CAT 2024 Question Paper | VARC Slot 2

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The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.

The history of any major technological or industrial advance is inevitably shadowed by a less predictable history of unintended consequences and secondary effects — what economists sometimes call "externalities." Sometimes those consequences are innocuous ones, or even beneficial. Gutenberg invents the printing press, and literacy rates rise, which causes a significant part of the reading public to require spectacles for the first time, which creates a surge of investment in lens-making across Europe, which leads to the invention of the telescope and the microscope.

Oftentimes the secondary effects seem to belong to an entirely different sphere of society. When Willis Carrier hit upon the idea of air-conditioning, the technology was primarily intended for industrial use: ensuring cool, dry air for factories that required low-humidity environments. But…it touched off one of the largest migrations in the history of the United States, enabling the rise of metropolitan areas like Phoenix and Las Vegas that barely existed when Carrier first started tinkering with the idea in the early 1900s.

Sometimes the unintended consequence comes about when consumers use an invention in a surprising way. Edison famously thought his phonograph, which he sometimes called "the talking machine," would primarily be used to take dictation….But then later innovators… discovered a much larger audience willing to pay for musical recordings made on descendants of Edison's original invention. In other cases, the original innovation comes into the world disguised as a plaything…the way the animatronic dolls of the mid-1700s inspired Jacquard to invent the first "programmable" loom and Charles Babbage to invent the first machine that fit the modern definition of a computer, setting the stage for the revolution in programmable technology that would transform the 21st century in countless ways.

We live under the gathering storm of modern history's most momentous unintended consequence….carbon-based climate change. Imagine the vast sweep of inventors whose ideas started the Industrial Revolution, all the entrepreneurs and scientists and hobbyists who had a hand in bringing it about. Line up a thousand of them and ask them all what they had been hoping to do with their work. Not one would say that their intent had been to deposit enough carbon in the atmosphere to create a greenhouse effect that trapped heat at the surface of the planet. And yet here we are.

Ethyl (leaded fuel) and Freon belonged to the same general class of secondary effect: innovations whose unintended consequences stem from some kind of waste by-product that they emit. But the potential health threats of Ethyl (unleaded fuel) were visible in the 1920s, unlike, say, the long-term effects of atmospheric carbon build up in the early days of the Industrial Revolution….

Indeed, it is reasonable to see CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) as a forerunner of the kind of threat we will most likely face in the coming decades, as it becomes increasingly possible for individuals or small groups to create new scientific advances — through chemistry or biotechnology or materials science — setting off unintended consequences that reverberate on a global scale.

Question 12 : We can assume that the author would support all of the following views EXCEPT:

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Explanatory Answer

Let us consider the options in order.
The author is likely to support the view that it has become far easier for people today to bring out innovations with dire worldwide consequences than it was earlier. Refer to the last line: "Indeed, it is reasonable to see CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) as a forerunner of the kind of threat we will most likely face in the coming decades, as it becomes increasingly possible for individuals or small groups to create new scientific advances — through chemistry or biotechnology or materials science — setting off unintended consequences that reverberate on a global scale."
With regard to the emissions caused by the large-scale use of leaded fuel, the author only states that "the potential health threats of Ethyl (unleaded fuel) were visible in the 1920s…." The author does not categorically state that these emissions ought to have been addressed earlier than they were. But the author is not likely to disagree with this statement either. We can keep this option on hold.
Moving on to option 3, we see that this option is clearly incorrect. The author does not say technological advances in the past have only had innocuous or beneficial outcomes. The carbon-based climate change that started with the Industrial Revolution is discussed by the author at length. So, option 3 is clearly a statement the author would not agree with.
Option 4 relates to a stated fact in the passage: "Ethyl (leaded fuel) and Freon belonged to the same general class of secondary effect: innovations whose unintended consequences stem from some kind of waste by-product that they emit." So, this option is ruled out.

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The question is " We can assume that the author would support all of the following views EXCEPT: "

Hence, the answer is 'While technological advances in the past have had innocuous or beneficial outcomes, more recent advances have the potential to be more threatening globally.'

Choice C is the correct answer.

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