CAT 2025 Question Paper | VARC Slot 3

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Question 7 : The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.

In investigating memory-beliefs, there are certain points which must be borne in mind. In the first place, everything constituting a memory-belief is happening now, not in that past time to which the belief is said to refer. It is not logically necessary to the existence of a memory-belief that the event remembered should have occurred, or even that the past should have existed at all. There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that “remembered” a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago. Hence the occurrences which are CALLED knowledge of the past are logically independent of the past; they are wholly analysable into present contents, which might, theoretically, be just what they are even if no past had existed.

Explanatory Answer

The last line of the given paragraph sums up the main idea: Occurrences which are called knowledge of the past are actually logically independent of the past. Memory-beliefs happen now, not in the past and so they might just be what they are even if there was no past. Option 1 is the correct summary.
Option 2 is a true statement based on the contents of the paragraph. But it is not as comprehensive a summary as option 1. Option 2 does not mention the key idea that occurrences which are called knowledge of the past are actually logically independent of the past.
Option 3 is ruled out as it contradicts the main idea. Memory-beliefs do not depend totally on what is remembered.
Option 4 is similar to option 2. While true, it is not a good summary.

The answer is 'That which we call ‘knowledge of the past’ is logically independent of the past, since the act of remembering which forms memory-beliefs happens in the present, and does not need to be based in real past occurrences, or even need a past at all.'

Choice 1 is the correct answer.

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