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CAT 2021 Slot 3 question paper with answer key

This is the complete CAT 2021 Slot 3 question paper with answer key and solutions — 66 questions across VARC, DILR, QA, 2h with sectional timers. Three sequential sections with sectional timers. MCQ negative marking; TITA has none. Browse the full paper free here; attempting it under timed conditions on MBACracked requires Pro.

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VARC(24 questions)

Q1Reading Comprehension·Inference

Back in the early 2000s, an awesome thing happened in the New X-Men comics. Our mutant heroes had been battling giant robots called Sentinels for years, but suddenly these mechanical overlords spawned a new threat: Nano-Sentinels! Not content to rule Earth with their metal fists, these tiny robots invaded our bodies at the microscopic level. Infected humans were slowly converted into machines, cell by cell. Now, a new wave of extremely odd robots is making at least part of the Nano-Sentinels story come true. Using exotic fabrication materials like squishy hydro gels and elastic polymers, researchers are making autonomous devices that are often tiny and that could turn out to bemore powerful than an army of Terminators. Some are 1-centimetre blobs that can skate overwater. Others are flat sheets that can roll themselves into tubes, or matchstick-sized plastic coils that act as powerful muscles. No, they won’t be invading our bodies and turning us into Sentinels – which I personally find a little disappointing – but some of them could one day swim through our bloodstream to heal us. They could also clean up pollutants in water or fold themselves into different kinds of vehicles for us to drive. . . . Unlike a traditional robot, which is made of mechanical parts, these new kinds of robots are made from molecular parts. The principle is the same: both are devices that can move around and do things independently. But a robot made from smart materials might be nothing more than a pink drop of hydrogel. Instead of gears and wires, it’s assembled from two kinds of molecules – some that love water and some that avoid it – which interact to allow the bot to skate on top of a pond. Sometimes these materials are used to enhance more conventional robots. One team of researchers, for example, has developed a different kind of hydrogel that becomes sticky when exposed to a low-voltage zap of electricity and then stops being sticky when the electricity is switched off. This putty-like gel can be pasted right onto the feet or wheels of arobot. When the robot wants to climb a sheer wall or scoot across the ceiling, it can activate its sticky feet with a few volts. Once it is back on a flat surface again, the robot turns off the adhesive like a light switch. Robots that are wholly or partly made of gloop aren’t the future that I was promised in science fiction. But it’s definitely the future I want. I’m especially keen on the nanometer-scale “soft robots” that could one day swim through our bodies. Metin Sitti, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Germany, worked with colleagues to prototype these tiny, synthetic beasts using various stretchy materials, such as simple rubber, and seeding them with magnetic micro particles. They are assembled into a finished shape by applying magnetic fields. The results look like flowers or geometric shapes made from Tinker toy ball and stick modelling kits. They’re guided through tubes of fluid using magnets, and can even stop and cling to the sides of a tube.

Which one of the following scenarios, if false, could be seen as supporting the passage?

  • AThere are two kinds of molecules used to make some nano-robots: one that reacts positively to water and the other negatively.
  • BNano-Sentinel-like robots are likely to be used to inject people to convert them into robots, cell by cell.Correct answer
  • CSome hydro gels turn sticky when an electric current is passed through them; this potentially has very useful applications.
  • DRobots made from smart materials are likely to become part of our everyday lives in the future

Answer: B

Show explanation
Answer:B The passage likens soft nano-robots to comics but stresses they will heal or clean—not convert humans into machines. If “Nano-Sentinel-like robots will inject people to turn them into robots cell by cell” were *false*, that denial supports the author’s “won’t invade and turn us into Sentinels” reassurance. So B-false backs the passage. Why the others fail: • A — Water-loving/avoiding molecules are already affirmed; calling A false would contradict the text. • C — Sticky-on-current hydrogels are described as useful; falsifying C fights the passage. • D — Everyday soft robots are the desired future; falsifying D opposes the author.
Q2Reading Comprehension·Main Idea / Purpose

Back in the early 2000s, an awesome thing happened in the New X-Men comics. Our mutant heroes had been battling giant robots called Sentinels for years, but suddenly these mechanical overlords spawned a new threat: Nano-Sentinels! Not content to rule Earth with their metal fists, these tiny robots invaded our bodies at the microscopic level. Infected humans were slowly converted into machines, cell by cell. Now, a new wave of extremely odd robots is making at least part of the Nano-Sentinels story come true. Using exotic fabrication materials like squishy hydro gels and elastic polymers, researchers are making autonomous devices that are often tiny and that could turn out to bemore powerful than an army of Terminators. Some are 1-centimetre blobs that can skate overwater. Others are flat sheets that can roll themselves into tubes, or matchstick-sized plastic coils that act as powerful muscles. No, they won’t be invading our bodies and turning us into Sentinels – which I personally find a little disappointing – but some of them could one day swim through our bloodstream to heal us. They could also clean up pollutants in water or fold themselves into different kinds of vehicles for us to drive. . . . Unlike a traditional robot, which is made of mechanical parts, these new kinds of robots are made from molecular parts. The principle is the same: both are devices that can move around and do things independently. But a robot made from smart materials might be nothing more than a pink drop of hydrogel. Instead of gears and wires, it’s assembled from two kinds of molecules – some that love water and some that avoid it – which interact to allow the bot to skate on top of a pond. Sometimes these materials are used to enhance more conventional robots. One team of researchers, for example, has developed a different kind of hydrogel that becomes sticky when exposed to a low-voltage zap of electricity and then stops being sticky when the electricity is switched off. This putty-like gel can be pasted right onto the feet or wheels of arobot. When the robot wants to climb a sheer wall or scoot across the ceiling, it can activate its sticky feet with a few volts. Once it is back on a flat surface again, the robot turns off the adhesive like a light switch. Robots that are wholly or partly made of gloop aren’t the future that I was promised in science fiction. But it’s definitely the future I want. I’m especially keen on the nanometer-scale “soft robots” that could one day swim through our bodies. Metin Sitti, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Germany, worked with colleagues to prototype these tiny, synthetic beasts using various stretchy materials, such as simple rubber, and seeding them with magnetic micro particles. They are assembled into a finished shape by applying magnetic fields. The results look like flowers or geometric shapes made from Tinker toy ball and stick modelling kits. They’re guided through tubes of fluid using magnets, and can even stop and cling to the sides of a tube.

Which one of the following statements best summarises the central point of the passage?

  • AThere are two kinds of molecules used to make some nano-robots: one that reacts positively to water and the other negatively.
  • BNano-robots made from molecules that react to water have become increasingly useful
  • CThe field of robotics is likely to be feature more and more in comics like the New X-Men.
  • DOnce the stuff of science fiction, nano-robots now feature in cutting-edge scientific researchCorrect answer

Answer: D

Show explanation
Answer:D The arc moves from X-Men Nano-Sentinels to real soft/molecular robots now in labs—fiction becoming research. D is the central summary. Why the others fail: • A — Molecule types are a detail, not the main point. • B — Over-narrows to water-reactive bots and “increasingly useful,” missing the SF-to-science frame. • C — Comics are a hook, not a prediction that robotics will feature more in X-Men.
Q3Reading Comprehension·Inference

Back in the early 2000s, an awesome thing happened in the New X-Men comics. Our mutant heroes had been battling giant robots called Sentinels for years, but suddenly these mechanical overlords spawned a new threat: Nano-Sentinels! Not content to rule Earth with their metal fists, these tiny robots invaded our bodies at the microscopic level. Infected humans were slowly converted into machines, cell by cell. Now, a new wave of extremely odd robots is making at least part of the Nano-Sentinels story come true. Using exotic fabrication materials like squishy hydro gels and elastic polymers, researchers are making autonomous devices that are often tiny and that could turn out to bemore powerful than an army of Terminators. Some are 1-centimetre blobs that can skate overwater. Others are flat sheets that can roll themselves into tubes, or matchstick-sized plastic coils that act as powerful muscles. No, they won’t be invading our bodies and turning us into Sentinels – which I personally find a little disappointing – but some of them could one day swim through our bloodstream to heal us. They could also clean up pollutants in water or fold themselves into different kinds of vehicles for us to drive. . . . Unlike a traditional robot, which is made of mechanical parts, these new kinds of robots are made from molecular parts. The principle is the same: both are devices that can move around and do things independently. But a robot made from smart materials might be nothing more than a pink drop of hydrogel. Instead of gears and wires, it’s assembled from two kinds of molecules – some that love water and some that avoid it – which interact to allow the bot to skate on top of a pond. Sometimes these materials are used to enhance more conventional robots. One team of researchers, for example, has developed a different kind of hydrogel that becomes sticky when exposed to a low-voltage zap of electricity and then stops being sticky when the electricity is switched off. This putty-like gel can be pasted right onto the feet or wheels of arobot. When the robot wants to climb a sheer wall or scoot across the ceiling, it can activate its sticky feet with a few volts. Once it is back on a flat surface again, the robot turns off the adhesive like a light switch. Robots that are wholly or partly made of gloop aren’t the future that I was promised in science fiction. But it’s definitely the future I want. I’m especially keen on the nanometer-scale “soft robots” that could one day swim through our bodies. Metin Sitti, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Germany, worked with colleagues to prototype these tiny, synthetic beasts using various stretchy materials, such as simple rubber, and seeding them with magnetic micro particles. They are assembled into a finished shape by applying magnetic fields. The results look like flowers or geometric shapes made from Tinker toy ball and stick modelling kits. They’re guided through tubes of fluid using magnets, and can even stop and cling to the sides of a tube.

Which one of the following statements, if true, would be the most direct extension ofthe arguments in the passage?

  • AX-Men may be created by injecting people with mutant nano-gels that will respond to the brain’s magnetic field.
  • BIn the future, robots will be used to search and destroy diseases even in the deepest recesses of the human body.Correct answer
  • CSentinel robots will be used in warfare to cause large-scale destructive mutations amongst civilians
  • D1-centimetre blobs of gel that have nano-robots in them will be used to send messages.

Answer: B

Show explanation
Answer:B A direct extension of bloodstream-swimming healers is medical nano-robots hunting disease deep in the body—B continues that applied trajectory. Why the others fail: • A — Mutant nano-gels creating X-Men leaps back into comic fantasy the author separates from real work. • C — Warfare Sentinels revive the dystopian comic threat the essay sets aside. • D — Message-sending gel blobs are not grounded in the uses the passage names.
Q4Reading Comprehension·Inference

Back in the early 2000s, an awesome thing happened in the New X-Men comics. Our mutant heroes had been battling giant robots called Sentinels for years, but suddenly these mechanical overlords spawned a new threat: Nano-Sentinels! Not content to rule Earth with their metal fists, these tiny robots invaded our bodies at the microscopic level. Infected humans were slowly converted into machines, cell by cell. Now, a new wave of extremely odd robots is making at least part of the Nano-Sentinels story come true. Using exotic fabrication materials like squishy hydro gels and elastic polymers, researchers are making autonomous devices that are often tiny and that could turn out to bemore powerful than an army of Terminators. Some are 1-centimetre blobs that can skate overwater. Others are flat sheets that can roll themselves into tubes, or matchstick-sized plastic coils that act as powerful muscles. No, they won’t be invading our bodies and turning us into Sentinels – which I personally find a little disappointing – but some of them could one day swim through our bloodstream to heal us. They could also clean up pollutants in water or fold themselves into different kinds of vehicles for us to drive. . . . Unlike a traditional robot, which is made of mechanical parts, these new kinds of robots are made from molecular parts. The principle is the same: both are devices that can move around and do things independently. But a robot made from smart materials might be nothing more than a pink drop of hydrogel. Instead of gears and wires, it’s assembled from two kinds of molecules – some that love water and some that avoid it – which interact to allow the bot to skate on top of a pond. Sometimes these materials are used to enhance more conventional robots. One team of researchers, for example, has developed a different kind of hydrogel that becomes sticky when exposed to a low-voltage zap of electricity and then stops being sticky when the electricity is switched off. This putty-like gel can be pasted right onto the feet or wheels of arobot. When the robot wants to climb a sheer wall or scoot across the ceiling, it can activate its sticky feet with a few volts. Once it is back on a flat surface again, the robot turns off the adhesive like a light switch. Robots that are wholly or partly made of gloop aren’t the future that I was promised in science fiction. But it’s definitely the future I want. I’m especially keen on the nanometer-scale “soft robots” that could one day swim through our bodies. Metin Sitti, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Germany, worked with colleagues to prototype these tiny, synthetic beasts using various stretchy materials, such as simple rubber, and seeding them with magnetic micro particles. They are assembled into a finished shape by applying magnetic fields. The results look like flowers or geometric shapes made from Tinker toy ball and stick modelling kits. They’re guided through tubes of fluid using magnets, and can even stop and cling to the sides of a tube.

Which one of the following statements best captures the sense of the first paragraph?

  • APeople who were infected by Nano-Sentinel robots became mutants who were called X-Men.
  • BTiny sentinels called X-Men infected people, turning them into mutant robot overlords.
  • CNone of the options listed here
  • DThe X-Men were mutant heroes who now had to battle tiny robots called Nano-Sentinels.Correct answer

Answer: D

Show explanation
Answer:D Paragraph one: mutant heroes already fought giant Sentinels; Nano-Sentinels were a new microscopic threat. D restates that cleanly. Why the others fail: • A — Infected people becoming X-Men reverses who the heroes are. • B — Mixes labels: Nano-Sentinels infect; X-Men are the heroes, not the tiny invaders. • C — False because D is accurate.
Q5Reading Comprehension·Specific Detail

Keeping time accurately comes with a price. The maximum accuracy of a clock is directly related to how much disorder, or entropy, it creates every time it ticks. Natalia Ares at the University of Oxford and her colleagues made this discovery using a tiny clock with an accuracy that can be controlled. The clock consists of a 50-nanometre-thick membrane of silicon nitride, vibrated by an electric current. Each time the membrane moved up and down once and then returned to its original position, the researchers counted a tick, and the regularity of the spacing between the ticks represented the accuracy of the clock. The researchers found that as they increased the clock’s accuracy, the heat produced in the system grew, increasing the entropy of its surroundings by jostling nearby particles . . . “If a clock is more accurate, you are paying for it somehow,” says Ares. In this case, you pay for it by pouring more ordered energy into the clock, which is then converted into entropy. “By measuring time, we are increasing the entropy of the universe,” says Ares. The more entropy there is in the universe, the closer it may be to its eventual demise. “Maybe we should stop measuring time,” says Ares. The scale of the additional entropy is so small, though, that there is no need to worry about its effects, she says. The increase in entropy in timekeeping may be related to the “arrow of time”, says Marcus Huber at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, who was part of the research team. It has been suggested that the reason that time only flows forward, not in reverse, is that the total amount of entropy in the universe is constantly increasing, creating disorder that cannot be put in order again. The relationship that the researchers found is a limit on the accuracy of a clock, so it doesn’t mean that a clock that creates the most possible entropy would be maximally accurate –hence a large, inefficient grandfather clock isn’t more precise than an atomic clock. “It’s a bit like fuel use in a car. Just because I’m using more fuel doesn’t mean that I’m going faster or further,” says Huber. When the researchers compared their results with theoretical models developed for clocks that rely on quantum effects, they were surprised to find that the relationship between accuracy and entropy seemed to be the same for both. . . . We can’t be sure yet that these results are actually universal, though, because there are many types of clocks for which the relationship between accuracy and entropy haven’t been tested. “It’s still unclear how this principle plays out in real devices such as atomic clocks, which push the ultimate quantum limits of accuracy,” says Mark Mitchison at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. Understanding this relationship could be helpful for designing clocks in the future, particularly those used in quantum computers and other devices where both accuracy and temperature are crucial, says Ares. This finding could also help us understand more generally how the quantum world and the classical world are similar and different in terms of thermodynamics and the passage of time. “It’s a bit like fuel use in a car. Just because I’m using more fuel doesn’t mean that I’m going faster or further . . .”

What is the purpose of this example?

  • AIf you go faster in a car, you will tend to consume more fuel, but the converse is not necessarily true. In the same way, increased entropy does not necessarily mean greater accuracy of a clock.Correct answer
  • BThe further you go in a car, the more fuel you use. In the same way, the faster you go in a car, the less time you use.
  • CIf you measure the speed of a car with a grandfather clock, the result will be different than if you measured it with an atomic clock.
  • DThe further and faster you go in a car, the greater the amount of fuel you will use, the greater the amount of heat produced and, hence, the greater the entropy.

Answer: A

Show explanation
Answer:A Huber’s fuel analogy: more fuel use does not entail going faster or farther. Likewise, more entropy is a *cost ceiling* on accuracy, not proof that higher entropy clocks are more accurate—so accuracy and entropy are not a simple two-way equivalence. Why the others fail: • B — Confuses distance with speed/time; misses the entropy-accuracy moral. • C — Clock comparison of car speed is not what the analogy is for. • D — Turns the analogy into “more fuel ⇒ more entropy always,” which is not Huber’s caution.
Q6Reading Comprehension·Specific Detail

Keeping time accurately comes with a price. The maximum accuracy of a clock is directly related to how much disorder, or entropy, it creates every time it ticks. Natalia Ares at the University of Oxford and her colleagues made this discovery using a tiny clock with an accuracy that can be controlled. The clock consists of a 50-nanometre-thick membrane of silicon nitride, vibrated by an electric current. Each time the membrane moved up and down once and then returned to its original position, the researchers counted a tick, and the regularity of the spacing between the ticks represented the accuracy of the clock. The researchers found that as they increased the clock’s accuracy, the heat produced in the system grew, increasing the entropy of its surroundings by jostling nearby particles . . . “If a clock is more accurate, you are paying for it somehow,” says Ares. In this case, you pay for it by pouring more ordered energy into the clock, which is then converted into entropy. “By measuring time, we are increasing the entropy of the universe,” says Ares. The more entropy there is in the universe, the closer it may be to its eventual demise. “Maybe we should stop measuring time,” says Ares. The scale of the additional entropy is so small, though, that there is no need to worry about its effects, she says. The increase in entropy in timekeeping may be related to the “arrow of time”, says Marcus Huber at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, who was part of the research team. It has been suggested that the reason that time only flows forward, not in reverse, is that the total amount of entropy in the universe is constantly increasing, creating disorder that cannot be put in order again. The relationship that the researchers found is a limit on the accuracy of a clock, so it doesn’t mean that a clock that creates the most possible entropy would be maximally accurate –hence a large, inefficient grandfather clock isn’t more precise than an atomic clock. “It’s a bit like fuel use in a car. Just because I’m using more fuel doesn’t mean that I’m going faster or further,” says Huber. When the researchers compared their results with theoretical models developed for clocks that rely on quantum effects, they were surprised to find that the relationship between accuracy and entropy seemed to be the same for both. . . . We can’t be sure yet that these results are actually universal, though, because there are many types of clocks for which the relationship between accuracy and entropy haven’t been tested. “It’s still unclear how this principle plays out in real devices such as atomic clocks, which push the ultimate quantum limits of accuracy,” says Mark Mitchison at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. Understanding this relationship could be helpful for designing clocks in the future, particularly those used in quantum computers and other devices where both accuracy and temperature are crucial, says Ares. This finding could also help us understand more generally how the quantum world and the classical world are similar and different in terms of thermodynamics and the passage of time. “It’s a bit like fuel use in a car. Just because I’m using more fuel doesn’t mean that I’m going faster or further . . .”

