Free Reading Comprehension Set II - 07 Practice Test - CAT 

Question 1

In the sentence, "I believe there is a connection" (second paragraph), what two developments is the author referring to?
(2005)

A. Painters using a dying hero and using a fruit as a subject of painting.
B. Growing success of painters and an increase in abstract forms.
C. Artists gaining freedom to choose subjects and abandoning subjects altogether.
D. Rise of Impressionists and an increase in abstract forms.

SOLUTION

Solution : C

Option C

The statement in the second paragraph is made in reference to the one in the first paragraph which talks about the development in "subjects used in art" wherein, the artist has the freedom to choose any subject he desires, and also his total abandonment of a subject.

Question 2

When a culture is insecure, the painter chooses his subject on the basis of:
(2005)

A. The prevalent style in the society of his time.
B. Its meaningfulness to the painter.
C. What is put in front of the easel.
D. Past experience and memory of the painter.

SOLUTION

Solution : B

Option B

Paragraph 7 states that when the culture is in a state of disintegration or is insecure, the freedom of the artist increases.

Question 3

In the context of the passage, which of the following statements would NOT be true?
(2005)

A. Painters decided subjects based on what they remembered from their own lives.
B. Painters of reeds and water in China faced no serious problem of choosing a subject.
C. The choice of subject was a source of scandals in nineteenth century European art.
D. Agreement on the general meaning of a painting is influenced by culture and historical context.

SOLUTION

Solution : A

Option A

Solve this question by elimination. We need to eliminate those options which are clearly stated in the passage. All of options (b), (c) and (d) are clearly stated in the passage. Thus, the correct answer is option (a).

Question 4

Which of the following views is taken by the author?
(2005)

A. The more insecure a culture, the greater the freedom of the artist.
B. The more secure a culture, the greater the freedom of the artist.
C. The more secure a culture, more difficult the choice of subject.
D. The more insecure a culture, the less significant the choice of the subject

SOLUTION

Solution : A

Option A

Option (a) is directly stated in the passage paragraph 7.

Question 5

Which of the following is NOT necessarily among the attributes needed for a painter to succeed:
(2005)

A. The painter and his public agree on what is significant.
B. The painting is able to communicate and justify the significance of its subject selection.
C. The subject has a personal meaning for the painter.
D. The painting of subjects is inspired by historical developments.

SOLUTION

Solution : D

Option D

Again, by elimination, we can see that all of option s (a), (b) and (c) are mentioned as prerequisites for a painter to succeed. Options (a,b,c) are mentioned in paragraph (5).

Question 6

Why do islands with considerable degree of isolation provide valuable insights into human history?
(2007)

A. Isolated islands may evolve differently and this difference is of interest to us.
B. Isolated islands increase the number of observations available to historians.
C. Isolated islands, differing in their endowments and size may evolve differently and this difference can be attributed to their endowments and size.
D. Isolated islands, differing in their endowments and size, provide a good comparison to large islands such as Eurasia, Africa, Americas and Australia.

SOLUTION

Solution : A

Option: (a)

Evolution of islands with considerable degree of isolation which have developed complex societies interests the historians as mentioned by the author in the 3rd paragraph, 2nd line thus making answer option (a) the correct answer choice.

Geography of the passage:

Para 1:

  • The difficulties historians face in establishing cause-and-effect relations in the history of human societies are similar to those faced by astronomers, paleontologists and so on.
  • Major difficulty being predicting emergent properties and future behavior.
  • Prediction more feasible on large spatial scales and over long times since unique features of millions of small-scale brief events become averaged out.

Para 2:

  • How students of human history can benefit from experiences of scientists of other historical sciences.
  • Comparative method and natural experiment.
  • Astronomers and human historians can take advantage of natural experiments, by comparing systems differing in the presence of some putative causative factor.

Para 3:

  • Students of human history can draw on many more natural experiments than just comparisons among the five inhabited continents.
  • Natural experiments are inherently open to potential methodological criticisms.
  • Example: confounding effects of natural variation in additional variables besides the one of interest, as well as problems in inferring chains of causation from observed correlations between variables.

Para 4:

  • It is much more difficult to understand human history than to understand problems in fields of science where history is unimportant and where fewer individual variables operate.
  • Successful methodologies for analyzing historical problems have been worked out in several fields. Example: dinosaurs, nebulae and glaciers.

