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CAT Critical Reasoning Questions

Since 2001, Critical reasoning questions were not appearing in the CAT exam. However, the questions from this topic may appear in the other MBA entrance exams. Aspirants who are taking other MBA entrance tests can practice the following questions, which were taken from the CAT Previous Papers. One can solve these questions in a test format. Also, you will have detailed solutions for each and every question. You can also get better understanding of these type of questions by taking numerous CAT mock tests.

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Importance of Critical Reasoning

Critical Reasoning questions are useful in solving questions from VARC. Solving questions from VARC will help you act as a base for Reading Comprehension passages. This basically tests the candidates ability to understand short arguments.  Reasoning is required for weakening or strengthening a statement. 

  • Will be helpful in option eliminations.

    CAT Critical Reasoning Questions

    Question 1

    In a recent report, the gross enrolment ratios at the primary level, that is, the number of children enrolled in classes one to five as a proportion of all children aged 6 to 10, were shown to be very high for most states; in many cases they were way above 100 percent! These figures are not worth anything, since they are based on the official enrolment data compiled from school records. They might as well stand for ‘gross exaggeration ratios’.

    Which of the following options best supports the claim that the ratios are exaggerated?

    Question 2

    Szymanski suggests that the problem of racism in football may be present even today. He begins by verifying an earlier hypothesis that clubs’ wage bills explain 90% of their performance. Thus, if players’ salaries were to be only based on their abilities, clubs that spend more should finish higher. If there is pay discrimination against some group of players — fewer teams bidding for black players thus lowering the salaries for blacks with the same ability as whites — that neat relation may no longer hold. He concludes that certain clubs seem to have achieved much less than what they could have, by not recruiting black players.

    Which of the following findings would best support Szymanski conclusions?

    Video Solution
    Question 3

    The pressure on Italy’s 257 jails has been increasing rapidly. These jails are old and overcrowded. They are supposed to hold up to 43,000 people -9,000 fewer than now. San Vittore in Milan, which has 1,800 inmates, is designed for 800. The number of foreigners inside jails has also been increasing. The minister in charge of prisons fears that tensions may snap, and so has recommended to the government an amnesty policy.

    Which one of the following, if true, would have most influenced the recommendation of the minister?

    Question 4

    The offer of the government to make iodised salt available at a low price of one rupee per kilo is welcome, especially since the government seems to be so concerned about the ill effects of non-iodised salt. But it is doubtful whether the offer will actually be implemented. Way back in 1994, the government, in an earlier effort, had prepared reports outlining three new and simple but experimental methods for reducing the costs of iodisation to about five paise per kilo. But these reports have remained just those — reports on paper.

    Which one of the following, if true, most weakens the author’s contention that it is doubtful whether the offer will be actually implemented?

    Video Solution
    Question 5

    About 96% of Scandinavian moths have ears tuned to the ultrasonic pulses that bats, their predators, emit. But the remaining 4% do not have ears and are deaf. However, they have a larger wingspan than the hearing moths, and also have higher wing-loadings the ratio between a wing’s area and its weight — meaning higher maneuverability.
    Which one of the following can be best inferred from the above passage?

    Question 6

    Argentina’s beef cattle herd has dropped to under 50 million from 57 million ten years ago in 1990. The animals are worth less, too: prices fell by over a third last year, before recovering, slightly. Most local meat packers and processors are in financial trouble, and recent years have seen a string of plant closures. The Beef Producers’ Association has now come up with a massive advertisement campaign calling upon Argentines to eat more beef—their “juicy, healthy, rotund, plate- filling” steaks.

    Which one of the following, if true, would contribute most to a failure of the campaign?

    Question 7

    The problem of traffic congestion in Athens has been testing the ingenuity of politicians and town planners for years. But the measures adopted to date have not succeeded in decreasing the number of cars en the roads in the city centre. In 1980, an odds and evens number- plate legislation was introduced, under which odd and even plates were banned in the city centre on alternate days, thereby expecting to halve the number of cars in the city centre. Then in 1993 it was decreed that all cars in use in the city centre must be fitted with catalytic converters; a regulation had just then been introduced, substantially reducing import taxes on cars with catalytic converters, the only condition being that the buyer of such a ‘clean’ car offered for destruction a car at least 15 years old.

    Which one of the following options, if true, would best support the claim that the measures adopted to date have not succeeded?

    Question 8

    Although in the limited sense of freedom regarding appointments and internal working, the independence of the Central Bank is unequivocally ensured, the same cannot be said of its right to pursue monetary policy without co-ordination with the central government. The role of the Central Bank has turned out to be subordinate and advisory in nature.
    Which of the following best supports the conclusion drawn in the passage?

    Question 9

    The theory of games is suggested to some extent by parlour games such as chess and bridge. Friedman illustrates two distinct features of these games. First, in a parlour game played for money, if one wins the other (others) loses (lose). Second, these games are games involving a strategy. In a game of chess, while choosing what action is to be taken, a player tries to guess how his/her opponent will react to the various actions he or she might take. In contrast, the card-pastime, ‘patience’ or ‘solitaire’ is played only against chance.

    Which one of the following can best be described as a “game”?

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