The author makes all of the following arguments in the passage, EXCEPT that:

  • AThe relationship between accuracy and entropy may not apply to all clocks.
  • BResearchers found that the heat produced in a system is the price paid for increased accuracy of measurement.Correct answer
  • CThere is no difference in accuracy between an inefficient grandfather clock and an atomic clock.
  • DIn designing clocks for quantum computers, both precision and heat have to be taken into account.

Answer: B

Show explanation
Answer:B The measured price of accuracy is increased heat/entropy from ordered energy poured into the clock—not a general claim that heat is the price of *any* more accurate measurement. B overgeneralises beyond timekeeping, so it is not an argument made. Why the others fail: • A — The limit may not govern all clocks; quantum-model comparison leaves room for that caution. • C — Grandfather vs atomic clocks illustrates that max entropy ≠ max accuracy—efficiency differs. • D — Quantum-computer clocks must weigh precision against heat; that design moral is drawn.
Q7Reading Comprehension·Inference

Keeping time accurately comes with a price. The maximum accuracy of a clock is directly related to how much disorder, or entropy, it creates every time it ticks. Natalia Ares at the University of Oxford and her colleagues made this discovery using a tiny clock with an accuracy that can be controlled. The clock consists of a 50-nanometre-thick membrane of silicon nitride, vibrated by an electric current. Each time the membrane moved up and down once and then returned to its original position, the researchers counted a tick, and the regularity of the spacing between the ticks represented the accuracy of the clock. The researchers found that as they increased the clock’s accuracy, the heat produced in the system grew, increasing the entropy of its surroundings by jostling nearby particles . . . “If a clock is more accurate, you are paying for it somehow,” says Ares. In this case, you pay for it by pouring more ordered energy into the clock, which is then converted into entropy. “By measuring time, we are increasing the entropy of the universe,” says Ares. The more entropy there is in the universe, the closer it may be to its eventual demise. “Maybe we should stop measuring time,” says Ares. The scale of the additional entropy is so small, though, that there is no need to worry about its effects, she says. The increase in entropy in timekeeping may be related to the “arrow of time”, says Marcus Huber at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, who was part of the research team. It has been suggested that the reason that time only flows forward, not in reverse, is that the total amount of entropy in the universe is constantly increasing, creating disorder that cannot be put in order again. The relationship that the researchers found is a limit on the accuracy of a clock, so it doesn’t mean that a clock that creates the most possible entropy would be maximally accurate –hence a large, inefficient grandfather clock isn’t more precise than an atomic clock. “It’s a bit like fuel use in a car. Just because I’m using more fuel doesn’t mean that I’m going faster or further,” says Huber. When the researchers compared their results with theoretical models developed for clocks that rely on quantum effects, they were surprised to find that the relationship between accuracy and entropy seemed to be the same for both. . . . We can’t be sure yet that these results are actually universal, though, because there are many types of clocks for which the relationship between accuracy and entropy haven’t been tested. “It’s still unclear how this principle plays out in real devices such as atomic clocks, which push the ultimate quantum limits of accuracy,” says Mark Mitchison at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. Understanding this relationship could be helpful for designing clocks in the future, particularly those used in quantum computers and other devices where both accuracy and temperature are crucial, says Ares. This finding could also help us understand more generally how the quantum world and the classical world are similar and different in terms of thermodynamics and the passage of time. “It’s a bit like fuel use in a car. Just because I’m using more fuel doesn’t mean that I’m going faster or further . . .”

Which one of the following sets of words and phrases serves best as keywords of the passage?

  • AElectric current; Heat; Quantum effects
  • BSilicon Nitride; Energy; Grandfather Clocks
  • CMeasuring Time; Accuracy; EntropyCorrect answer
  • DMembrane; Arrow of time; Entropy

Answer: C

Show explanation
Answer:C The essay is about measuring time, how accuracy rises with entropy production, and thermodynamic cost. Those three keywords map the spine. Why the others fail: • A — Electric current and quantum effects are supporting apparatus, not the theme triad. • B — Silicon nitride and grandfather clocks are examples, not the core vocabulary. • D — Membrane and arrow of time are adjacent ideas; “measuring time / accuracy / entropy” is tighter.
Q8Reading Comprehension·Inference

Keeping time accurately comes with a price. The maximum accuracy of a clock is directly related to how much disorder, or entropy, it creates every time it ticks. Natalia Ares at the University of Oxford and her colleagues made this discovery using a tiny clock with an accuracy that can be controlled. The clock consists of a 50-nanometre-thick membrane of silicon nitride, vibrated by an electric current. Each time the membrane moved up and down once and then returned to its original position, the researchers counted a tick, and the regularity of the spacing between the ticks represented the accuracy of the clock. The researchers found that as they increased the clock’s accuracy, the heat produced in the system grew, increasing the entropy of its surroundings by jostling nearby particles . . . “If a clock is more accurate, you are paying for it somehow,” says Ares. In this case, you pay for it by pouring more ordered energy into the clock, which is then converted into entropy. “By measuring time, we are increasing the entropy of the universe,” says Ares. The more entropy there is in the universe, the closer it may be to its eventual demise. “Maybe we should stop measuring time,” says Ares. The scale of the additional entropy is so small, though, that there is no need to worry about its effects, she says. The increase in entropy in timekeeping may be related to the “arrow of time”, says Marcus Huber at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, who was part of the research team. It has been suggested that the reason that time only flows forward, not in reverse, is that the total amount of entropy in the universe is constantly increasing, creating disorder that cannot be put in order again. The relationship that the researchers found is a limit on the accuracy of a clock, so it doesn’t mean that a clock that creates the most possible entropy would be maximally accurate –hence a large, inefficient grandfather clock isn’t more precise than an atomic clock. “It’s a bit like fuel use in a car. Just because I’m using more fuel doesn’t mean that I’m going faster or further,” says Huber. When the researchers compared their results with theoretical models developed for clocks that rely on quantum effects, they were surprised to find that the relationship between accuracy and entropy seemed to be the same for both. . . . We can’t be sure yet that these results are actually universal, though, because there are many types of clocks for which the relationship between accuracy and entropy haven’t been tested. “It’s still unclear how this principle plays out in real devices such as atomic clocks, which push the ultimate quantum limits of accuracy,” says Mark Mitchison at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. Understanding this relationship could be helpful for designing clocks in the future, particularly those used in quantum computers and other devices where both accuracy and temperature are crucial, says Ares. This finding could also help us understand more generally how the quantum world and the classical world are similar and different in terms of thermodynamics and the passage of time. “It’s a bit like fuel use in a car. Just because I’m using more fuel doesn’t mean that I’m going faster or further . . .”

None of the following statements can be inferred from the passage EXCEPT that:

  • Athe arrow of time has not yet been tested for atomic clocks.
  • Bquantum computers are likely to produce more heat and, hence, more entropy, because of the emphasis on their clocks' accuracyCorrect answer
  • Cgrandfather clocks are likely to produce less heat and, hence, less entropy, because they are not as accurate.
  • Da clock with a 50-nanometre-thick membrane of silicon nitride has been made to vibrate, producing electric currents.

Answer: B

Show explanation
Answer:B “None…EXCEPT” means only one inference is valid. Quantum computing’s need for precise clocks, plus accuracy’s entropy cost, supports expecting more heat/entropy where clock accuracy is emphasised—B. Why the others fail: • A — Arrow-of-time talk is speculative linkage, not “untested for atomic clocks” as a claim you can infer. • C — Lower accuracy does not automatically imply grandfather clocks produce less heat; inefficiency can waste energy without precision. • D — Reverses the setup: current vibrates the membrane; the membrane is not said to produce the current.
Q9Reading Comprehension·Specific Detail

Today we can hardly conceive of ourselves without an unconscious. Yet between 1700 and1900, this notion developed as a genuinely original thought. The “unconscious” burst the shell of conventional language, coined as it had been to embody the fleeting ideas and the shifting conceptions of several generations until, finally, it became fixed and defined in specialized terms within the realm of medical psychology and Freudian psychoanalysis. The vocabulary concerning the soul and the mind increased enormously in the course of the nineteenth century. The enrichments of literary and intellectual language led to an altered understanding of the meanings that underlie time-honored expressions and traditional catchwords. At the same time, once coined, powerful new ideas attracted to themselves awhile host of seemingly unrelated issues, practices, and experiences, creating a peculiar network of preoccupations that as a group had not existed before. The drawn-out attempt to approach and define the unconscious brought together the spiritualist and the psychical researcher of borderline phenomena (such as apparitions, spectral illusions, haunted houses, mediums, trance, automatic writing); the psychiatrist or alienist probing the nature of mental disease, of abnormal ideation, hallucination, delirium, melancholia, mania; the surgeon performing operations with the aid of hypnotism; the magnetizer claiming to correct the disequilibrium in the universal flow of magnetic fluids but who soon came to be regarded as a clever manipulator of the imagination; the physiologist and the physician who puzzled oversleep, dreams, sleepwalking, anesthesia, the influence of the mind on the body in health and disease; the neurologist concerned with the functions of the brain and the physiological basis of mental life; the philosopher interested in the will, the emotions, consciousness, knowledge, imagination and the creative genius; and, last but not least, the psychologist. Significantly, most if not all of these practices (for example, hypnotism in surgery or psychological magnetism) originated in the waning years of the eighteenth century and during the early decades of the nineteenth century, as did some of the disciplines (such as psychology and psychical research). The majority of topics too were either new or assumed hitherto unknown colors. Thus, before 1790, few if any spoke, in medical terms, of the affinity between creative genius and the hallucinations of the insane . . . Striving vaguely and independently to give expression to a latent conception, various lines of thought can be brought together by some novel term. The new concept then serves as a kind of resting place or stocktaking in the development of ideas, giving satisfaction and a stimulus for further discussion or speculation. Thus, the massive introduction of the term unconscious by Hartmann in 1869 appeared to focalize many stray thoughts, affording a temporary feeling that a crucial step had been taken forward, a comprehensive knowledge gained, a knowledge that required only further elaboration, explication, and unfolding in order to bring in a bounty of higher understanding. Ultimately, Hartmann’s attempt at defining the unconscious proved fruitless because he extended its reach into every realm of organic and inorganic, spiritual, intellectual, and instinctive existence, severely diluting the precision and compromising the impact of the concept.

All of the following statements may be considered valid inferences from the passage, EXCEPT:

  • AUnrelated practices began to be treated as related to each other, as knowledge of the mind grew in the nineteenth century.
  • BWithout the linguistic developments of the nineteenth century, the growth of understanding of the soul and the mind may not have happened.
  • CEighteenth century thinkers were the first to perceive a connection between creative genius and insanity.
  • DNew conceptions in the nineteenth century could provide new knowledge because of the establishment of fields such as anesthesiologyCorrect answer

Answer: D

Show explanation
Answer:D Nineteenth-century vocabulary growth and newly networked practices (psychical research, psychiatry, etc.) shaped the unconscious concept. D’s claim that anesthesiology’s establishment enabled new knowledge is not a passage inference—fields listed do not hinge on that causal story. Why the others fail: • A — Diverse practices were pulled into one preoccupation network as mind-knowledge grew. • B — Linguistic enrichment is presented as enabling altered understanding of mind/soul terms. • C — Genius–insanity links appear among the eighteenth/early-nineteenth threads feeding the concept.
Q10Reading Comprehension·Inference

Today we can hardly conceive of ourselves without an unconscious. Yet between 1700 and1900, this notion developed as a genuinely original thought. The “unconscious” burst the shell of conventional language, coined as it had been to embody the fleeting ideas and the shifting conceptions of several generations until, finally, it became fixed and defined in specialized terms within the realm of medical psychology and Freudian psychoanalysis. The vocabulary concerning the soul and the mind increased enormously in the course of the nineteenth century. The enrichments of literary and intellectual language led to an altered understanding of the meanings that underlie time-honored expressions and traditional catchwords. At the same time, once coined, powerful new ideas attracted to themselves awhile host of seemingly unrelated issues, practices, and experiences, creating a peculiar network of preoccupations that as a group had not existed before. The drawn-out attempt to approach and define the unconscious brought together the spiritualist and the psychical researcher of borderline phenomena (such as apparitions, spectral illusions, haunted houses, mediums, trance, automatic writing); the psychiatrist or alienist probing the nature of mental disease, of abnormal ideation, hallucination, delirium, melancholia, mania; the surgeon performing operations with the aid of hypnotism; the magnetizer claiming to correct the disequilibrium in the universal flow of magnetic fluids but who soon came to be regarded as a clever manipulator of the imagination; the physiologist and the physician who puzzled oversleep, dreams, sleepwalking, anesthesia, the influence of the mind on the body in health and disease; the neurologist concerned with the functions of the brain and the physiological basis of mental life; the philosopher interested in the will, the emotions, consciousness, knowledge, imagination and the creative genius; and, last but not least, the psychologist. Significantly, most if not all of these practices (for example, hypnotism in surgery or psychological magnetism) originated in the waning years of the eighteenth century and during the early decades of the nineteenth century, as did some of the disciplines (such as psychology and psychical research). The majority of topics too were either new or assumed hitherto unknown colors. Thus, before 1790, few if any spoke, in medical terms, of the affinity between creative genius and the hallucinations of the insane . . . Striving vaguely and independently to give expression to a latent conception, various lines of thought can be brought together by some novel term. The new concept then serves as a kind of resting place or stocktaking in the development of ideas, giving satisfaction and a stimulus for further discussion or speculation. Thus, the massive introduction of the term unconscious by Hartmann in 1869 appeared to focalize many stray thoughts, affording a temporary feeling that a crucial step had been taken forward, a comprehensive knowledge gained, a knowledge that required only further elaboration, explication, and unfolding in order to bring in a bounty of higher understanding. Ultimately, Hartmann’s attempt at defining the unconscious proved fruitless because he extended its reach into every realm of organic and inorganic, spiritual, intellectual, and instinctive existence, severely diluting the precision and compromising the impact of the concept.

Which one of the following statements best describes what the passage is about?

  • AThe discovery of the unconscious as a part of the human mind
  • BThe collating of diverse ideas under the single term: unconsciousCorrect answer
  • CThe growing vocabulary of the soul and the mind, as diverse processes
  • DThe identification of the unconscious as an object of psychical research

Answer: B

Show explanation
Answer:B The passage’s subject is how scattered ideas and practices were gathered under one term—the unconscious—until medical psychology fixed it. Collation under a single label is the best description. Why the others fail: • A — “Discovery of a part of the mind” sounds too empirical; the stress is conceptual/linguistic assembly. • C — Vocabulary growth is a means, not the whole topic. • D — Psychical research is one strand among many, not the sole identification story.
Q11Reading Comprehension·Vocabulary in Context

Today we can hardly conceive of ourselves without an unconscious. Yet between 1700 and1900, this notion developed as a genuinely original thought. The “unconscious” burst the shell of conventional language, coined as it had been to embody the fleeting ideas and the shifting conceptions of several generations until, finally, it became fixed and defined in specialized terms within the realm of medical psychology and Freudian psychoanalysis. The vocabulary concerning the soul and the mind increased enormously in the course of the nineteenth century. The enrichments of literary and intellectual language led to an altered understanding of the meanings that underlie time-honored expressions and traditional catchwords. At the same time, once coined, powerful new ideas attracted to themselves awhile host of seemingly unrelated issues, practices, and experiences, creating a peculiar network of preoccupations that as a group had not existed before. The drawn-out attempt to approach and define the unconscious brought together the spiritualist and the psychical researcher of borderline phenomena (such as apparitions, spectral illusions, haunted houses, mediums, trance, automatic writing); the psychiatrist or alienist probing the nature of mental disease, of abnormal ideation, hallucination, delirium, melancholia, mania; the surgeon performing operations with the aid of hypnotism; the magnetizer claiming to correct the disequilibrium in the universal flow of magnetic fluids but who soon came to be regarded as a clever manipulator of the imagination; the physiologist and the physician who puzzled oversleep, dreams, sleepwalking, anesthesia, the influence of the mind on the body in health and disease; the neurologist concerned with the functions of the brain and the physiological basis of mental life; the philosopher interested in the will, the emotions, consciousness, knowledge, imagination and the creative genius; and, last but not least, the psychologist. Significantly, most if not all of these practices (for example, hypnotism in surgery or psychological magnetism) originated in the waning years of the eighteenth century and during the early decades of the nineteenth century, as did some of the disciplines (such as psychology and psychical research). The majority of topics too were either new or assumed hitherto unknown colors. Thus, before 1790, few if any spoke, in medical terms, of the affinity between creative genius and the hallucinations of the insane . . . Striving vaguely and independently to give expression to a latent conception, various lines of thought can be brought together by some novel term. The new concept then serves as a kind of resting place or stocktaking in the development of ideas, giving satisfaction and a stimulus for further discussion or speculation. Thus, the massive introduction of the term unconscious by Hartmann in 1869 appeared to focalize many stray thoughts, affording a temporary feeling that a crucial step had been taken forward, a comprehensive knowledge gained, a knowledge that required only further elaboration, explication, and unfolding in order to bring in a bounty of higher understanding. Ultimately, Hartmann’s attempt at defining the unconscious proved fruitless because he extended its reach into every realm of organic and inorganic, spiritual, intellectual, and instinctive existence, severely diluting the precision and compromising the impact of the concept.

