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Master CAT Para Summary and Completion Questions with practice questions and detailed solutions.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Manipulating information was a feature of history long before modern journalism established rules of integrity. A record dates back to ancient Rome, when Antony met Cleopatra and his political enemy Octavian launched a smear campaign against him with "short, sharp slogans written upon coins." The perpetrator became the first Roman Emperor and "fake news had allowed Octavian to hack the republican system once and for all". But the 21st century has seen the weaponization of information on an unprecedented scale. Powerful new technology makes the fabrication of content simple, and social networks amplify falsehoods peddled by States, populist politicians, and dishonest corporate entities. The platforms have become fertile ground for computational propaganda, 'trolling' and 'troll armies'.
Text Explanation:
The key ideas of the paragraph are that (a) manipulating information for attaining power, that is, disinformation, is not new; it was used even in ancient Rome by Octavian and (b) technology has made fabricating content and amplifying falsehoods easier.
Option C states both key ideas and is the best of the given summaries.
Option A is incorrect as it states that disinformation is 'mediated by' technology today. This is not what the paragraph states.
Option B is unrelated to the main idea of the paragraph.
Option D focuses on Octavian whereas the paragraph only gives his example to illustrate how information has been manipulated since ancient times. C is a better summary than D.
Choice C is the correct answer.
Colonialism is not a modern phenomenon. World history is full of examples of one society gradually expanding by incorporating adjacent territory and settling its people on newly conquered territory. In the sixteenth century, colonialism changed decisively because of technological developments in navigation that began to connect more remote parts of the world. The modern European colonial project emerged when it became possible to move large numbers of people across the ocean and to maintain political control in spite of geographical dispersion. The term colonialism is used to describe the process of European settlement, violent dispossession and political domination over the rest of the world, including the Americas, Australia, and parts of Africa and Asia.
he paragraph given states that colonialism is not a modern phenomenon but one that changed decisively in the sixteenth century due to technological developments in navigation, which enabled Europeans to establish settlements and exert political domination over the rest of the world.
Option D is the best of the given summaries.
Option A talks specifically about 'British' settlements, whereas the paragraph refers more generally to European settlements.
Option B refers specifically to 'European colonialism' and does not touch upon the idea that colonialism as such is not a modern phenomenon or one restricted to Europe.
Option C is incorrect as it states that colonialism was conceptualized in the 16th century.
Choice D is the correct answer.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.Heatwaves are becoming longer, frequent and intense due to climate change. The impacts of extreme heat are unevenly experienced; with older people and young children, those with pre-existing medical conditions and on low incomes significantly more vulnerable. Adaptation to heatwaves is a significant public policy concern. Research conducted among at-risk people in the UK reveals that even vulnerable people do not perceive themselves as at risk of extreme heat; therefore, early warnings of extreme heat events do not perform as intended. This suggests that understanding how extreme heat is narrated is very important. The news media play a central role in this process and can help warn people about the potential danger, as well as about impacts on infrastructure and society.
The main idea of the paragraph is that while heatwaves are becoming longer, frequent and intense due to climate change, even vulnerable people do not seem to perceive the risk of extreme heat and so news media should undertake to warn people about the potential danger. Option B sums up the paragraph best.
Option A talks about ineffective public policies on heatwaves. This is not what the paragraph is about.
Option C too, misses the key point about the role of news media and states 'measures' (which are not discussed in the paragraph at all) are ineffective. So, C is out.
Option D does not touch upon the risk heatwaves pose. Also, the paragraph does not talk about the effectiveness of news stories. B is a better summary than D.
Choice B is the correct answer.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.People spontaneously create counterfactual alternatives to reality when they think "if only" or "what if" and imagine how the past could have been different. The mind computes counterfactuals for many reasons. Counterfactuals explain the past and prepare for the future, they implicate various relations including causal ones, and they affect intentions and decisions. They modulate emotions such as regret and relief, and they support moral judgments such as blame. The ability to create counterfactuals develops throughout childhood and contributes to reasoning about other people's beliefs, including their false beliefs.
The paragraph given lists the many reasons why the mind computes counterfactuals and states that this ability develops throughout childhood and contributes to reasoning about other people's beliefs. Option C is a good summary.
