighbors. At the same time, he did not let other ways of thinking enter his own economic realm: for example, he did not borrow from anthropology or history or let observations of nonmarket economics inform his homo economicus. Becker was a picture of the imperial economist in the heyday of the discipline’s bravura. Times have changed for the once almighty discipline. Economics has been taken to task, within and beyond its ramparts. Some economists have reached out, imported, borrowed, and collaborated—been less imperial, more open. Consider Thomas Piketty and his outreach to historians. The booming field of behavioral economics—the fusion of economics and social psychology—is another case. Having spawned active subfields, like judgment, decisionmaking and a turn to experimentation, the field aims to go beyond the caricature of Rational Man to explain how humans make decisions…. It is important to underscore how this flips the way we think about economics. For generations, economists have presumed that people have interests —“preferences,” in the neoclassical argot—that get revealed in the course of peoples’ choices. Interests come before actions and determine them. If you are hungry, you buy lunch; if you are cold, you get a sweater. If you only have so much money and can’t afford to deal with both your growling stomach and your shivering, which need you choose to meet using your scarce savings reveals your preference. Psychologists take one look at this simple formulation and shake their heads. Increasingly, even some mainstream economists have to admit that homo economicus doesn’t always behave like the textbook maximizer; irrational behavior can’t simply be waved away as extraeconomic expressions of passions over interests, and thus the domain of other disciplines…. This is one place where the humanist can help the economist. If narrative economics is going to help us understand how rivals duke it out, who wins and who loses, we are going to need much more than lessons from epidemiological studies of viruses or intracranial stimuli. Above all, we need politics and institutions. Shiller [the Nobel prize winning economist] connects perceptions of narratives to changes in behavior and thence to social outcomes. He completes a circle that was key to behavioral economics and brings in storytelling to make sense of how perceptions get framed. This cycle (perception to behavior to society) was once mediated or dominated by institutions: the political parties, lobby groups, and media organizations that played a vital role in legitimating, representing, and excluding interests. Yet institutions have been stripped from Shiller’s account, to reveal a bare dynamic of emotions and economics, without the intermediating place of politics.
Q9Reading ComprehensionMCQ

6. We can infer from the passage that the term “homo economicus” refers to someone who:

Show solution

Correct answer: C

"Homo economicus" is the textbook model-person of economics — so find what the passage attributes to that figure specifically.

Why C is right. The passage lays out the model: people have "preferences" that "get revealed in the course of peoples' choices," and "interests come before actions and determine them" — you spend scarce resources to best satisfy those interests. It calls this figure the "textbook maximizer." That is someone who makes rational decisions based on their own preferences.

Why the others fail.

  • A ("not influenced by the preferences and choices of others") is never discussed — the passage says nothing about others' influence.
  • B ("borrowing and collaborating with other disciplines") describes the discipline of economics and its recent openness, not the model-person.
  • D tacks on "nonmarket choices," but that was Becker's application of the model to nonmarket life — not part of what homo economicus itself means.

Answer: C

Practice more Reading Comprehension ↗Ask in Doubts ↗
Q10Reading ComprehensionMCQ

7. “Times have changed for the once almighty discipline.” We can infer from this statement and the associated paragraph that the author is being:

Show solution

Correct answer: A

This is a tone question: read "Times have changed for the once almighty discipline" together with the paragraph around it.

Why A is right. The author is wryly marking a reversal of fortune. Economists were once "imperial" — projecting their methods outward (Becker on crime and marriage) while refusing to let other fields into their own realm. Now they "reach out, import, borrow, and collaborate," becoming "less imperial, more open." The phrase "once almighty" carries clear irony at their earlier pretension. A captures exactly that: economists who earlier shunned other disciplines are now incorporating them.

Why the others fail.

  • B blames "inability to precisely predict market behaviour" — the passage never gives prediction failure as the reason for the shift; that is invented.
  • C speaks of "crises" and the "downfall of this lofty science," but economics is described as opening up, not collapsing.
  • D says the author is critical of the borrowing — the opposite; the author approves of the new openness, praising Piketty and behavioural economics.

Answer: A

Practice more Reading Comprehension ↗Ask in Doubts ↗
Q11Reading ComprehensionMCQ

8. The author critiques Schiller’s approach to behavioural economics for:

Show solution

Correct answer: C

Pin down exactly what the author faults in Shiller — the criticism is stated in one precise line.