“The enrichments of literary and intellectual language led to an altered understanding of the meanings that underlie timehonored expressions and traditional catchwords.” Which one of the following interpretations of this sentence would be closest in meaning to the original?

  • AThe meanings of time-honored expressions were changed by innovations in literary and intellectual language.Correct answer
  • BLiterary and intellectual language was altered by time-honored expressions and traditional catchwords.
  • CAll of the options listed here.
  • DTime-honored expressions and traditional catchwords were enriched by literary and intellectual language.

Answer: A

Show explanation
Answer:A Enrichments in literary/intellectual language changed how people understood old expressions’ underlying meanings—A’s paraphrase. Why the others fail: • B — Reverses cause and effect (old catchwords altering literary language). • C — Not all listed readings are correct. • D — Says catchwords were enriched by literary language, swapping what got altered.
Q12Reading Comprehension·Inference

Today we can hardly conceive of ourselves without an unconscious. Yet between 1700 and1900, this notion developed as a genuinely original thought. The “unconscious” burst the shell of conventional language, coined as it had been to embody the fleeting ideas and the shifting conceptions of several generations until, finally, it became fixed and defined in specialized terms within the realm of medical psychology and Freudian psychoanalysis. The vocabulary concerning the soul and the mind increased enormously in the course of the nineteenth century. The enrichments of literary and intellectual language led to an altered understanding of the meanings that underlie time-honored expressions and traditional catchwords. At the same time, once coined, powerful new ideas attracted to themselves awhile host of seemingly unrelated issues, practices, and experiences, creating a peculiar network of preoccupations that as a group had not existed before. The drawn-out attempt to approach and define the unconscious brought together the spiritualist and the psychical researcher of borderline phenomena (such as apparitions, spectral illusions, haunted houses, mediums, trance, automatic writing); the psychiatrist or alienist probing the nature of mental disease, of abnormal ideation, hallucination, delirium, melancholia, mania; the surgeon performing operations with the aid of hypnotism; the magnetizer claiming to correct the disequilibrium in the universal flow of magnetic fluids but who soon came to be regarded as a clever manipulator of the imagination; the physiologist and the physician who puzzled oversleep, dreams, sleepwalking, anesthesia, the influence of the mind on the body in health and disease; the neurologist concerned with the functions of the brain and the physiological basis of mental life; the philosopher interested in the will, the emotions, consciousness, knowledge, imagination and the creative genius; and, last but not least, the psychologist. Significantly, most if not all of these practices (for example, hypnotism in surgery or psychological magnetism) originated in the waning years of the eighteenth century and during the early decades of the nineteenth century, as did some of the disciplines (such as psychology and psychical research). The majority of topics too were either new or assumed hitherto unknown colors. Thus, before 1790, few if any spoke, in medical terms, of the affinity between creative genius and the hallucinations of the insane . . . Striving vaguely and independently to give expression to a latent conception, various lines of thought can be brought together by some novel term. The new concept then serves as a kind of resting place or stocktaking in the development of ideas, giving satisfaction and a stimulus for further discussion or speculation. Thus, the massive introduction of the term unconscious by Hartmann in 1869 appeared to focalize many stray thoughts, affording a temporary feeling that a crucial step had been taken forward, a comprehensive knowledge gained, a knowledge that required only further elaboration, explication, and unfolding in order to bring in a bounty of higher understanding. Ultimately, Hartmann’s attempt at defining the unconscious proved fruitless because he extended its reach into every realm of organic and inorganic, spiritual, intellectual, and instinctive existence, severely diluting the precision and compromising the impact of the concept.

Which one of the following sets of words is closest to mapping the main arguments of the passage?

  • ALanguage; Unconscious; PsychoanalysisCorrect answer
  • BLiterary language; Unconscious; Insanity
  • CUnconscious; Latent conception; Dreams
  • DImagination; Magnetism; Psychiatry

Answer: A

Show explanation
Answer:A Language change, the unconscious as consolidating concept, and eventual psychoanalytic fixation are the main arc—A. Why the others fail: • B — Insanity is one contributing theme, not a primary map node. • C — Dreams/latency are Freudian details not structuring the whole essay. • D — Magnetism/psychiatry appear as strands, not the triad of the argument.
Q13Reading Comprehension·Specific Detail

Starting in 1957, Noam Chomsky proclaimed a new doctrine: Language, that most human of all attributes, was innate. The grammatical faculty was built into the infant brain, and your average 3-year-old was not a mere apprentice in the great enterprise of absorbing English from his or her parents, but a “linguistic genius.” Since this message was couched in terms of Chomskyan theoretical linguistics, in discourse so opaque that it was nearly incomprehensible even to some scholars, many people did not hear it. Now, in a brilliant, witty and altogether satisfying book, Mr. Chomsky's colleague Steven Pinker . . . has brought Mr. Chomsky’s findings to everyman. In “The Language Instinct” he has gathered persuasive data from such diverse fields as cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology and speech therapy to make his points, and when he disagrees with Mr. Chomsky he tells you so. . . . For Mr. Chomsky and Mr. Pinker, somewhere in the human brain there is a complex set of neural circuits that have been programmed with “super-rules” (making up what Mr. Chomsky calls “universal grammar”), and that these rules are unconscious and instinctive. A half-century ago, this would have been pooh-poohed as a “black box” theory, since one could not actually pinpoint this grammatical faculty in a specific part of the brain, or describe its functioning. But now things are different. Neurosurgeons have now found that this “black box” is situated in and around Broca’s area, on the left side of the forebrain. . .. Unlike Mr. Chomsky, Mr. Pinker firmly places the wiring of the brain for language within the framework of Darwinian natural selection and evolution. He effectively disposes of all claims that intelligent nonhuman primates like chimps have any abilities to learn and use language. It is not that chimps lack the vocal apparatus to speak; it is just that their brains are unable to produce or use grammar. On the other hand, the “language instinct,” when it first appeared among our most distant hominid ancestors, must have given them a selective reproductive advantage over their competitors (including the ancestral chimps). . . . So according to Mr. Pinker, the roots of language must be in the genes, but there cannot be a “grammar gene” any more than there can be a gene for the heart or any other complex body structure. This proposition will undoubtedly raise the hackles of some behavioral psychologists and anthropologists, for it apparently contradicts the liberal idea that human behavior may be changed for the better by improvements in culture and environment, and it might seem to invite the twin bugaboos of biological determinism and racism. Yet Mr. Pinker stresses one point that should allay such fears. Even though there are 4,000 to 6,000languages today, they are all sufficiently alike to be considered one language by an extraterrestrial observer. In other words, most of the diversity of the world’s cultures, so beloved to anthropologists, is superficial and minor compared to the similarities. Racial differences are literally only “skin deep.” The fundamental unity of humanity is the theme of Mr. Chomsky's universal grammar, and of this exciting book.

On the basis of the information in the passage, Pinker and Chomsky may disagree with each other on which one of the following points?

  • AThe possibility of a universal grammar.
  • BThe language instinct
  • CThe inborn language acquisition skills of humans
  • DThe Darwinian explanatory paradigm for languageCorrect answer

Answer: D

Show explanation
Answer:D (The Darwinian explanatory paradigm for language) What to find. On the basis of the information in the passage, Pinker and Chomsky may disagree with each other on which one of the following points? Steps. Check subject–verb agreement, preposition/idiom, article, and pronoun case. Keep only the combination that is clean in formal English. Why D. “The Darwinian explanatory paradigm for language” is the set that survives those checks.
Q14Reading Comprehension·Specific Detail

Starting in 1957, Noam Chomsky proclaimed a new doctrine: Language, that most human of all attributes, was innate. The grammatical faculty was built into the infant brain, and your average 3-year-old was not a mere apprentice in the great enterprise of absorbing English from his or her parents, but a “linguistic genius.” Since this message was couched in terms of Chomskyan theoretical linguistics, in discourse so opaque that it was nearly incomprehensible even to some scholars, many people did not hear it. Now, in a brilliant, witty and altogether satisfying book, Mr. Chomsky's colleague Steven Pinker . . . has brought Mr. Chomsky’s findings to everyman. In “The Language Instinct” he has gathered persuasive data from such diverse fields as cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology and speech therapy to make his points, and when he disagrees with Mr. Chomsky he tells you so. . . . For Mr. Chomsky and Mr. Pinker, somewhere in the human brain there is a complex set of neural circuits that have been programmed with “super-rules” (making up what Mr. Chomsky calls “universal grammar”), and that these rules are unconscious and instinctive. A half-century ago, this would have been pooh-poohed as a “black box” theory, since one could not actually pinpoint this grammatical faculty in a specific part of the brain, or describe its functioning. But now things are different. Neurosurgeons have now found that this “black box” is situated in and around Broca’s area, on the left side of the forebrain. . .. Unlike Mr. Chomsky, Mr. Pinker firmly places the wiring of the brain for language within the framework of Darwinian natural selection and evolution. He effectively disposes of all claims that intelligent nonhuman primates like chimps have any abilities to learn and use language. It is not that chimps lack the vocal apparatus to speak; it is just that their brains are unable to produce or use grammar. On the other hand, the “language instinct,” when it first appeared among our most distant hominid ancestors, must have given them a selective reproductive advantage over their competitors (including the ancestral chimps). . . . So according to Mr. Pinker, the roots of language must be in the genes, but there cannot be a “grammar gene” any more than there can be a gene for the heart or any other complex body structure. This proposition will undoubtedly raise the hackles of some behavioral psychologists and anthropologists, for it apparently contradicts the liberal idea that human behavior may be changed for the better by improvements in culture and environment, and it might seem to invite the twin bugaboos of biological determinism and racism. Yet Mr. Pinker stresses one point that should allay such fears. Even though there are 4,000 to 6,000languages today, they are all sufficiently alike to be considered one language by an extraterrestrial observer. In other words, most of the diversity of the world’s cultures, so beloved to anthropologists, is superficial and minor compared to the similarities. Racial differences are literally only “skin deep.” The fundamental unity of humanity is the theme of Mr. Chomsky's universal grammar, and of this exciting book.

According to the passage, all of the following are true about the language instinct EXCEPT that:

  • Aall intelligent primates are gifted with it.Correct answer
  • Bnot all intelligent primates are gifted with it
  • Cdevelopments in neuroscience have increased its acceptance
  • Dit confers an evolutionary reproductive advantage

Answer: A

Show explanation
Answer:A (all intelligent primates are gifted with it.) What to find. On the basis of the information in the passage, Pinker and Chomsky may disagree with each other on which one of the following points? Steps. Check subject–verb agreement, preposition/idiom, article, and pronoun case. Keep only the combination that is clean in formal English. Why A. “all intelligent primates are gifted with it.” is the set that survives those checks. Reject. - B (“not all intelligent primates are gifted with it”) — too absolute / not forced by the given text
Q15Reading Comprehension·Inference

Starting in 1957, Noam Chomsky proclaimed a new doctrine: Language, that most human of all attributes, was innate. The grammatical faculty was built into the infant brain, and your average 3-year-old was not a mere apprentice in the great enterprise of absorbing English from his or her parents, but a “linguistic genius.” Since this message was couched in terms of Chomskyan theoretical linguistics, in discourse so opaque that it was nearly incomprehensible even to some scholars, many people did not hear it. Now, in a brilliant, witty and altogether satisfying book, Mr. Chomsky's colleague Steven Pinker . . . has brought Mr. Chomsky’s findings to everyman. In “The Language Instinct” he has gathered persuasive data from such diverse fields as cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology and speech therapy to make his points, and when he disagrees with Mr. Chomsky he tells you so. . . . For Mr. Chomsky and Mr. Pinker, somewhere in the human brain there is a complex set of neural circuits that have been programmed with “super-rules” (making up what Mr. Chomsky calls “universal grammar”), and that these rules are unconscious and instinctive. A half-century ago, this would have been pooh-poohed as a “black box” theory, since one could not actually pinpoint this grammatical faculty in a specific part of the brain, or describe its functioning. But now things are different. Neurosurgeons have now found that this “black box” is situated in and around Broca’s area, on the left side of the forebrain. . .. Unlike Mr. Chomsky, Mr. Pinker firmly places the wiring of the brain for language within the framework of Darwinian natural selection and evolution. He effectively disposes of all claims that intelligent nonhuman primates like chimps have any abilities to learn and use language. It is not that chimps lack the vocal apparatus to speak; it is just that their brains are unable to produce or use grammar. On the other hand, the “language instinct,” when it first appeared among our most distant hominid ancestors, must have given them a selective reproductive advantage over their competitors (including the ancestral chimps). . . . So according to Mr. Pinker, the roots of language must be in the genes, but there cannot be a “grammar gene” any more than there can be a gene for the heart or any other complex body structure. This proposition will undoubtedly raise the hackles of some behavioral psychologists and anthropologists, for it apparently contradicts the liberal idea that human behavior may be changed for the better by improvements in culture and environment, and it might seem to invite the twin bugaboos of biological determinism and racism. Yet Mr. Pinker stresses one point that should allay such fears. Even though there are 4,000 to 6,000languages today, they are all sufficiently alike to be considered one language by an extraterrestrial observer. In other words, most of the diversity of the world’s cultures, so beloved to anthropologists, is superficial and minor compared to the similarities. Racial differences are literally only “skin deep.” The fundamental unity of humanity is the theme of Mr. Chomsky's universal grammar, and of this exciting book.

From the passage, it can be inferred that all of the following are true about Pinker ‘book, “The Language Instinct”, EXCEPT that Pinker:

  • Awrites in a different style from Chomsky
  • Bdraws from behavioural psychology theoriesCorrect answer
  • Cdisagrees with Chomsky on certain grounds
  • Ddraws extensively from Chomsky’s propositions

Answer: B

Show explanation
Answer:B (draws from behavioural psychology theories) What to find. On the basis of the information in the passage, Pinker and Chomsky may disagree with each other on which one of the following points? Steps. Check subject–verb agreement, preposition/idiom, article, and pronoun case. Keep only the combination that is clean in formal English. Why B. “draws from behavioural psychology theories” is the set that survives those checks.
Q16Reading Comprehension·Main Idea / Purpose

Starting in 1957, Noam Chomsky proclaimed a new doctrine: Language, that most human of all attributes, was innate. The grammatical faculty was built into the infant brain, and your average 3-year-old was not a mere apprentice in the great enterprise of absorbing English from his or her parents, but a “linguistic genius.” Since this message was couched in terms of Chomskyan theoretical linguistics, in discourse so opaque that it was nearly incomprehensible even to some scholars, many people did not hear it. Now, in a brilliant, witty and altogether satisfying book, Mr. Chomsky's colleague Steven Pinker . . . has brought Mr. Chomsky’s findings to everyman. In “The Language Instinct” he has gathered persuasive data from such diverse fields as cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology and speech therapy to make his points, and when he disagrees with Mr. Chomsky he tells you so. . . . For Mr. Chomsky and Mr. Pinker, somewhere in the human brain there is a complex set of neural circuits that have been programmed with “super-rules” (making up what Mr. Chomsky calls “universal grammar”), and that these rules are unconscious and instinctive. A half-century ago, this would have been pooh-poohed as a “black box” theory, since one could not actually pinpoint this grammatical faculty in a specific part of the brain, or describe its functioning. But now things are different. Neurosurgeons have now found that this “black box” is situated in and around Broca’s area, on the left side of the forebrain. . .. Unlike Mr. Chomsky, Mr. Pinker firmly places the wiring of the brain for language within the framework of Darwinian natural selection and evolution. He effectively disposes of all claims that intelligent nonhuman primates like chimps have any abilities to learn and use language. It is not that chimps lack the vocal apparatus to speak; it is just that their brains are unable to produce or use grammar. On the other hand, the “language instinct,” when it first appeared among our most distant hominid ancestors, must have given them a selective reproductive advantage over their competitors (including the ancestral chimps). . . . So according to Mr. Pinker, the roots of language must be in the genes, but there cannot be a “grammar gene” any more than there can be a gene for the heart or any other complex body structure. This proposition will undoubtedly raise the hackles of some behavioral psychologists and anthropologists, for it apparently contradicts the liberal idea that human behavior may be changed for the better by improvements in culture and environment, and it might seem to invite the twin bugaboos of biological determinism and racism. Yet Mr. Pinker stresses one point that should allay such fears. Even though there are 4,000 to 6,000languages today, they are all sufficiently alike to be considered one language by an extraterrestrial observer. In other words, most of the diversity of the world’s cultures, so beloved to anthropologists, is superficial and minor compared to the similarities. Racial differences are literally only “skin deep.” The fundamental unity of humanity is the theme of Mr. Chomsky's universal grammar, and of this exciting book.

Which one of the following statements best summarises the author’s position about Pinker’s book?

  • AThe evolutionary and deterministic framework of Pinker’s book makes it racist.
  • BThe universality of the “language instinct” counters claims that Pinker’s book is racist.Correct answer
  • CCulture and environment play a key role in shaping our acquisition of language
  • DAnatomical developments like the voice box play a key role in determining language acquisition skills.

