CAT 2019 Question Paper | Verbal Slot 2

CAT Questions

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The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4) 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.

Question 26 : 1. Living things—animals and plants—typically exhibit correlational structure.
2. Adaptive behaviour depends on cognitive economy, treating objects as equivalent.
3. The information we receive from our senses, from the world, typically has structure and order, and is not arbitrary.
4. To categorize an object means to consider it equivalent to other things in that category, and different—along some salient dimension—from things that are not.

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Explanatory Answer

The sentences given relate to adaptive behaviour, so sentence 2 offers the best start to the paragraph. Sentence 2 states that adaptive behaviour depends on cognitive economy—that is, minimising thinking and information processing effort—by treating objects as equivalent. Sentence 4 elaborates what 'treating objects as equivalent' involves. So, 4 follows 2. Of the remaining sentences, 3 logically follows 2, as it explains that the information we receive from the world has both structure and order. This introduces the idea of ‘structure’ in the living world. Sentence 1 adds to 3. So, 2431 is the correct order.

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2431 is the correct answer.