Why C is right. The passage says: "Yet institutions have been stripped from Shiller's account, to reveal a bare dynamic of emotions and economics, without the intermediating place of politics." Shiller connects perceptions and narratives to behaviour and social outcomes, but he leaves out the social institutions (parties, lobby groups, media) that the author insists must mediate that cycle. C states this precisely: he links emotions and behaviour without the mediation of social institutions.

Why the others fail.

  • A calls the role of media and politics "marginal," but the passage stresses institutions played a "vital" role — A reverses the emphasis.
  • B says Shiller "denigrated" institutions; he merely omitted (stripped) them. Actively attacking is not the same as leaving out.
  • D faults Shiller for excess storytelling, yet the author credits him with usefully bringing storytelling in — the only fault is the missing institutions.

Answer: C

Practice more Reading Comprehension ↗Ask in Doubts ↗
Q12Reading ComprehensionMCQ

9. In the first paragraph the author is making the point that economists like Becker:

Show solution

Correct answer: C

The question asks what the first paragraph says economists like Becker actually did — so read the paragraph's own description of his practice.

Why C is right. Becker "projected economics outward" — applying market methods to nonmarket life such as crime and domesticity — "but did not let other ways of thinking enter his own economic realm… he did not borrow from anthropology or history." In short, he used economics to analyse non-market behaviour, without incorporating perspectives from other disciplines. C.

Why the others fail.

  • A ("benefitted") reads approval into a paragraph the author frames critically — "the imperial economist… bravura."
  • B reverses the facts: Becker did not borrow from other disciplines.
  • D ("guarding their discipline from poaching") would mean stopping others from applying economics to their turf; Becker's one-way street was the opposite — he wouldn't let other disciplines' thinking into economics.

Answer: C

Practice more Reading Comprehension ↗Ask in Doubts ↗
Passage · Business & Economics
. . . [T]he idea of craftsmanship is not simply nostalgic. . . . Crafts require distinct skills, an allround approach to work that involves the whole product, rather than individual parts, and an attitude that necessitates devotion to the job and a focus on the communal interest. The concept of craft emphasises the human touch and individual judgment. Essentially, the crafts concept seems to run against the preponderant ethos of management studies which, as the academics note, have long prioritised efficiency and consistency. . . . Craft skills were portrayed as being primitive and traditionalist. The contrast between artisanship and efficiency first came to the fore in the 19th century when British manufacturers suddenly faced competition from across the Atlantic as firms developed the “American system” using standardised parts. . . . the worldwide success of the Singer sewing machine showed the potential of a mass-produced device. This process created its own reaction, first in the form of the Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th century, and then again in the “small is beautiful” movement of the 1970s. A third crafts movement is emerging as people become aware of the environmental impact of conventional industry. There are two potential markets for those who practise crafts. The first stems from the existence of consumers who are willing to pay a premium price for goods that are deemed to be of extra quality. . . . The second market lies in those consumers who wish to use their purchases to support local workers, or to reduce their environmental impact by taking goods to craftspeople to be mended, or recycled. For workers, the appeal of craftsmanship is that it allows them the autonomy to make creative choices, and thus makes a job far more satisfying. In that sense, it could offer hope for the overall labour market. Let the machines automate dull and repetitive tasks and let workers focus purely on their skills, judgment and imagination. As a current example, the academics cite the “agile” manifesto in the software sector, an industry at the heart of technological change. The pioneers behind the original agile manifesto promised to prioritise “individuals and interactions over processes and tools”. By bringing together experts from different teams, agile working is designed to improve creativity. But the broader question is whether crafts can create a lot more jobs than they do today. Demand for crafted products may rise but will it be easy to retrain workers in sectors that might get automated (such as truck drivers) to take advantage? In a world where products and services often have to pass through regulatory hoops, large companies will usually have the advantage. History also suggests that the link between crafts and creativity is not automatic. Medieval craft guilds were monopolies which resisted new entrants. They were also highly hierarchical with young men required to spend long periods as apprentices and journeymen before they could set up on their own; by that time the innovative spirit may have been knocked out of them. Craft workers can thrive in the modern era, but only if they don’t get too organised.
Q13Reading ComprehensionMCQ

1. We can infer from the passage that medieval crafts guilds resembled mass production in that both:

Show solution

Correct answer: A

This asks for the one trait shared by two things the passage treats as opposites — medieval craft guilds and mass production — so hunt for the property the text attaches to both.