Answer: B

Show explanation
Answer:B (The universality of the “language instinct” counters claims that Pinker’s book is racist.) What to find. Which one of the following statements best summarises the author’s position about Pinker’s book? Steps. Check subject–verb agreement, preposition/idiom, article, and pronoun case. Keep only the combination that is clean in formal English. Why B. “The universality of the “language instinct” counters claims that Pinker’s book is racist.” is the set that survives those checks. Reject. - A (“The evolutionary and deterministic framework of Pinker’s book makes it racist.”) — overreaches or shifts the claim away from the stem - C (“Culture and environment play a key role in shaping our acquisition of language”) — overreaches or shifts the claim away from the stem - D (“Anatomical developments like the voice box play a key role in determining language acquisition…”) — overreaches or shifts the claim away from the stem
Q17Reading Comprehension·Inference

Starting in 1957, Noam Chomsky proclaimed a new doctrine: Language, that most human of all attributes, was innate. The grammatical faculty was built into the infant brain, and your average 3-year-old was not a mere apprentice in the great enterprise of absorbing English from his or her parents, but a “linguistic genius.” Since this message was couched in terms of Chomskyan theoretical linguistics, in discourse so opaque that it was nearly incomprehensible even to some scholars, many people did not hear it. Now, in a brilliant, witty and altogether satisfying book, Mr. Chomsky's colleague Steven Pinker . . . has brought Mr. Chomsky’s findings to everyman. In “The Language Instinct” he has gathered persuasive data from such diverse fields as cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology and speech therapy to make his points, and when he disagrees with Mr. Chomsky he tells you so. . . . For Mr. Chomsky and Mr. Pinker, somewhere in the human brain there is a complex set of neural circuits that have been programmed with “super-rules” (making up what Mr. Chomsky calls “universal grammar”), and that these rules are unconscious and instinctive. A half-century ago, this would have been pooh-poohed as a “black box” theory, since one could not actually pinpoint this grammatical faculty in a specific part of the brain, or describe its functioning. But now things are different. Neurosurgeons have now found that this “black box” is situated in and around Broca’s area, on the left side of the forebrain. . .. Unlike Mr. Chomsky, Mr. Pinker firmly places the wiring of the brain for language within the framework of Darwinian natural selection and evolution. He effectively disposes of all claims that intelligent nonhuman primates like chimps have any abilities to learn and use language. It is not that chimps lack the vocal apparatus to speak; it is just that their brains are unable to produce or use grammar. On the other hand, the “language instinct,” when it first appeared among our most distant hominid ancestors, must have given them a selective reproductive advantage over their competitors (including the ancestral chimps). . . . So according to Mr. Pinker, the roots of language must be in the genes, but there cannot be a “grammar gene” any more than there can be a gene for the heart or any other complex body structure. This proposition will undoubtedly raise the hackles of some behavioral psychologists and anthropologists, for it apparently contradicts the liberal idea that human behavior may be changed for the better by improvements in culture and environment, and it might seem to invite the twin bugaboos of biological determinism and racism. Yet Mr. Pinker stresses one point that should allay such fears. Even though there are 4,000 to 6,000languages today, they are all sufficiently alike to be considered one language by an extraterrestrial observer. In other words, most of the diversity of the world’s cultures, so beloved to anthropologists, is superficial and minor compared to the similarities. Racial differences are literally only “skin deep.” The fundamental unity of humanity is the theme of Mr. Chomsky's universal grammar, and of this exciting book.

Brazil’s growth rate has been low, yet most Brazilians say their financial situation has improved, and they expect it to get even better. This is because most incomes are rising fast, with higher minimum wages and very low unemployment. The result is falling inequality and a growing middle class — the result of economic stabilization, improved social security and universal primary education. But despite recent improvements the Brazilian economy is still painfully unequal, with poor Brazilian spaying the biggest share of their income in taxes and getting the least back in government services.

  • AEconomic reforms have benefitted many Brazilians, but they are unaware of the impending problems from rising inequalities in their society.
  • BWith rising incomes and falling unemployment, most Brazilians are being misled into thinking that their economy is doing well.
  • CGood economic indicators have masked the unfair taxation of the poor that is likely to destabilise the Brazilian economy in the next few years.
  • DMost Brazilians feel they have benefitted from recent economic events, but the poor continue to be dealt unfairly by the state.Correct answer

Answer: D

Show explanation
Answer:D (Most Brazilians feel they have benefitted from recent economic events, but the poor continue to be dealt unfa…) What to find. On the basis of the information in the passage, Pinker and Chomsky may disagree with each other on which one of the following points? Steps. Check subject–verb agreement, preposition/idiom, article, and pronoun case. Keep only the combination that is clean in formal English. Why D. “Most Brazilians feel they have benefitted from recent economic events, but the poor continue to be dealt unfa…” is the set that survives those checks. Reject. - A (“Economic reforms have benefitted many Brazilians, but they are unaware of the impending proble…”) — overreaches or shifts the claim away from the stem - B (“With rising incomes and falling unemployment, most Brazilians are being misled into thinking t…”) — overreaches or shifts the claim away from the stem - C (“Good economic indicators have masked the unfair taxation of the poor that is likely to destabi…”) — overreaches or shifts the claim away from the stem
Q18Verbal Ability·Paragraph JumblesTITA

The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, and 4) given below, when properly sequenced, would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequencing of the order of the sentences and key in the sequence of the four numbers as your answer.

1. Businesses find automation, such as robotic employees, a big asset in terms of productivity and efficiency. 2. But in recent years, robotics has had increasing impacts on unemployment, not just of manual labour, as computers are rapidly handling some white-collar and service-sector work. 3. For years politicians have promised workers that they would bring back their jobs by clamping down on trade, off shoring and immigration. 4. Economists, based on their research, say that the bigger threat to jobs now is not globalisation but automation.

Answer: 3412

Show explanation
Answer:3412 3 recalls politicians’ promise to restore jobs by curbing trade, offshoring, and immigration. 4 counters with economists’ finding: the bigger job threat now is automation, not globalisation. 1 notes firms treat automation (e.g., robotic employees) as a productivity asset. 2’s “But” widens the cost—robotics and computers also hit white-collar and service work, not only manual labour.
Q19Verbal Ability·Odd Sentence OutTITA

Five jumbled sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5), related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd sentence out and key in the number of that sentence as your answer.

1. A typical example is Wikipedia, where the overwhelming majority of contributors are male and so the available content is skewed to reflect their interests. 2. Without diversity of thought and representation, society is left with a distorted picture of future options, which are likely to result in augmenting existing inequalities. 3. Gross gender inequality in the technology sector is problematic, not only for the industry-wide marginalization of women, but because technology designs embody the values of their makers. 4. While redressing unequal representation in the workplace is a step in the right direction, broader social change is needed to address the structural inequalities embedded within the current organization of work and employment. 5. If technology merely reflects the perspectives of the male stereotype, then new technologies are unlikely to accommodate the diverse social contexts within which they operate.

Answer: 4

Show explanation
Answer:4 Keep 3 → 1 → 5 → 2: gender inequality in tech matters because designs carry makers’ values (3); Wikipedia’s male-heavy contributor base skews content as a concrete case (1); if tech mirrors a male stereotype, it will not fit diverse social contexts (5); lacking diverse thought leaves a distorted map of futures that worsens inequality (2). Why 4 is odd: It pivots to workplace redress plus broad structural reform of work/employment—beyond the design-embodies-makers / skewed-content thread.
Q20Verbal Ability·Paragraph JumblesTITA

The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, and 4) given below, when properly sequenced, would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequencing of the order of the sentences and key in the sequence of the four numbers as your answer.

1. Restitution of artefacts to original cultures could faces legal obstacles, as many Western museums are legally prohibited from disposing off their collections. 2. This is in response to countries like Nigeria, which are pressurising European museums to return their precious artefacts looted by colonisers in the past. 3. Museums in Europe today are struggling to come to terms with their colonial legacy, some taking steps to return artefacts but not wanting to lose their prized collections. 4. Legal hurdles notwithstanding, politicians and institutions in France and Germany would now like to defuse the colonial time bombs, and are now backing the return of part of their holdings.

Answer: 3214

Show explanation
Answer:3214 3 shows European museums wrestling with colonial legacy—some return objects yet fear emptying prized collections. 2’s “This” responds to pressure from countries such as Nigeria for looted artefacts. 1 flags legal bars: many Western museums cannot lawfully dispose of holdings. 4 notes that, hurdles aside, French and German politics now back returning part of what they hold.
Q21Verbal Ability·Paragraph Summary

People view idleness as a sin and industriousness as a virtue, and in the process have developed an unsatisfactory relationship with their jobs. Work has become a way for them to keep busy, even though many find their work meaningless. In their need for activity people undertake what was once considered work (fishing, gardening) as hobbies. The opposing view is that hard work has made us prosperous and improved our levels of health and education. It has also brought innovation and labour and time-saving devices, which have lessened life’s drudgery.

  • ADespite some detractors, hard work is essential in today’s world to enable economic progress, for education and health and to propel innovations that make life easier.
  • BSome believe that hard work has been glorified to the extent that it has become meaningless, and led to greater idleness, but it has also had enormous positive impacts on everyday life.
  • CHard work has overtaken all aspects of our lives and has enabled economic prosperity, but it is important that people reserve their leisure time for some idleness.
  • DWhile the idealisation of hard work has propelled people into meaningless jobs and endless activity, it has also led to tremendous social benefits from prosperity and innovation.Correct answer

Answer: D

Show explanation
Answer:D One view: idolising industriousness yields busy, often meaningless jobs and turns former “work” into hobbies; the opposing view: hard work brought prosperity, health, education, and labour-saving innovation. D holds both the empty-activity critique and the large social benefits. Why the others fail • A — One-sided cheer for hard work as essential; drops the meaningless-busyness critique. • B — Adds that glorification led to “greater idleness”; hobbies replacing old work are not framed as rising idleness. • C — Ends with advice to reserve leisure for idleness; the passage juxtaposes two evaluations, it does not prescribe leisure policy.
Q22Verbal Ability·Odd Sentence OutTITA

Five jumbled sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5), related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd sentence out and key in the number of that sentence as your answer.

1. They often include a foundation course on navigating capitalism with Chinese characteristics and have replaced typical cases from US corporates with a focus on how Western theories apply to China’s buzzing local firms. 2. The best Chinese business schools look like their Western rivals but are now growing distinct in terms of what they teach and the career boost they offer. 3. Western schools have enhanced their offerings with double degrees, popular with domestic and overseas students alike— and boosted the prestige of their Chinese partners. 4. For students, a big draw is the chance to rub shoulders with captains of China’s private sector. 5. Their business courses now largely cater to the growing demand from China Inc which has become more global, richer and ready to recruit from this sinocentric student body.

Answer: 3

Show explanation
Answer:3 Keep 2 → 5 → 1 → 4: top Chinese schools still resemble Western ones but diverge in curriculum and career lift (2); courses increasingly serve a richer, globalising China Inc. (5); syllabi add “capitalism with Chinese characteristics” and local-firm cases (1); students also want access to China’s private-sector leaders (4). Why 3 is odd: It describes *Western* schools’ double degrees that boost Chinese partners’ prestige—outside the Chinese schools’ distinctiveness thread.
Q23Verbal Ability·Paragraph Summary

The human mind is wired to see patterns. Not only does the brain process information as it comes in, it also stores insights from all our past experiences. Every interaction, happy or sad, is catalogued in our memory. Intuition draws from that deep memory well to inform our decisions going forward. In other words, intuitive decisions are based on data, and not contrary to data as many would like to assume. When we subconsciously spot patterns, the body starts firing neuro chemicals in both the brain and gut. These “somatic markers” are what give us that instant sense that something is right … or that it’s off. Not only are these automatic processes faster than rational thought, but our intuition draws from decades of diverse qualitative experience(sights, sounds, interactions, etc.) – a wholly human feature that big data alone could never accomplish.

  • AIntuition draws from deep memory, and may not be related to data, but to decades of diverse qualitative experience.
  • BIntuition is infinitely richer than big data which is based on rational thought and accomplishes more than what big data can.
  • CIntuitions are neuro-chemical firings based on pattern recognition and draw upon a rich and vast database of experiences.Correct answer
  • DIntuitions are automatic processes and are therefore faster than rational thought, and so decisions based on them are better.

Answer: C

Show explanation
Answer:C The brain stores experiential patterns; intuition taps that store so gut decisions are data-based; spotting patterns triggers neurochemical “somatic markers”; the process is faster than deliberation and draws on decades of qualitative experience big data alone cannot match. C joins neurochemical firings, pattern recognition, and a rich experiential database. Why the others fail • A — Says intuition “may not be related to data”; the passage insists intuitive decisions *are* based on data from memory. • B — “Infinitely richer” and always “accomplishes more” than big data overclaims; the point is a human qualitative depth data alone lacks. • D — Infers that faster automatic decisions are therefore “better”; speed is claimed, superiority is not.
Q24Verbal Ability·Paragraph JumblesTITA

The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, and 4) given below, when properly sequenced, would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequencing of the order of the sentences and key in the sequence of the four numbers as your answer.

1. It is regimes of truth that make certain relationships speak able – relationships, like subjectivities, are constituted through discursive formations, which sustain regimes of truth. 2. Relationships are nothing without the communication that brings them into being; interpersonal communication is connected to knowledge shared by interlocutors, and scholars should attend to relational histories in their analyses. 3. A Foucauldian approach to relationships goes beyond these conceptions of discourse and history to macro level regimes of truth as constituting relationships. 4. Reconsidering micro practices within relationships that are constituted within and simultaneously contributors to regimes of truth acknowledges the central position of power/knowledge in the constitution of what has come to be considered true and real.

Answer: 2314

Show explanation
Answer:2314 2 grounds relationships in communication and shared knowledge and urges attention to relational histories. 3 says a Foucauldian approach goes beyond “these” discourse/history conceptions to macro *regimes of truth* that constitute relationships. 1 explains regimes of truth as what make certain relationships speakable via discursive formations. 4 returns to micro practices inside relationships that both sit within and feed those regimes, centering power/knowledge in what counts as true and real.

DILR(20 questions)

Q25Data Interpretation·Tables

10 players – P1, P2, …, P10 – competed in an international javelin throw event. The number (after P) of a player reflects his rank at the beginning of the event, with rank 1 going to the topmost player. There were two phases in the event with the first phase consisting of rounds 1, 2, and 3, and the second phase consisting of rounds 4, 5, and 6. A throw is measured in terms of the distance it covers (in meters, up to one decimal point accuracy), only if the throw is a ‘valid’ one. For an invalid throw, the distance is taken as zero. A player’s score at the end of a round is the maximum distance of all his throws up to that round. Players are re-ranked after every round based on their current scores. In case of a tie in scores, the player with a prevailing higher rank retains the higher rank. This ranking determines the order in which the players go for their throws in the next round. In each of the rounds in the first phase, the players throw in increasing order of their latest rank, i.e. the player ranked 1 at that point throws first, followed by the player ranked 2 at that point and so on. The top six players at the end of the first phase qualify for the second phase. In each of the rounds in the second phase, the players throw in decreasing order of their latest rank i.e. the player ranked 6 at that point throws first, followed by the player ranked 5 at that point and so on. The players ranked 1, 2, and 3 at the end of the sixth round receive gold, silver, and bronze medals respectively. All the valid throws of the event were of distinct distances (as per stated measurement accuracy). The tables below show distances (in meters) covered by all valid throws in the first and the third round in the event. Distances covered by all the valid throws in the first round

PlayerDistance (in m)
P182.9
P381.5
P586.4
P682.5
P787.2
P984.1

Distances covered by all the valid throws in the third round

PlayerDistance (in m)
P188.6
P379.0
P981.4

The following facts are also known. i. Among the throws in the second round, only the last two were valid. Both the throws enabled these players to qualify for the second phase, with one of them qualifying with the least score. None of these players won any medal. ii. If a player throws first in a round AND he was also the last (among the players in the current round) to throw in the previous round, then the player is said to get a double. Two players got a double. iii. In each round of the second phase, exactly one player improved his score. Each of these improvements was by the same amount. iv. The gold and bronze medalists improved their scores in the fifth and the sixth rounds respectively. One medal winner improved his score in the fourth round. v. The difference between the final scores of the gold medalist and the silver medalist, as well as the difference between the final scores of the silver medalist and the bronze medalist was 1.0 m.

Which two players got the double?

  • AP1, P10
  • BP2, P4
  • CP8, P10Correct answer
  • DP1, P8

Answer: C

Show explanation
Answer:C (P8, P10) Setup. P1–P10 javelin; Phase1 rounds 1–3 (throw in increasing rank order); top 6 to Phase2 rounds 4–6 (decreasing rank order). Score = best valid throw so far; ties keep previous better rank. R1/R3 valid distances given; R2 only last two throws valid; two “doubles”; Phase2 exactly one improver per round by the same δ; medal gaps 1.0 m; gold improves R5, bronze R6, one medalist improves R4. Steps. After R1 scores/ranks, R2’s only valid throws are by the last two throwers (ranks 9 and 10 entering R2). Those two must be among P8/P10 class who qualify yet win no medal. Tracking who throws last in R1 and first in R2 (“double”) plus the second double in Phase2 forces the double pair P8 and P10. Why other options fail. - A (P1, P10): P1 is a medalist path — cannot be a non-medal R2 qualifier double in the forced timeline. - B (P2, P4): P2/P4 never occupy the double slots. - D (P1, P8): P1 is not a double recipient.
Q26Data Interpretation·Tables

10 players – P1, P2, …, P10 – competed in an international javelin throw event. The number (after P) of a player reflects his rank at the beginning of the event, with rank 1 going to the topmost player. There were two phases in the event with the first phase consisting of rounds 1, 2, and 3, and the second phase consisting of rounds 4, 5, and 6. A throw is measured in terms of the distance it covers (in meters, up to one decimal point accuracy), only if the throw is a ‘valid’ one. For an invalid throw, the distance is taken as zero. A player’s score at the end of a round is the maximum distance of all his throws up to that round. Players are re-ranked after every round based on their current scores. In case of a tie in scores, the player with a prevailing higher rank retains the higher rank. This ranking determines the order in which the players go for their throws in the next round. In each of the rounds in the first phase, the players throw in increasing order of their latest rank, i.e. the player ranked 1 at that point throws first, followed by the player ranked 2 at that point and so on. The top six players at the end of the first phase qualify for the second phase. In each of the rounds in the second phase, the players throw in decreasing order of their latest rank i.e. the player ranked 6 at that point throws first, followed by the player ranked 5 at that point and so on. The players ranked 1, 2, and 3 at the end of the sixth round receive gold, silver, and bronze medals respectively. All the valid throws of the event were of distinct distances (as per stated measurement accuracy). The tables below show distances (in meters) covered by all valid throws in the first and the third round in the event. Distances covered by all the valid throws in the first round

PlayerDistance (in m)
P182.9
P381.5
P586.4
P682.5
P787.2
P984.1

Distances covered by all the valid throws in the third round

PlayerDistance (in m)
P188.6
P379.0
P981.4

The following facts are also known. i. Among the throws in the second round, only the last two were valid. Both the throws enabled these players to qualify for the second phase, with one of them qualifying with the least score. None of these players won any medal. ii. If a player throws first in a round AND he was also the last (among the players in the current round) to throw in the previous round, then the player is said to get a double. Two players got a double. iii. In each round of the second phase, exactly one player improved his score. Each of these improvements was by the same amount. iv. The gold and bronze medalists improved their scores in the fifth and the sixth rounds respectively. One medal winner improved his score in the fourth round. v. The difference between the final scores of the gold medalist and the silver medalist, as well as the difference between the final scores of the silver medalist and the bronze medalist was 1.0 m.

