Para Summary Questions For CAT PDF:
Download Para Summary Questions For CAT PDF. Practice important Para Summary exercise with detailed answers and explanations. These questions are based on previous CAT question papers.
Download Para Summary Questions For CAT PDF
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Question 1:Â The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the author’ s position.
To me, a “classic” means precisely the opposite of what my predecessors understood: a work is classical by reason of its resistance to contemporaneity and supposed universality, by reason of its capacity to indicate human particularity and difference in that past epoch. The classic is not what tells me about shared humanity — or, more truthfully put, what lets me recognize myself as already present in the past, what nourishes in me the illusion that everything has been like me and has existed only to prepare the way for me. Instead, the classic is what gives access to radically different forms of human consciousness for any given generation of readers, and thereby expands for them the range of possibilities of what it means to be a human being.
a) A classic is able to focus on the contemporary human condition and a unified experience of    human consciousness.
b) A classical work seeks to resist particularity and temporal difference even as it focuses on a common humanity.
c) A classic is a work exploring the new, going beyond the universal, the contemporary, and the notion of aunifiedhuman consciousness.
d) A classic is a work that provides access to a universal experience of the human race as opposed to radically different forms of human consciousness.
Question 2:Â The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the author’ s position.
A translator of literary works needs a secure hold upon the two languages involved, supported by a good measure of familiarity with the two cultures. For an Indian translating works in an Indian language into English, finding satisfactory equivalents in a generalized western culture of practices and symbols in the original would be less difficult than gaining fluent control of contemporary English. When a westerner works on texts in Indian languages the interpretation of cultural elements will be the major challenge, rather than control over the gramrmr and essential vocabulary of the language concerned. It is much easier to remedy lapses in language in a text translated into English, than flaws of content. Since it is easier for an Indian to learn the English language than it is for a Briton or American to comprehend Indian culture, translations of Indian texts is better left to Indians.
a) While translating, the Indian and the westerner face the same challenges but they have different skill profiles and the former has the advantage.
b) As preserving cultural meanings is the essence of literary translation Indians’ knowledge of the local culture outweighs the initial disadvantage of lower fluency in English.
c) Indian translators should translate Indian texts into English as their work is less likely to pose cultural problems which are harder to address than the quality of language.
d) Westerners might be good at gaining reasonable fluency in new languages, but as understanding the culture reflected in literature is crucial, Indians remain better placed.
Question 3:Â The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the author’ s position.
For each of the past three years, temperatures have hit peaks not seen since the birth of meteorology, and probably not for more than 110,000 years. The amount of carbon dioxide in the air is at its highest level in 4 million years. This does not cause storms like Harvey — there have always been storms and hurricanes along the Gulf of Mexico — but it makes them wetter and more powerful. As the seas warm, they evaporate more easily and provide energy to storm fronts. As the air above them warms, it holds more water vapour. For every half a degree Celsius in warming, there is about a 3% increase in atmospheric moisture content. Scientists call this the Clausius-Clapeyron equation. This means the skies fill more quickly and have more to dump. The storm surge was greater because sea levels have risen 20 cm as a result of more than 100 years of human- related global warming which has melted glaciers and thermally expanded the volume of seawater.
a) The storm Harvey is one of the regular, annual ones from the Gulf of Mezico; global warming and Harvey are unrelated phenomena.
b) Global warming does not breed storms but makes them more destructive; the Clausius-Clapeyron equation, though it predicts potential increase in atmospheric moisture content, cannot predict the scale of damage storms might wreck.
c) Global warming melts glaciers, resulting in seawater volume expansion; this enables more water vapour to fill the air above faster. Thus, modern storms contain more destructive energy.
d) It is naive to think that rising sea levels and the force of tropical storms are unrelated; Harvey was destructive as global warming has armed it with more moisture content, but this may not be true of all storms.
Question 4:Â The passage given below is followed by four sumrmries. Choose the option that best captures the author’ s position.
A fundamental property of language is that it is slippery and messy and more liquid than solid, a gelatinous mass that changes shape to fit. As Wittgenstein would remind us, “usage has no sharp boundary.” Oftentimes, the only way to determine the meaning of a word is to examine how it is used. This insight is often described as the “meaning is use” doctrine. There are differences between the “meaning is use” doctrine and a dictionary-first theory of meaning. “The dictionary’s careful fixing of words to definitions, like butterflies pinned under glass, can suggest that this is how language works. The definitions can seem to ensure and fix the meaning of words, just as the gold standard can back a country’s currency.” What Wittgenstein found in the circulation of ordinary language, however, was a free-floating currency of meaning. The value of each word arises out of the exchange. The lexicographer abstracts a meaning from that exchange, which is then set within the conventions of the dictionary definition.
a) Dictionary definitions are like ‘gold standards’ — artificial, theoretical and dogmatic. Actual meaning of words is their free-exchange value.
b) Language is already slippery; given this, accounting for ‘meaning in use’ will only exasperate the problem. That is why lexicographers ‘fix’ meanings.
c) Meaning is dynamic; definitions are static. The ‘meaning in use’ theory helps us understand that definitions of words are culled from their meaning in exchange and use and not vice versa.
d) The meaning of words in dictionaries is clear, fixed and less dangerous and ambiguous than the meaning that arises when words are exchanged between people.