Why A is right. Near the end the author states that "the link between crafts and creativity is not automatic," and shows the medieval guilds "knocked" the innovative spirit out of long-serving apprentices — so guilds did not necessarily promote creativity. Mass production, the guilds' opposite in the passage, is likewise about efficiency and standardised parts, "let the machines automate dull and repetitive tasks" — creativity is plainly not its aim either. So, despite being opposites, both share the feature of not necessarily fostering creativity. The qualifier "not necessarily" matters: the claim is that creativity wasn't guaranteed, not that it never happened.

Why the others fail.

  • B ("restricting entry through strict rules") fits guilds, which "resisted new entrants," but not mass production — so the "both" requirement breaks.
  • C notes guilds were hierarchical, but the passage never makes hierarchy the shared feature with mass production; it is a tangent.
  • D ("focused excessively on product quality") suits neither — mass production trades handcraft quality for standardisation.

Answer: A

Practice more Reading Comprehension ↗Ask in Doubts ↗
Q14Reading ComprehensionMCQ

2. Which one of the following statements is NOT inconsistent with the views stated in the passage?

Show solution

Correct answer: B

"NOT inconsistent" is a double negative that simply means "consistent with the passage" — so pick the statement the author would actually endorse.

Why B is right. The passage's closing line is explicit: "Craft workers can thrive in the modern era, but only if they don't get too organised." That is exactly B — if the market for artisan goods becomes too organised, creativity gets stifled. The whole medieval-guild example exists to make this very point: over-organisation kills innovation.

Why the others fail.

  • A calls creativity "intrinsic" to craft production, but the passage insists the crafts-creativity link is "not automatic" — A reverses the author's stance.
  • C gets the history backwards: the Arts and Crafts movement was a reaction against the "American system" of mass production, not inspired by it.
  • D ties the agile movement to medieval guilds, but agile is praised for prioritising "individuals and interactions over processes and tools" — the opposite of the hierarchical, monopolistic guilds.

Answer: B

Practice more Reading Comprehension ↗Ask in Doubts ↗
Q15Reading ComprehensionMCQ

3. The author questions the ability of crafts to create substantial employment opportunities presently because:

Show solution

Correct answer: B

The question wants the specific present-day reason the author gives for doubting that crafts can create large-scale employment — so find the sentence that states it.

Why B is right. The author writes: "In a world where products and services often have to pass through regulatory hoops, large companies will usually have the advantage." That is precisely B — regulatory requirements make it hard for small crafts outfits to compete, so they cannot scale up and hire in large numbers.

Why the others fail.

  • A ("low scale of crafts production") is never claimed; the author does not argue that crafts are inherently small-scale.
  • C distorts the retraining point. The author asks whether it will be "easy to retrain" displaced workers such as truck drivers — a question of feasibility — whereas C reframes it as workers being "unlikely to opt for" crafts work, a matter of willingness.
  • D reaches for the historical guild example, but the author's present-tense worry is retraining plus regulation, not guilds resisting entry.

Answer: B

Practice more Reading Comprehension ↗Ask in Doubts ↗
Q16Reading ComprehensionMCQ

4. The most recent revival in interest in the crafts is a result of the emergence of all of the following EXCEPT:

Show solution

Correct answer: A

An EXCEPT question: list the real drivers of the most recent crafts revival that the passage names, then pick the option that is not one of them.

The passage attributes the recent (third) crafts movement to: environmental concern — "a third crafts movement is emerging as people become aware of the environmental impact of conventional industry"; a premium market of buyers "willing to pay a premium price for goods… of extra quality"; and a market of consumers who "support local workers" or reduce their environmental impact by mending and recycling.

  • B (environmental concern), C (the quality-premium niche) and D (buying locally) are all named drivers.
  • A — "support for individual creations as opposed to mass-produced objects" — describes the general, timeless ethos of craft (the "human touch and individual judgment") that has always defined it. It is not a newly emergent cause of the most recent revival, so it is the EXCEPT.