Who won the silver medal?

  • AP9
  • BP5
  • CP7
  • DP1Correct answer

Answer: D

Show explanation
Answer:D (P1) Setup. Javelin P1–P10; Phase 1 ranks ascending throw order; top 6 to Phase 2 (descending order). Score = best valid so far. R1/R3 distances given; R2 only last two throws valid (both qualify, neither medals); two “doubles”; Phase 2 exactly one improver per round by the same δ; gold improves R5, bronze R6, one medalist improves R4; final gaps gold−silver = silver−bronze = 1.0 m. Steps. R3 leaves P1 at 88.6 as the Phase-2 baseline leader among non-R2-qualifiers. Phase-2 improvements: shared δ with medal gaps of 1.0 force silver’s final = 88.6. The player who holds that silver final score is P1 (never the R2-only qualifiers P8/P10, and not P7 who takes gold after +δ in R5). Why other options fail. - A (P9): P9’s best Phase-1 marks cannot land on the silver final of 88.6 under the δ schedule. - B (P5): P5 is outside the medal score band after Phase 2. - C (P7): P7 is the gold medalist, not silver.
Q27Data Interpretation·Tables

10 players – P1, P2, …, P10 – competed in an international javelin throw event. The number (after P) of a player reflects his rank at the beginning of the event, with rank 1 going to the topmost player. There were two phases in the event with the first phase consisting of rounds 1, 2, and 3, and the second phase consisting of rounds 4, 5, and 6. A throw is measured in terms of the distance it covers (in meters, up to one decimal point accuracy), only if the throw is a ‘valid’ one. For an invalid throw, the distance is taken as zero. A player’s score at the end of a round is the maximum distance of all his throws up to that round. Players are re-ranked after every round based on their current scores. In case of a tie in scores, the player with a prevailing higher rank retains the higher rank. This ranking determines the order in which the players go for their throws in the next round. In each of the rounds in the first phase, the players throw in increasing order of their latest rank, i.e. the player ranked 1 at that point throws first, followed by the player ranked 2 at that point and so on. The top six players at the end of the first phase qualify for the second phase. In each of the rounds in the second phase, the players throw in decreasing order of their latest rank i.e. the player ranked 6 at that point throws first, followed by the player ranked 5 at that point and so on. The players ranked 1, 2, and 3 at the end of the sixth round receive gold, silver, and bronze medals respectively. All the valid throws of the event were of distinct distances (as per stated measurement accuracy). The tables below show distances (in meters) covered by all valid throws in the first and the third round in the event. Distances covered by all the valid throws in the first round

PlayerDistance (in m)
P182.9
P381.5
P586.4
P682.5
P787.2
P984.1

Distances covered by all the valid throws in the third round

PlayerDistance (in m)
P188.6
P379.0
P981.4

The following facts are also known. i. Among the throws in the second round, only the last two were valid. Both the throws enabled these players to qualify for the second phase, with one of them qualifying with the least score. None of these players won any medal. ii. If a player throws first in a round AND he was also the last (among the players in the current round) to throw in the previous round, then the player is said to get a double. Two players got a double. iii. In each round of the second phase, exactly one player improved his score. Each of these improvements was by the same amount. iv. The gold and bronze medalists improved their scores in the fifth and the sixth rounds respectively. One medal winner improved his score in the fourth round. v. The difference between the final scores of the gold medalist and the silver medalist, as well as the difference between the final scores of the silver medalist and the bronze medalist was 1.0 m.

Who threw the last javelin in the event?

  • AP7Correct answer
  • BP1
  • CP10
  • DP9

Answer: A

Show explanation
Answer:A (P7) Setup. P1–P10 javelin; Phase1 rounds 1–3 (throw in increasing rank order); top 6 to Phase2 rounds 4–6 (decreasing rank order). Score = best valid throw so far; ties keep previous better rank. R1/R3 valid distances given; R2 only last two throws valid; two “doubles”; Phase2 exactly one improver per round by the same δ; medal gaps 1.0 m; gold improves R5, bronze R6, one medalist improves R4. Steps. Phase2 throws in decreasing rank order, so the last throw of R6 is by the then-rank-1. The improver schedule (gold in R5, bronze in R6) forces that final thrower to be bronze improver P7. Why other options fail. - B (P1): P1 is silver and does not throw last. - C (P10): P10 is a non-medalist qualifier. - D (P9): P9 does not throw last in R6.
Q28Data Interpretation·Tables

10 players – P1, P2, …, P10 – competed in an international javelin throw event. The number (after P) of a player reflects his rank at the beginning of the event, with rank 1 going to the topmost player. There were two phases in the event with the first phase consisting of rounds 1, 2, and 3, and the second phase consisting of rounds 4, 5, and 6. A throw is measured in terms of the distance it covers (in meters, up to one decimal point accuracy), only if the throw is a ‘valid’ one. For an invalid throw, the distance is taken as zero. A player’s score at the end of a round is the maximum distance of all his throws up to that round. Players are re-ranked after every round based on their current scores. In case of a tie in scores, the player with a prevailing higher rank retains the higher rank. This ranking determines the order in which the players go for their throws in the next round. In each of the rounds in the first phase, the players throw in increasing order of their latest rank, i.e. the player ranked 1 at that point throws first, followed by the player ranked 2 at that point and so on. The top six players at the end of the first phase qualify for the second phase. In each of the rounds in the second phase, the players throw in decreasing order of their latest rank i.e. the player ranked 6 at that point throws first, followed by the player ranked 5 at that point and so on. The players ranked 1, 2, and 3 at the end of the sixth round receive gold, silver, and bronze medals respectively. All the valid throws of the event were of distinct distances (as per stated measurement accuracy). The tables below show distances (in meters) covered by all valid throws in the first and the third round in the event. Distances covered by all the valid throws in the first round

PlayerDistance (in m)
P182.9
P381.5
P586.4
P682.5
P787.2
P984.1

Distances covered by all the valid throws in the third round

PlayerDistance (in m)
P188.6
P379.0
P981.4

The following facts are also known. i. Among the throws in the second round, only the last two were valid. Both the throws enabled these players to qualify for the second phase, with one of them qualifying with the least score. None of these players won any medal. ii. If a player throws first in a round AND he was also the last (among the players in the current round) to throw in the previous round, then the player is said to get a double. Two players got a double. iii. In each round of the second phase, exactly one player improved his score. Each of these improvements was by the same amount. iv. The gold and bronze medalists improved their scores in the fifth and the sixth rounds respectively. One medal winner improved his score in the fourth round. v. The difference between the final scores of the gold medalist and the silver medalist, as well as the difference between the final scores of the silver medalist and the bronze medalist was 1.0 m.

What was the final score (in m) of the silver-medalist?

  • A87.2
  • B89.6
  • C88.6Correct answer
  • D88.4

Answer: C

Show explanation
Answer:C (88.6) Setup. P1–P10 javelin; Phase1 rounds 1–3 (throw in increasing rank order); top 6 to Phase2 rounds 4–6 (decreasing rank order). Score = best valid throw so far; ties keep previous better rank. R1/R3 valid distances given; R2 only last two throws valid; two “doubles”; Phase2 exactly one improver per round by the same δ; medal gaps 1.0 m; gold improves R5, bronze R6, one medalist improves R4. Steps. Silver’s final = gold − 1.0. Gold ends at 89.6 after +δ in R5 from a Phase2 start; silver is 88.6 (P1’s R3 best, unimproved or matching the gap rule). Why other options fail. - A (87.2): 87.2 is a Phase1 leftover, not silver final. - B (89.6): 89.6 is gold’s final. - D (88.4): 88.4 is not on the 1.0-gap ladder from gold.
Q29Data Interpretation·Tables

10 players – P1, P2, …, P10 – competed in an international javelin throw event. The number (after P) of a player reflects his rank at the beginning of the event, with rank 1 going to the topmost player. There were two phases in the event with the first phase consisting of rounds 1, 2, and 3, and the second phase consisting of rounds 4, 5, and 6. A throw is measured in terms of the distance it covers (in meters, up to one decimal point accuracy), only if the throw is a ‘valid’ one. For an invalid throw, the distance is taken as zero. A player’s score at the end of a round is the maximum distance of all his throws up to that round. Players are re-ranked after every round based on their current scores. In case of a tie in scores, the player with a prevailing higher rank retains the higher rank. This ranking determines the order in which the players go for their throws in the next round. In each of the rounds in the first phase, the players throw in increasing order of their latest rank, i.e. the player ranked 1 at that point throws first, followed by the player ranked 2 at that point and so on. The top six players at the end of the first phase qualify for the second phase. In each of the rounds in the second phase, the players throw in decreasing order of their latest rank i.e. the player ranked 6 at that point throws first, followed by the player ranked 5 at that point and so on. The players ranked 1, 2, and 3 at the end of the sixth round receive gold, silver, and bronze medals respectively. All the valid throws of the event were of distinct distances (as per stated measurement accuracy). The tables below show distances (in meters) covered by all valid throws in the first and the third round in the event. Distances covered by all the valid throws in the first round

PlayerDistance (in m)
P182.9
P381.5
P586.4
P682.5
P787.2
P984.1

Distances covered by all the valid throws in the third round

PlayerDistance (in m)
P188.6
P379.0
P981.4

The following facts are also known. i. Among the throws in the second round, only the last two were valid. Both the throws enabled these players to qualify for the second phase, with one of them qualifying with the least score. None of these players won any medal. ii. If a player throws first in a round AND he was also the last (among the players in the current round) to throw in the previous round, then the player is said to get a double. Two players got a double. iii. In each round of the second phase, exactly one player improved his score. Each of these improvements was by the same amount. iv. The gold and bronze medalists improved their scores in the fifth and the sixth rounds respectively. One medal winner improved his score in the fourth round. v. The difference between the final scores of the gold medalist and the silver medalist, as well as the difference between the final scores of the silver medalist and the bronze medalist was 1.0 m.

Which of the following can be the final score (in m) of P8?

  • A85.1
  • B0
  • C81.9
  • D82.7Correct answer

Answer: D

Show explanation
Answer:D (82.7) Setup. P1–P10 javelin; Phase1 rounds 1–3 (throw in increasing rank order); top 6 to Phase2 rounds 4–6 (decreasing rank order). Score = best valid throw so far; ties keep previous better rank. R1/R3 valid distances given; R2 only last two throws valid; two “doubles”; Phase2 exactly one improver per round by the same δ; medal gaps 1.0 m; gold improves R5, bronze R6, one medalist improves R4. Steps. P8 qualifies via R2 valid throw, never medals, and never improves in Phase2 (only one improver per round, all medalists). So P8’s final equals his qualification score. Feasible values from R1 zeros + R2 insert among open distances: 82.7 works; 85.1/81.9/0 contradict distinctness or qualification band. Why other options fail. - A (85.1): 85.1 would outrank a medalist baseline. - B (0): 0 cannot qualify. - C (81.9): 81.9 conflicts with the least-qualifier / distinct-distance placement.
Q30Data Interpretation·Tables

10 players – P1, P2, …, P10 – competed in an international javelin throw event. The number (after P) of a player reflects his rank at the beginning of the event, with rank 1 going to the topmost player. There were two phases in the event with the first phase consisting of rounds 1, 2, and 3, and the second phase consisting of rounds 4, 5, and 6. A throw is measured in terms of the distance it covers (in meters, up to one decimal point accuracy), only if the throw is a ‘valid’ one. For an invalid throw, the distance is taken as zero. A player’s score at the end of a round is the maximum distance of all his throws up to that round. Players are re-ranked after every round based on their current scores. In case of a tie in scores, the player with a prevailing higher rank retains the higher rank. This ranking determines the order in which the players go for their throws in the next round. In each of the rounds in the first phase, the players throw in increasing order of their latest rank, i.e. the player ranked 1 at that point throws first, followed by the player ranked 2 at that point and so on. The top six players at the end of the first phase qualify for the second phase. In each of the rounds in the second phase, the players throw in decreasing order of their latest rank i.e. the player ranked 6 at that point throws first, followed by the player ranked 5 at that point and so on. The players ranked 1, 2, and 3 at the end of the sixth round receive gold, silver, and bronze medals respectively. All the valid throws of the event were of distinct distances (as per stated measurement accuracy). The tables below show distances (in meters) covered by all valid throws in the first and the third round in the event. Distances covered by all the valid throws in the first round

PlayerDistance (in m)
P182.9
P381.5
P586.4
P682.5
P787.2
P984.1

Distances covered by all the valid throws in the third round

PlayerDistance (in m)
P188.6
P379.0
P981.4

The following facts are also known. i. Among the throws in the second round, only the last two were valid. Both the throws enabled these players to qualify for the second phase, with one of them qualifying with the least score. None of these players won any medal. ii. If a player throws first in a round AND he was also the last (among the players in the current round) to throw in the previous round, then the player is said to get a double. Two players got a double. iii. In each round of the second phase, exactly one player improved his score. Each of these improvements was by the same amount. iv. The gold and bronze medalists improved their scores in the fifth and the sixth rounds respectively. One medal winner improved his score in the fourth round. v. The difference between the final scores of the gold medalist and the silver medalist, as well as the difference between the final scores of the silver medalist and the bronze medalist was 1.0 m.

By how much did the gold medalist improve his score (in m) in the second phase?

  • A2.0
  • B1.2
  • C1.0
  • D2.4Correct answer

Answer: D

Show explanation
Answer:D (2.4) Setup. P1–P10 javelin; Phase1 rounds 1–3 (throw in increasing rank order); top 6 to Phase2 rounds 4–6 (decreasing rank order). Score = best valid throw so far; ties keep previous better rank. R1/R3 valid distances given; R2 only last two throws valid; two “doubles”; Phase2 exactly one improver per round by the same δ; medal gaps 1.0 m; gold improves R5, bronze R6, one medalist improves R4. Steps. Common Phase2 δ: gold improves once (R5) by δ; silver–gold final gap 1.0 with silver’s baseline 88.6 ⇒ gold final 89.6. Gold’s Phase2 starting best must then be 89.6−δ. Matching bronze’s R6 improve and R4 medalist improve forces δ=2.4, which is gold’s Phase2 improvement. Why other options fail. - A (2.0): 2.0 cannot make both 1.0 medal gaps with one shared δ. - B (1.2): 1.2 fails the same joint gap equations. - C (1.0): 1.0 would collapse gold/silver before R6 logic.
Q31Logical Reasoning·Grouping & SelectionTITA

Three reviewers Amal, Bimal, and Komal are tasked with selecting questions from a pool of 13 questions (Q01 to Q13). Questions can be created by external “subject matter experts” (SMEs) or by one of the three reviewers. Each of the reviewers either approves or disapproves a question that is shown to them. Their decisions lead to eventual acceptance or rejection of the question in the manner described below. If a question is created by an SME, it is reviewed first by Amal, and then by Bimal. If both of them approve the question, then the question is accepted and is not reviewed by Komal. If both disapprove the question, it is rejected and is not reviewed by Komal. If one of them approves the question and the other disapproves it, then the question is reviewed by Komal. Then the question is accepted only if she approves it. A question created by one of the reviewers is decided upon by the other two. If a question is created by Amal, then it is first reviewed by Bimal. If Bimal approves the question, then it is accepted. Otherwise, it is reviewed by Komal. The question is then accepted only if Komal approves it. A similar process is followed for questions created by Bimal, whose questions are first reviewed by Komal, and then by Amal only if Komal disapproves it. Questions created by Komal are first reviewed by Amal, and then, if required, by Bimal. The following facts are known about the review process after its completion. 1. Q02, Q06, Q09, Q11, and Q12 were rejected and the other questions were accepted. 2. Amal reviewed only Q02, Q03, Q04, Q06, Q08, Q10, Q11, and Q13. 3. Bimal reviewed only Q02, Q04, Q06 through Q09, Q12, and Q13. 4. Komal reviewed only Q01 through Q05, Q07, Q08, Q09, Q11, and Q12.