Question 7

According to the author, why is prediction difficult in history?
(2007)

A. Historical explanations are usually broad so that no prediction is possible.
B. Historical outcomes depend upon a large number of factors and hence prediction is difficult for each case.
C. Historical sciences, by their very nature, are not interested in a multitude of minor factors, which might be important in a specific historical outcome.
D. Historians are interested in evolution of human history and hence are only interested in long-term predictions.

SOLUTION

Solution : B

Option: (b)

In the last paragraph, 1st line the author mentions that prediction in history is much more difficult owing to the large number of individual variables operating thus making answer option (b) correct.

Question 8

According to the author, which of the following statements would be true?
(2007)

A. Students of history are missing significant opportunities by not conducting any natural experiments.
B. Students of history are missing significant opportunities by not studying an adequate variety of natural experiments.
C. Complex societies inhabiting large islands provide great opportunities for natural experiments.
D. A unique problem faced by historians is their inability to establish cause and effect relationships.

SOLUTION

Solution : C

Option: (c)

Answer options (a) and (b) are eliminated because they are not mentioned in the passage. Option (d) stands incorrect because it contradicts the author's idea that the problems faced by historians in establishing cause and effect relations in the history of human societies is not unique to them as mentioned in the 1st paragraph, 1st line. Whereas, option (c) can be inferred from the first few lines of the 3rd paragraph wherein the author has talked about complex societies developed in isolation on large islands thus making answer option (c), the correct answer choice.

 

Question 9

What is the author attempting to illustrate through this passage?
(2007)

A. Relationships between rules, paradigms, and normal science.
B. How a historian would isolate a particular 'loci of commitment'.
C. How a set of shared beliefs evolves into a paradigm.
D. The frustrations of attempting to define a paradigm of a tradition.

SOLUTION

Solution : A

Option: (a)

The author is trying to illustrate the relation between rules, paradigms and normal sciences as is evident from 1st paragraph, 1st line.

Geography of the passage:

Para 1:

 ·        To discover the relation between rules, paradigms, and normal science, consider first how the historian isolates the particular loci of commitment that have been described as accepted rules.

 ·         What are paradigms

 ·        Despite occasional ambiguities, the paradigms of a mature scientific community can be determined with relative ease.

Para 2:

 ·         Second step: compare the community's paradigms with each other and with its current research reports to discover what isolable elements, explicit or implicit, the members of that community may have abstracted from their more global paradigms and deploy it as rules in their research.

 ·        Search for rules: more difficult and less satisfying than search for paradigms.

Para 3:

 ·         Search for a body of rules competent to constitute a given normal research tradition becomes a source of continual and deep frustration.

Para 4:

 ·         Recognizing that frustration makes it possible to diagnose its source.

 ·         Scientists can agree in their identification of a paradigm without agreeing on, or even attempting to produce, a full interpretation or rationalization of it.

 ·         Normal science can be determined in part by direct inspection of paradigms.

 ·        Existence of a paradigm need not even imply that a full set of rules exist.

Question 10

The term 'loci of commitment' as used in the passage would most likely correspond with which of the following?
(2007)

A. Loyalty between a group of scientists in a research laboratory.
B. Loyalty between groups of scientists across research laboratories.
C. Loyalty to a certain paradigm of scientific inquiry.
D. Loyalty to global patterns of scientific inquiry.

SOLUTION

Solution : C

Option: (c)

"Loci of commitment" as mentioned in the 1st paragraph, 2nd line does not refer to scientists themselves. So option (a) and (b) stand rejected. In fact, from the summary of the paragraph, it is evident that it corresponds to loyalty to a certain paradigm, thus, making answer option (c) correct.

Question 11

The author of this passage is likely to agree with which of the following?
(2007)

A. Paradigms almost entirely define a scientific tradition.
B. Acceptance by the giants of a tradition is a sine qua non for a paradigm to emerge.
C. Choice of isolation mechanism determines the type of paradigm that may emerge from a tradition.
D. Paradigms are a general representation of rules and beliefs of a scientific tradition.  

SOLUTION

Solution : D

Option: (d)

Answer option (a) cannot be correct because it's mentioned in the passage in the last paragraph, 2nd last line that paradigms can define only a part of normal science. Amongst all other options, (d) sounds the most perfect answer choice because in the last paragraph the author has made it clear that paradigms are more important and that they are a general representation of rules and beliefs of a scientific tradition.

 

Question 12

In the passage, the expression "like a Madonna from a Madonna" alludes to:

A. The difference arising as a consequence of artistic license.
B. The difference between two artistic interpretations.
C. The difference between 'life' and 'interpretation of life'.
D. The difference between 'width' and 'depth' of creative power.

