CAT 2019 Question Paper | Verbal Slot 1

CAT Questions

When it comes to shopping online, there's too much stuff! The human brain can't contend with the vastness of Online Shopping. This passage hoovers around this idea. But don't worry when it comes to your Online CAT Preparation you, don't have to face a decision-making dilemma as the best place to start your CAT Preparation is CAT Previous Year Paper.This question asks us to infer the purpose of using an example in the passage. These types of questions require heavy-duty critical thinking to crack them open. The best way to improve your critical thinking ability is by reading tons of good articles. Follow Bharath Curated Reading List to read hand-picked articles for free.

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Contemporary internet shopping conjures a perfect storm of choice anxiety. Research has consistently held that people who are presented with a few options make better, easier decisions than those presented with many. . . . Helping consumers figure out what to buy amid an endless sea of choice online has become a cottage industry unto itself. Many brands and retailers now wield marketing buzzwords such as curation, differentiation, and discovery as they attempt to sell an assortment of stuff targeted to their ideal customer. Companies find such shoppers through the data gold mine of digital advertising, which can catalog people by gender, income level, personal interests, and more. Since Americans have lost the ability to sort through the sheer volume of the consumer choices available to them, a ghost now has to be in the retail machine, whether it’s an algorithm, an influencer, or some snazzy ad tech to help a product follow you around the internet. Indeed, choice fatigue is one reason so many people gravitate toward lifestyle influencers on Instagram—the relentlessly chic young moms and perpetually vacationing 20-somethings—who present an aspirational worldview, and then recommend the products and services that help achieve it. . . .

For a relatively new class of consumer-products start-ups, there’s another method entirely. Instead of making sense of a sea of existing stuff, these companies claim to disrupt stuff as Americans know it. Casper (mattresses), Glossier (makeup), Away (suitcases), and many others have sprouted up to offer consumers freedom from choice: The companies have a few aesthetically pleasing and supposedly highly functional options, usually at mid-range prices. They’re selling nice things, but maybe more importantly, they’re selling a confidence in those things, and an ability to opt out of the stuff rat race. . . .

One-thousand-dollar mattresses and $300 suitcases might solve choice anxiety for a certain tier of consumer, but the companies that sell them, along with those that attempt to massage the larger stuff economy into something navigable, are still just working within a consumer market that’s broken in systemic ways. The presence of so much stuff in America might be more valuable if it were more evenly distributed, but stuff’s creators tend to focus their energy on those who already have plenty. As options have expanded for people with disposable income, the opportunity to buy even basic things such as fresh food or quality diapers has contracted for much of America’s lower classes.

For start-ups that promise accessible simplicity, their very structure still might eventually push them toward overwhelming variety. Most of these companies are based on hundreds of millions of dollars of venture capital, the investors of which tend to expect a steep growth rate that can’t be achieved by selling one great mattress or one great sneaker. Casper has expanded into bedroom furniture and bed linens. Glossier, after years of marketing itself as no-makeup makeup that requires little skill to apply, recently launched a full line of glittering color cosmetics. There may be no way to opt out of stuff by buying into the right thing.

Question 7 : Which one of the following best sums up the overall purpose of the examples of Casper and Glossier in the passage?

1. They are increasing the purchasing power of poor Americans.
2. They are exceptions to a dominant trend in consumer markets.
3. They are facilitating a uniform distribution of commodities in the market.
4. They might transform into what they were exceptions to.

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Video Explanation

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Explanatory Answer

The author first cites the examples of Casper and Glossier while discussing companies that 'have sprouted up to offer consumers freedom from choice'. That is, they are exceptions to the dominant trend of flooding consumers with choice. However, the author does not leave it at that. He argues that even these start-ups promising simplicity of choice will be pushed toward overwhelming variety due to the steep growth expectations from investors. That is, though they are exceptions now, Casper and Glossier may transform into what they are exceptions to.

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The question is "Which one of the following best sums up the overall purpose of the examples of Casper and Glossier in the passage?"

Hence, the answer is They might transform into what they were exceptions to.

Choice D is the correct answer.