XAT 2018 Question Paper | Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning

CAT Questions

The best questions to practice for XAT Exam are the actual XAT Question Papers. 2IIM offers you exactly that, in a student friendly format to take value from this. In XAT 2018 we saw some beautiful questions that laid emphasis on Learning ideas from basics and being able to comprehend more than remembering gazillion formulae and shortcuts. Original XAT Question paper is the best place to start off your XAT prep practice. This page provides exactly that. To check out about 1000 CAT Level questions with detailed video solutions for free, go here: CAT Question Bank

Please read the passage below and answer the questions that follow:

Labor and capital are the opposite poles of capitalist society. This polarity begins in each enterprise and is realized on a national and even international scale as a giant duality of classes which dominates the social structure. And yet this polarity is incorporated in a necessary identity between the two. Whatever its form, whether as money or commodities or means of production, capital is labor: it is labor that has been performed in the past, the objectified product of preceding phases of the cycle of production which becomes capital only through appropriation by the capitalist and its use in the accumulation of more capital. At the same time, as living labor which is purchased by the capitalist to set the production process into motion, labor is capital. That portion of money capital which is set aside for the payment of labor, the portion which in each cycle is converted into living labor power, is the portion of capital which stands for and corresponds to the working population, and upon which the latter subsists. Before it is anything else, therefore, the working class is the animate part of capital, the part which will set in motion the process that yields to the total capital its increment of surplus value. As such, the working class is first of all, raw material for exploitation. This working class lives a social and political existence of its own, outside the direct grip of capital. It protests and submits, rebels or is integrated into bourgeois society, sees itself as a class or loses sight of its own existence, in accordance with the forces that act upon it and the moods, conjunctures, and conflicts of social and political life. But since, in its permanent existence, it is the living part of capital, its occupational structure, modes of work, and distribution through the industries of society are determined by the ongoing processes of the accumulation of capital. It is seized, released, flung into various parts of the social machinery and expelled by others, not in accord with its own will or self-activity, but in accord with the movement of capital.

Question 13 : Which of the following statements will be true, according to the passage?

1. Capital exploits the working class.
2. Working class when converted into capital is exploited by the bourgeois.
3. Working class is exploited by the conflicts of social and political life.
4. The pursuit of capital accumulation results in exploitation of the working class.
5. Working class is the raw material for capital.

---

---

---

Explanatory Answer

A. Capital exploits the working class. – Capitalists exploit the working class, not capital in itself. This option can thus be eliminated.
B. Working class when converted into capital is exploited by the bourgeois. – The passage talks about how working class becomes integrated into the bourgeois society, and not really anything on exploitation by the bourgeois. So, this option can be eliminated.
C. Working class is exploited by the conflicts of social and political life. – Though this seems right, the passage quotes the conflicts only as an additional reason for the working class to “lose sight of its existence”. The main reason there is the forces that act upon the working class, which refers to the capitalists. So this cannot be the right answer choice.
D. The pursuit of capital accumulation results in exploitation of the working class. – Consider the following line from the passage. “Capital is labor: it is labor that has been performed in the past, the objectified product of preceding phases of the cycle of production which becomes capital only through appropriation by the capitalist and its use in the accumulation of more capital.” This clearly gives it away that accumulation of capital is what results in exploitation of the working class. Hence, this is the right answer choice.
E. Working class is the raw material for capital. – This has not been stated explicitly in the passage. Labor, if anything, is treated as a means of capital only, and not as a raw material for capital. So, this can be eliminated as well.

---

The question is "Which of the following statements will be true, according to the passage?"

Hence, the answer is The pursuit of capital accumulation results in exploitation of the working class.

Choice D is the correct answer.