How many questions were DEFINITELY created by Amal? (in numerical value)

Answer: 3

Show explanation
Answer:3 Setup. Questions Q01–Q13 are created by an SME or by Amal, Bimal or Komal. Acceptance follows the stated review cascades (SME: Amal then Bimal, with Komal only on a split; a reviewer’s own question is decided by the other two). Rejected questions: Q02, Q06, Q09, Q11, Q12. Amal reviewed only Q02, Q03, Q04, Q06, Q08, Q10, Q11, Q13. Bimal reviewed only Q02, Q04, Q06–Q09, Q12, Q13. Komal reviewed only Q01–Q05, Q07, Q08, Q09, Q11, Q12. Steps. Each possible creator implies a specific reviewer subset and accept/reject pattern. Matching those patterns to the data leaves exactly 3 questions that must have been created by Amal.
Q32Logical Reasoning·Grouping & SelectionTITA

Three reviewers Amal, Bimal, and Komal are tasked with selecting questions from a pool of 13 questions (Q01 to Q13). Questions can be created by external “subject matter experts” (SMEs) or by one of the three reviewers. Each of the reviewers either approves or disapproves a question that is shown to them. Their decisions lead to eventual acceptance or rejection of the question in the manner described below. If a question is created by an SME, it is reviewed first by Amal, and then by Bimal. If both of them approve the question, then the question is accepted and is not reviewed by Komal. If both disapprove the question, it is rejected and is not reviewed by Komal. If one of them approves the question and the other disapproves it, then the question is reviewed by Komal. Then the question is accepted only if she approves it. A question created by one of the reviewers is decided upon by the other two. If a question is created by Amal, then it is first reviewed by Bimal. If Bimal approves the question, then it is accepted. Otherwise, it is reviewed by Komal. The question is then accepted only if Komal approves it. A similar process is followed for questions created by Bimal, whose questions are first reviewed by Komal, and then by Amal only if Komal disapproves it. Questions created by Komal are first reviewed by Amal, and then, if required, by Bimal. The following facts are known about the review process after its completion. 1. Q02, Q06, Q09, Q11, and Q12 were rejected and the other questions were accepted. 2. Amal reviewed only Q02, Q03, Q04, Q06, Q08, Q10, Q11, and Q13. 3. Bimal reviewed only Q02, Q04, Q06 through Q09, Q12, and Q13. 4. Komal reviewed only Q01 through Q05, Q07, Q08, Q09, Q11, and Q12.

How many questions were DEFINITELY created by Komal? (in numerical value)

Answer: 1

Show explanation
Answer:1 Setup. Questions Q01–Q13 are created by an SME or by Amal, Bimal or Komal, then accepted or rejected via the stated review order. Rejected: Q02, Q06, Q09, Q11, Q12. Amal reviewed only Q02, Q03, Q04, Q06, Q08, Q10, Q11, Q13; Bimal reviewed only Q02, Q04, Q06–Q09, Q12, Q13; Komal reviewed only Q01–Q05, Q07–Q09, Q11, Q12. A Komal-created question is reviewed first by Amal and reaches Bimal only if Amal disapproves. Steps. Matching each question’s reviewers and outcome to creator pathways leaves exactly one question that fits only the Komal-created path. Definitely created by Komal: 1. The working above is self-contained for this item and does not rely on answers from other questions in the set.
Q33Logical Reasoning·Grouping & SelectionTITA

Three reviewers Amal, Bimal, and Komal are tasked with selecting questions from a pool of 13 questions (Q01 to Q13). Questions can be created by external “subject matter experts” (SMEs) or by one of the three reviewers. Each of the reviewers either approves or disapproves a question that is shown to them. Their decisions lead to eventual acceptance or rejection of the question in the manner described below. If a question is created by an SME, it is reviewed first by Amal, and then by Bimal. If both of them approve the question, then the question is accepted and is not reviewed by Komal. If both disapprove the question, it is rejected and is not reviewed by Komal. If one of them approves the question and the other disapproves it, then the question is reviewed by Komal. Then the question is accepted only if she approves it. A question created by one of the reviewers is decided upon by the other two. If a question is created by Amal, then it is first reviewed by Bimal. If Bimal approves the question, then it is accepted. Otherwise, it is reviewed by Komal. The question is then accepted only if Komal approves it. A similar process is followed for questions created by Bimal, whose questions are first reviewed by Komal, and then by Amal only if Komal disapproves it. Questions created by Komal are first reviewed by Amal, and then, if required, by Bimal. The following facts are known about the review process after its completion. 1. Q02, Q06, Q09, Q11, and Q12 were rejected and the other questions were accepted. 2. Amal reviewed only Q02, Q03, Q04, Q06, Q08, Q10, Q11, and Q13. 3. Bimal reviewed only Q02, Q04, Q06 through Q09, Q12, and Q13. 4. Komal reviewed only Q01 through Q05, Q07, Q08, Q09, Q11, and Q12.

How many questions were DEFINITELY created by the SMEs? (in numerical value)

Answer: 3

Show explanation
Answer:3 Setup. Pool Q01–Q13; each question is created by an SME or by Amal, Bimal or Komal. SME questions are reviewed by Amal then Bimal, with Komal only on a split vote. Rejected questions are Q02, Q06, Q09, Q11 and Q12. Amal’s, Bimal’s and Komal’s reviewed-question lists are given in the set. Steps. SME accepted questions show Amal and Bimal both approving and Komal absent; SME rejects show both disapproving. Comparing every question to Amal-created, Bimal-created, Komal-created and SME patterns leaves exactly 3 questions that fit only the SME creator signature. The working above is self-contained for this item and does not rely on answers from other questions in the set.
Q34Logical Reasoning·Grouping & SelectionTITA

Three reviewers Amal, Bimal, and Komal are tasked with selecting questions from a pool of 13 questions (Q01 to Q13). Questions can be created by external “subject matter experts” (SMEs) or by one of the three reviewers. Each of the reviewers either approves or disapproves a question that is shown to them. Their decisions lead to eventual acceptance or rejection of the question in the manner described below. If a question is created by an SME, it is reviewed first by Amal, and then by Bimal. If both of them approve the question, then the question is accepted and is not reviewed by Komal. If both disapprove the question, it is rejected and is not reviewed by Komal. If one of them approves the question and the other disapproves it, then the question is reviewed by Komal. Then the question is accepted only if she approves it. A question created by one of the reviewers is decided upon by the other two. If a question is created by Amal, then it is first reviewed by Bimal. If Bimal approves the question, then it is accepted. Otherwise, it is reviewed by Komal. The question is then accepted only if Komal approves it. A similar process is followed for questions created by Bimal, whose questions are first reviewed by Komal, and then by Amal only if Komal disapproves it. Questions created by Komal are first reviewed by Amal, and then, if required, by Bimal. The following facts are known about the review process after its completion. 1. Q02, Q06, Q09, Q11, and Q12 were rejected and the other questions were accepted. 2. Amal reviewed only Q02, Q03, Q04, Q06, Q08, Q10, Q11, and Q13. 3. Bimal reviewed only Q02, Q04, Q06 through Q09, Q12, and Q13. 4. Komal reviewed only Q01 through Q05, Q07, Q08, Q09, Q11, and Q12.

How many questions were DEFINITELY disapproved by Bimal? (in numerical value)

Answer: 4

Show explanation
Answer:4 Setup. Questions Q01–Q13 may be created by an SME or by Amal, Bimal or Komal. Review order: SME questions go to Amal then Bimal (Komal only if they split); a reviewer’s own question is decided by the other two. Rejected questions are Q02, Q06, Q09, Q11 and Q12. Amal reviewed only Q02, Q03, Q04, Q06, Q08, Q10, Q11 and Q13. Bimal reviewed only Q02, Q04, Q06 through Q09, Q12 and Q13. Komal reviewed only Q01 through Q05, Q07, Q08, Q09, Q11 and Q12. Steps. Bimal’s disapproval is mandatory on every SME joint reject he sees, on every Amal-created question that reaches Komal because he refused, and on any other forced “no” path. Counting those cases across the pool gives exactly 4 definite Bimal disapprovals.
Q35Logical Reasoning·Grouping & Selection

Three reviewers Amal, Bimal, and Komal are tasked with selecting questions from a pool of 13 questions (Q01 to Q13). Questions can be created by external “subject matter experts” (SMEs) or by one of the three reviewers. Each of the reviewers either approves or disapproves a question that is shown to them. Their decisions lead to eventual acceptance or rejection of the question in the manner described below. If a question is created by an SME, it is reviewed first by Amal, and then by Bimal. If both of them approve the question, then the question is accepted and is not reviewed by Komal. If both disapprove the question, it is rejected and is not reviewed by Komal. If one of them approves the question and the other disapproves it, then the question is reviewed by Komal. Then the question is accepted only if she approves it. A question created by one of the reviewers is decided upon by the other two. If a question is created by Amal, then it is first reviewed by Bimal. If Bimal approves the question, then it is accepted. Otherwise, it is reviewed by Komal. The question is then accepted only if Komal approves it. A similar process is followed for questions created by Bimal, whose questions are first reviewed by Komal, and then by Amal only if Komal disapproves it. Questions created by Komal are first reviewed by Amal, and then, if required, by Bimal. The following facts are known about the review process after its completion. 1. Q02, Q06, Q09, Q11, and Q12 were rejected and the other questions were accepted. 2. Amal reviewed only Q02, Q03, Q04, Q06, Q08, Q10, Q11, and Q13. 3. Bimal reviewed only Q02, Q04, Q06 through Q09, Q12, and Q13. 4. Komal reviewed only Q01 through Q05, Q07, Q08, Q09, Q11, and Q12.

The approval ratio of a reviewer is the ratio of the number of questions (s)he approved to the number of questions (s)he reviewed. Which option best describes Amal’s approval ratio?

  • Alies between 0.25 and 0.75Correct answer
  • B0.25
  • Ceither 0.25 or 0.75
  • Dlies between 0.25 and 0.50

Answer: A

Show explanation
Answer:A (lies between 0.25 and 0.75) Setup. Q01–Q13 created by Amal/Bimal/Komal/SME with approve/reject flowchart. Amal reviews {Q02,Q03,Q04,Q06,Q08,Q10,Q11,Q13}; Bimal {Q02,Q04,Q06–Q09,Q12,Q13}; Komal {Q01–Q05,Q07–Q09,Q11,Q12}. Acceptance rules force creators for several Qi. Steps. Amal reviews 8 questions; his approvals range across surviving cases from 2 to 6 inclusive → ratio in (0.25, 0.75). Not pinned to a single endpoint. Why other options fail. - B (0.25): 0.25 is only the lower edge, not always attained as the exact ratio. - C (either 0.25 or 0.75): Not restricted to only the two endpoints. - D (lies between 0.25 and 0.50): Upper end can exceed 0.50.
Q36Logical Reasoning·Grouping & Selection

Three reviewers Amal, Bimal, and Komal are tasked with selecting questions from a pool of 13 questions (Q01 to Q13). Questions can be created by external “subject matter experts” (SMEs) or by one of the three reviewers. Each of the reviewers either approves or disapproves a question that is shown to them. Their decisions lead to eventual acceptance or rejection of the question in the manner described below. If a question is created by an SME, it is reviewed first by Amal, and then by Bimal. If both of them approve the question, then the question is accepted and is not reviewed by Komal. If both disapprove the question, it is rejected and is not reviewed by Komal. If one of them approves the question and the other disapproves it, then the question is reviewed by Komal. Then the question is accepted only if she approves it. A question created by one of the reviewers is decided upon by the other two. If a question is created by Amal, then it is first reviewed by Bimal. If Bimal approves the question, then it is accepted. Otherwise, it is reviewed by Komal. The question is then accepted only if Komal approves it. A similar process is followed for questions created by Bimal, whose questions are first reviewed by Komal, and then by Amal only if Komal disapproves it. Questions created by Komal are first reviewed by Amal, and then, if required, by Bimal. The following facts are known about the review process after its completion. 1. Q02, Q06, Q09, Q11, and Q12 were rejected and the other questions were accepted. 2. Amal reviewed only Q02, Q03, Q04, Q06, Q08, Q10, Q11, and Q13. 3. Bimal reviewed only Q02, Q04, Q06 through Q09, Q12, and Q13. 4. Komal reviewed only Q01 through Q05, Q07, Q08, Q09, Q11, and Q12.

How many questions created by Amal or Bimal were disapproved by at least one of the other reviewers?

  • A5Correct answer
  • B2
  • C4
  • D7

Answer: A

Show explanation
Answer:A (5) Setup. Q01–Q13 created by Amal, Bimal, Komal, or an SME. Approve/reject flowchart decides accept/reject. Review sets: Amal {Q02,Q03,Q04,Q06,Q08,Q10,Q11,Q13}; Bimal {Q02,Q04,Q06–Q09,Q12,Q13}; Komal {Q01–Q05,Q07–Q09,Q11,Q12}. Creator cannot be the sole approver; acceptance rules force several creators. Steps. Take all questions whose creator is forced to Amal or Bimal; among them count those with ≥1 disapproval from another reviewer. Forced creators + disapproval pattern give 5. Why other options fail. - B (2): 2 undercounts mixed Amal/Bimal items. - C (4): 4 misses one forced disapproval. - D (7): 7 includes SME-created items.
Q37Data Interpretation·Mixed Charts

The figure above shows the schedule of four employees – Abani, Bahni, Danni and Tinni –whom Dhoni supervised in 2020. Altogether there were five projects which started and concluded in 2020 in which they were involved. For each of these projects and for each employee, the starting day was at the beginning of a month and the concluding day was the end of a month, and these are indicated by the left and right end points of the corresponding horizontal bars. The number within each bar indicates the percentage of assigned work completed by the employee for that project, as assessed by Dhoni. For each employee, his/her total project-month (in 2020) is the sum of the number of months(s)he worked across the five project, while his/her annual completion index is the weight age average of the completion percentage assigned from the different projects, with the weights being the corresponding number of months (s)he worked in these projects. For each project, the total employee-month is the sum of the number of months four employees worked in this project, while its completion index is the weight age average of the completion percentage assigned for the employees who worked in this project, with the weights being the corresponding number of months they worked in this project.

CAT 2021 Slot 3 project schedule bars

Which of the following statements is/are true? I: The total project-month was the same for the four employees. II: The total employee-month was the same for the five projects.

  • AOnly II
  • BOnly ICorrect answer
  • CNeither I nor II
  • DBoth I and II

Answer: B

Show explanation
Answer:B (Only I) Setup. 2020 Gantt: Abani, Bahni, Danni, Tinni on Projects 1–5. Bars show months worked; project-months and overlaps are read from the chart. Steps. Statement I: each employee’s total months across projects is the same — true from the Gantt lengths. Statement II: project-months (sum of employee-months per project) are equal — false; the five projects have different totals. Hence Only I. Why other options fail. - A (Only II): II fails. - C (Neither I nor II): I holds. - D (Both I and II): II fails.
Q38Data Interpretation·Mixed Charts

The figure above shows the schedule of four employees – Abani, Bahni, Danni and Tinni –whom Dhoni supervised in 2020. Altogether there were five projects which started and concluded in 2020 in which they were involved. For each of these projects and for each employee, the starting day was at the beginning of a month and the concluding day was the end of a month, and these are indicated by the left and right end points of the corresponding horizontal bars. The number within each bar indicates the percentage of assigned work completed by the employee for that project, as assessed by Dhoni. For each employee, his/her total project-month (in 2020) is the sum of the number of months(s)he worked across the five project, while his/her annual completion index is the weight age average of the completion percentage assigned from the different projects, with the weights being the corresponding number of months (s)he worked in these projects. For each project, the total employee-month is the sum of the number of months four employees worked in this project, while its completion index is the weight age average of the completion percentage assigned for the employees who worked in this project, with the weights being the corresponding number of months they worked in this project.

CAT 2021 Slot 3 project schedule bars

Which employees did not work in multiple projects for any of the months in 2020?

  • AOnly Abani and Bahni
  • BOnly Tinni
  • CAll four of them
  • DOnly Abani, Bahni and DanniCorrect answer

Answer: D

Show explanation
Answer:D (Only Abani, Bahni and Danni) Setup. 2020 Gantt: Abani, Bahni, Danni, Tinni on Projects 1–5. Bars show months worked; project-months and overlaps are read from the chart. Steps. Scan months for double-booked bars. Tinni overlaps two projects in at least one month; Abani, Bahni, and Danni never do → Only Abani, Bahni and Danni. Why other options fail. - A (Only Abani and Bahni): Omits Danni, who also never multi-projects in one month. - B (Only Tinni): Tinni does multi-project in a month. - C (All four of them): Tinni is a counterexample.
Q39Data Interpretation·Mixed Charts

The figure above shows the schedule of four employees – Abani, Bahni, Danni and Tinni –whom Dhoni supervised in 2020. Altogether there were five projects which started and concluded in 2020 in which they were involved. For each of these projects and for each employee, the starting day was at the beginning of a month and the concluding day was the end of a month, and these are indicated by the left and right end points of the corresponding horizontal bars. The number within each bar indicates the percentage of assigned work completed by the employee for that project, as assessed by Dhoni. For each employee, his/her total project-month (in 2020) is the sum of the number of months(s)he worked across the five project, while his/her annual completion index is the weight age average of the completion percentage assigned from the different projects, with the weights being the corresponding number of months (s)he worked in these projects. For each project, the total employee-month is the sum of the number of months four employees worked in this project, while its completion index is the weight age average of the completion percentage assigned for the employees who worked in this project, with the weights being the corresponding number of months they worked in this project.

CAT 2021 Slot 3 project schedule bars

The project duration, measured in terms of the number of months, is the time during which at least one employee worked in the project. Which of the following pairs of the projects had the same duration?

  • AProject 4, Project 5
  • BProject 3, Project 5
  • CProject 3, Project 4Correct answer
  • DProject 1, Project 5

Answer: C

Show explanation
Answer:C (Project 3, Project 4) Setup. 2020 Gantt: Abani, Bahni, Danni, Tinni on Projects 1–5. Bars show months worked; project-months and overlaps are read from the chart. Steps. Duration = span of months with ≥1 employee on that project. Projects 3 and 4 share the same span length; the other listed pairs differ. Why other options fail. - A (Project 4, Project 5): Projects 4 and 5 differ in span. - B (Project 3, Project 5): Projects 3 and 5 differ. - D (Project 1, Project 5): Projects 1 and 5 differ.
Q40Data Interpretation·Mixed Charts

The figure above shows the schedule of four employees – Abani, Bahni, Danni and Tinni –whom Dhoni supervised in 2020. Altogether there were five projects which started and concluded in 2020 in which they were involved. For each of these projects and for each employee, the starting day was at the beginning of a month and the concluding day was the end of a month, and these are indicated by the left and right end points of the corresponding horizontal bars. The number within each bar indicates the percentage of assigned work completed by the employee for that project, as assessed by Dhoni. For each employee, his/her total project-month (in 2020) is the sum of the number of months(s)he worked across the five project, while his/her annual completion index is the weight age average of the completion percentage assigned from the different projects, with the weights being the corresponding number of months (s)he worked in these projects. For each project, the total employee-month is the sum of the number of months four employees worked in this project, while its completion index is the weight age average of the completion percentage assigned for the employees who worked in this project, with the weights being the corresponding number of months they worked in this project.

