XAT 2021 Question Paper

Instructions

For the following questions answer them individually

Question 31

Which of the following sentences uses a WRONG tag-question?

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Question 32

Read the following statement:
While start-ups have__________ reach, _____ they introduce ________ products, they open-up ________ markets.
Fill in the blanks meaningfully, in the above statement, from the following options.

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Question 33

Read the following passage and answer the question that follows.
The painting, which is in poor condition, suggests that a highly advanced artistic culture existed some 44,000 years ago, punctuated by folklore, religious myths and spiritual belief. The scene may be regarded not only as the earliest dated figurative art in the world but also as the oldest evidence for the communication of a narrative in Palaeolithic art.

"This is noteworthy, given that the ability to invent fictional stories may have been the last and most crucial stage in the evolutionary history of human language and the development of modern-like patterns of cognition” researchers said.

Which of the following can be BEST concluded from the passage?

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Instructions

Read the following passage and answer the two questions that follow.

We stand before this great world. The truth of our life depends upon our attitude of mind towards it - an attitude which is formed by our habit of dealing with it according to the special circumstance of our surroundings and our temperaments. It guides our attempts to establish relations with the universe either by conquest or by union, either through the cultivation of power or through that of sympathy. And thus, in our realization of the truth of existence, we put our emphasis either upon the principle of dualism or upon the principle of unity.

Question 34

Which of the following statements can be BEST inferred from the passage?

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Question 35

According to the passage, our emphasis on dualism or on unity is BEST guided by:

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Instructions

Read the following passage and answer the three questions that follow.

Multitasking has been found to increase the production of the stress hormone cortisol as well as the fight-or-flight hormone adrenaline, which can overstimulate your brain and cause mental fog or scrambled thinking. Multitasking creates a dopamine addiction feedback loop, effectively rewarding the brain for losing focus and for constantly searching for external stimulation. To make matters worse, the prefrontal cortex has a novelty bias, meaning that its attention can be easily hijacked by something new—the proverbial shiny objects we use to entice infants, puppies, and kittens. The irony here for those of us who are trying to focus amid competing activities is clear: The very brain region we need to rely on for staying on task is easily distracted. We answer the phone, look up something on the Internet, check our email, send an SMS, and each of these things tweaks the novelty-seeking, reward-seeking centers of the brain, causing a burst of endogenous opioids (no wonder it feels so good!), all to the detriment of our staying on task. It is the ultimate empty-caloried brain candy. Instead of reaping the big rewards that come from sustained, focused effort, we instead reap empty rewards from completing a thousand little sugarcoated tasks.

In the old days, if the phone rang and we were busy, we either didn’t answer or we turned the ringer off. When all phones were wired to a wall, there was no expectation of being able to reach us at all times—one might have gone out for a walk or be between places, and so if someone couldn’t reach you (or you didn’t feel like being reached), that was considered normal. Now more people have cell phones than have toilets. This has created an implicit expectation that you should be able to reach someone when it is convenient for you, regardless of whether it is convenient for them. This expectation is so ingrained that people in meetings routinely answer their cell phones to say, “I’m sorry, I can’t talk now, I’m in a meeting.” Just a decade or two ago, those same people would have let a landline on their desk go unanswered during a meeting, so different were the expectations for reachability.

Question 36

According to the passage, why do people in meetings routinely answer their cell phones to say, “I’m sorry, I can’t talk now, I’m in a meeting.”?

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Question 37

What does the author BEST intend to convey when he says, “Now more people have cell phones than have toilets?”

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Question 38

Which of the following can be BEST inferred from the passage?

Video Solution
Instructions

Read the following passage and answer the three questions that follow.

Considering the multitude of situations in which we humans use numerical information, life without numbers is inconceivable. But what was the benefit of numerical competence for our ancestors, before they became Homo sapiens? Why would animals crunch numbers in the first place? It turns out that processing numbers offers a significant benefit for survival, which is why this behavioural trait is present in many animal populations.

Several studies examining animals in their ecological environments suggest that representing number enhances an animal’s ability to exploit food sources, hunt prey, avoid predation, navigate in its habitat, and persist in social interactions. Before numerically competent animals evolved on the planet, single-celled microscopic bacteria — the oldest living organisms on earth — already exploited quantitative information. The way bacteria make a living is through their consumption of nutrients from their environment. Mostly, they grow and divide themselves to multiply. However, in recent years, microbiologists have discovered they also have a social life and are able to sense the presence or absence of other bacteria; in other words, they can sense the number of bacteria. Take, for example, the marine bacterium Vibrio fischeri. It has a special property that allows it to produce light through a process called bioluminescence, similar to how fireflies give off light. If these bacteria are in dilute water solutions (where they are alone), they make no light. But when they grow to a certain cell number of bacteria, all of them produce light simultaneously. Therefore, Vibrio fischeri can distinguish when they are alone and when they are together.

Somehow they have to communicate cell number, and it turns out they do this using a chemical language. They secrete communication molecules, and the concentration of these molecules in the water increases in proportion to the cell number. And when this molecule hits a certain amount, called a quorum, it tells the other bacteria how many neighbours there are, and all bacteria glow. This behaviour is called “quorum sensing”: The bacteria vote with signalling molecules, the vote gets counted, and if a certain threshold (the quorum) is reached, every bacterium responds. This behavior is not just an anomaly of Vibrio fischeri; all bacteria use this sort of quorum sensing to communicate their cell number in an indirect way via signalling molecules.

Question 39

Which of the following statements CANNOT be inferred from the passage?

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Question 40

Based on the passage, which of the following statements BEST defines “quorum sensing” in bacteria?

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