CAT 2006 Question Paper

From the given options, choose the sentence that completes the paragraph in the most appropriate way.

I am sometimes attacked for imposing `rules’. Nothing could be further from the truth: I hate rules. All I do is report on how consumers react to different stimuli. I may say to a copywriter, “Research shows that commercials with celebrities are below average in persuading people to buy products. Are you sure you want to use a celebrity?” Call that a rule? Or I may say to an art director, “Research suggests that if you set the copy in black type on a white background, more people will read it than if you set it in white type on a black background.”

From the given options, choose the sentence that completes the paragraph in the most appropriate way.

Relations between the factory and the dealer are distant and usually strained as the factory tries to force cars on the dealers to smooth out production. Relations between the dealer and the customer are equally strained because dealers continuously adjust prices - make deals - to adjust demand with supply while maximizing profits. This becomes a system marked by ‘a lack of long-term commitment’ on either side, which maximizes feelings of mistrust. In order to maximize their bargaining positions, everyone holds back information - the dealer about the product and the consumer about his true desires.

From the given options, choose the sentence that completes the paragraph in the most appropriate way.

In the evolving world order, the comparative advantage of the United States lies in its military force: Diplomacy and international law have always been regarded as annoying encumbrances, unless they can be used to advantage against an enemy. Every active player in world affairs professes to seek only peace and to prefer negotiation to violence and coercion.

From the given options, choose the sentence that completes the paragraph in the most appropriate way.

Age has a curvilinear relationship with the exploitation of opportunity. Initially, age will increase the likelihood that a person will exploit an entrepreneurial opportunity because people gather much of the knowledge necessary to exploit opportunities over the course of their lives, and because age provides credibility in transmitting that information to others. However, as people become older, their willingness to bear risks declines, their opportunity costs rise, and they become less receptive to new information.

[CAT 2006]

From the given options, choose the sentence that completes the paragraph in the most appropriate way.

We can usefully think of theoretical models as maps, which help us navigate unfamiliar territory. The most accurate map that it is possible to construct would be of no practical use whatsoever, for it would be an exact replica, on exactly the same scale, of the place where we were. Good maps pull out the most important features and throw away a huge amount of much less valuable information. Of course, maps can be bad as well as good - witness the attempts by medieval Europe to produce a map of the world. In the same way, a bad theory, no matter how impressive it may seem in principle, does little or nothing to help us understand a problem.