Free Verbal Reasoning - 08 Practice Test - CAT 

Characters are also part of deep structure. Characters tie events in a story together and provide a thread of continuity and meaning. Stories can be about individuals, groups, projects, or whole organizations, so from an organizational studies perspective, the focal actor(s) determine the level and unit of analysis used in a study. Stories of mergers and acquisitions, for example, are commonplace. In these stories, whole organizations are personified as actors. But these macro-level stories usually are not told from the perspective of the macro-level participants, because whole organizations cannot narrate their experiences in the first person.

Nevertheless, photographs still retain some of the magical allure that the earliest daguerreotypes inspired. As objects, our photographs have changed; they have become physically flimsier as they have become more technologically sophisticated. Daguerre produced pictures on copperplates; today many of our photographs never become tangible things, but instead remain filed away on computers and cameras, part of the digital ether that envelops the modern world. At the same time, our patience for the creation of images has also eroded. Children today are used to being tracked from birth by digital cameras and video recorders and they expect to see the results of their poses and performances instantly. The space between life as it is being lived and life as it is being displayed shrinks to a mere second. (2007)

MmaRamotswe has a detective agency in Africa, at the foot of Kgale Hill. These were its assets: a tiny white van, two desks, two chairs, a telephone, and an old typewriter. Then there was a teapot, in which MmaRamostswe - the only private lady detective in Botswana - brewed redbush tea. And three mugs - one for herself, one for her secretary, and one for the client. What else does a detective agency really need? Detective agencies rely on human intuition and intelligence, both of which MmaRamotswe had in abundance. (2007)

Relations between the factory and the dealer are distant and usually strained as the factory tries to force cars on the dealers to smooth out production. Relations between the dealer and the customer are equally strained because dealers continuously adjust prices -make deals-to adjust demand with supply while maximizing profits. This becomes a system marked by a lack of long-term commitment on either side, which maximizes feelings of mistrust. In order to maximize their bargaining positions, everyone holds back information the dealer about the product and the consumer about his true desires. (2006)

We can usefully think of theoretical models as maps, which help us navigate unfamiliar territory. The most accurate map that is possible to construct would be of no practical use whatsoever, for it would be an exact replica, on exactly the same scale, of the place where we were. Good maps pull out the most important features and throw away a huge amount of much less valuable information. Of course, maps can be bad as well as good-witness the attempts by medieval Europe to produce a map of the world. In the same way, a bad theory, no matter how impressive it may seem in principle, does little or nothing to help us understand a problem.(2006)

In the evolving world order, the comparative advantage of the United States lies in its military force. Diplomacy and international law have always been regarded as annoying encumbrances, unless they can be used to advantage against an enemy. Every active player in world affairs professes to seek only peace and to prefer negotiation to violence and coercion. (2006)

A.However, the real challenge today is in unlearning, which is much harder.

B.   But the new world of business behaves differently from the world in which we grew up.
C.   Learning is important for both people and organizations.
D.   Each of us has a 'mental model' that we've used over the years to make sense.

A.   Alex had never been happy with his Indian origins. B.He set about rectifying this grave injustice by making his house in his own image of a country manor.
C.   Fate had been unfair to him, if he had his wish, he would have been a count or an Earl on some English estate, or a medieval monarch in a chateau in France.
D.   This illusion of misplaced grandeur, his wife felt, would be Alex's undoing.

A.   The influence is reflected the most in beaded evening wear.
B.   Increasingly, the influence of India's colours and cuts can be seen on western styles.
C.   And even as Nehru jackets and jodhpurs remain staples of the fashion world, designers such as Armani and McFadden have turned to the sleek silhouette of the churidar this year.
D.   Indian hot pink, paprika and saffron continue to be popular colours year in and year out.

A.   Such a national policy will surely divide and never unite the people.
B.   In fact, it suits the purpose of the politicians; they can drag the people into submission by appealing to them in the name of religion.
C.   In order to inculcate the unquestioning belief they condemn the other states which do not follow their religion.
D.   The emergence of the theocratic states where all types of crimes are committed in the name of religion, has revived the religion of the Middle Ages.

1.   Picture a termite colony occupying a tall mud hump on an African plain.
A.   Hungry predators often invade the colony and unsettle the balance.
B.   The colony flourishes only if the portion of soldiers to workers remain roughly the same, so that the queen and the workers can be protected by the soldiers, and the queen and the soldiers can be serviced by workers.
C.   But its fortunes are presently restored, because the immobile queen, walled in well below ground level, lays eggs not only in large enough numbers, but also in the varying proportions required.
D.   The hump is alive with worker termites and soldier termites going about their distinct kind of business.
6.   How can we account for her mysterious ability to respond like this to events on the distant surface?

1.   According to recent research, the critical period for developing language skills is between the ages of three and five and a half years.
A.   The read-to child already has a large vocabulary and a sense of grammar and sentence structure.
B.   Children who are read to in these years have a far better chance of reading well in school, indeed, of doing well in all subject.
C.   And the reason is actually quiet simple.
D.   This correlation is far and away the highest yet found between home influences and school success.
6.   His comprehension of language is therefore very high.

1.   The reconstruction of history by post-revolutionary science texts involves more than a multiplication of historical misconstructions.
A.   Because they aim quickly to acquaint the student with the contemporary scientific community "thinks it knows", textbooks treat the various experiments, concepts, laws and theories of the current normal science as separately as possible.
B.   Those misconstructions render revolutions invisible; the arrangement of the still visible material in science texts implies a process that, if it existed, would deny revolutions a function.
C.   But when combined with the generally unhistorical air of science writing and with the occasional systematic misconstruction, one impression is likely to follow.
D.   As pedagogy, this technique of presentation is unexceptionable.
6.   Science has reached its present state by series of individual discoveries and inventions that when gathered together, constitute the modern body of technical knowledge.

1.   Security inks exploit the same principle that causes the vivid and constantly changing colours of film of oil on water.
A.   When two rays of light meet each other after being reflected from these different surfaces, they have each travelled slightly different distances.
B.   The key is that the light is bouncing off two surfaces, that of the oil and that of the water layer below it.
C.   The distance between the two rays determines which wavelengths, and hence colours, interfere constructively and look bright.
D.   Because light is an electromagnetic wave, the peaks and troughs of each ray then interfere either constructively, to appear bright, or destructively, to appear dim.
6.   Since the distance the rays travel changes with the angle as you look at the surface, different colours look bright from different viewing angles.

Managers especially the successful ones, should guard against ascribing to themselves qualities and attributes which they may not have, or may have in a measure much less than what they think they have.
A.   External appearances can be deceptive.
B. To initiate action, without being in possession of full facts, can lead to disastrous results.
C.   Also, one should develop confidants who can be used as sounding boards, in order to check one's own thinking against that of the others.
D.   It is also useful to be open to receive feedback about oneself so that a real understanding of the 'self' exists.
6.   A false perception can be likened to wearing coloured glasses "“ all facts get tainted by colour of the glass and the mind interprets them wrongly to fit into the perception.

1.   Making people laugh is tricky
A.   At times, the intended humour may simply not come off.
B.   Making people laugh while trying to sell them something is a tougher challenge, since the commercial can fall flat on two grounds.
C.   There are many advertisements which do amuse but do not even begin to set the cash registers ringing.
D.   Again, it is rarely sufficient for an advertiser simply to amuse the target audience in order to reap the sales benefit.
6.   There are indications that in substituting the hard sell for more entertaining approach, some agencies have rather thrown out the baby with the bath water.