CAT 2017 Question Paper | Verbal Slot 2

CAT Questions

One of the most crucial elements of your online CAT preparation is practicing questions from CAT previous year paper to set yourself up for the tricky questions the CAT Question Paper throws at you. You can find yourself stuck in Reading Comprehensions hence practicing CAT previous year paper for RCs becomes even more important. Try your hands at this question taken from CAT 2017 Question Paper and see if you can easily steer through.

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Despite their fierce reputation, Vikings may not have always been the plunderers and pillagers popular culture imagines them to be. In fact, they got their start trading in northern European markets, researchers suggest.

Combs carved from animal antlers, as well as comb manufacturing waste and raw antler material has turned up at three archaeological sites in Denmark, including a medieval marketplace in the city of Ribe. A team of researchers from Denmark and the U.K. hoped to identify the species of animal to which the antlers once belonged by analyzing collagen proteins in the samples and comparing them across the animal kingdom, Laura Geggel reports for LiveScience. Somewhat surprisingly, molecular analysis of the artifacts revealed that some combs and other material had been carved from reindeer antlers.... Given that reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) don't live in Denmark, the researchers posit that it arrived on Viking ships from Norway. Antler craftsmanship, in the form of decorative combs, was part of Viking culture. Such combs served as symbols of good health, Geggel writes. The fact that the animals shed their antlers also made them easy to collect from the large herds that inhabited Norway.

Since the artifacts were found in marketplace areas at each site it's more likely that the Norsemen came to trade rather than pillage. Most of the artifacts also date to the 780s, but some are as old as 725. That predates the beginning of Viking raids on Great Britain by about 70 years. (Traditionally, the so-called "Viking Age" began with these raids in 793 and ended with the Norman conquest of Great Britain in l066.) Archaeologists had suspected that the Vikings had experience with long maritime voyages [that] might have preceded their raiding days. Beyond Norway, these combs would have been a popular industry in Scandinavia as wela: It' s possible that the antler combs represent a larger trade network, where the Norsemen supplied raw material to craftsmen in Denmark and elsewhere.

Question 2 : The evidence - "Most of the artifacts also date to the 780s, but some are as old as 725" — has been used in the passage to argue that:

1. the beginning date of the Viking Age should be changed from 793 to 725.
2. the Viking raids started as early as 725.
3. some of the antler artifacts found in Denmark and Great Britain could have come from Scandinavia.
4. the Vikings' trade relations with Europe pre-dates the Viking raids.

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Video Explanation

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Explanatory Answer

Note the context in which the passage mentions the year 725: ‘Since the artifacts were found in marketplace areas at each site it's more likely that the Norsemen came to trade rather than pillage. Most of the artifacts also date to the 780s, but some are as old as 725. That predates the beginning of Viking raids on Great Britain by about 70 years.’

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The question is "The evidence - "Most of the artifacts also date to the 780s, but some are as old as 725" — has been used in the passage to argue that:"

Hence, the answer is the Vikings' trade relations with Europe pre-dates the Viking raids.

Choice D is the correct answer.