Reading Comprehension Questions for CAT
Reading Comprehension is the most important topic in the CAT VARC Section. You can check out these CAT Reading Comprehension Questions from theCAT previous year papers. In this article, we will look into some very important Reading Comprehension questions PDF(with solutions) for CAT. You can also download these CAT Reading Comprehension questions with detailed solutions, which also include some tricks to solve these questions.
You can expect around 1-2 questions from Reading Comprehension, in the latest format of the CAT VARC section. In this article, we will look into some very important CAT level Reading Comprehension questions PDF(with detailed Video solutions) for CAT. If you want to practice these questions, you can download this CAT Reading Comprehension Questions PDF (most important) along with the solutions below, which is completely Free.
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Instructions
Recently I spent several hours sitting under a tree in my garden with the social anthropologist William Ury, a Harvard University professor who specializes in the art of negotiation and wrote the bestselling book, Getting to Yes. He captivated me with his theory that tribalism protects people from their fear of rapid change. He explained that the pillars of tribalism that humans rely on for security would always counter any significant cultural or social change. In this way, he said, change is never allowed to happen too fast. Technology, for example, is a pillar of society. Ury believes that every time technology moves in a new or radical direction, another pillar such as religion or nationalism will grow stronger in effect, the traditional and familiar will assume greater importance to compensate for the new and untested. In this manner, human tribes avoid rapid change that leaves people insecure and frightened.
But we have all heard that nothing is as permanent as change. Nothing is guaranteed. Pithy expressions, to be sure, but no more than cliches. As Ury says, people don’t live that way from day-to-day. On the contrary, they actively seek certainty and stability. They want to know they will be safe.
Even so, we scare ourselves constantly with the idea of change. An IBM CEO once said: ‘We only re-structure for a good reason, and if we haven’t re-structured in a while, that’s a good reason.’ We are scared that competitors, technology and the consumer will put us Out of business — so we have to change all the time just to stay alive. But if we asked our fathers and grandfathers, would they have said that they lived in a period of little change? Structure may not have changed much. It may just be the speed with which we do things.
Change is over-rated, anyway, consider the automobile. It’s an especially valuable example, because the auto industry has spent tens of billions of dollars on research and product development in the last 100 years. Henry Ford’s first car had a metal chassis with an internal combustion, gasoline-powered engine, four wheels with rubber types, a foot operated clutch assembly and brake system, a steering wheel, and four seats, and it could safely do 18 miles per hour. A hundred years and tens of thousands of research hours later, we drive cars with a metal chassis with an internal combustion, gasoline-powered engine, four wheels with rubber tyres a foot operated clutch assembly and brake system, a steering wheel, four seats – and the average speed in London in 2001 was 17.5 miles per hour!
That’s not a hell of a lot of return for the money. Ford evidently doesn’t have much to teach us about change. The fact that they’re still manufacturing cars is not proof that Ford Motor Co. is a sound organization, just proof that it takes very large companies to make cars in great quantities — making for an almost impregnable entry barrier.
Fifty years after the development of the jet engine, planes are also little changed. They’ve grown bigger, wider and can carry more people. But those are incremental, largely cosmetic changes.
Taken together, this lack of real change has come to man that in travel — whether driving or flying — time and technology have not combined to make things much better. The safety and design have of course accompanied the times and the new volume of cars and flights, but nothing of any significance has changed in the basic assumptions of the final product.
At the same time, moving around in cars or aero-planes becomes less and less efficient all the time. Not only has there been no great change, but also both forms of transport have deteriorated as more people clamour to use them. The same is true for telephones, which took over hundred years to become mobile or photographic film, which also required an entire century to change.
The only explanation for this is anthropological. Once established in calcified organizations, humans do two things: sabotage changes that might render people dispensable, and ensure industry-wide emulation. In the 1960s, German auto companies developed plans to scrap the entire combustion engine for an electrical design. (The same existed in the 1970s in Japan, and in the 1980s in France.) So for 40 years we might have been free of the wasteful and ludicrous dependence on fossil fuels. Why didn’t it go anywhere? Because auto executives understood pistons and carburettors, and would be loath to cannibalize their expertise, along with most of their factories
Question 1: According to the above passage, which of the following statements is true?
a) Executives of automobile companies are inefficient and ludicrous.
b) The speed at which an automobile is driven in a city has not changed much in a century.
c) Anthropological factors have fostered innovation in automobiles by promoting use of new technologies.
d) Further innovation in jet engines has been more than incremental.
