CAT 2017 Question Paper Slot 1 | CAT VA RC
CAT Question Paper | CAT Previous Year Paper
CAT VARC has seen sea changes since 2014-15 and has increased the
number of RC based questions. The Verbal Ability part of this section has seen an inclination
towards questions that require extensive reading more than anything else. Here we have a
repository of questions that appeared in CAT 2017 Question Paper Slot 2 so that you can go
through these and assess where you stand in your CAT Prepration Online. Based on how you fare in
these questions, it'll be a good option to rejig your CAT Preparation Strategy. Dive into these
questions and level up your online CAT Preparation!
If you are looking for a place to
develop and hone your reading skills, head straight to Bharath’s Reading List, which
offers you a plethora of articles across domains to brace yourself for whatever the CAT Exam
throws at you! If you are looking for more questions of this type, visit 2IIM's CAT Question Bank.
CAT VARC : CAT 2017 Question Paper Slot 1
Passage 1: Map Making
Understanding where you are in the world is a basic survival skill, which is why
we, like most species come hard-wired with specialized brain areas to create cognitive maps of
our surroundings. Where humans are unique, though, with the possible exception of honeybees, is
that we try to communicate this understanding the world with others. We have along history of
doing this by drawing maps – the earliest version yet discovered were scrawled on cave walls
14,000 years ago. Human cultures have been drawing them on stone tablets, papyrus, paper and now
computer screens ever since.
Given such a long history of human map-making, it perhaps
surprising that is only within the last few hundred years that north has been consistently
considered to be at the top. In fact, for much of human history, north almost never appeared at
the top, according to Jerry Brotton, a map historian... “North was rarely put at the top for the
simple fact that north is where darkness comes from,” he says. “West is also very unlikely o be
put at the top because west is where the sun disappears.”
Confusingly, early Chinese
maps seem to buck this trend. But, Brotton, says, even though they did have compasses at the
time, that isn’t the reason that they placed north at the top. Early Chinese compasses were
actually oriented to point south, which was considered to be more desirable than deepest darkest
north. But in Chinese maps, the emperor, who lived in the north of the country was always put at
the top of the map, with everyone else, his loyal subjects, looking up towards him. “In Chinese
culture the Emperor looks south because it’s where the winds come from, it’s a good direction.
North is not very good but you are in a position of the subjection to the emperor, so you look
up to him,” says Brotton.
Given that each culture has a very different idea of who, or
what, they should look upto it’s perhaps not surprising that there is very little consistency in
which way early maps pointed. In ancient Egyptian times the top of the world was east, the
position of sunrise. Early Islamic maps favoured south at the top because most of the early
Muslim cultures were north of Mecca, so they imagined looking up (south) towards it Christian
maps from the same era (called Mappa Mundi) put east at the top, towards the Garden of Eden and
with Jerusalem in the centre.
So when did everyone get together and decide that north
was the top? It’s tempting to put it down to European explorers like Christopher Columbus and
Ferdinand Megellan who were navigating by the North Star. But Brotton argues that these early
explorers didn’t think of the world like that at all. “When Columbus describes the world it is
in accordance with east being at the top,” he says “Columbus says he is going towards paradise,
so his mentality is from a medieval mappa mundi.” We’ve got to remember, adds Brotton, that at
the time, “no one knows what they are doing and where they are going.”
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
Which one of the following best describes what the passage is trying to do?
- It questions on explanation about how maps are designed.
- It corrects a misconception about the way maps are designed.
- It critiques a methodology used to create maps.
- It explores some myths about maps.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
Early maps did NOT put north at the top for all the following reasons EXCEPT
- North was the source of darkness
- South was favoured by some emperors
- East and south were more important for religious reasons for some civilisations
- East was considered by some civilisations to be a more positive direction
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
According to the passage, early Chinese maps placed north at the top because
- the Chinese invented the compass and were aware of magnetic north.
- they wanted to show respect to the emperor.
- the Chinese emperor appreciated the winds from the south.
