Free Verbal Reasoning - 11 Practice Test - CAT 

A.   Still, Sophie might need open-heart surgery later in life and now be more prone to respiratory infections.
B.   But with the news that his infant daughter Sophie has a hole in her heart, he appears quite vulnerable.
C.   While the condition sounds bad, it is not life threatening, and frequently corrects itself.
D.   Sylvester Stallone has made millions and built a thriving career out of looking invincible.

(CAT 1996)

A.   However, the severed head could not grow back.   If fire could be applied at once to the amputated part.
B.   To get rid of this monstrosity was truly a Herculean task, for as soon as one head was cut off, two new ones replaced it.
C.   Hercules accomplished the labour through the aid of an assistant who cauterised the necks as fast as Hercules cut off the heads!
D.   One of the Twelve Labours of Hercules was the killing of Hydra, a water monster with nine heads.

             (CAT 1996)

A.   That Hollywood is man's world is certainly true, but it is not the whole truth.
B.   Even Renaissance film woman, Jodie Foster, who hosts this compendium of movie history, confesses surprise at this.
C.   She says that she had no idea that women were so active in the industry even in those days.
D.   During the silent era, for example, female screen writers outnumbered males 10 to 1.

(CAT 1996)

A.   The   Saheli Program, run by the US Cross-Cultural Solutions, is offering a three week tour of India that involves more than frenzied sightseeing.
B.   Participants interested in women's issues will learn about arranged marriages, dowries and infanticide.
C.   Holiday packages include all sorts of topics, but female infanticide must be a first for tourism.
D.   Interspersed with these talks and meetings are visits to cities like New Delhi and Agra, home to the Taj Mahal.

(CAT 1996)

A.   Its business decisions are made on the timely and accurate flow of information.
B.   It has 1700 employees in 13 branch and representative offices across the Asia-Pacific region.
C.   For employees to maintain a competitive edge in a fast-moving field, they must have quick access to J P Morgan's proprietary trade related data.
D.   J P Morgan is one of the largest banking institutions in the US and a premier international trading firm.

(CAT 1996)

A.   Something magical is happening to our planet.
B.   Some are calling it a paradigm shift.
C.   It's getting smaller.
D.   Others call it business transformation.

(CAT 1996)

A.   Almost a century ago, when the father of the modern automobile industry, Henry Ford, sold the first Model A car, he decided that only the best would do for his customers.
B.   Today, it is committed to delivering the finest quality with over six million vehicles a year in over 200 countries across the world.
C.   And for over ninety years, this philosophy has endured in the Ford Motor Company.
D.   A vehicle is ready for the customer only if it passes the Ford 'Zero Defect Programme'

(CAT 1997)

Until the MBA arrived on the scene, the IIT graduate was king.
A.   A degree from one of the five IIT's was passport to a well-paying job, great prospects abroad and, for some, a decent dowry to boot.
B.   From the day he or she cracked the joint entrance exam, the IIT student commanded the awe of neighbours and close relatives.
C.   IIT students had, meanwhile, also developed their own special culture, complete with lingo and attitude, which they passed down.
D.   True, the success stories of IIT graduates are legion and they now constitute the cream of the Indian diaspora.
6.   But not many alumni would agree that the IIT undergraduate mindset merits serious psychological study, let alone an interactive one.

(CAT 1997)

Some of the maharajas, like the one at Kapurthala, had exquisite taste.
A.   In 1902, the Maharaja of Kapurthala gave his civil engineer photographs of the Versailles palace and asked him to replicate it, right down to the gargoyles.
B.   Yeshwantrao Holkar of Indore brought in Bauhaus aesthetics and even works of modern artists like Brancusi and Duchamp.
C.   Kitsch is the most polite way to describe them.                  
D.   But many of them, as the available-light photographs show, had execrable taste.
6.   Like Ali Baba's Caves, some of the palaces were like warehouses with the downright ugly next to the sublimely aesthetic.

(CAT 1997)

1. There, in Europe, his true gifts unveiled.
A.   Playing with Don Cherie, blending Indian music and Jazz for the first time, he began setting the pace in the late 70s for much of present-day fusion is.
B.   John McLaughlin, the legendary guitarist whose soul has always had an Indian stamp on it, was seduced immediately.
C.   Fusion by Guru had begun,
D.   He partnered Guru for four years, and 'nurtured' him as a composer.
6.   But for every experimental musician there's a critic nesting nearby.

(CAT 1997)

1. India, which has two out of every five TB patients in the world, is on the brink of a major public health disaster.
A.   If untreated, a TB patient can die within five years.
B.   Unlike AIDS, the great curse of modern sexuality, the TB germ is air-borne, which means there are no barriers to its spread.
C.   The dreaded infection ranks fourth among major killers worldwide.
D.   Every minute, a patient falls prey to the infection in India, which means that over five lakh people die of the disease annually.
6.   Anyone anywhere can be affected by this disease.

(CAT 1997)

1.   For many scientists, oceans are the cradle of life.
A.   But all over the world, chemical products and nuclear waste continue to be dumped into them.
B.   Coral reefs, which are known as the most beautiful places of the submarine world, are fast disappearing.
C.   The result is that many species of fish die because of this pollution.
D.   Of course Man is the main cause of these problems.
6.   Man has long since ruined the places he goes to continents and oceans alike.

(CAT 1996)

1.   Am I one of the people who are worried that Bill Clinton's second term might be destroyed by a constitutional crisis?
A.   On the other hand, ordinary citizens have put the campaign behind them.
B.   In other words, what worries me is that Bill Clinton could exhibit a version of what George Bush Used to refer to as Big Mo.
C.   That is, he might have so much campaign momentum that he may not be able to stop campaigning.
D.   Well, It's true that I've been wondering whether a President could be impeached for refusing to stop talking about the bridge we need to build to the 21^st century.
6.   They prefer now to watch their favorite soaps and ads on TV rather than senators.

   (CAT 1996)

1.   So how big is the potential market?
A.   But he ends up spending thousands more each year on hardware upgrades and software overhauls.
B.   Analysts say the new machines will appeal primarily to corporate users.
C.   An individual buyer can pick up a desktop computer for less than $2000 in America.
D.   For them, the NCs' best drawing card is its promise of much lower maintenance costs.
6.   NCs, which automatically load the latest version of whatever software they need, could put an end all.

(CAT 1996)