Answer: A

Practice more Reading Comprehension ↗Ask in Doubts ↗
Q17Para CompletionMCQ

18. 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 brain isn’t organized the way you might set up your home office or bathroom medicine cabinet. Paragraph: ___(1)___. You can’t just put things anywhere you want to. The evolved architecture of the brain is haphazard and disjointed, and incorporates multiple systems, each of which has a mind of its own. ___(2)___. Evolution doesn’t design things and it doesn’t build systems—it settles on systems that, historically, conveyed a survival benefit. There is no overarching, grand planner engineering the systems so that they work harmoniously together. ___(3)___. The brain is more like a big, old house with piecemeal renovations done on every floor, and less like new construction. ___(4)___.

Show solution

Correct answer: B

A sentence-insertion question: the missing sentence should state a thesis that the next line immediately spells out — and it should not clash with imagery used later.

Missing sentence: "The brain isn't organized the way you might set up your home office or bathroom medicine cabinet."

Try slot 1: "[insert] You can't just put things anywhere you want to. The evolved architecture of the brain is haphazard and disjointed…"

The inserted sentence states the thesis — the brain is not a neatly organised space — and "You can't just put things anywhere you want to" is its immediate consequence, a natural opening. Crucially, the paragraph later closes with a different metaphor, "a big, old house with piecemeal renovations," so dropping the home-office image at slot 3 or 4 would collide with that closing house picture. Slot 1 is the clean fit.

Answer: Option 1 (B)

Practice more Para Completion ↗Ask in Doubts ↗
Q18Odd One OutTITA

12. 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. Urbanites also have more and better options for getting around: Uber is ubiquitous; easy-to-rent dockless bicycles are spreading; battery-powered scooters will be next. 2. When more people use buses or trains the service usually improves because public-transport agencies run more buses and trains. 3. Worsening services on public transport, terrorist attacks in some urban metros and a rise in fares have been blamed for this trend. 4. It seems more likely that public transport is being squeezed structurally as people’s need to travel is diminishing as a result of smartphones, videoconferencing, online shopping and so on. 5. There has been a puzzling decline in the use of urban public transport in many countries in the west, despite the growth in urban populations and rising employment.

Show solution

Correct answer: 2

This is an odd-one-out: find the single idea that unites four of the sentences into a paragraph, then spot the one that does not join the chain.

The unifying thread is the puzzle of falling public-transport use and its explanation:

  • 5 opens with the puzzle: a "puzzling decline" in urban public-transport use across the West, despite growing populations and rising employment.
  • 3 follows — "this trend" loops straight back to 5, listing the usual scapegoats: worsening service, metro attacks, higher fares.
  • 4 gives the author's preferred, deeper reason: "It seems more likely" that transport is being squeezed structurally because people simply need to travel less (smartphones, videoconferencing, online shopping).
  • 1 adds a second structural pressure: "Urbanites also have more and better options" — Uber, dockless bikes, scooters.

So 5 → 3 → 4 → 1 reads cleanly. Sentence 2 — "When more people use buses or trains the service usually improves" — is a general truism about ridership lifting service quality. It has nothing to do with why ridership is falling here; it neither follows 5 nor leads anywhere. It is the odd one out.

Answer: 2

Practice more Odd One Out ↗Ask in Doubts ↗
Q19Odd One OutTITA

20. 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. Animals have an interest in fulfilling their basic needs, but also in avoiding suffering, and thus we ought to extend moral consideration. 2. Singer viewed himself as a utilitarian, and presents a direct moral theory concerning animal rights, in contrast to indirect positions, such as welfarist views. 3. He argued for extending moral consideration to animals because, similar to humans, animals have certain significant interests. 4. The event that publicly announced animal rights as a legitimate issue within contemporary philosophy was Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation text in 1975. 5. As such, we ought to view their interests alongside and equal to human interests, which results in humans having direct moral duties towards animals.

Show solution

Correct answer: 1

In an odd-one-out, four sentences share one tight thread and the fifth wanders off it. Find the thread, then the stray.

The four that belong all revolve around Peter Singer and his case for animal rights:

  • Sentence 4 opens the paragraph: it names the event — Singer's Animal Liberation (1975) — that first made animal rights a serious philosophical topic. A true opener introduces its subject with no back-reference, and 4 does exactly that.
  • Sentence 2 says what his theory is: Singer saw himself as a utilitarian offering a direct moral theory, unlike indirect (welfarist) views.
  • Sentence 3 gives his reason: "He argued for extending moral consideration to animals because... animals have certain significant interests." The "He" points straight back to Singer.
  • Sentence 5 draws the conclusion: "As such, we ought to view their interests... equal to human interests." "As such" ties back to 3, and "their" = animals.