- north was considered the most desirable direction.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
It can be inferred from the passage that European explorers like Columbus and Megellan
- set the precedent for north-up maps.
- navigated by the compass.
- used an eastward orientation for religious reasons.
- navigated with the help of early maps.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
Which one of the following about the northern orientation of modern maps is asserted in the passage
- The biggest contributory factor was the understanding of magnetic north
- The biggest contributory factor was the role of European explorers
- The biggest contributory factor was the influence of Christian maps
- The biggest contributory factor is not stated in the passage
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
The role of natural phenomena in influencing map-making conventions is seen most clearly in
- early Egyptian maps
- early Islamic maps
- early Chinese maps
- early Christian maps
Passage 2: Impact of Printed text and iPhone
I used a smartphone GPS to find my way through the cobblestoned maze of Geneva's
Old Town, in search of a handmade machine that changed the world more than any other invention.
Near a 13th-century cathedral in this Swiss city on the shores of a lovely lake, I found what I
was looking for: a Gutenberg printing press. "This was the Internet of its day — at least as
influential as the iPhone," said Gabriel de Montmollin, the director of the Museum of the
Reformation, toying with the replica of Johann Gutenberg's great invention. [Before the
invention of the printing press] it used to take four monks...up to a year to produce a single
book. With the advance in movable type in 15th-century Europe, one press could crank out 3,000
pages a day.
Before long, average people could travel to places that used to be unknown
to them — with maps! Medical information passed more freely and quickly, diminishing the sway of
quacks...The printing press offered the prospect that tyrants would never be able to kill a book
or suppress an idea. Gutenberg's brainchild broke the monopoly that clerics had on scripture.
And later, stirred by pamphlets from a version of that same press, the American colonies rose up
against a king and gave birth to a nation. So, a question in the summer of this 10th anniversary
of the iPhone: has the device that is perhaps the most revolutionary of all time given us a
single magnificent idea? Nearly every advancement of the written word through new technology has
also advanced humankind. Sure, you can say the iPhone changed everything. By putting the world's
recorded knowledge in the palm of a hand, it revolutionized work, dining, travel and
socializing. It made us more narcissistic — here's more of me doing cool stuff! — and it
unleashed an army of awful trolls. We no longer have the patience to sit through a baseball game
without that reach to the pocket. And one more casualty of Apple selling more than a billion
phones in a decade's time: daydreaming has become a lost art.
For all of that, I'm still
waiting to see if the iPhone can do what the printing press did for religion and democracy...the
Geneva museum makes a strong case that the printing press opened more minds than anything
else...it's hard to imagine the French or American revolutions without those enlightened voices
in print...
Not long after Steve Jobs introduced his iPhone, he said the bound book was
probably headed for history's attic. Not so fast. After a period of rapid growth in e-books,
something closer to the medium for Chaucer's volumes has made a great comeback.
The hope
of the iPhone, and the Internet in general, was that it would free people in closed societies.
But the failure of the Arab Spring, and the continued suppression of ideas in North Korea, China
and Iran, has not borne that out... The iPhone is still young. It has certainly been "one of the
most important, world-changing and successful products in history, “ as Apple CEO. Tim Cook
said. But I'm not sure if the world changed for the better with the iPhone — as it did with the
printing press — or merely, changed.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
The printing press has been likened to the Internet for which one of the following reasons?
- It enabled rapid access to new information and the sharing of new ideas
- It represented new and revolutionary technology compared to the past
- It encouraged reading among people by giving them access to thousands of books
- It gave people access to pamphlets and literature in several languages
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
According to the passage, the invention of the printing press did all of the following EXCEPT
- Promoted the spread of enlightened political views across countries.
- Gave people direct access to authentic medical information and religious texts.
- Shortened the time taken to produce books and pamphlets.
- Enabled people to perform various tasks simultaneously.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
Steve Jobs predicted which one'of the following with the introduction of the iPhone?
- People would switch from reading on the Internet to reading on their iPhones.
