CAT 2018 Question Paper | Verbal Slot 2

CAT Questions

This is a question based on the holistic understanding of the passage ‘Metric Fixation’ that appeared on CAT 2018 Question Paper Slot 2. Understanding the linear flow of the paragraphs entirely is necessary to solve this question correctly. Develop a reading habit right from the start of your CAT Online Preparation by reading the articles posted in Bharath’s curated reading list to nail the CAT Exam with a kick-ass score.

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More and more companies, government agencies, educational institutions and philanthropic organisations are today in the grip of a new phenomenon: ‘metric fixation’. The key components of metric fixation are the belief that it is possible – and desirable – to replace professional judgment (acquired through personal experience and talent) with numerical indicators of comparative performance based upon standardised data (metrics); and that the best way to motivate people within these organisations is by attaching rewards and penalties to their measured performance.

The rewards can be monetary, in the form of pay for performance, say, or reputational, in the form of college rankings, hospital ratings, surgical report cards and so on. But the most dramatic negative effect of metric fixation is its propensity to incentivise gaming: that is, encouraging professionals to maximise the metrics in ways that are at odds with the larger purpose of the organisation. If the rate of major crimes in a district becomes the metric according to which police officers are promoted, then some officers will respond by simply not recording crimes or downgrading them from major offences to misdemeanours. Or take the case of surgeons. When the metrics of success and failure are made public – affecting their reputation and income – some surgeons will improve their metric scores by refusing to operate on patients with more complex problems, whose surgical outcomes are more likely to be negative. Who suffers? The patients who don’t get operated upon.

When reward is tied to measured performance, metric fixation invites just this sort of gaming. But metric fixation also leads to a variety of more subtle unintended negative consequences. These include goal displacement, which comes in many varieties: when performance is judged by a few measures, and the stakes are high (keeping one’s job, getting a pay rise or raising the stock price at the time that stock options are vested), people focus on satisfying those measures – often at the expense of other, more important organisational goals that are not measured. The best-known example is ‘teaching to the test’, a widespread phenomenon that has distorted primary and secondary education in the United States since the adoption of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

Short-termism is another negative. Measured performance encourages what the US sociologist Robert K Merton in 1936 called ‘the imperious immediacy of interests where the actor’s paramount concern with the foreseen immediate consequences excludes consideration of further or other consequences’. In short, advancing short-term goals at the expense of long-range considerations. This problem is endemic to publicly traded corporations that sacrifice long-term research and development, and the development of their staff, to the perceived imperatives of the quarterly report.

Question 19 : What is the main idea that the author is trying to highlight in the passage?

1. Long-term organisational goals should not be ignored for short-term measures of organisational success.
2. All kinds of organisations are now relying on metrics to measure performance and to give rewards and punishments.
3. Evaluating performance by using measurable performance metrics may misguide organisational goal achievement.
4. Performance measurement needs to be precise and cost-effective to be useful for evaluating organisational performance.

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Video Explanation

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Explanatory Answer

The passage lists and analyses the negative effects associated with metric fixation: the incentive to ‘game’ the system, goal displacement, short-termism and the time/transactional costs associated with metrics. Option 3 captures this idea best.

Option 4 is incorrect and can be ruled out right away. Options 1 and 2 simply state one aspect of the passage; they do not highlight the main idea.

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The question is "What is the main idea that the author is trying to highlight in the passage?"

Hence, the answer is Evaluating performance by using measurable performance metrics may misguide organisational goal achievement.

Choice C is the correct answer.