Option A suggests people intentionally create counterfactuals in order to reason about other people's beliefs. The paragraph, on the other hand, states counterfactuals are created spontaneously by the mind.
Option B is logically incorrect as it says counterfactual thinking helps to 'reverse' past and future actions.
Option D relates to specific reasons listed in the paragraph. C is a better summary.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.The weight of society's expectations is hardly a new phenomenon but it has become particularly draining over recent decades, perhaps because expectations themselves are so multifarious and contradictory. The perfectionism of the 1950s was rooted in the norms of mass culture and captured in famous advertising images of the ideal white American family that now seem self-satirising. In that era, perfectionism meant seamlessly conforming to values, behaviour and appearance: chiselled confidence for men, demure graciousness for women. The perfectionist was under pressure to look like everyone else, only more so. The perfectionists of today, by contrast, feel an obligation to stand out through their idiosyncratic style and wit if they are to gain a foothold in the attention economy.
The paragraph given states that society's expectations, though not a new phenomenon, are multifarious and contradictory. Perfectionism of the 1950s involved seamless conforming to values, behaviour and appearance while perfectionism of today is about standing out.
Option A is the best of the given summaries as it touches upon all key ideas.
Option B is incorrect. The paragraph does not say that pressure to appear perfect has been the cause of 'tension and conflict'.
Option C, which is about 'the desire to attract attention' being deep-rooted, is not related to the contents of the paragraph.
Option D talks about the role of media. The paragraph does not mention this.
Choice A is the correct answer.
For the following questions answer them individually
Scientific research shows that many animals are very intelligent and have sensory and motor abilities that dwarf ours. Dogs are able to detect diseases such as cancer and diabetes and warn humans of impending heart attacks and strokes. Elephants, whales, hippopotamuses, giraffes, and alligators use low-frequency sounds to communicate over long distances, often miles. Many animals also display wide-ranging emotions, including joy, happiness, empathy, compassion, grief, and even resentment and embarrassment. It’s not surprising that animals share many emotions with us because we also share brain structures, located in the limbic system, that are the seat of our emotions.
Option B is the correct answer.
The paragraph states that animals share many emotions with humans, such as joy, happiness, empathy, and grief, because of shared brain structures, particularly in the limbic system, which is responsible for emotions in both humans and animals. This is the key point that ties together animals' intelligence and emotional capacity, as discussed in the passage.
Option A: The passage does not attribute emotions to sensory and motor abilities. The emphasis is on brain structures, not sensory abilities.
Option C: While the passage states that animals share emotions with humans, this option fails to capture the reason behind this, i.e. shared brain structures. It misses the point that makes the emotional similarity possible, which is central to the passage's message.
Option D: The passage discusses animals' sensory abilities but does not suggest that their intelligence is superior to humans'.
Cartographers design and create maps to communicate information about phenomena located somewhere on our planet. In the past, cartographers did not worry too much about who was going to read their maps. Although some simple “usability” research was done—like comparing whether circle or bar symbols worked best—cartographers knew how to make maps. This has changed now, however, due to all kinds of societal and technological developments. Today, map readers are more demanding—mostly because of the tools they use to read maps. Cartographers, who are also influenced by these trends, are now more interested in seeing if their products are efficient, effective, and appreciated.
Option A is the correct answer.
The passage emphasizes that cartographers now should pay attention to the usability of maps due to the evolving expectations of map readers. The key point is that technological developments have made users more demanding, leading cartographers to focus on how efficient, effective, and appreciated their maps are.
Option B: While it is true that cartographers are focused on usability, the passage does not mention specific experiments or evaluation methods.
Option C: This option suggests that maps are being used for a variety of reasons, which is not mentioned in the passage. The focus of the passage is on the demanding nature of modern map readers and not on the reasons for which maps are used.
Option D: While new technological developments are mentioned, the passage does not state that cartographers are experimenting with these innovations in their maps.
Certain codes may, of course, be so widely distributed in a specific language community or culture, and be learned at so early an age, that they appear not to be constructed - the effect of an articulation between sign and referent - but to be ‘naturally’ given. Simple visual signs appear to have achieved a ‘near-universality’ in this sense: though evidence remains that even apparently ‘natural’ visual codes are culture specific. However, this does not mean that no codes have intervened; rather, that the codes have been profoundly naturalized. The operation of naturalized codes reveals not the transparency and ‘naturalness’ of language but the depth, the habituation and the near-universality of the codes in use. They produce apparently ‘natural’ recognitions. This has the (ideological) effect of concealing the practices of coding which are present.
