XAT 2022 Question Paper | Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning

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Read the passage carefully and answer the THREE questions that follow.

Stupidity is a very specific cognitive failing. Crudely put, it occurs when you don't have the right conceptual tools for the job. The result is an inability to make sense of what is happening and a resulting tendency to force phenomena into crude, distorting pigeonholes.

This is easiest to introduce with a tragic case. British high command during the First World War frequently understood trench warfare using concepts and strategies from the cavalry battles of their youth. As one of Field Marshal Douglas Haig's subordinates later remarked, they thought of the trenches as 'mobile operations at the halt': i.e., as fluid battle lines with the simple caveat that nothing in fact budged for years. Unsurprisingly, this did not serve them well in formulating a strategy: they were hampered, beyond the shortage of material resources, by a kind of 'conceptual obsolescence', a failure to update their cognitive tools to fit the task in hand. In at least some cases, intelligence actively abets stupidity by allowing pernicious rationalisation.

Stupidity will often arise in cases like this, when an outdated conceptual framework is forced into service, mangling the user's grip on some new phenomenon. It is important to distinguish this from mere error. We make mistakes for all kinds of reasons. Stupidity is rather one specific and stubborn cause of error. Historically, philosophers have worried a great deal about the irrationality of not taking the available means to achieve goals: Tom wants to get fit, yet his running shoes are quietly gathering dust. The stock solution to Tom's quandary is simple willpower. Stupidity is very different from this. It is rather a lack of the necessary means, a lack of the necessary intellectual equipment. Combatting it will typically require not brute willpower but the construction of a new way of seeing our self and our world. Such stupidity is perfectly compatible with intelligence: Haig was by any standard a smart man.

Question 13 : Which of the following statements BEST explains why stupidity for a smart person is 'perfectly compatible with intelligence'?

Explanatory Answer

Combating stupidity, according to the passage, requires breaking free of the past- "the construction of a new way of seeing our self and our world." But, intelligence "actively abets stupidity by allowing pernicious rationalization". In other words, intelligence can lead to stupidity by encouraging the use of inappropriate logic based on past knowledge to explain what is new or incomprehensible. Option C is hence the right choice.
Option A states that intelligence makes rationalization of a new phenomenon "acceptable". This is incorrect. Option B states that intelligent people are "scared to admit" a lack of knowledge. The passage does not say so. Option D talks about the definition of intelligence. This is something not discussed in the passage. Option E states that intelligent people rush in to explain new phenomena. This is again not based on the arguments in the passage.

The question is " Which of the following statements BEST explains why stupidity for a smart person is 'perfectly compatible with intelligence'? "

Hence, the answer is 'Past successes make us believe that we are intelligent and capable of explaining any new phenomenon.'

Choice C is the correct answer.