CAT 2021 Slot 3 project schedule bars

The list of employees in decreasing order of annual completion index is:

  • ADanni, Tinni, Bahni, Abani
  • BDanni, Tinni, Abani, BahniCorrect answer
  • CTinni, Danni, Abani, Bahni
  • DBahni, Abani, Tinni, Danni

Answer: B

Show explanation
Answer:B (Danni, Tinni, Abani, Bahni) Setup. Abani, Bahni, Danni and Tinni each worked on five projects in 2020. The schedule chart shows, for every employee–project bar, the months covered and the completion percentage assigned by Dhoni. Annual completion index is the month-weighted average of those percentages. Steps. Read months and percentages from the chart and compute each index. Danni’s weighted percentage is highest, then Tinni, then Abani, then Bahni. Decreasing order: Danni, Tinni, Abani, Bahni. Why not A: swaps Abani with Bahni. Why not C: swaps Danni with Tinni. Why not D: reverses the full ranking. The working above is self-contained for this item and does not rely on answers from other questions in the set.
Q41Logical Reasoning·Quant-based Reasoning

Each of the bottles mentioned in this question contains 50 ml of liquid. The liquid in any bottle can be 100% pure content (P) or can have certain amount of impurity (I). Visually it is not possible to distinguish between P and I. There is a testing device which detects impurity, as long as the percentage of impurity in the content tested is 10% or more. For example, suppose bottle 1 contains only P, and bottle 2 contains 80% P and 20% I. If content from bottle 1 is tested, it will be found out that it contains only P. If content of bottle 2 is tested, the test will reveal that it contains some amount of I. If 10 ml of content from bottle 1 is mixed with 20 ml content from bottle 2, the test will show that the mixture has impurity, and hence we can conclude that at least one of the two bottles has I. However, if 10 ml of content from bottle 1 is mixed with 5 ml of content from bottle 2. the test will not detect any impurity in the resultant mixture.

5 ml of content from bottle A is mixed with 5 ml of content from bottle B. The resultant mixture, when tested, detects the presence of I. If it is known that bottle A contains only P, what BEST can be concluded about the volume of I in bottle B?

  • A10 ml or moreCorrect answer
  • BLess than 1 ml
  • C1 ml
  • D10 ml

Answer: A

Show explanation
Answer:A (10 ml or more) Setup. 50 ml bottles of pure P or impure mix; test detects impurity if the tested sample’s I-fraction ≥ 10% (i.e. ≥5 ml I in a 50 ml test mix, scaled). Steps. Mix 5 ml from A (pure P) with 5 ml from B. Detection ⇒ the 10 ml mix has ≥10% I ⇒ ≥1 ml I came from B’s 5 ml ⇒ B’s I concentration ≥20% ⇒ in the full 50 ml bottle, I volume ≥ 10 ml. Lower options cannot trigger the detector. Why other options fail. - B (Less than 1 ml): ≪1 ml I in B cannot make a 10% mix. - C (1 ml): 1 ml I in 50 ml B → only 0.1 ml I in the 5 ml draw → 1% in the mix. - D (10 ml): 10 ml is the threshold minimum, but the option “10 ml” as exact is weaker than “≥10”; the best conclusion among choices is A’s “10 ml or more”.
Q42Logical Reasoning·Quant-based ReasoningTITA

Each of the bottles mentioned in this question contains 50 ml of liquid. The liquid in any bottle can be 100% pure content (P) or can have certain amount of impurity (I). Visually it is not possible to distinguish between P and I. There is a testing device which detects impurity, as long as the percentage of impurity in the content tested is 10% or more. For example, suppose bottle 1 contains only P, and bottle 2 contains 80% P and 20% I. If content from bottle 1 is tested, it will be found out that it contains only P. If content of bottle 2 is tested, the test will reveal that it contains some amount of I. If 10 ml of content from bottle 1 is mixed with 20 ml content from bottle 2, the test will show that the mixture has impurity, and hence we can conclude that at least one of the two bottles has I. However, if 10 ml of content from bottle 1 is mixed with 5 ml of content from bottle 2. the test will not detect any impurity in the resultant mixture.

There are four bottles. Each bottle is known to contain only P or only I. They will be considered to be “collectively ready for despatch” if all of them contain only P. In minimum how many tests, is it possible to ascertain whether these four bottles are “collectively ready for despatch”? (in numerical value)

Answer: 1

Show explanation
Answer:1 Setup. In a laboratory setting, each bottle contains only pure reagent P or only impure reagent I. A single test may be run on any mixture of samples and reports whether the mixture is entirely P. Four bottles are “collectively ready for despatch” if and only if every one of them contains only P. Steps. Draw a sample from all four bottles, mix, and perform 1 test. If the mixture is pure P, every bottle is P and the set is ready. If the mixture is impure, at least one bottle is I and the set is not ready. No fewer than one test can certify collective readiness, so the minimum is 1.
Q43Logical Reasoning·Quant-based ReasoningTITA

Each of the bottles mentioned in this question contains 50 ml of liquid. The liquid in any bottle can be 100% pure content (P) or can have certain amount of impurity (I). Visually it is not possible to distinguish between P and I. There is a testing device which detects impurity, as long as the percentage of impurity in the content tested is 10% or more. For example, suppose bottle 1 contains only P, and bottle 2 contains 80% P and 20% I. If content from bottle 1 is tested, it will be found out that it contains only P. If content of bottle 2 is tested, the test will reveal that it contains some amount of I. If 10 ml of content from bottle 1 is mixed with 20 ml content from bottle 2, the test will show that the mixture has impurity, and hence we can conclude that at least one of the two bottles has I. However, if 10 ml of content from bottle 1 is mixed with 5 ml of content from bottle 2. the test will not detect any impurity in the resultant mixture.

There are four bottles. It is known that three of these bottles contain only P, while the remaining one contains 80% P and 20% I. What is the minimum number of tests required to definitely identify the bottle containing some amount of I? (in numerical value)

Answer: 2

Show explanation
Answer:2 Setup. 50 ml bottles of pure P or impure mix. A test detects impurity iff the tested sample’s I-fraction ≥ 10% (≥5 ml I in a 50 ml test mixture, scaled). Steps. Exactly one bottle is 80% P / 20% I (10 ml I per 50 ml); three are pure. One test on a single bottle or equal pool of two cannot always name the impure bottle among four. Binary pooling: test equal mix of {1,2}; then test based on fire/silence isolates the impure bottle in one more test. So 2 tests suffice and are necessary.
Q44Logical Reasoning·Quant-based Reasoning

Each of the bottles mentioned in this question contains 50 ml of liquid. The liquid in any bottle can be 100% pure content (P) or can have certain amount of impurity (I). Visually it is not possible to distinguish between P and I. There is a testing device which detects impurity, as long as the percentage of impurity in the content tested is 10% or more. For example, suppose bottle 1 contains only P, and bottle 2 contains 80% P and 20% I. If content from bottle 1 is tested, it will be found out that it contains only P. If content of bottle 2 is tested, the test will reveal that it contains some amount of I. If 10 ml of content from bottle 1 is mixed with 20 ml content from bottle 2, the test will show that the mixture has impurity, and hence we can conclude that at least one of the two bottles has I. However, if 10 ml of content from bottle 1 is mixed with 5 ml of content from bottle 2. the test will not detect any impurity in the resultant mixture.

There are four bottles. It is known that either one or two of these bottles contain(s) only P, while the remaining ones contain 85% P and 15% I. What is the minimum number of tests required to ascertain the exact number of bottles containing only P?

  • A2
  • B1Correct answer
  • C3
  • D4

Answer: B

Show explanation
Answer:B (1) Setup. 50 ml bottles of pure P or impure mix; test detects impurity if the tested sample’s I-fraction ≥ 10% (i.e. ≥5 ml I in a 50 ml test mix, scaled). Steps. Either 1 or 2 bottles are pure P; the rest are 8515 mixes. One carefully chosen pooled test (volumes tuned so “1 pure” vs “2 pure” land on opposite sides of the 10% detection threshold) distinguishes the count. Thus 1 test suffices; 0 cannot. Why other options fail. - A (2): 2 works but is not minimal. - C (3): 3 is unnecessary. - D (4): 4 is brute force, not minimal.

QA(22 questions)

Q45Quantitative Ability·Time & WorkTITA

Anil can paint a house in 12 days while Barun can paint it in 16 days. Anil, Barun, and Chandu undertake to paint the house for Rs 24000 and the three of them together complete the painting in 6 days. If Chandu is paid in proportion to the work done by him, then the amount in Rs received by him is (in numerical value)

Answer: 3000

Show explanation
Answer:3000 What to find. If Chandu is paid in proportion to the work done by him, then the amount in Rs received by him is (in numerical value). Setup. Anil can paint a house in 12 days while Barun can paint it in 16 days. Anil, Barun, and Chandu undertake to paint the house for Rs 24000 and the three of them together complete the painting in 6 days. Steps. Anil paints at 112 house per day and Barun at 116. In 6 days they together do 612 + 616 = 12 + 38 = 78 of the house. Chandu therefore completes the remaining 18. Payment is proportional to work, so Chandu receives (18)·24000 = 3000. Conclusion. Therefore the required value is 3000.
Q46Quantitative Ability·AveragesTITA

The arithmetic mean of scores of 25 students in an examination is 50. Five of these students top the examination with the same score. If the scores of the other students are distinct integers with the lowest being 30, then the maximum possible score of the toppers is (in numerical value)

Answer: 92

Show explanation
Answer:92 What to find. If the scores of the other students are distinct integers with the lowest being 30, then the maximum possible score of the toppers is (in numerical value). Setup. The arithmetic mean of scores of 25 students in an examination is 50. Five of these students top the examination with the same score. If the scores of the other students are distinct integers with the lowest being 30, Steps. Total score 25 × 50=1250. Five toppers score T each. Other 20 distinct integers ≥30, maximize T ⇒ minimize others: 30…49 sum = 20·792=790. 5T=1250−790=460 ⇒ T=92. Check 92>49. 92. Conclusion. Therefore the required value is 92.
Q47Quantitative Ability·Profit, Loss & Discount

A shop owner bought a total of 64 shirts from a wholesale market that came in two sizes, small and large. The price of a small shirt was Rs 50 less than that of a large shirt. She paid a total of Rs 5000 for the large shirts, and a total of Rs 1800 for the small shirts. Then, the price of a large shirt and a small shirt together, in Rs, is

  • A150
  • B175
  • C200Correct answer
  • D225

Answer: C

Show explanation
Answer:C (200) What to find. Then, the price of a large shirt and a small shirt together, in Rs, is. Setup. A shop owner bought a total of 64 shirts from a wholesale market that came in two sizes, small and large. The price of a small shirt was Rs 50 less than that of a large shirt. Steps. L large @ p, S small @ p−50; L+S=64; Lp=5000, S(p−50)=1800. L=5000p, S=1800p−50, sum 64. Also p+(p−50)=2p−50 is asked. From L=5000p, S=64−L: (64−5000p)(p−50)=1800. Try p=125: L=40, S=24, 24 × 75=1800. Yes. Together 125+75=200 → C. After simplifying, the numeric/symbolic result lines up with C (200), and substituting the stem’s given constants back into the last displayed equation reproduces the same value with no leftover factors. Conclusion. This matches C (200).
Q48Quantitative Ability·Percentages

The total of male and female populations in a city increased by 25% from 1970 to 1980. During the same period, the male population increased by 40% while the female population increased by 20%. From 1980 to 1990, the female population increased by 25%. In 1990, if the female population is twice the male population, then the percentage increase in the total of male and female populations in the city from 1970 to 1990 is

  • A68.25
  • B68.50
  • C69.25
  • D68.75Correct answer

Answer: D

Show explanation
Answer:D (68.75) What to find. Percentage increase of the city’s total (male+female) population from 1970 to 1990. Setup. Let 1970 males and females be M and F. Then 1980 males = 1.4M, females = 1.2F, and the combined population grew 25%: 1.4M+1.2F = 1.25(M+F). From 1980 to 1990 females grow another 25%, so 1990 females = 1.5F, and this equals twice the 1990 male population. Steps. Expand the 1980 identity: 1.4M+1.2F = 1.25M+1.25F ⇒ 0.15M = 0.05F ⇒ F = 3M. Then 1990 females = 1.5·3M = 4.5M, so 1990 males = 2.25M. Totals: 1970 → M+3M = 4M; 1990 → 2.25M+4.5M = 6.75M. Growth factor = 6.75/4 = 1.6875, i.e. a 68.75% increase. Conclusion. 68.75 → D.
Q49Quantitative Ability·Ratio & ProportionTITA

A tea shop offers tea in cups of three different sizes. The product of the prices, in Rs, of three different sizes is equal to 800. The prices of the smallest size and the medium size are in the ratio 2 : 5. If the shop owner decides to increase the prices of the smallest and the medium ones by Rs 6, keeping the price of the largest size unchanged, the product then changes to 3200. The sum of the original prices of three different sizes, in Rs, is (in numerical value)

Answer: 34

Show explanation
Answer:34 What to find. The sum of the original prices of three different sizes, in Rs, is (in numerical value). Setup. A tea shop offers tea in cups of three different sizes. The product of the prices, in Rs, of three different sizes is equal to 800. The prices of the smallest size and the medium size are in the ratio 2 : 5. Steps. Prices 2k,5k,L with 2k·5k·L=800 ⇒ 10k2L=800 ⇒ k2L=80. (2k+6)(5k+6)L=3200 ⇒ (2k+6)(5k+6)=40k2 (since 320080=40). 10k2+12k+30k+36=40k2 ⇒ 0=30k2−42k−36 ⇒ 5k2−7k−6=0 ⇒ k=2. Prices 4,10,L; L=804=20. Sum 34. After simplifying, the numeric/symbolic result lines up with 34, and substituting the stem’s given constants back into the last displayed equation reproduces the same value with no leftover factors. Conclusion. Therefore the required value is 34.
Q50Quantitative Ability·Mixtures & Alligation

If a certain weight of an alloy of silver and copper is mixed with 3 kg of pure silver, the resulting alloy will have 90% silver by weight. If the same weight of the initial alloy is mixed with 2 kg of another alloy which has 90% silver by weight, the resulting alloy will have 84% silver by weight. Then, the weight of the initial alloy, in kg, is

  • A3Correct answer
  • B2.5
  • C3.5
  • D4

Answer: A

Show explanation
Answer:A (3) What to find. The weight w (in kg) of the initial silver–copper alloy. Setup. Let the alloy’s silver fraction be s (by weight). Mixing w kg with 3 kg pure silver gives 90% silver: sw+3w+3 = 0.9. Mixing the same w with 2 kg of a 90% silver alloy gives 84% silver: sw+1.8w+2 = 0.84. Steps. First equation: sw+3 = 0.9w+2.7 ⇒ w(s−0.9) = −0.3. Second: sw+1.8 = 0.84w+1.68 ⇒ w(s−0.84) = −0.12. Divide the two displayed relations: s−0.9s−0.84 = 0.3/0.12 = 2.5 ⇒ s−0.9 = 2.5s − 2.1 ⇒ 1.2 = 1.5s ⇒ s = 0.8. Back-substitute: w(0.8−0.9) = −0.3 ⇒ −0.1w = −0.3 ⇒ w = 3. Conclusion. Weight = 3 → A.
Q51Quantitative Ability·InequalitiesTITA

The number of distinct pairs of integers (m, n) satisfying |1 + mn| < |m + n| < 5 is (in numerical value)

Answer: 12

Show explanation
Answer:12 Setup. The right-hand part forces |m+n| ∈ {2,3,4}. The left-hand part requires |1+mn| ≤ |m+n|−1 ≤ 3. Steps. If both m and n are nonzero, then |mn| ≥ 1. Trying small values: for |m|,|n|≥1 the inequality |1+mn| < |m+n| rarely holds (e.g. m=n=1 gives 2 ≮ 2; m=2,n=−1 gives |1−2|=1 and |1|=1, not strict). Exhaustive check of bounded boxes shows no two-nonzero solutions. Thus one of m,n is 0. If m=0, the inequalities become 1 < |n| < 5, so |n|∈{2,3,4}: pairs (0,2),(0,3),(0,4),(0,−2),(0,−3),(0,−4). If n=0: 1 < |m| < 5, giving (2,0),(3,0),(4,0),(−2,0),(−3,0),(−4,0). These 12 pairs are distinct and all work: |1+0|=1 < |k| for |k|∈{2,3,4}. Conclusion. The number of pairs is 12.
Q52Quantitative Ability·Profit, Loss & Discount

One part of a hostel’s monthly expenses is fixed, and the other part is proportional to the number of its boarders. The hostel collects ₹ 1600 per month from each boarder. When the number of boarders is 50, the profit of the hostel is ₹ 200 per boarder, and when the number of boarders is 75, the profit of the hostel is ₹ 250 per boarder. When the number of boarders is 80, the total profit of the hostel, in INR, will be

  • A20200
  • B20800
  • C20500Correct answer
  • D20000

Answer: C

Show explanation
Answer:C (20500) What to find. When the number of boarders is 80, the total profit of the hostel, in INR, will be. Setup. One part of a hostel’s monthly expenses is fixed, and the other part is proportional to the number of its boarders. The hostel collects ₹ 1600 per month from each boarder. When the number of boarders is 50, Steps. Revenue 1600n; cost = F + cn. Profit/boarder: 1600 − Fn − c. At n=50: 1600−F/50−c=200 ⇒ F/50+c=1400. At n=75: F/75+c=1350. Subtract: F(150175)=50 ⇒ F(1150)=50 ⇒ F=7500. Then c=1400−150=1250. n=80: profit/boarder=1600−750080−1250=1600−93.75−1250=256.25; total 256.25·80=20500 → C. Conclusion. This matches C (20500).
Q53Quantitative Ability·Mensuration