Option C is the correct answer.
This option captures the main idea of the passage that some codes, like language and visual signs, are so commonly used that they appear natural and conceal the process of how they were created.
Option A: The passage does not suggest that early learning is why codes appear natural. The cause-and-effect relationship is incorrectly stated here.
Option B: This option misinterprets two key aspects of the passage. First, the idea that certain codes are "made to appear universal" is somewhat misleading because the passage doesn't claim that codes are deliberately made universal; instead, it describes how codes, through habituation and widespread use, come to feel "natural". Second, the phrase "Ideology aims to hide the mechanism of coding" is not supported by the passage. The passage suggests that the naturalization of codes leads to the illusion of transparency and naturalness, which conceals the mechanisms of coding, but it doesn't explicitly discuss ideology as a force that intentionally hides these mechanisms
Option D: This option is incorrect because the passage doesn’t claim that all codes have a natural origin. It states that codes become naturalized through use, not that they were naturally originating from the start.
Different from individuals, states conduct warfare operations using the DIME model— “diplomacy, information, military, and economics.” Most states do everything they can to inflict pain and confusion on their enemies before deploying the military. In fact, attacks on vectors of information are a well-worn tactic of war and usually are the first target when the charge begins. It’s common for telecom data and communications networks to be routinely monitored by governments, which is why the open data policies of the web are so concerning to many advocates of privacy and human rights. With the worldwide adoption of social media, more governments are getting involved in low-grade information warfare through the use of cyber troops. According to a study by the Oxford Internet Institute in 2020, cyber troops are “government or political party actors tasked with manipulating public opinion online.” The Oxford research group was able to identify 81 countries with active cyber troop operations, utilizing many different strategies to spread false information, including spending millions on online advertising.
The passage starts by explaining how states use the DIME model in warfare, often targeting information systems first to destabilize enemies. Governments monitor communication networks, raising privacy concerns. With social media's rise, many countries employ "cyber troops" to manipulate public opinion online, spreading disinformation through tactics like paid ads. Option D best captures all these points.
Option A: This option incorrectly focuses on open data policies being used to deploy cyber troops, which the passage does not emphasize.
Option B: This option fails to address the key part of the passage, which is monitoring telecom data and networks.
Option C: The passage does not indicate that governments conduct warfare simultaneously with military forces; rather, they act before involving the military. We can infer this from the statement, "Most states do everything they can to inflict pain and confusion on their enemies before deploying the military."
John Cleese told Fox News Digital that comedians do not have the freedom to be funny in 2022. “There’s always been limitations on what they’re allowed to say,” Cleese said. “I think it’s particularly worrying at the moment because you can only create in an atmosphere of freedom, where you’re not checking everything you say critically before you move on. What you have to be able to do is to build without knowing where you’re going because you’ve never been there before. That’s what creativity is — you have to be allowed to build. And a lot of comedians now are sitting there and when they think of something, they say something like, ‘Can I get away with it? I don’t think so. So and so got into trouble, and he said that, oh, she said that.’ You see what I mean? And that’s the death of creativity.”
Option D best captures the essence of the passage.
John Cleese argues that comedians need freedom to be creative and that fear of offending people or worrying about the consequences of what they say hinders their ability to be original. He highlights how modern comedians often second-guess themselves, which stifles their creativity. Option D reflects this idea, which stresses the importance of freedom and creativity in comedy, while warning against the fear that stifles innovation.
Option A: While Cleese advocates for freedom in comedy, he doesn't say that comedians "must go where no one has gone before," which is more of an extreme interpretation than the essence of the passage.
Option B: This option focuses too much on the relationship between creativity and critical thinking. The passage is more about how fear of offending hinders creativity, not about creativity being incompatible with critical thinking.
Option C: This focuses on the "death of the art form," but Cleese's main point is about how fear of repercussions impacts creativity, not about the art form dying as such.
Recent important scientific findings have emerged from crossing the boundaries of scientific fields. They stem from physicists collaborating with biologists, sociologists and others, to answer questions about our world. But physicists and their potential collaborators often find their cultures out of sync. For one, physicists often discard a lot of information while extracting broad patterns; for other scientists, information is not readily disposed. Further, many non-physicists are uncomfortable with mathematical models. Still, the desire to work on something new and different is real, and there are clear benefits from the collision of views.