Question 5:Â The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the author’s position.
Both Socrates and Bacon were very good at asking useful questions. In fact, Socrates is largely credited with coming up with a way of asking questions, ‘the Socratic method,’ which itself is at the core of the ‘scientific method,’ popularised by Bacon. The Socratic method disproves arguments by finding exceptions to them, and can therefore lead your opponent to a point where they admit something that contradicts their original position. In common with Socrates, Bacon stressed it was as important to disprove a theory as it was to prove one — and real-world observation and experimentation were key to achieving both aims. Bacon also saw science as a collaborative affair, with scientists working together, challenging each other.
a) Both Socrates and Bacon advocated clever questioning of the opponents to disprove their arguments and theories.
b) Both Socrates and Bacon advocated challenging arguments and theories by observation and experimentation.
c) Ie Both Socrates and Bacon advocated confirming arguments and theories by finding exceptions.
d) Both Socrates and Bacon advocated examining arguments and theories from both sides to prove them.
Question 6:Â The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the author’ s position.
North American walnut sphinx moth caterpillars (Amorpha juglandis) look like easy meals for birds, but they have a trick up their sleeves — they produce whistles that sound like bird alarm calls, scaring potential predators away. At first, scientists suspected birds were simply startled by the loud noise. But a new study suggests a more sophisticated mechanism: the caterpillar’s whistle appears to mimic a bird alarm call, sending avian predators scrambling for cover. When pecked by a bird, the caterpillars whistle by compressing their bodies like an accordion and forcing air out through specialized holes in their sides. The whistles are impressively loud — they have been measured at over BO dB from 5 cm away from the caterpillar — considering they are made by a two-inch long insect.
a) North American walnut sphinx moth caterpillars will whistle periodically to ward off predator birds – they have a specialized vocal tract that helps them whistle.
b) North American walnut sphinx moth caterpillars can whistle very loudly; the loudness of their whistles is shocking as they are very small insects.
c) The North American walnut sphinx moth caterpillars, in a case of acoustic deception, produce whistles that mimic bird alarm calls to defend them selves.
d) North American. walnut sphinx moth caterpillars, in. a case of deception and camouflage, produce whistles that mimic bird alarm calls to defend themselves.
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Answers & Solutions:
1) Answer (C)
2) Answer (C)
3) Answer (C)
4) Answer (C)
According to the paragraph, language is like a gelatinous mass that changes shape to fit. Also, many times the only way to find meaning of word is to examine how it is used. It is stated that definitions are fixed o the word by dictionary. While Wittgenstein found that circulation of ordinary language was a free-floating currency of meaning. So the meanings are dynamic. Thus value of word arises from the exchange and then the lexicographer abstracts meaning from that exchange. Thus, definitions are picked up from the meaning in use.
Option A, which states that definitions are like dogmatic, cannot be found in the paragraph. Hence, it can be eliminated.
The paragraph doesn’t talk about why lexicographers fix meanings. Hence, option B can be eliminated.
Option C covers all the main points. Hence, it is the right choice.
The purpose of the passage is not to compare meaning of words in dictionaries with meaning which arises from exchange. Hence, option D can be eliminated.
Hence, option C is the right choice.
5) Answer (D)
According to the paragraph, language is like a gelatinous mass that changes shape to fit. Also, many times the only way to find meaning of word is to examine how it is used. It is stated that definitions are fixed o the word by dictionary. While Wittgenstein found that circulation of ordinary language was a free-floating currency of meaning. So the meanings are dynamic. Thus value of word arises from the exchange and then the lexicographer abstracts meaning from that exchange. Thus, definitions are picked up from the meaning in use.
Option A, which states that definitions are like dogmatic, cannot be found in the paragraph. Hence, it can be eliminated.
The paragraph doesn’t talk about why lexicographers fix meanings. Hence, option B can be eliminated.
Option C covers all the main points. Hence, it is the right choice.
The purpose of the passage is not to compare meaning of words in dictionaries with meaning
which arises from exchange. Hence, option D can be eliminated.
Hence, option C is the right choice.
6) Answer (C)
According to the paragraph the North American walnut sphinx moth caterpillars produce whistles which are extremely loud considering their size. These whistles appear to mimic bird(predator) alarm calls which scares them to look for cover. Thus, these sounds act as acoustic deception and help the insect to defend themselves against predators.
Option A mentions about vocal tracts which is out of scope. Hence, it can be eliminated.
Option B though correct, fails to mention the use of sound to defend against the preators. Hence, it can be eliminated.
Option C captures all the main points and hence is right choice.
Option D mentions ‘camouflage’ which is also out of context. Hence, it can be eliminated.
Hence, option C is the right answer.