1) Answer (B)
Solution:
In the fourth paragraph it is clearly mentioned that change is over-rated. Refer to the following lines:”Change is over-rated, anyway, consider the automobile. It’s an especially valuable example, because the auto industry has spent tens of billions of dollars on research and product development in the last 100 years.”
Question 2: Which of the following views does the author fully support in the passage?
a) Nothing is as permanent as change.
b) Change is always rapid.
c) More money spent on innovation leads to more rapid change.
d) Over decades, structural change has been incremental.
2) Answer (D)
Solution:
Refer to the following lines of the paragraph:”But if we asked our fathers and grandfathers, would they have said that they lived in a period of little change? Structure may not have changed much. It may just be the speed with which we do things.”
Question 3: Which of the following best describes one of the main ideas discussed in the passage?
a) Rapid change is usually welcomed in society.
b) Industry is not as innovative as it is made out to be.
c) We should have less change than what we have now.
d) Competition spurs companies into radical innovation.
3) Answer (B)
Solution:
Clearly the second option is the main idea of the passage. In this passage the author talks about the over-exaggeration made by automobile industry and airplane industry while on the whole there are not many changes which have taken place.
Question 4: According to the passage, the reason why we continues to be dependent on fossil fuels is that:
a) Auto executives did not wish to change.
b) No alternative fuels were discovered.
c) Change in technology was not easily possible
d) German, Japanese and French companies could not come up with new technologies.
4) Answer (A)
Solution:
Refer to the following lines of the passage:”Why didn’t it go anywhere? Because auto executives understood pistons and carburettors, and would be loath to cannibalize their expertise, along with most of their factories”. This indicates that the auto executives do not want to change themselves.
Instructions
Fifty feet away three male lions lay by the road. They didn’t appear to have a hair on their heads. Noting the color of their noses (leonine noses darken as they age, from pink to black), Craig estimated that they were six years old — young adults. “This is wonderful!” he said, after staring at them for several moments. “This is what we came to see. They really are maneless.” Craig, a professor at the University of Minnesota, is arguably the leading expert on the majestic Serengeti lion, whose head is mantled in long, thick hair. He and Peyton West, a doctoral student who has been working with him in Tanzania, had never seen the Tsavo lions that live some 200 miles east of the Serengeti. The scientists had partly suspected that the maneless males were adolescents mistaken for adults by amateur observers. Now they knew better.
The Tsavo research expedition was mostly Peyton’s show. She had spent several years in Tanzania, compiling the data she needed to answer a question that ought to have been answered long ago: Why do lions have manes? It’s the only cat, wild or domestic, that displays such ornamentation. In Tsavo she was attacking the riddle from the opposite angle. Why do its lions not have manes? (Some “maneless” lions in Tsavo East do have partial manes, but they rarely attain the regal glory of the Serengeti lions.) Does environmental adaptation account for the trait? Are the lions of Tsavo, as some people believe, a distinct subspecies of their Serengeti cousins?
The Serengeti lions have been under continuous observation for more than 35 years, beginning with George Schaller’s pioneering work in the 1960s. But the lions in Tsavo, Kenya’s oldest and largest protected ecosystem, have hardly been studied. Consequently, legends have grown up around them. Not only do they look different, according to the myths, they behave differently, displaying greater cunning and aggressiveness. “Remember too,” Kenya: The Rough Guide warns, “Tsavo’s lions have a reputation of ferocity.” Their fearsome image became well-known in 1898, when two males stalled construction of what is now Kenya Railways by allegedly killing and eating 135 Indian and African laborers. A British Army officer in charge of building a railroad bridge over the Tsavo River, Lt. Col. J. H. Patterson, spent nine months pursuing the pair before he brought them to bay and killed them. Stuffed and mounted, they now glare at visitors to the Field Museum in Chicago. Patterson’s account of the leonine reign of terror, The Man-Eaters of Tsavo, was an international best seller when published in 1907. Still in print, the book has made Tsavo’s lions notorious. That annoys some scientists. “People don’t want to give up on mythology,” Dennis King told me one day. The zoologist has been working in Tsavo off and on for four years. “I am so sick of this maneater business. Patterson made a helluva lot of money off that story, but Tsavo’s lions are no more likely to turn man-eater than lions from elsewhere.”
