CAT 2006 VARC | Previous Year CAT Paper

Previous year paper questions for CAT 2006 VARC

1. CAT 2006 VARC | Fact, Inference & Judgement

Each of the questions below has a set of sequentially ordered statements. Each statement can be classified as one of the following:

A. Facts, which deal with the pieces of information that one has heard, seen or read, and which are open to discovery or verification (the answer option indicates such a statement with an ‘F’)
B. Inferences, which are conclusions drawn about the unknown, on the basis of the known (the answer option indicates such a statement with an ‘I’)
C. Judgements, which are opinions that imply approval or disapproval of persons, objects, situations and occurrences in the past, the present or the future (the answer option indicates such a statement with a ‘J’)

Select the answer option that best describes the set of statements.

So much of our day-to-day focus seems to be on getting things done, trudging our way through the tasks of living- it can feel like a treadmill that gets you nowhere; where is the childlike joy?
We are not doing the things that make us happy; that which brings us joy; the things that we cannot wait to do because we enjoy them so much.
This is the stuff that joyful living is made of – identifying your calling and committing yourself wholeheartedly to it.
When this happens, each moment becomes a celebration of you; there is a rush of energy that comes with feeling completely immersed in doing what you love most.

A.
IIIJ
B.
IFIJ
C.
JFJJ
D.
JJJJ
E.
JFII

2. CAT 2006 VARC | Fact, Inference & Judgement

Each of the questions below has a set of sequentially ordered statements. Each statement can be classified as one of the following:

Select the answer option that best describes the set of statements.

Given the poor quality of service in the public sector, the HIV/AIDS affected should be switching to private initiatives that supply anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) at a low cost.
The government has been supplying free drugs since 2004, and 35000 have benefited up to now - though the size of the affected population is 150 times this number.
The recent initiatives of networks and companies like AIDS Care Network, Emcure, Reliance-Cipla-CII, would lead to availability of much-needed drugs to a larger number of affected people.
But how ironic it is that we should face a perennial shortage of drugs when India is one of the world‘s largest suppliers of generic drugs to the developing world.

A.
JFIJ
B.
JIIJ
C.
IFIJ
D.
IFFJ
E.
JFII

3. CAT 2006 VARC | Fact, Inference & Judgement

Each of the questions below has a set of sequentially ordered statements. Each statement can be classified as one of the following:

Select the answer option that best describes the set of statements.

According to all statistical indications, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan has managed to keep pace with its ambitious goals.
The Mid- day Meal Scheme has been a significant incentive for the poor to send their little ones to school, thus establishing the vital link between healthy bodies and healthy minds.
Only about 13 million children in the age group of 6 to 14 years are out of school.
The goal of universalisation of elementary education has to be a pre-requisite for the evolution and development of our country.

A.
IIFJ
B.
JIIJ
C.
IJFJ
D.
IJFI
E.
JIFI

4. CAT 2006 VARC | Fact, Inference & Judgement

Each of the questions below has a set of sequentially ordered statements. Each statement can be classified as one of the following:

Select the answer option that best describes the set of statements.

We should not be hopelessly addicted to an erroneous belief that corruption in India is caused by the crookedness of Indians.
The truth is that we have more red tape - we take eighty-nine days to start a small business, Australians take two.
Red tape leads to corruption and distorts a people‘s character.
Every red tape procedure is a point of contact with an official, and such contacts have the potential to become opportunities for money to change hands.

A.
JFIF
B.
JFJJ
C.
JIJF
D.
IFJF
E.
JFJI

5. CAT 2006 VARC | Fact, Inference & Judgement

Each of the questions below has a set of sequentially ordered statements. Each statement can be classified as one of the following:

Select the answer option that best describes the set of statements.

Inequitable distribution of all kinds of resources is certainly one of the strongest and most sinister sources of conflict.
Even without war, we know that conflicts continue to trouble us - they only change in character.
Extensive disarmament is the only insurance for our future; imagine the amount of resources that can be released and redeployed.
The economies of the industrialized western world derive 20% of their income from the sale of all kinds of arms.

A.
IJJI
B.
JIJF
C.
IIJF
D.
JIIF
E.
IJIF

6. CAT 2006 VARC | Para Completion

Each of the following questions has a paragraph from which the last sentence has been deleted. From the given options, choose the one 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.”_____________________

A.
Guidance based on applied research can hardly qualify as ‘rules’.
B.
Thus, all my so called ‘rules’ are rooted in applied research.
C.
A suggestion perhaps, but scarcely a rule.
D.
Such principles are unavoidable if one wants to be systematic about consumer behaviour.
E.
Fundamentally it is about consumer behaviour- not about celebrities or type settings.