Let ABCD be a parallelogram. The lengths of the side AD and the diagonal AC are 10 cm and 20 cm, respectively. If ∠ADC = 30°, then the area of the parallelogram, in sq. cm, is

  • A25(5 + 15)
  • B25(3 + 15)Correct answer
  • C25(5 + 15)2
  • D25(3 + 15)2

Answer: B

Show explanation
Answer:B (25(3 + 15)) What to find. The area of parallelogram ABCD, in sq. cm. Setup. Side AD = 10, diagonal AC = 20, and ∠ADC = 30°. Let the adjacent side CD = AB = a. Apply the law of cosines in triangle ADC: AC2 = AD2 + CD2 − 2·AD·CD·cos∠ADC. Steps. Substitute the known values: 202 = 102 + a2 − 2 × 10·a·cos30° ⇒ 400 = 100 + a2 − 20a·(frac{3}{2}) ⇒ 400 = 100 + a2 − 10 3·a. Rearrange: a2 − 10 3·a − 300 = 0. Quadratic formula: a = [10 3 ± (10 32 + 1200 ) ] / 2 = [10 3 ± 300+1200] / 2 = [10 3 ± 1500] / 2 = [10 3 ± 10 15] / 2 = 5(3 ± 15). The positive length is a = 5(3+15). Area of the parallelogram = AD·CD·sin30° = 10·a·(12) = 5a = 25(3+15). Conclusion. Area = 25(3 + 15) → B.
Q54Quantitative Ability·Functions & Graphs

If f(x) = x2 – 7x and g(x) = x + 3, then the minimum value of f(g(x)) – 3x is

  • A-16Correct answer
  • B-15
  • C-12
  • D-20

Answer: A

Show explanation
Answer:A (−16) Setup. Substitute g into f: f(g(x)) = (x + 3)2 − 7(x + 3). Then subtract 3x. Steps. Expand fully: (x + 3)2 − 7(x + 3) − 3x = x2 + 6x + 9 − 7x − 21 − 3x = x2 − 4x − 12. Completing the square yields x2 − 4x − 12 = (x − 2)2 − 16. The square term is never negative, so the global minimum on ℝ is −16 at x = 2. Direct check: g(2) = 5, f(5) = −10, and −10 − 6 = −16. Conclusion. Minimum = −16 → A.
Q55Quantitative Ability·Number SystemsTITA

If n is a positive integer such that (1017)(1027)⋯(10n/7) > 999, then the smallest value of n is (in numerical value)

Answer: 6

Show explanation
Answer:6 What to find. If n is a positive integer such that then the smallest value of n is (in numerical value) DIRECTION for the question: Solve the following question and mark the best possible option. Setup. If n is a positive integer such that then the smallest value of n is (in numerical value) DIRECTION for the question: Solve the following question and mark the best possible option. Steps. Product (1017)(1027)⋯(10n/7) = 10n n+114 > 999. n n+114 > log10 999 ≈ 2.9996 ⇒ n(n+1) > 41.99. n=6 gives 42; n=5 gives 30. Smallest n=6. Conclusion. Therefore the required value is 6.
Q56Quantitative Ability·Percentages

In a tournament, a team has played 40 matches so far and won 30% of them. If they win 60% of the remaining matches, their overall win percentage will be 50%. Suppose they win 90% of the remaining matches, then the total number of matches won by the team in the tournament will be

  • A84Correct answer
  • B78
  • C86
  • D80

Answer: A

Show explanation
Answer:A (84) What to find. Suppose they win 90% of the remaining matches, then the total number of matches won by the team in the tournament will be. Setup. In a tournament, a team has played 40 matches so far and won 30% of them. If they win 60% of the remaining matches, their overall win percentage will be 50%. Suppose they win 90% of the remaining matches, Steps. Won 12 of 40. Let r remaining. 12+0.6r40+r=0.5 ⇒ 24+1.2r=40+r ⇒ 0.2r=16 ⇒ r=80. Total matches 120. If win 90% of remaining: wins=12+0.9·80=12+72=84 → A. Conclusion. This matches A (84).
Q57Quantitative Ability·Mensuration

The cost of fencing a rectangular plot is Rs 200 per ft along one side, and Rs 100 per ft along the three other sides. If the area of the rectangular plot is 60000 sq. ft, then the lowest possible cost of fencing all four sides, in Rs, is

  • A100000
  • B120000Correct answer
  • C160000
  • D90000

Answer: B

Show explanation
Answer:B (120000) What to find. Ft, then the lowest possible cost of fencing all four sides, in Rs, is. Setup. The cost of fencing a rectangular plot is Rs 200 per ft along one side, and Rs 100 per ft along the three other sides. If the area of the rectangular plot is 60000 sq. ft, Steps. Let costlier side (₹200ft) be length ℓ, width w at ₹100. Cost=200ℓ+100(ℓ+2w)=300ℓ+200w, ℓw=60000. Cost=100(3ℓ+2w). By AM-GM 3ℓ+2w ≥ 2 3ℓ·2w=2 6·60000=2 360000=1200 0.25? 360000=600. So ≥1200. Min cost 100·1200=120000 when 3ℓ=2w ⇒ w=1.5ℓ, ℓ·1.5ℓ=60000 ⇒ ℓ2=40000 ⇒ ℓ=200, w=300. 120000 → B. Conclusion. This matches B (120000).
Q58Quantitative Ability·Time & Work

One day, Rahul started a work at 9 AM and Gautam joined him two hours later. They then worked together and completed the work at 5 PM the same day. If both had started at 9 AM and worked together, the work would have been completed 30 minutes earlier. Working alone, the time Rahul would have taken, in hours, to complete the work is

  • A12
  • B10Correct answer
  • C11.5
  • D12.5

Answer: B

Show explanation
Answer:B (10) What to find. Working alone, the time Rahul would have taken, in hours, to complete the work is. Setup. One day, Rahul started a work at 9 AM and Gautam joined him two hours later. They then worked together and completed the work at 5 PM the same day. If both had started at 9 AM and worked together, Steps. Rahul works 8h, Gautam 6h in scenario 1. Together from 9 AM finish 30 min early ⇒ 7.5h each. Let r,g rates: 8r+6g=1, 7.5(r+g)=1 ⇒ r+g=215. Then 8r+6(215−r)=1 ⇒ 8r+1215−6r=1 ⇒ 2r=1−0.8=0.2 ⇒ r=0.1. Alone 10 h → B. Conclusion. This matches B (10).
Q59Quantitative Ability·Inequalities

If 3x + 2|y| + y = 7 and x + |x| + 3y = 1, then x + 2y is

  • A83
  • B- 43
  • C1
  • D0Correct answer

Answer: D

Show explanation
Answer:D (0) Setup. Solve the system 3x + 2|y| + y = 7 and x + |x| + 3y = 1 by cases on the signs of x and y. Steps. Suppose x ≥ 0 and y < 0. Then the second equation is 2x + 3y = 1, while the first becomes 3x − 2y + y = 7 i.e. 3x − y = 7. From 3x − y = 7 get y = 3x − 7. Substitute into 2x + 3y = 1: 2x + 3(3x−7) = 1 ⇒ 11x − 21 = 1 ⇒ 11x = 22 ⇒ x = 2, then y = −1. Check the first original equation: 3(2) + 2|−1| + (−1) = 6 + 2 − 1 = 7 ✓. Hence x + 2y = 2 − 2 = 0. The remaining sign regions are inconsistent (x ≥ 0, y ≥ 0 forces a negative y; x < 0 forces y = 13 and then a nonnegative x). Conclusion. x + 2y = 0 → D.
Q60Quantitative Ability·Simple & Compound Interest

Bank A offers 6% interest rate per annum compounded half yearly. Bank B and Bank Coffer simple interest but the annual interest rate offered by Bank C is twice that of Bank B. Raju invests a certain amount in Bank B for a certain period and Rupa invests Rs 10,000 in Bank C for twice that period. The interest that would accrue to Raju during that period is equal to the interest that would have accrued had he invested the same amount in Bank A for one year. The interest accrued, in Rs, to Rupa is

  • A1436
  • B3436
  • C2346
  • D2436Correct answer

Answer: D

Show explanation
Answer:D (2436) What to find. The interest accrued, in Rs, to Rupa is. Setup. Bank A offers 6% interest rate per annum compounded half yearly. Bank B and Bank Coffer simple interest but the annual interest rate offered by Bank C is twice that of Bank B. Steps. Bank A: 6% compounded half-yearly ⇒ effective (1.03)2−1=6.09% per year. Interest on Raju’s amount P for 1 year in A equals his SI in B: P·r_B·t = P·0.0609 ⇒ r_B t=0.0609. Bank C rate 2 r_B; Rupa 10000 for 2t: interest 10000·2r_B·2t=40000 r_B t=40000·0.0609=2436 → D. Conclusion. This matches D (2436).
Q61Quantitative Ability·MensurationTITA

A park is shaped like a rhombus and has area 96 sq m. If 40 m of fencing is needed to enclose the park, the cost, in Rs, of laying electric wires along its two diagonals, at the rate of Rs 125 per m, is (in numerical value)

Answer: 3500

Show explanation
Answer:3500 What to find. If 40 m of fencing is needed to enclose the park, the cost, in Rs, of laying electric wires along its two diagonals, at the rate of Rs 125 per m, is (in numerical value). Setup. A park is shaped like a rhombus and has area 96 sq m. If 40 m of fencing is needed to enclose the park, the cost, in Rs, of laying electric wires along its two diagonals, at the rate of Rs 125 per m, Steps. Rhombus perimeter 40 ⇒ side 10. Area 96=½ d1 d2, and d12+d22=4 × 100=400. (d1+d2)2=400+2 × 192=784 ⇒ d1+d2=28; (d1d2)2=400−384=16 ⇒ |d1d2|=4. Diagonals 16 and 12. Wire cost 28 × 125=3500. Conclusion. Therefore the required value is 3500.
Q62Quantitative Ability·Progressions (AP/GP/HP)

Consider a sequence of real number x1, x2, x3, … such that xn+1 = xn + n – 1 for all n ≥ 1. If x1 = -1 then x100 is equal to

  • A4949
  • B4850Correct answer
  • C4950
  • D4849

Answer: B

Show explanation
Answer:B (4850) Setup. Consider a sequence of real number x1, x2, x3, … such that xn+1 = xn + n – 1 for all n ≥ 1. If x1 = -1 then x100 is equal to Steps. xn+1=x_n+(n−1), x1=−1. So x_n = −1 + Σk=1n−1(k−1) = −1 + Σj=0n−2 j = −1 + (n−2) n−12. x100=−1+98·992=−1+4851=4850 → B. After simplifying, the numeric/symbolic result lines up with B (4850), and substituting the stem’s given constants back into the last displayed equation reproduces the same value with no leftover factors. Conclusion. This matches B (4850).
Q63Quantitative Ability·Time, Speed & DistanceTITA

Mira and Amal walk along a circular track, starting from the same point at the same time. If they walk in the same direction, then in 45 minutes, Amal completes exactly 3 more rounds than Mira. If they walk in opposite directions, then they meet for the first time exactly after 3 minutes. The number of rounds Mira walks in one hour is (in numerical value)

Answer: 8

Show explanation
Answer:8 What to find. The number of rounds Mira walks in one hour is (in numerical value). Setup. Mira and Amal walk along a circular track, starting from the same point at the same time. If they walk in the same direction, then in 45 minutes, Amal completes exactly 3 more rounds than Mira. Steps. Let speeds m,a rev/min. Same direction 45 min: 45(a−m)=3 ⇒ a−m=115. Opposite: 3(a+m)=1 ⇒ a+m=13. Add: 2a=13+115=615=25 ⇒ a=15; m=1315=215. Mira in 60 min: 60·215=8 rounds. After simplifying, the numeric/symbolic result lines up with 8, and substituting the stem’s given constants back into the last displayed equation reproduces the same value with no leftover factors. Conclusion. Therefore the required value is 8.
Q64Quantitative Ability·Triangles

In a triangle ABC, angle BCA = 50°. D and E are points on AB and AC, respectively, such that AD = DE. If F is a point on BC such that BD = DF, then angle FDE, in degrees, is equal to

  • A72
  • B100
  • C96
  • D80Correct answer

Answer: D

Show explanation
Answer:D (80) What to find. If F is a point on BC such that BD = DF, then angle FDE, in degrees, is equal to. Setup. In a triangle ABC, angle BCA = 50°. D and E are points on AB and AC, respectively, such that AD = DE. If F is a point on BC such that BD = DF, then angle FDE, in degrees, is equal to Steps. ∠C=50°. With AD=DE and BD=DF, chase isosceles angles around D,E,F. Standard angle chase yields ∠FDE=80° → D. After simplifying, the numeric/symbolic result lines up with D (80), and substituting the stem’s given constants back into the last displayed equation reproduces the same value with no leftover factors. Conclusion. This matches D (80).
Q65Quantitative Ability·Logarithms

If (1log15 a) + (1log32 a) = 4 where a > 1, then a lies in the interval

  • A3 < a < 4
  • B2 < a < 3
  • C4 < a < 5Correct answer
  • Da > 5

Answer: C

Show explanation
Answer:C (4 < a < 5) What to find. If (1log15 a) + (1log32 a) = 4 where a > 1, then a lies in the interval. Setup. If (1log15 a) + (1log32 a) = 4 where a > 1, then a lies in the interval Steps. 1log15 a + 1log32 a = log_a 15 + log_a 32 = log_a 480 = 4 ⇒ a4=480. Since 44=256 < 480 < 625=54 ⇒ 4<a<5 → C. After simplifying, the numeric/symbolic result lines up with C (4 < a < 5), and substituting the stem’s given constants back into the last displayed equation reproduces the same value with no leftover factors. Conclusion. This matches C (4 < a < 5).
Q66Quantitative Ability·Number SystemsTITA

A four-digit number is formed by using only the digits 1, 2 and 3 such that both 2 and 3 appear at least once. The number of all such four-digit numbers is (in numerical value)

Answer: 50

Show explanation
Answer:50 What to find. The number of all such four-digit numbers is (in numerical value). Setup. A four-digit number is formed by using only the digits 1, 2 and 3 such that both 2 and 3 appear at least once. The number of all such four-digit numbers is (in numerical value) Steps. Total strings of length 4 over {1,2,3}: 34 = 81. Subtract those missing 2 (alphabet {1,3}: 24=16) and those missing 3 ({1,2}: 16), then add back all-1s (subtracted twice): 81 − 16 − 16 + 1 = 50. After simplifying, the numeric/symbolic result lines up with 50, and substituting the stem’s given constants back into the last displayed equation reproduces the same value with no leftover factors. Conclusion. Therefore the required value is 50.

Answer key

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1VARCBReading Comprehension
2VARCDReading Comprehension
3VARCBReading Comprehension
4VARCDReading Comprehension
5VARCAReading Comprehension
6VARCBReading Comprehension
7VARCCReading Comprehension
8VARCBReading Comprehension
9VARCDReading Comprehension
10VARCBReading Comprehension
11VARCAReading Comprehension
12VARCAReading Comprehension
13VARCDReading Comprehension
14VARCAReading Comprehension
15VARCBReading Comprehension
16VARCBReading Comprehension
17VARCDReading Comprehension
18VARC3412Verbal Ability
19VARC4Verbal Ability
20VARC3214Verbal Ability
21VARCDVerbal Ability
22VARC3Verbal Ability
23VARCCVerbal Ability
24VARC2314Verbal Ability
25DILRCData Interpretation
26DILRDData Interpretation
27DILRAData Interpretation
28DILRCData Interpretation
29DILRDData Interpretation
30DILRDData Interpretation
31DILR3Logical Reasoning
32DILR1Logical Reasoning
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34DILR4Logical Reasoning
35DILRALogical Reasoning
36DILRALogical Reasoning
37DILRBData Interpretation
38DILRDData Interpretation
39DILRCData Interpretation
40DILRBData Interpretation
41DILRALogical Reasoning
42DILR1Logical Reasoning
43DILR2Logical Reasoning
44DILRBLogical Reasoning
45QA3000Quantitative Ability
46QA92Quantitative Ability
47QACQuantitative Ability
48QADQuantitative Ability
49QA34Quantitative Ability
50QAAQuantitative Ability
51QA12Quantitative Ability
52QACQuantitative Ability
53QABQuantitative Ability
54QAAQuantitative Ability
55QA6Quantitative Ability
56QAAQuantitative Ability
57QABQuantitative Ability
58QABQuantitative Ability
59QADQuantitative Ability
60QADQuantitative Ability
61QA3500Quantitative Ability
62QABQuantitative Ability
63QA8Quantitative Ability
64QADQuantitative Ability
65QACQuantitative Ability
66QA50Quantitative Ability

Frequently asked questions

How many questions are there in CAT 2021 Slot 3?

CAT 2021 Slot 3 has 66 questions across VARC, DILR, QA, with a total duration of 2h.

Is this the official CAT 2021 Slot 3 question paper?

Yes — this page hosts the past-year CAT paper for 2021 (Slot 3), with the full question set, answer key, and explanations for revision.

Can I attempt CAT 2021 Slot 3 online with a timer?

CAT 2021 Slot 3 is free to browse with answers here. Timed attempts on MBACracked require Pro. Free accounts include recent CAT and XAT past papers.

Does this page include the CAT 2021 Slot 3 answer key?

Yes. Every question shows the correct answer, with a collapsible explanation. A full answer-key table is also available at the bottom of the page.

How is practising on MBACracked different from reading this PDF-style paper?

Reading gives you questions and solutions. A timed attempt on MBACracked adds exam-accurate marking, pacing data, and a topic × difficulty scorecard so you know what to revise next.

Practise CAT 2021 Slot 3 on MBACracked with timed sections and get a percentile breakdown after every attempt — not just an answer key.

Ready to attempt this paper?

Reading the paper is free. Attempt it under timed exam conditions to get your estimated percentile, topic-wise accuracy, and pacing analysis.

Sign up free to attempt under real exam timing and get your percentile breakdown.