But tales of their savagery and wiliness don’t all come from sensationalist authors looking to make a buck. Tsavo lions are generally larger than lions elsewhere, enabling them to take down the predominant prey animal in Tsavo, the Cape buffalo, one of the strongest, most aggressive animals of Earth. The buffalo don’t give up easily: They often kill or severely injure an attacking lion, and a wounded lion might be more likely to turn to cattle and humans for food.
And other prey is less abundant in Tsavo than in other traditional lion haunts. A hungry lion is more likely to attack humans. Safari guides and Kenya Wildlife Service rangers tell of lions attacking Land Rovers, raiding camps, stalking tourists. Tsavo is a tough neighborhood, they say, and it breeds tougher lions.
But are they really tougher? And if so, is there any connection between their manelessness and their ferocity? An intriguing hypothesis was advanced two years ago by Gnoske and Peterhans: Tsavo lions may be similar to the unmaned cave lions of the Pleistocene. The Serengeti variety is among the most evolved of the species — the latest model, so to speak — while certain morphological differences in Tsavo lions (bigger bodies, smaller skulls, and maybe even lack of a mane) suggest that they are closer to the primitive ancestor of all lions. Craig and Peyton had serious doubts about this idea, but admitted that Tsavo lions pose a mystery to science.
Question 5: The book Man-Eaters of Tsavo annoys some scientists because
a) it revealed that Tsavo lions are ferocious.
b) Patterson made a helluva lot of money from the book by sensationalism.
c) it perpetuated the bad name Tsavo lions had.
d) it narrated how two male Tsavo lions were killed.
5) Answer (C)
Solution:
Refer to the following lines of the third para:”Patterson’s account of the leonine reign of terror, The Man-Eaters of Tsavo, was an international best seller when published in 1907. Still in print, the book has made Tsavo’s lions notorious.”
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Question 6: The sentence which concludes the first paragraph, “Now they knew better”, implies that:
a) The two scientists were struck by wonder on seeing maneless lions for the first time.
b) Though Craig was an expert on the Serengeti lion, now he also knew about the Tsavo lions.
c) Earlier, Craig and West thought that amateur observers had been mistaken.
d) Craig was now able to confirm that darkening of the noses as lions aged applied toTsavo lions as well.
6) Answer (C)
Solution:
Refer to the line just behind the given phrase:”The scientists had partly suspected that the maneless males were adolescents mistaken for adults by amateur observers. Now they knew better.” This implies option c.
Question 7: According to the passage, which of the following has NOT contributed to the popular image of Tsavo lions as savage creatures?
a) Tsavo lions have been observed to bring down one of the strongest and most aggressive animals . the Cape buffalo.
b) In contrast to the situation in traditional lion haunts, scarcity of non-buffalo prey in the Tsavo makes the Tsavo lions more aggressive.
c) The Tsavo lion is considered to be less evolved than the Serengeti variety.
d) Tsavo lions have been observed to attack vehicles as well as humans.
7) Answer (C)
Solution:
All other choices are there in 4th and 5th paragraph: Refer to these lines
“But tales of their savagery and wiliness don’t all come from sensationalist authors looking to make a buck. Tsavo lions are generally larger than lions elsewhere, enabling them to take down the predominant prey animal in Tsavo, the Cape buffalo, one of the strongest, most aggressive animals of Earth. The buffalo don’t give up easily: They often kill or severely injure an attacking lion, and a wounded lion might be more likely to turn to cattle and humans for food.
And other prey is less abundant in Tsavo than in other traditional lion haunts. A hungry lion is more likely to attack humans. Safari guides and Kenya Wildlife Service rangers tell of lions attacking Land Rovers, raiding camps, stalking tourists. Tsavo is a tough neighborhood, they say, and it breeds tougher lions.”
Question 8: Which of the following, if true, would weaken the hypothesis advanced by Gnoske and Peterhans most?
a) Craig and Peyton develop even more serious doubts about the idea that Tsavo lions are primitive.
b) The maneless Tsavo East lions are shown to be closer to the cave lions.
c) Pleistocene cave lions are shown to be far less violent than believed.
d) The morphological variations in body and skull size between the cave and Tsavo lions are found to be insignificant.
8) Answer (C)
Solution:
Option c satisfies the criteria the most. If cave lions are far less violent, then Tsavo would also be less voilent whereas in the paragraph, tsavo lions are shown to be more voilent.
Instructions
Throughout human history, the leading causes of death have been infection and trauma. Modern medicine has scored significant victories against both, and the major causes of ill health and death are now the chronic degenerative diseases, such as coronary artery disease, arthritis, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s, macular degeneration, cataract and cancer. These have a long latency period before symptoms appear and a diagnosis is made. It follows that the majority of apparently healthy people are pre-ill.