7. CAT 2006 VARC | Para Completion

Each of the following questions has a paragraph from which the last sentence has been deleted. From the given options, choose the one 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 maximize 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.______________________

A.
As a result, ‘deal making’ becomes rampant, without concern for customer satisfaction.
B.
As a result, inefficiencies creep into the supply chain.
C.
As a result, everyone treats the other as an adversary, rather than as an ally.
D.
As a result, fundamental innovations are becoming scarce in the automobile industry.
E.
As a result, everyone loses in the long run.

8. CAT 2006 VARC | Para Completion

Each of the following questions has a paragraph from which the last sentence has been deleted. From the given options, choose the one 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._______________

A.
However, diplomacy has often been used as a mask by nations which intended to use force.
B.
However, when the veil is lifted, we commonly see that diplomacy is understood as a disguise for the rule of force.
C.
However, history has shown that many of these nations do not practice what they profess.
D.
However, history tells us that peace is professed by those who intend to use violence.
E.
However, when unmasked, such nations reveal a penchant for the use of force.

9. CAT 2006 VARC | Para Completion

Each of the following questions has a paragraph from which the last sentence has been deleted. From the given options, choose the one 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.____________________________

A.
As a result, people transmit more information rather than experiment with new ideas as they reach an advanced age.
B.
As a result, people are reluctant to experiment with new ideas as they reach an advanced age.
C.
As a result, only people with lower opportunity costs exploit opportunity when they reach an advanced age.
D.
As a result, people become reluctant to exploit entrepreneurial opportunities when they reach an advanced age.
E.
As a result, people depend on credibility rather than on novelty as they reach an advanced age.

10. CAT 2006 VARC | Para Completion

Each of the following questions has a paragraph from which the last sentence has been deleted. From the given options, choose the one 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.__________________________

A.
But good theories, just like good maps, are invaluable, even if they are simplified.
B.
But good theories, just like good maps, will never represent unfamiliar concepts in detail.
C.
But good theories, just like good maps, need to balance detail and feasibility of representation.
D.
But good theories, just like good maps, are accurate only at a certain level of abstraction.
E.
But good theories, just like good maps, are useful in the hands of a user who knows their limitations.

The passage given below is followed by a set of questions. Choose the most appropriate answer to each question.

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 50th 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 benostalgic in former communist states, now enjoying the delights of capitalist restoration. The dominant account gives no sense of howcommunist 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 colonialismand 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 party.

Around 10 million Congolese died as a result of Belgian forced labour 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.

11. CAT 2006 VARC | Reading Comprehension

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.

12. CAT 2006 VARC | Reading Comprehension

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 social injustice 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.

13. CAT 2006 VARC | Reading Comprehension

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.
neutralise the arguments of Mr.Lindblad and to point out that the atrocities committed by colonial regimes were more than those of communist regimes.
E.
neutralise the arguments of Mr. Lindblad and to argue that one needs to go beyond and look at the motives of these regimes.

14. CAT 2006 VARC | Reading Comprehension

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.

15. CAT 2006 VARC | Reading Comprehension

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.

Answer the following question based on the information given below.

My aim is to present a conception of justice which generalizes and carries to a higher level of abstraction the familiar theory of the social contract. In order to do this we are not to think of the original contract as one to enter a particular society or to set up a particular form of government. Rather, the idea is that the principles of justice for the basic structure of society are the object of the original agreement. They are the principles that free and rational persons concerned to further their own interests would accept in an initial position of equality. These principles are to regulate all further agreements; they specify the kinds of social cooperation that can be entered into and the forms of government that can be established. This way of regarding the principles of justice, I shall call justice as fairness. Thus, we are to imagine that those who engage in social cooperation choose together, in one joint act, the principle which are to assign basic rights and duties and to determine the division of social benefits. Just as each person must decide by rational reflection what constitutes his good, that is, the system of ends which it is rational for him to pursue, so a group of persons must decide once and for all what is to count among them as just and unjust. The choice which rational men would make in this hypothetical situation of equal liberty determines the principles of justice.

In ‘justice as fairness’, the original position is not an actual historical state of affairs. It is understood as a purely hypothetical situation characterized so as to lead to a certain conception of justice. Among the essential features of this situation is that no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status, nor does anyone know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence, strength, and the like. I shall even assume that the parties do not know their conceptions of the good or their special psychological propensities. The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance. This ensures that no one is advantaged or disadvantaged in the choice of principles by the outcome of natural chance or the contingency of social circumstances. Since all are similarly situated and no one is able to design principles to favor his particular condition, the principles of justice are the result of a fair agreement or bargain.