Option A captures the core idea that their collaborations have led to valuable scientific discoveries despite differences in research methods between physicists and other scientists. The passage emphasizes how these contrasting approaches still lead to productive outcomes, demonstrating the benefits of cross-disciplinary work.
Option B: While large data sets and mathematical models are mentioned, this option incorrectly focuses on "large data sets and mathematical models" as the main contributor, which is not the main point of the passage.
Option C: This is partially true, but the passage does not emphasize the "desire to diversify" research or focus on social scientists. It is about the collaboration of different scientific fields, not specifically social science.
Option D: This is inaccurate because the passage does not state that physicists have "buried" their differences; rather, it says that their differences exist, but the collaboration is still valuable. This is an extreme interpretation.
When the tradwife puts on that georgic, pinstriped dress, she is not just admiring the visual cues of a fantastical past. She takes these dreams of storybook bliss literally, tracing them backward in time until she reaches a logical conclusion that satisfies her. And by doing so, she ends up delivering an unhappy reminder of just how much our lives consist of artifice and playacting. The tradwife outrages people because of her deliberately regressive ideals. And yet her behaviour is, on some level, indistinguishable from the non-tradwife’s. The tradwife’s trollish genius is to beat us at our own dress-up game. By insisting that the idyllic cottage daydream should be real, right down to the primitive gender roles, she leaves others feeling hollow, cheated. The hullabaloo and headaches she causes may be the price we pay for taking too many things at face value: our just deserts, served Instagram-perfect by a manicured hand on a gorgeous ceramic dish, with fat, mouthwatering maraschino cherries on top.
Option C is the correct answer. This option best captures the essence of the passage. The tradwife’s embrace of traditional roles and vintage fashion naturally contrasts with and highlights the superficiality of modern life. The passage emphasizes that she is not overtly critiquing society but rather embodying a regressive ideal that challenges contemporary norms. This fits with how the passage describes her actions—her existence itself is a challenge to modern societal expectations.
Option A:The passage does not suggest that the tradwife is actively critiquing modern society. Instead, the tradwife embodies a lifestyle and set of ideals that are in contrast to contemporary values. The critique comes from others' reactions to her behavior, not from her intentions.
Option B: The passage does not show her as actively trying to expose or mock anything. She simply lives in a way that contrasts with modern expectations. The "mockery" is a reaction from others, not her goal. Therefore, this option overstates her intentions.
Option D: This focuses on the tradwife's dress and adherence to traditional roles as the means of revealing modern life’s artificial nature. While the tradwife does embody these traditional values, the passage is more focused on how her actions highlight societal superficiality rather than "revealing" it. Additionally, the passage suggests that her behaviour is not an overt revelation but rather something that others react to—making this option somewhat distorted.
Lyric poetry is a genre of private meditation rather than public commitment. The impulse in Marxism toward changing a society deemed unacceptable in its basic design would seem to place demands on lyric poetry that such poetry, with its tendency toward the personal, the small scale, and the idiosyncratic, could never answer. There is within Marxism, however, also a strand of thought that would locate in lyric poetry alternative modes of perception and description that call forth a vision of worlds at odds with a repressive reality or that draw attention to the workings of ideology within the hegemonic culture. The poetic imagination may indeed deflect larger social concerns, but it may also be implicitly critical and utopian.
The passage contrasts the personal, introspective nature of lyric poetry with Marxism's outward focus on societal change. At first glance, the characteristics of lyric poetry - being personal, small-scale, and idiosyncratic - seem incompatible with Marxism's demand for a transformative critique of an unjust society. However, the passage introduces a nuanced perspective within Marxist thought, which recognises lyric poetry as having an implicit critical and utopian function. Through its imaginative and alternative modes of perception, lyric poetry can challenge dominant ideologies and suggest a vision of resistance to oppression. Thus, while lyric poetry does not directly engage with large-scale social concerns, it can still align with Marxist ideals by offering subtle forms of critique and hope for change. Option C most effectively captures this idea.