But are these conditions inevitably degenerative? A truly preventive medicine that focuses on the pre-ill, analyzing the metabolic errors which lead to clinical illness, might be able to correct them before the first symptom. Genetic risk factors are known for all the chronic degenerative diseases, and are important to the individuals who possess them. At the population level, however, migration studies confirm that these illnesses are linked for the most part to lifestyle factors — exercise, smoking and nutrition. Nutrition is the easiest of these to change, and the most versatile tool for affecting the metabolic changes needed to tilt the balance away from disease.
Many national surveys reveal that malnutrition is common in developed countries. This is not the calorie and/or micronutrient deficiency associated with developing nations (type A malnutrition); but multiple micronutrient depletion, usually combined with calorific balance or excess (Type B malnutrition). The incidence and severity of Type B malnutrition will be shown to be worse if newer micronutrient groups such as the essential fatty acids, xanthophylls and flavonoids are included in the surveys. Commonly ingested levels of these micronutrients seem to be far too low in many developed countries.
There is now considerable evidence that Type B malnutrition is a major cause of chronic degenerative diseases. If this is the case, then it is logical to treat such diseases not with drugs but with multiple micronutrient repletion, or ‘pharmaco-nutrition’. This can take the form of pills and capsules — ‘nutraceuticals’, or food formats known as ‘functional foods’. This approach has been neglected hitherto because it is relatively unprofitable for drug companies — the products are hard to patent — and it is a strategy which does not sit easily with modem medical interventionism. Over the last 100 years, the drug industry has invested huge sums in developing a range of subtle and powerful drugs to treat the many diseases we are subject to. Medical training is couched in pharmaceutical terms and this approach has provided us with an exceptional range of therapeutic tools in the treatment of disease and in acute medical emergencies. However, the pharmaceutical model has also created an unhealthy dependency culture, in which relatively few of us accept responsibility for maintaining our own health. Instead, we have handed over this responsibility to health professionals who know very little about health maintenance, or disease prevention.
One problem for supporters of this argument is the lack of the right kind of hard evidence. We have a wealth of epidemiological data linking dietary factors to health profiles/disease risks, and a great deal of information on mechanism: how food factors interact with our biochemistry. But almost all intervention studies with micronutrients, with the notable exception of the omega 3 fatty acids, have so far produced conflicting or negative results. In other words, our science appears to have no predictive value. Does this invalidate the science? Or are we simply asking the wrong questions?
Based on pharmaceutical thinking, most intervention studies have attempted to measure the impact of a single micronutrient on the incidence of disease. The classical approach says that if you give a compound formula to test subjects and obtain positive results, you cannot know which ingredient is exerting the benefit, so you must test each ingredient individually. But in the field of nutrition, this does not work. Each intervention on its own will hardly make enough difference to be measured. The best therapeutic response must therefore combine micronutrients to normalise our internal physiology. So do we need to analyse each individual’s nutritional status and then tailor a formula specifically for him or her? While we do not have the resources to analyze millions of individual cases, there is no need to do so. The vast majority of people are consuming suboptimal amounts of most micronutrients, and most of the micronutrients concerned are very safe. Accordingly, a comprehensive and universal program of micronutrient support is probably the most cost-effective and safest way of improving the general health of the nation.
Question 9: The author recommends micronutrient-repletion for large-scale treatment of chronic degenerative diseases because
a) it is relatively easy to manage.
b) micronutrient deficiency is the cause of these diseases.
c) it can overcome genetic risk factors.
d) it can compensate for other lifestyle factors.
9) Answer (B)
Solution:
Refer to the starting of the fourth paragraph:”There is now considerable evidence that Type B malnutrition is a major cause of chronic degenerative diseases.”
Question 10: Tailoring micronutrient-based treatment plans to suit individual deficiency profiles is not necessary because
a) it very likely to give inconsistent or negative results.
b) it is a classic pharmaceutical approach not suited to micronutrients.
c) most people are consuming suboptimal amounts of safe-to-consume micronutrients.
d) it is not cost effective to do so.
10) Answer (C)
Solution:
Refer to the start of the fifth paragraph:”While we do not have the resources to analyze millions of individual cases, there is no need to do so. The vast majority of people are consuming suboptimal amounts of most micronutrients, and most of the micronutrients concerned are very safe.”
