CAT 2024 Question Paper | VARC Slot 3

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

The biggest challenge [The Nutmeg's Curse by Ghosh] throws down is to the prevailing understanding of when the climate crisis started. Most of us have accepted . . . that it started with the widespread use of coal at the beginning of the Industrial Age in the 18th century and worsened with the mass adoption of oil and natural gas in the 20th. Ghosh takes this history at least three centuries back, to the start of European colonialism in the 15th century. He [starts] the book with a 1621 massacre by Dutch invaders determined to impose a monopoly on nutmeg cultivation and trade in the Banda islands in today's Indonesia. Not only do the Dutch systematically depopulate the islands through genocide, they also try their best to bring nutmeg cultivation into plantation mode. These are the two points to which Ghosh returns through examples from around the world. One, how European colonialists decimated not only indigenous populations but also indigenous understanding of the relationship between humans and Earth. Two, how this was an invasion not only of humans but of the Earth itself, and how this continues to the present day by looking at nature as a 'resource' to exploit. . . . We know we are facing more frequent and more severe heatwaves, storms, floods, droughts and wildfires due to climate change. We know our expansion through deforestation, dam building, canal cutting – in short, terraforming, the word Ghosh uses – has brought us repeated disasters . . . Are these the responses of an angry Gaia who has finally had enough? By using the word 'curse' in the title, the author makes it clear that he thinks so. I use the pronoun 'who' knowingly, because Ghosh has quoted many non-European sources to enquire into the relationship between humans and the world around them so that he can question the prevalent way of looking at Earth as an inert object to be exploited to the maximum. As Ghosh's text, notes and bibliography show once more, none of this is new. There have always been challenges to the way European colonialists looked at other civilisations and at Earth. It is just that the invaders and their myriad backers in the fields of economics, politics, anthropology, philosophy, literature, technology, physics, chemistry, biology have dominated global intellectual discourse. . . . There are other points of view that we can hear today if we listen hard enough. Those observing global climate negotiations know about the Latin American way of looking at Earth as Pachamama (Earth Mother). They also know how such a framing is just provided lip service and is ignored in the substantive portions of the negotiations. In The Nutmeg's Curse, Ghosh explains why. He shows the extent of the vested interest in the oil economy – not only for oil-exporting countries, but also for a superpower like the US that controls oil drilling, oil prices and oil movement around the world. Many of us know power utilities are sabotaging decentralised solar power generation today because it hits their revenues and control. And how the other points of view are so often drowned out.

Question 4 : The author mentions all of the following reasons to dismiss concerns about contaminating Mars EXCEPT:

  1. the lack of evidence of living organisms on Mars makes possible contamination from earthly microbes a moot point.
  2. the use of similar probes on astronomical bodies like the moon have had little effect on the environment.
  3. efforts to contain contamination on Mars are likely to be derailed as competitor countries may not follow similar restrictions.
  4. earlier explorations have already contaminated pristine space environments.

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Explanatory Answer

With regard to the moon and asteroids, the author only argues that these are "desiccated, radiation-soaked" realms of "hard vacuum and extreme temperature variations that would kill nearly anything" and that China recently sent a terrarium to the moon and germinated a plant seed. The author does not say that similar probes on the moon have had "little effect" on the environment. So, option 2 does not relate to what the author argues.
On the other hand, all other options relate to the contents of the passage.
In the second paragraph, the author argues that life on Mars has been "very hard to find with robots" and that the "upsides from human exploration and development of Mars clearly outweigh the welfare of purely speculative Martian fungi". So, option 1 relates to what is stated in the passage.
The author gives the example of China to drive home the point that many international competitors will ignore the demands of protection extremists in any case. Option 3 also relates to the contents of the passage.
The author also argues in the fourth paragraph that NASA’s previous human exploration efforts made no serious attempt at sterility, with little notice. So, option 4 is ruled out.


The question is " The author mentions all of the following reasons to dismiss concerns about contaminating Mars EXCEPT: "

Hence, the answer is 'Non-European societies have perceived the Earth as a non-living source of all resources.'

Choice C is the correct answer.

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