- People would lose interest in historical and traditional classics.
- Reading printed books would become a thing of the past.
- The production of e-books would eventually fall.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
"I'm still waiting to see if the iPhone can do what the printing press did for religion and democracy." The author uses which one of the following to indicate his uncertainty?
- The rise of religious groups in many parts of the world.
- The expansion in trolling and narcissism among users of the Internet.
- The continued suppression of free speech in closed societies.
- The decline in reading habits among those who use the device.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
The author attributes the French and American revolutions to the invention of the printing press because
- maps enabled large numbers of Europeans to travel and settle in the American continent.
- the rapid spread of information exposed people to new ideas on freedom and democracy.
- it encouraged religious freedom among the people by destroying the monopoly of religious leaders on the scriptures.
- it made available revolutionary strategies and opinions to the people.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
The main conclusion of the passage is that the new technology has
- some advantages, but these are outweighed by its disadvantages.
- so far not proved as successful as the printing press in opening people's minds.
- been disappointing because it has changed society too rapidly.
- been more wasteful than the printing press because people spend more time daydreaming or surfing.
Passage 3: American Malls
This year alone, more than 8,600 stores could close, according to industry
estimates, many of them the brand -name anchor outlets that real estate developers once stumbled
over themselves to court. Already there have been 5,300 retail closings this year... Sears
Holdings—which owns Kmart—said in March that there's "substantial doubt" it can stay in business
altogether, and will close 300 stores this year. So far this year, nine national retail chains
have filed for bankruptcy.
Local jobs are a major casualty of what analysts are calling,
with only a hint of hyperbole, the retail apocalypse. Since 2002, department stores have lost
448,000 jobs, a 25% decline, while the number of store closures this year is on pace to surpass
the worst depths of the Great Recession. The growth of online retailers, meanwhile, has failed
to offset those losses, with the ecommerce sector adding just 178,000 jobs over the past 15
years. Some of those jobs can be found in the massive distribution centers Amazon has opened
across the country, often not too far from malls the company helped shutter.
But those
are workplaces, not gathering places. The mall is both. And in the 61 years since the first
enclosed one opened in suburban Minneapolis, the shopping mall has been where a huge swath of
middle-class America went for far more than shopping. It was the home of first jobs and blind
dates, the place for family photos and ear piercings, where goths and grandmothers could somehow
walk through the same doors and find something they all liked. Sure, the food was lousy for you
and the oceans of parking lots encouraged car-heavy development, something now scorned by
contemporary planners. But for better or worse, the mall has been America's public square for
the last 60 years.
So what happens when it disappears?
Think of your mall. Or
think of the one you went to as a kid. Think of the perfume clouds in the department stores. The
fountains splashing below the skylights. The cinnamon wafting from the food court. As far back
as ancient Greece, societies have congregated around a central marketplace. In medieval Europe,
they were outside cathedrals. For half of the 20th century and almost 20 years into the new one,
much of America has found their agora on the terrazzo between Orange Julius and Sbarro,
Waldenbooks and the Gap, Sunglass Hut and Hot Topic.
That mall was an ecosystem unto
itself, a combination of community and commercialism peddling everything you needed and
everything you didn't: Magic Eye posters, wind catchers. Air Jordans....
A growing
number of Americans, however, don't see the need to go to any Macy's at all. Our digital lives
are frictionless and ruthlessly efficient, with retail and romance available at a click. Malls
were designed for leisure, abundance, ambling. You parked and planned to spend some time. Today,
much of that time has been given over to busier lives and second jobs and apps that let you
swipe right instead of haunt the food court. ' Malls, says Harvard business professor Leonard
Schlesinger, "were built for patterns of social interaction that increasingly don't exist."
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
The central idea of this passage is that:
- the closure of mails has affected the economic and social life of middle-class America.
- the advantages of malls outweigh their disadvantages.
- malls used to perform a social function that has been lost.