Hence, the correct option is option ‘C’
Question 11: Type-B malnutrition is a serious concern in developed countries because
a) developing countries mainly suffer from Type-A malnutrition.
b) it is a major contributor to illness and death.
c) pharmaceutical companies are not producing drugs to treat this condition.
d) national surveys on malnutrition do not include newer micronutrient groups.
11) Answer (B)
Solution:
Refer to the first line of the fourth paragraph:”There is now considerable evidence that Type B malnutrition is a major cause of chronic degenerative diseases. If this is the case, then this logical to treat such diseases not with drugs but with multiple micronutrient repletion, or pharmaco-nutrition’.”
Hence, the correct option is option ‘B’
Question 12: Why are a large number of apparently healthy people deemed pre-ill?
a) They may have chronic degenerative diseases.
b) They do not know their own genetic risk factors which predispose them to diseases.
c) They suffer from Type-B malnutrition.
d) There is a lengthy latency period associated with chronically degenerative diseases.
12) Answer (A)
Solution:
Refer to the first paragraph. Here author says that large number of people may have chronic degenerative diseases but due to their latency period, they are not detected easily. That eliminates options B and C.
Options A and D are close. But as the question asks why the people are considered as pre-ill, the answer should be because they may have chronically degenerative diseases they don’t know about. Hence, A is the better option.
Instructions
Fifteen years after communism was officially pronounced dead, its spectre seems once again to be haunting Europe. Last month, the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly voted to condemn the “crimes of totalitarian communist regimes,” linking them with Nazism and complaining that communist parties are still “legal and active in some countries.” Now Goran Lindblad, the conservative Swedish MP behind the resolution, wants to go further. Demands that European Ministers launch a continent-wide anti-communist campaign – including school textbook revisions, official memorial days, and museums – only narrowly missed the necessary two-thirds majority. Mr. Lindblad pledged to bring the wider plans back to the Council of Europe in the coming months:
He has chosen a good year for his ideological offensive: this is the 50’h anniversary of Nikita Khrushchev’s denunciation of Josef Stalin and the subsequent Hungarian uprising, which will doubtless be the cue for further excoriation of the communist record. Paradoxically, given that there is no communist government left in Europe outside Moldova, the attacks have if anything, become more extreme as time has gone on. A clue as to why that might be can be found in the rambling report by Mr. Lindblad that led to the Council of Europe declaration. Blaming class struggle and public ownership, he explained “different elements of communist ideology such as equality or social justice still seduce many” and “a sort of nostalgia for communism is still alive.” Perhaps the real problem for Mr. Lindblad and his right-wing allies in Eastern Europe is that communism is not dead enough – and they will only be content when they have driven a stake through its heart.
The fashionable attempt to equate communism and Nazism is in reality a moral and historical nonsense. Despite the cruelties of the Stalin terror, there was no Soviet Treblinka or Sorbibor, no extermination camps built to murder millions. Nor did the Soviet Union launch the most devastating war in history at a cost of more than 50 million lives – in fact it played the decisive role in the defeat of the German war machine. Mr. Lindblad and the Council of Europe adopt as fact the wildest estimates of those “killed by communist regimes” (mostly in famines) from the fiercely contested Black Book of Communism, which also underplays the number of deaths attributable to Hitler. But, in any case, none of this explains why anyone might be nostalgic in former communist states, now enjoying the delights of capitalist restoration.
The dominant account gives no sense of how communist regimes renewed themselves after 1956 or why Western leaders feared they might overtake the capitalist world well into the 1960s. For all its brutalities and failures, communism in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere delivered rapid industrialization, mass education, job security, and huge advances in social and gender equality. Its existence helped to drive up welfare standards in the west, and provided a powerful counterweight to western global domination.
It would be easier to take the Council of Europe’s condemnation of communist state crimes seriously if it had also seen fit to denounce the far bloodier record of European colonialism – which only finally came to an end in the 1970s. This was a system of racist despotism, which dominated the globe in Stalin’s time. And while there is precious little connection between the ideas of fascism and communism, there is an intimate link between colonialism and Nazism. The terms lebensraum and konzentrationslager were both first used by the German colonial regime in South-West Africa (now Namibia), which committed genocide against the Herero and Nama peoples and bequeathed its ideas and personnel directly to the Nazi parry.
Around 10 million Congolese died as a result of Belgian forced labor and mass murder in the early twentieth century; tens of millions perished in avoidable or enforced famines in British-ruled India; up to a million Algerians died in their war for independence, while controversy now rages in France about a new law requiring teachers to put a positive spin on colonial history. Comparable atrocities were carried out by all European colonialists, but not a word of condemnation from the Council of Europe. Presumably, European lives count for more.