So 4 → 2 → 3 → 5 runs smoothly: who started it → what the theory is → why → what follows.

Sentence 1 — "Animals have an interest in fulfilling their basic needs... and thus we ought to extend moral consideration" — never mentions Singer and simply restates the idea already carried by sentence 3 (animals have interests, so extend moral consideration). It neither advances the chain nor connects to it, so it is the odd one out.

Answer: 1

Practice more Odd One Out ↗Ask in Doubts ↗
Passage · Environment & Ecology
Landing in Australia, the British colonists weren’t much impressed with the small-bodied, slender-snooted marsupials called bandicoots. “Their muzzle, which is much too long, gives them an air exceedingly stupid,” one naturalist noted in 1805. They nicknamed one type the “zebra rat” because of its black-striped rump. Silly-looking or not, though, the zebra rat—the smallest bandicoot, more commonly known today as the western barred bandicoot—exhibited a genius for survival in the harsh outback, where its ancestors had persisted for some 26 million years. Its births were triggered by rainfall in the bone-dry desert. It carried its breath-mint-size babies in a backward-facing pouch so mothers could forage for food and dig shallow, camouflaged shelters. Still, these adaptations did not prepare the western barred bandicoot for the colonial-era transformation of its ecosystem, particularly the onslaught of imported British animals, from cattle and rabbits that damaged delicate desert vegetation to ravenous house cats that soon developed a taste for bandicoots. Several of the dozen-odd bandicoot species went extinct, and by the 1940s the western barred bandicoot, whose original range stretched across much of the continent, persisted only on two predator-free islands in Shark Bay, off Australia’s western coast. “ Our isolated fauna had simply not been exposed to these predators,” says Reece Pedler, an ecologist with the Wild Deserts conservation program. Now Wild Deserts is using descendants of those few thousand island survivors, called Shark Bay bandicoots, in a new effort to seed a mainland bandicoot revival. They’ve imported 20 bandicoots to a preserve on the edge of the Strzelecki Desert, in the remote interior of New South Wales. This sanctuary is a challenging place, desolate much of the year, with one of the world’s most mercurial rainfall patterns—relentless droughts followed by sudden drenching floods. The imported bandicoots occupy two fenced “exclosures,” cleared of invasive rabbits (courtesy of Pedler’s sheepdog) and of feral cats (which slunk off once the rabbits disappeared). A third fenced area contains the program’s Wild Training Zone, where two other rare marsupials (bilbies, a larger type of bandicoot, and mulgaras, a somewhat fearsome fuzzball known for sucking the brains out of prey) currently share terrain with controlled numbers of cats, learning to evade them. It’s unclear whether the Shark Bay bandicoots, which are perhaps even more predator-naive than their now-extinct mainland bandicoot kin, will be able to make that kind of breakthrough. For now, though, a recent surge of rainfall has led to a bandicoot joey boom, raising the Wild Deserts population to about 100, with other sanctuaries adding to that number. There are also signs of rebirth in the landscape itself. With their constant digging, the bandicoots trap moisture and allow for seed germination so the cattle-damaged desert can restore itself. They have a new nickname—a flattering one, this time. “We call them ecosystem engineers,” Pedler says.
Q20Reading ComprehensionMCQ

13. According to the text, the western barred bandicoots now have a flattering name because they have:

Show solution

Correct answer: A

The flattering new name is "ecosystem engineers" — so find the behaviour that earned it.

Why A is right. The nickname comes from the bandicoots' "constant digging": they "trap moisture and allow for seed germination so the cattle-damaged desert can restore itself." That is literally altering an arid environment — turning damaged desert into land that can recover. A.

Why the others fail.

  • B — reviving the species is the conservation program's goal, but "ecosystem engineers" refers to transforming the landscape, not saving the bandicoot itself.
  • C — the population did grow to about 100, but population size is not what earned the name.
  • D — reverses cause and effect: the rainfall caused the joey boom; the bandicoots did not cause the rainfall.

Answer: A

Practice more Reading Comprehension ↗Ask in Doubts ↗
Q21Reading ComprehensionMCQ

14. Which one of the following options does NOT represent the characteristics of the western barred bandicoot?

Show solution

Correct answer: B

A NOT-a-characteristic question: match each option against the passage's actual description and find the one with a misstated detail.