- malls are closing down because people have found alternate ways to shop.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
Why does the author say in paragraph 2, 'the massive distribution centers Amazon has opened across the country, often not too far from malls the company helped shutter'?
- To highlight the irony of the situation.
- To indicate that mails and distribution centres are located in the same area.
- To show that Amazon is helping certain brands go online.
- To indicate that the shopping habits of the American middle class have changed.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
In paragraph 1, the phrase "real estate developers once stumbled over themselves to court" suggests that they
- took brand-name anchor outlets to court.
- no longer pursue brand-name hanger outlets.
- malls are closing down because people have found alternate ways to shop.
- collaborated with one another to get brand-name anchor outlets.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
The author calls the mall an ecosystem unto itself because
- people of all ages and from all walks of life went there.
- people could shop as well as eat in one place.
- it was a commercial space as well as a gathering place.
- it sold things that were needed as well as those that were not.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
Why does the author say that the mall has been America's public square?
- Malls did not bar anybody from entering the space.
- Malls were a great place to shop for a huge section of the middle class.
- Malls were a hangout place where families grew close to each other.
- Malls were a great place for everyone to gather and interact.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
The author describes 'Perfume clouds in the department stores' in order to
- evoke memories by painting a picture of malls
- describe the smells and sights of mails
- emphasise that all brands were available under one roof.
- show that malls smelt good because of the various stores and food court.
Passage 4: Evolutionary diversity
Scientists have long recognised the incredible diversity within a species. But they
thought it reflected evolutionary changes that unfolded imperceptibly, over millions of years.
That divergence between populations within a species was enforced, according to Ernst Mayr, the
great evolutionary biologist of the 1940s, when a population was separated from the rest of the
species by a mountain range or a desert, preventing breeding across the divide over geologic
scales of time. Without the separation, gene flow was relentless. But as the separation
persisted, the isolated population grew apart and speciation occurred.
In the mid-1960s,
the biologist Paul Ehrlich - author of The Population Bomb (1968) - and his Stanford University
colleague Peter Raven challenged Mayr's ideas about speciation. They had studied checkerspot
butterflies living in the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve in California, and it soon became
clear that they were not examining a single population. Through years of capturing, marking and
then recapturing the butterflies, they were able to prove that within the population, spread
over just 50 acres of suitable checkerspot habitat, there were three groups that rarely
interacted despite their very close proximity.
Among other ideas, Ehrlich and Raven
argued in a now classic paper from 1969 that gene flow was not as predictable and ubiquitous as
Mayr and his cohort maintained, and thus evolutionary divergence between neighbouring groups in
a population was probably common. They also asserted that isolation and gene flow were less
important to evolutionary divergence than natural selection (when factors such as mate choice,
weather, disease or predation cause better-adapted individuals to survive and pass on their
successful genetic traits). For example, Ehrlich and Raven suggested that, without the force of
natural selection, an isolated population would remain unchanged and that, in other scenarios,
natural selection could be strong enough to overpower gene flow...
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
Which of the following best sums up Ehrlich and Raven's argument in their classic 1969 paper?
- Ernst Mayr was wrong in identifying physical separation as the cause of species diversity
- Checkerspot butterflies in the 50-acre Jasper Ridge Preserve formed three groups that rarely interacted with each other
- While a factor, isolation was not as important to speciation as natural selection
- Gene flow is less common and more erratic than Mayr and his colleagues claimed.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
All of the following statements are true according to the passage EXCEPT
- Gene flow contributes to evolutionary divergence.
- The Population Bomb questioned dominant ideas about species diversity.
- Evolutionary changes unfold imperceptibly over time.
- Checkerspot butterflies are known to exhibit speciation while living in close proximity.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
The author discusses Mayr, Ehrlich and Raven to demonstrate that
- evolution is a sensitive and controversial topic.
- Ehrlich and Raven's ideas about evolutionary divergence are widely accepted by scientists.
- the causes of speciation are debated by scientists.
- checkerspot butterflies offer the best example of Ehrlich and Raven's ideas about speciation.