SOLUTION

Solution : B

Option: (b)

If we look at the last three lines of the 1st paragraph, it is quite evident that the author is talking about  the gap between the two artistic interpretations within the depth of the creative power. Option (d) is ruled out because the author nowhere talks about the difference between the 'width' and the 'depth' of creative power.

Paragraph 1:

 ·         Every civilized society lives and thrives on a silent but profound agreement as to what is to be accepted as the valid mould of experience.

 ·         What is a civilization

 ·         In such a culture, stable and sure of itself within the frontiers of 'naturalized' experience, the arts wield their creative power not so much in width as in depth.

 ·         They do not create new experience, but deepen and purify the old.

Paragraph 2:

 ·         The periods of art which are most vigorous in creative passion seem to occur when the established pattern of experience loosens its rigidity without as yet losing its force.

 ·         The discipline of the old order gave depth to the excitement of the breaking away the depth of job and tragedy, of incomparable conquests and irredeemable losses.

 ·        The works of the early Renaissance and the poetry of Shakespeare vibrate with the compassion for live experience in danger of dying from exposure and neglect.

 ·        The exploring spirit of art was in the depths of its consciousness still aware of a scheme of things into which to fit its exploits and creations.

Paragraph 3:

 ·         The more this scheme of things loses its stability, the more boundless and uncharted appears the ocean of potential exploration.

 ·        In the blank confusion of infinite potentialities flotsam of significance gets attached to jetsam of experience.

 ·         Story of the idle man in the boat.

Question 13

The sea and 'other creation' leads Rilke to:

A. Define the place of the poet in his culture.
B. Reflect on the role of the oarsman and the singer.
C. Muse on artistic labor and its aimlessness.
D. Delve into natural experience and real waves.                              

SOLUTION

Solution : A

Option: (a)

If we look at the 2nd last line in the last paragraph - "but suddenly I understood the situation of the poet, his place and function in this age", answer option (a) clearly stands out as the right answer choice as the above statement makes it quite clear that the author is talking about the place of the poet in his culture.

Question 14

According to the passage, the term "adventurers of experience" refers to

A. Poets and artists who are driven by courage.
B. Poets and artists who create their own genre.
C. Poets and artists of the Renaissance.
D. Poets and artists who revitalize and enrich the past for us.

SOLUTION

Solution : C

Option: (c)

Out of all the answer options given, option (c) is very specific to the passage and is directly mentioned in the 4th and 5th lines of the 2nd paragraph. The author is trying to describe the period of renaissance in this paragraph, and within this period, the 'adventurers of experience' refer to the 'poets and artists' of the renaissance.

 

Question 15

What is the thematic highlight of this passage?
(2007)

A. In the absence of reciprocal roles, biological linkages provide the mechanism for coordinating human behavior.
B. Human behavior is independent of biological linkages and reciprocal roles.
C. In the absence of strong biological linkages, reciprocal roles provide the mechanism for coordinating human behavior.
D. Reciprocal roles determine normative human behavior in society.                              

SOLUTION

Solution :

Option: (d)

This is a main theme question. We should pick up an answer choice that talks of an idea put forth by the author and has been carried throughout the passage. "Role of biology" has been negated by the author whereas "reciprocal rules" are affirmed in the 1st and 2nd paragraph.

 

Question 16

Which of the following would have been true if biological linkages structured human society?
(2007)

A. The role of mother would have been defined through her reciprocal relationship with her children.
B. We would not have been offended by the father playing his role 'tongue in cheek'.
C. Women would have adopted and fostered children rather than giving birth to them.
D. Even if warlords were physically weaker than their followers, they would still dominate them.

SOLUTION

Solution : B

Option: (b)

Answer options (a), (c), (d) would have been false if biological linkages structured human society. The only statement which would hold true is option (b).

 

Question 17

It has been claimed in the passage that "some roles are more absorbing than others". According to the passage, which of the following seem(s) appropriate reason(s) for such a claim? A. Some roles carry great expectations from the society preventing manifestation of the true self. B. Society ascribes so much importance to some roles that the conception of self may get aligned with the roles being performed. C. Some roles require development of skill and expertise leaving little time for manifestation of self.   
(2007)

A. A only          
B. B only          
C. C only          
D. A & B          

SOLUTION

Solution : B

Option: (b)

The passage does not talk about preventing manifestation. Thus option (a) is ruled out. In the last paragraph, the examples of a waiter and clergyman cited by the author refer to the alignment of self with the roles being performed. Option (c) goes beyond the scope of the passage.   Hence, answer option (b) is the correct answer choice.

 

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