CAT 2017 Question Paper | Verbal Slot 1

CAT Questions

This passage taken from CAT 2017 Question Paper is followed by an inference based question of medium difficulty level. Such questions are expected in the CAT Question Paper and can be mastered by practicing questions from CAT Previous Year Paper. See if you can solve this question correctly.
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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."

Question 1 : The central idea of this passage is that:

1. the closure of mails has affected the economic and social life of middle-class America.
2. the advantages of malls outweigh their disadvantages.
3. malls used to perform a social function that has been lost.
4. malls are closing down because people have found alternate ways to shop.

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Video Explanation

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Explanatory Answer

The last line of the passage sums up the main idea: ‘Malls, says Harvard business professor Leonard Schlesinger, "were built for patterns of social interaction that increasingly don't exist.’

Option A is a tempting choice. But while the passage begins with facts on mall closures, the focus is on malls serving as public squares and being the hub of the social life of middle-class America. The passage doesn’t specifically detail how mall closures has affected the economic situation of middle-class Americans. Option 3 is better than option 1.

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The question is "The central idea of this passage is that:"

Hence, the answer is malls used to perform a social function that has been lost.

Choice C is the correct answer.