Passage 5: Olympics
Do sports mega events like the summer Olympic Games benefit the host city
economically? It depends, but the prospects are less than rosy. The trick is
converting...several billion dollars in operating costs during the 17-day fiesta of the Games
into a basis for long-term economic returns. These days, the summer Olympic Games themselves
generate total revenue of $4 billion to $5 billion, but the lion's share of this goes to the
International Olympics Committee, the National Olympics Committees and the International Sports
Federations. Any economic benefit would have to flow from the value of the Games as an
advertisement for the city, the new transportation and communications infrastructure that was
created for the Games, or the ongoing use of the new facilities.
Evidence suggests that
the advertising effect is far from certain. The infrastructure benefit depends on the initial
condition of the city and the effectiveness of the planning. The facilities benefit is dubious
at best for buildings such as velodromes or natatoriums and problematic for 100,000-seat Olympic
stadiums. The latter require a conversion plan for future use, the former are usually doomed to
near vacancy. Hosting the summer Games generally requires 30-plus sports venues and dozens of
training centers. Today, the Bird's Nest in Beijing sits virtually empty, while the Olympic
Stadium in Sydney costs some $30 million a year to operate.
Part of the problem is that
Olympics planning takes place in a frenzied and time-pressured atmosphere of intense competition
with the other prospective host cities — not optimal conditions for contemplating the future
shape of an urban landscape. Another part of the problem is that urban land is generally scarce
and growing scarcer. The new facilities often stand for decades or longer. Even if they have
future use, are they the best use of precious urban real estate?
Further, cities must
consider the human cost. Residential areas often are razed and citizens relocated (without
adequate preparation or compensation). Life is made more hectic and congested. There are, after
all, other productive uses that can be made of vanishing fiscal resources.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
The central point in the first paragraph is that the economic benefits of the Olympic Games
- are shared equally among the three organising committees.
- accrue mostly through revenue from advertisements and ticket sales.
- accrue to host cities, if at all, only in the long term.
- are usually eroded by expenditure incurred by the host city.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
Sports facilities built for the Olympics are not fully utilised after the Games are over because
- their scale and the costs of operating them are large.
- their location away from the city centre usually limits easy access.
- the authorities do not adapt them to local conditions.
- they become outdated having being built with little planning and under time pressure.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
The author feels that the Games place a burden on the host city for all of the following reasons EXCEPT that
- they divert scarce urban land from more productive uses.
- they involve the demolition of residential structures to accommodate sports facilities and infrastructure.
- the finances used to fund the Games could be better used for other purposes.
- the influx of visitors during the Games places a huge strain on the urban infrastructure.
The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) given below, when properly sequenced would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequence of the order of the sentences and key in the sequence of the four numbers as your answer.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
1. The process of handing down implies not a passive transfer, but some contestation in defining what exactly is to be handed down.
2. Wherever Western scholars have worked on the Indian past, the selection is even more apparent and the inventing of a tradition much more recognizable.
3. Every generation selects what it requires from the past and makes its innovations, some more than others.
4. It is now a truism to say that traditions are not handed down unchanged, but are invented.
5. Just as life has death as its opposite, so is tradition by default the opposite of innovation.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
1. Scientists have for the first time managed to edit genes in a human embryo to repair a genetic mutation, fuelling hopes that such procedures may one day be available outside laboratory conditions.
2. The cardiac disease causes sudden death in otherwise healthy young athletes and affects about one in 500 people overall.
3. Correcting the mutation in the gene would not only ensure that the child is healthy but also prevents transmission of the mutation to future generations.
4. It is caused by a mutation in a particular gene and a child will suffer from the condition even if it inherits only one copy of the mutated gene.
5. In results announced in Nature this week, scientists fixed a mutation that thickens the heart muscle, a condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
1. The study suggests that the disease did not spread with such intensity, but that it may have driven human migrations across Europe and Asia.