No major twentieth century political tradition is without blood on its hands, but battles over history are more about the future than the past. Part of the current enthusiasm in official Western circles for dancing on the grave of communism is no doubt about relations with today’s Russia and China. But it also reflects a determination to prove there is no alternative to the new global capitalist order – and that any attempt to find one is bound to lead to suffering. With the new imperialism now being resisted in the Muslim world and Latin America, growing international demands for social justice and ever greater doubts about whether the environmental crisis can be solved within the existing economic system, the pressure for alternatives will increase.
Question 13: Among all the apprehensions that Mr. Goran Lindblad expresses against communism, which one gets admitted, although indirectly, by the author?
a) There is nostalgia for communist ideology even if communism has been abandoned by most European nations.
b) Notions of social justice inherent in communist ideology appeal to critics of existing systems.
c) Communist regimes were totalitarian and marked by brutalities and large scale violence.
d) The existing economic order is wrongly viewed as imperialistic by proponents of communism:
e) Communist ideology is faulted because communist regimes resulted in economic failures.
13) Answer (C)
Solution:
From te 3rd para we find the sentences like ‘ … Mr. Lindblad and the Council of Europe adopt as fact the wildest estimates of those “killed by communist regimes” (mostly in famines) from..’ From here we can infer that among all apprehensions that Mr. Goran Lindblad expresses against communism this option C is admitted indirectly.
Question 14: What, according to the author, is the real reason for a renewed attack against communism?
a) Disguising the unintended consequences of the current economic order such as socialinjustice and environmental crisis.
b) Idealising the existing ideology of global capitalism.
c) Making communism a generic representative of all historical atrocities, especially those perpetrated by the European imperialists.
d) Communism still survives, in bits and pieces, in the minds and hearts of people.
e) Renewal of some communist regimes has led to the apprehension that communist nations might overtake the capitalists.
14) Answer (B)
Solution:
Options A, C and E are irrelavant according to the passage.
Both B and D seem to be the answers, but the question asks for the real reason.
If communism is not a threat, then it is not required to destroy it. So, D cannot be the real reason.
Hence, option B is the answer.
Question 15: The author cites examples of atrocities perpetrated by European colonial regimes in order to
a) compare the atrocities committed by colonial regimes with those of communist regimes.
b) prove that the atrocities committed by colonial regimes were more than those of communist regimes.
c) prove that, ideologically, communism was much better than colonialism and Nazism.
d) Neuutralise the arguments of Mr. Lindblad and to point out that the atrocities committed by colonial regimes were more than those of communist regimes. .
e) neutralize the arguments of Mr. Lindblad and to argue that one needs to go beyond and look at the motives of these regimes.
15) Answer (E)
Solution:
Option A,B,C are clearly not the answers and are out of context . Out of D and E , option E gives perfect reason of why author cites examples of atrocities perpetrated by European colonial regimes.
Question 16: Why, according to the author, is Nazism closer to colonialism than it is to communism?
a) Both colonialism and Nazism were examples of tyranny of one race over another.
b) The genocides committed by the colonial and the Nazi regimes were of similar magnitude.
c) Several ideas of the Nazi regime were directly imported from colonial regimes.
d) Both colonialism and Nazism are based on the principles of imperialism.
e) While communism was never limited to Europe, both the Nazis and the colonialists originated in Europe.
16) Answer (A)
Solution:
{This was a system of racist despotism, which dominated the globe in Stalin’s time. And while there is precious little connection between the ideas of fascism and communism, there is an intimate link between colonialism and Nazism. The terms lebensraum and konzentrationslager were both first used by the German colonial regime in South-West Africa (now Namibia), which committed genocide against the Herero and Nama peoples and bequeathed its ideas and personnel directly to the Nazi parry.}
The term ‘racist despotism‘ coupled with the information on genocide adequately conveys the tyranny of one race/group over another. The author attempts to compare the potential motives behind the atrocities and identifies that the ideas of colonialism and Nazism are similar in that they constitute examples of tyranny of one race over another. Option A correctly captures this.
Option B is incorrect since we do not have enough information on the scale of events: we cannot definitively compare the magnitude of the genocides. Options C, D and E are neither implied nor discussed in the passage.
Hence, the correct choice is Option A.