Justice as fairness begins with one of the most general of all choices which persons might make together, namely, with the choice of the first principles of a conception of justice which is to regulate all subsequent criticism and reform of institutions. Then, having chosen a conception of justice, we can suppose that they are to choose a constitution and a legislature to enact laws, and so on, all in accordance with the principles of justice initially agreed upon. Our social situation is just if it is such that by this sequence of hypothetical agreements we would have contracted into the general system of rules which defines it. Moreover, assuming that the original position does determine a set of principles, it will then be true that whenever social institutions satisfy these principles, those engaged in them can say to one another that they are cooperating on terms to which they would agree if they were free and equal persons whose relation with respect to one another were fair. They could all view their arrangements as meeting the stipulations which they would acknowledge in an initial situation that embodies widely accepted and reasonable constraints on the choice of principles. The general recognition of this fact would provide the basis for a public acceptance of the corresponding principles of justice. No society can, of course, be a scheme of cooperation which men enter voluntarily in a literal sense; each person finds himself placed at birth in some particular position in some particular society, and the nature of this position materially affects his life prospects. Yet a society satisfying the principles of justice as fairness comes as close as a society can to being a voluntary scheme, for it meets the principles which free and equal persons would assent to under circumstances that are fair.

16. CAT 2006 VARC | Reading Comprehension

A just society, as conceptualized in the passage, can be best described as:

A.
A Utopia in which everyone is equal and no one enjoys any privilege based on their existing positions and powers.
B.
A hypothetical society in which people agree upon principles of justice which are fair.
C.
A society in which principles of justice are not based on the existing positions and powers of the individuals.
D.
A society in which principles of justice are fair to all.
E.
A hypothetical society in which principles of justice are not based on the existing positions and powers of the individuals.

17. CAT 2006 VARC | Reading Comprehension

The original agreement or original position in the passage has been used by the author as:

A.
A hypothetical situation conceived to derive principles of justice which are not influenced by position, status and condition of individuals in the society.
B.
A hypothetical situation in which every individual is equal and no individual enjoys any privilege based on the existing positions and powers.
C.
A hypothetical situation to ensure fairness of agreements among individuals in society.
D.
An imagined situation in which principles of justice would have to be fair.
E.
An imagined situation in which fairness is the objective of the principles of justice to ensure that no individual enjoys any privilege based on the existing positions and powers.

18. CAT 2006 VARC | Reading Comprehension

Which of the following best illustrates the situation that is equivalent to choosing "the principles of justice" behind a "veil of ignorance"?

A.
The principles of justice are chosen by businessmen, who are marooned on an uninhabited island after a shipwreck, but have some possibility of returning.
B.
The principles of justice are chosen by a group of school children whose capabilities are yet to develop.
C.
The principles of justice are chosen by businessmen, who are marooned on an uninhabited island after a shipwreck and have no possibility of returning.
D.
The principles of justice are chosen assuming that such principles will govern the lives of the rule makers only in their next birth if the rule makers agree that they will be born again.
E.
The principles of justice are chosen by potential immigrants who are unaware of the resources necessary to succeed in a foreign country.

19. CAT 2006 VARC | Reading Comprehension

Why, according to the passage, do principles of justice need to be based on an original agreement?

A.
Social institutions and laws can be considered fair only if they conform to principles of justice.
B.
Social institutions and laws can be fair only if they are consistent with the principles of justice as initially agreed upon.
C.
Social institutions and laws need to be fair in order to be just.
D.
Social institutions and laws evolve fairly only if they are consistent with the principles of justice as initially agreed upon.
E.
Social institutions and laws conform to the principles of justice as initially agreed upon.

20. CAT 2006 VARC | Reading Comprehension

Which of the following situations best represents the idea of justice as fairness, as argued in the passage?

A.
All individuals are paid equally for the work they do.
B.
Everyone is assigned some work for his or her livelihood.
C.
All acts of theft are penalized equally.
D.
All children are provided free education in similar schools.
E.
All individuals are provided a fixed sum of money to take care of their health.

The passage given below is followed by a set of questions. Choose the most appropriate answer to each question.

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.

21. CAT 2006 VARC | Reading Comprehension

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.

22. CAT 2006 VARC | Reading Comprehension

According to the passage, the role of a dogmatic attitude or 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.

23. CAT 2006 VARC | Reading Comprehension

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.

24. CAT 2006 VARC | Reading Comprehension

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 centred 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.

25. CAT 2006 VARC | Reading Comprehension

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.

CAT 2006 VARC | Previous Year CAT Paper

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