The passage's facts: small-bodied and slender-snouted; nicknamed "zebra rat" for its black-striped rump; the smallest bandicoot; carries babies in a backward-facing pouch; digs shallow, camouflaged shelters; has a long muzzle.

  • A (shallow diggers with an elongated muzzle) — accurate.
  • C (rat-like, with a baby pouch and slender snout) — accurate.
  • D (long thin nose, black-striped back, pouch for joeys) — accurate.
  • B calls it the "smallest… marsupial," but the passage says the smallest bandicoot. Broadening "bandicoot" to "marsupial" overstates the claim, so B is the option that does not correctly represent the species.

Answer: B

Practice more Reading Comprehension ↗Ask in Doubts ↗
Q22Reading ComprehensionMCQ

15. The text uses the word ‘exclosures’ because Wild Deserts has adopted a measure of:

Show solution

Correct answer: D

An "exclosure" is a fence built to keep something out — so ask what Wild Deserts is keeping out.

Why D is right. The two fenced "exclosures" were "cleared of invasive rabbits (courtesy of Pedler's sheepdog) and of feral cats." The fences exist to bar invasive species from the protected area. D.

Why the others fail.

  • A — restoring the desert to green is a result of the bandicoots' digging; it is not what the word "exclosure" denotes.
  • B — bilbies are kept inside a separate Wild Training Zone, not excluded; and the exclosures are about rabbits and cats, not bilbies.
  • C — the islands were already predator-free; the exclosures are on the mainland preserve. Wrong setting.

Answer: D

Practice more Reading Comprehension ↗Ask in Doubts ↗
Q23Reading ComprehensionMCQ

16. Which one of the following statements provides a gist of this passage?

Show solution

Correct answer: D

A gist question: the passage has a clear two-part arc — near-extinction, then a rescue using island survivors — so pick the option that captures both halves.

Why D is right. "A type of bandicoots was nearly wiped out by invasive species" covers the decline (cattle, rabbits, feral cats), and "rescuers now pin hopes on a remnant island population" covers Wild Deserts using the Shark Bay island survivors to seed a mainland revival. D captures the whole arc.

Why the others fail.

  • A says the bandicoot went extinct — but it survived on two islands — and it captures only the decline half.
  • B blames the colonists' "negligent attitude" and the names for the "annihilation," but the nicknames did not cause the decline; invasive predators did.
  • C generalises to all marsupials and drops the rescue-and-revival half entirely.

Answer: D

Practice more Reading Comprehension ↗Ask in Doubts ↗
Q24Para SummaryMCQ

19. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage. Certain codes may, of course, be so widely distributed in a specific language community or culture, and be learned at so early an age, that they appear not to be constructed - the effect of an articulation between sign and referent - but to be ‘naturally’ given. Simple visual signs appear to have achieved a ‘near-universality’ in this sense: though evidence remains that even apparently ‘natural’ visual codes are culture specific. However, this does not mean that no codes have intervened; rather, that the codes have been profoundly naturalized. The operation of naturalized codes reveals not the transparency and ‘naturalness’ of language but the depth, the habituation and the near-universality of the codes in use. They produce apparently ‘natural’ recognitions. This has the (ideological) effect of concealing the practices of coding which are present.

Show solution

Correct answer: C

A para-summary: capture the paragraph's central claim together with its consequence, without overstating.

Main point. Language and visual signs are codes. Some codes are so widespread, and learned so early, that they appear natural — but they are really naturalised codes, and this naturalisation has the effect of hiding the coding mechanism behind the signs.

Why C is right. "Language and visual signs are codes. However, some of the codes are so widespread that they not only seem naturally given but also hide the mechanism of coding behind the signs" captures both halves — codes that appear natural and conceal the coding.

Why the others fail.

  • A says "all such codes appear natural," but the passage limits this to "certain codes"; it also misstates the ideological point.
  • B says "ideology aims to hide," treating ideology as a deliberate agent — the passage calls the concealing an effect, not a goal.
  • D claims "all codes have a natural origin," which reverses the passage: codes are constructed, only later made to seem natural.

Answer: C

Practice more Para Summary ↗Ask in Doubts ↗
Practice more questions like these ↗Ask a doubt in the forum ↗