Question 17: Which of the following cannot be inferred as a compelling reason for the silence of the Council of Europe on colonial atrocities?
a) The Council of Europe being dominated by erstwhile colonialists.
b) Generating support for condemning communist ideology.
c) Unwillingness to antagonize allies by raking up an embarrassing past.
d) Greater value seemingly placed on European lives.
e) Portraying both communism and Nazism as ideologies to be condemned.
17) Answer (D)
Solution:
Except D, all the other options are compelling reasons for the silence of Council of Europer over colonial atrocities.
Option D is the compelling reason for condemnation of communism.
Hence, option D is the answer.
Instructions
Our propensity to look out for regularities, and to impose laws upon nature, leads to the psychological phenomenon of dogmatic thinking or, more generally, dogmatic behaviour: we expect regularities everywhere and attempt to find them even where there are none; events which do not yield to these attempts we are inclined to treat as a kind of `background noise’; and we stick to our expectations even when they are inadequate and we ought to accept defeat. This dogmatism is to some extent necessary. It is demanded by a situation which can only be dealt with by forcing our conjectures upon the world. Moreover, this dogmatism allows us to approach a good theory in stages, by way of approximations: if we accept defeat too easily, we may prevent ourselves from finding that we were very nearly right.
It is clear that this dogmatic attitude; which makes us stick to our first impressions, is indicative of a strong belief; while a critical attitude, which is ready to modify its tenets, which admits doubt and demands tests, is indicative of a weaker belief. Now according to Hume’s theory, and to the popular theory, the strength of a belief should be a product of repetition; thus it should always grow with experience, and always be greater in less primitive persons. But dogmatic thinking, an uncontrolled wish to impose regularities, a manifest pleasure in rites and in repetition as such, is characteristic of primitives and children; and increasing experience and maturity sometimes create an attitude of caution and criticism rather than of dogmatism.
My logical criticism of Hume’s psychological theory, and the considerations connected with it, may seem a little removed from the field of the philosophy of science. But the distinction between dogmatic and critical thinking, or the dogmatic and the critical attitude, brings us right back to our central problem. For the dogmatic attitude is clearly related to the tendency to verify our laws and schemata by seeking to apply them and to confirm them, even to the point of neglecting refutations, whereas the critical attitude is one of readiness to change them – to test them; to refute them; to falsify them, if possible. This suggests that we may identify the critical attitude with the scientific attitude, and the dogmatic attitude with the one which we have described as pseudo-scientific. It further suggests that genetically speaking the pseudo-scientific attitude is more primitive than, and prior to, the scientific attitude: that it is a pre-scientific attitude. And this primitivity or priority also has its logical aspect. For the critical attitude is not so much opposed to the dogmatic attitude as super-imposed upon it: criticism must be directed against existing and influential beliefs in need of critical revision – in other words, dogmatic beliefs. A critical attitude needs for its raw material, as it were, theories or beliefs which are held more or less dogmatically.
Thus, science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths; neither with the collection of observations, nor with the invention of experiments, but with the critical discussion of myths, and of magical techniques and practices. The scientific tradition is distinguished from the pre-scientific tradition in having two layers. Like the latter, it passes on its theories; but it also passes on a critical attitude towards them. The theories are passed on, not as dogmas, but rather with the challenge to discuss them and improve upon them.
The critical attitude, the tradition of free discussion of theories with the aim of discovering their weak spots so that they may be improved upon, is the attitude of reasonableness, of rationality. From the point of view here developed, all laws, all theories, remain essentially tentative, or conjectural, or hypothetical, even when we feel unable to doubt them any longer. Before a theory has been refuted we can never know in what way it may have to be modified.
Question 18: In the context of science, according to the passage, the interaction of dogmatic beliefs and critical attitude can be best described as:
a) A duel between two warriors in which one has to die.
b) The effect of a chisel on a marble stone while making a sculpture.
c) The feedstock (natural gas) in fertilizer industry being transformed into fertilizers.
d) A predator killing its prey.
e) The effect of fertilizers on a sapling.
18) Answer (B)
Solution:
It has been stated in the passage that “For the critical attitude is not so much opposed to the dogmatic attitude as super-imposed upon it: criticism must be directed against existing and influential beliefs in need of critical revision – in other words, dogmatic beliefs. A critical attitude needs for its raw material, as it were, theories or beliefs which are held more or less dogmatically.”
From this we can infer that critical attitude is not opposed to dogmatic beliefs. Rather it uses dogmatic beliefs as raw material. Hence, we can eliminate options A, D and E.