None of the other choices present a valid interpretation of the passage. For instance, Option A oversimplifies the issue by portraying lyric poetry as merely ‘utopian,” ignoring its critical and resistant potential as described in the passage. It misses the nuanced compatibility suggested between lyric poetry and Marxism. Option B inaccurately suggests that Marxism has “internal contradictions,” which is not the focus of the passage. Similarly, Option D frames Marxism as dismissive of lyric poetry, ignoring the strand of Marxist thought that finds value in poetry's alternative perspectives; this misrepresentation makes it a weaker summary.
Humans have managed to tweak the underlying biology of various plants and animals to produce high-tech crops and microbes. But regulating these entities is complicated, as the framework of policies and procedures are outdated and not flexible enough to adapt to emerging technology. The question is whether regulation will ever be able to keep up with human innovation, to regulate living things, which are apt to be unpredictable and unique; to capture all the potential risks when new biological entities are introduced, or when they pass on variations of their genes?
The passage discusses the challenges of regulating innovations in biotechnology. It highlights two key issues: (i) current regulations are outdated and insufficient for new biological advancements, and (ii) the unpredictable nature of living entities and rapid technological changes make it difficult to design a regulatory framework that anticipates all risks and contingencies. The core question is whether regulation can ever keep pace with the unpredictable and unique outcomes of biotechnology. Option C correctly touches upon these ideas.
The other options are either too narrow or miss the essence. Option A focuses on calibration and scientists' roles, which is not the central concern of the passage. Similarly, Option B highlights the urgency for new rules but omits the skepticism about achieving comprehensive regulation. Option D overemphasises the impossibility of imagining all risks without addressing the need for flexibility in regulations.
Hence, Option C is the best choice.
The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
In 1903, left-wing feminist Elizabeth Magie invented The Landlord's Game, the original version of what became Monopoly. It was designed as a powerful teaching tool to illustrate the dangers of monopolies and how wealth could concentrate in the hands of a few. The game featured a circular path, properties, and a "Go to Jail" space. Magie created two rule sets: one "monopolist" version where players crushed opponents through accumulation, and another, more radical "Prosperity" version, where everyone shared in the wealth, promoting fairness and equity. Years later, unemployed Charles Darrow sold a simplified version to Parker Brothers. They paid Magie only $500 for her patent-without royalties and credited Darrow as the sole inventor. For decades, his tale of inventing the game in his basement remained the official story, while Magie's name and her original, anti-capitalist message were left in the shadows.
For millennia, in the process of opening up land for agriculture, gardens, grazing and and hunting, humans have created ecological "mosaics", or "patchworks": landscapes holding a mixture of habitats, like meadows, gardens and forests. These were not designed as nature reserves, but often catered to hugely diverse animal life. Research indicates that European hay meadows cultivated for animal feed were actually more successful at preserving a vast array of species than meadows explicitly cultivated for biodiversity. Studying the early Holocene, researchers have found that human presence was about as likely to increase biodiversity as reduce it. Of course, not all human-created landscapes have the same value. A paved subdivision with astroturfed lawns is very different to a village with diverse vegetable and flower gardens. But scientists continue to find evidence that the old idea of humans as antithetical to nature is also wrong-headed, and that rosy visions of thriving, human-free environments are more imaginary than real.
The return to the tailor is the juxtaposition of three key things for the mindful Indian shopper. The first is the conscious shift away from the homogeneity of fast fashion, the idea of a hundred other people owning exactly the same Zara trench coat or H&M pleated skirt. The second is an actual understanding of the waste behind the fast fashion market, and wanting not to contribute to that anymore. The last is the shift toward customisation and fit-the idea of having imaginations brought to life and to have them fit exactly; without paying exorbitant rates for that bespoke tailoring. For the individual with a keen fashion sense and a genuine desire to move away from the waste and uniformity of fast fashion without paying the premium for it that indie brands would invariably demand, the tailor is the perfect crossover.
In investigating memory-beliefs, there are certain points which must be borne in mind. In the first place, everything constituting a memory-belief is happening now, not in that past time to which the belief is said to refer. It is not logically necessary to the existence of a memory-belief that the event remembered should have occurred, or even that the past should have existed at all. There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered" a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago. Hence the occurrences which are CALLED knowledge of the past are logically independent of the past; they are wholly analysable into present contents, which might, theoretically, be just what they are even if no past had existed.