2. The oldest sample came from an individual who lived in southeast Russia about 5,000 years ago.
3. The ages of the skeletons correspond to a time of mass exodus from today's Russia and Ukraine into western Europe and central Asia, suggesting that a pandemic could have driven these migrations.
4. In the analysis of fragments of DNA from 101 Bronze Age skeletons for sequences from Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes the disease, seven tested positive.
5. DNA from Bronze Age human skeletons indicate that the black plague could have emerged as early as 3,000 BCE, long before the epidemic that swept through Europe in the mid-1300s.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
1. This visual turn in social media has merely accentuated this announcing instinct of ours, enabling us with easy-to-create, easy-to-share, easy-to-store and easy-to-consume platforms, gadgets and apps.
2. There is absolutely nothing new about us framing the vision of who we are or what we want, visually or otherwise, in our Facebook page, for example.
3. Turning the pages of most family albums, which belong to a period well before the digital dissemination of self-created and self-curated moments and images, would reconfirm the basic instinct of documenting our presence in a particular space, on a significant occasion, with others who matter.
4. We are empowered to book our faces and act as celebrities within the confinement of our respective friend lists, and communicate our activities, companionship and locations with minimal clicks and touches.
5. What is unprecedented is not the desire to put out news feeds related to the self, but the ease with which this broadcast operation can now be executed, often provoking (un)anticipated responses from beyond one's immediate location.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option
that best captures the essence of the passage.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
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 classic is able to focus on the contemporary human condition and a unified experience of human consciousness.
- A classical work seeks to resist particularity and temporal difference even as it focuses on a common humanity
- A classic is a work exploring the new., going beyond the universal, the contemporary, and the notion of a unified human consciousness
- 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
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
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 grammar 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.
- While translating, the Indian and the westerner face the same challenges but they have different skill profiles and the former has the advantage.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
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 sea water.
- The storm Harvey is one of the regular., annual ones from the Gulf of Mexico; global warming and Harvey are unrelated phenomena.
- 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.
- Global warming melts glaciers, resulting in sea water volume expansion; this enables more water vapour to fill the air above faster. Thus, modern storms contain more destructive energy.
- 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.
Five sentences related to a topic are given below. Four of them can be put together
to form a meaningful and coherent short paragraph. Identify the odd one out. Choose its number
as your answer and key it in.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
1. People who study children's language spend a lot of time watching how babies react to the speech they hear around them.
2. They make films of adults and babies interacting, and examine them very carefully to see whether the babies show any signs of understanding what the adults say.
3. They believe that babies begin to react to language from the very moment they are born.
4. Sometimes the signs are very subtle - slight movements of the baby's eyes or the head or the hands.
5. You'd never notice them if you were just sitting with the child, but by watching a recording over and over, you can spot them.
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
1. Neuroscientists have just begun studying exercise's impact within brain cells — on the genes themselves.
2. Even there, in the roots of our biology, they've found signs of the body's influence on the mind.
3. It turns out that moving our muscles produces proteins that travel through the bloodstream and into the brain, where they play pivotal roles in the mechanisms of our highest thought processes.
4. In today's technology-driven, plasma-screened-in world, it's easy to forget that we are born movers — animals, in fact — because we've engineered movement right out of our lives.
5. It's only in the past few years that neuroscientists have begun to describe these factors and how they work, and each new discovery adds awe-inspiring depth to the picture
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CAT Previous year paper - CAT Exam VA RC
1. The water that made up ancient lakes and perhaps an ocean was lost.
2. Particles from the Sun collided with molecules in the atmosphere, knocking them into space or giving them an electric charge that caused them to be swept away by the solar wind.
3. Most of the planet's remaining water is now frozen or buried, but clues over the past decade suggested that some liquid water, a presumed necessity for life, might survive in underground aquifers.
4. Data from NASA's MAVEN orbiter show that solar storms stripped away most of Mars's once-thick atmosphere.
5. A recent study reveals how Mars lost much of its early water, while another indicates that some liquid water remains.
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