From the passage, we can infer that the critical attitude acts on dogmatic beliefs to refine them. Hence, option B is more appropriate.
Question 19: According to the passage, the role of a dogmatic attitude of dogmatic behaviour in the development of science is
a) critical and important, as, without it, initial hypotheses or conjectures can never be made.
b) positive, as conjectures arising out of our dogmatic attitude become science.
c) negative, as it leads to pseudo-science.
d) neutral, as the development of science is essentially because of our critical attitude.
e) inferior to critical attitude, as a critical attitude leads to the attitude of reasonableness and rationality.
19) Answer (A)
Solution:
Options C,D,E do not hold true.
Amongst option A and B,option A is more appropriate.Refer to the 3rd paragraph. It is written that
“the pseudo-scientific attitude is more primitive than, and prior to, the scientific attitude: that it is a pre-scientific attitude. And this primitivity or priority also has its logical aspect. For the critical attitude is not so much opposed to the dogmatic attitude as super-imposed upon it: criticism must be directed against existing and influential beliefs in need of critical revision — in other words, dogmatic beliefs. A critical attitude needs for its raw material, as it were, theories or beliefs which are held more or less dogmatically”.
Question 20: Dogmatic behaviour, in this passage, has been associated with primitives and children. Which of the following best describes the reason why the author compares primitives with children?
a) Primitives are people who are not educated, and hence can be compared with children,who have not yet been through school. .
b) Primitives are people who, though not modern, are as innocent as children.
c) Primitives are people without a critical attitude, just as children are.
d) Primitives are people in the early stages of human evolution; similarly, children are in the early stages of their lives.
e) Primitives are people who are not civilized enough, just as children are not. .
20) Answer (D)
Solution:
Refer to the lines:
It further suggests that genetically speaking the pseudo-scientific attitude is more primitive than, and prior to, the scientific attitude: that it is a pre-scientific attitude. And this primitivity or priority also has its logical aspect. For the critical attitude is not so much opposed to the dogmatic attitude as super-imposed upon it.
It clearly illustates option 4.
Question 21: Which of the following statements best supports the argument in the passage that a critical attitude leads to a weaker belief than a dogmatic attitude does?
a) A critical attitude implies endless questioning, and, therefore, it cannot lead to strong beliefs.
b) A critical attitude, by definition, is centered on an analysis of anomalies and “noise”.
c) A critical attitude leads to questioning everything, and in the process generates “noise” without any conviction.
d) A critical attitude is antithetical to conviction, which is required for strong beliefs.
e) A critical attitude leads to questioning and to tentative hypotheses. .
21) Answer (E)
Solution:
Refer to the last 3 lines
“From the point of view here developed, all laws, all theories, remain essentially tentative, or conjectural, or hypothetical, even when we feel unable to doubt them any longer. Before a theory has been refuted we can never know in what way it may have to be modified.”
Option E clearly supports this argument.
Option A contains a distortion of “endless questioning”. A critical attitude requires questioning but not endless questioning.
Option B has not been implied anywhere in the passage.
The first part of option C is true but the second part is false. The result of a critical attitude is not noise but tested beliefs that are subject to change.
Option D has not been implied anywhere in the passage.
Question 22: According to the passage, which of the following statements best describes the difference between science and pseudo-science? :
a) Scientific theories or hypothesis are tentatively true whereas pseudo-sciences are always true.
b) Scientific laws and theories are permanent and immutable whereas pseudo-sciences are contingent on the prevalent mode of thinking in a society.
c) Science always allows the possibility of rejecting a theory or hypothesis, whereas pseudo-sciences seek to validate their ideas or theories.
d) Science focuses on anomalies and exceptions so that fundamental truths can be uncovered, whereas pseudo-sciences focus mainly on general truths.
e) Science progresses by collection of observations or by experimentation, whereas pseudo-sciences do not worry about observations and experiments.
22) Answer (C)
Solution:
Refer to these lines
“But the distinction between dogmatic and critical thinking, or the dogmatic and the critical attitude, brings us right back to our central problem. For the dogmatic attitude is clearly related to the tendency to verify our laws and schemata by seeking to apply them and to
confirm them, even to the point of neglecting refutations, whereas the critical attitude is one of readiness to change them — to test them; to refute them; to falsify them, if possible. This suggests that we may identify the critical attitude with the scientific attitude, and the dogmatic attitude with the one which we have described as pseudo-scientific.”
Option C is the main point of the above paragraph. Hence, option C is the answer.
