Official verbal ability thread for CAT 2014

MBA CAT 2022
1341

RC:


As necessities and luxuries get cheaper, do people get happier? A small cottage industry grew up at the turn of the twenty-first century devoted to the subject of the economics of happiness. It started with the paradox that richer people are not necessarily happier people. Beyond a certain level of per capita income ($15,000 a year, according to some), money did not seem to buy subjective well-being. As books and papers on this topic proliferated, schadenfreude set in on a grand scale among commentators happy to see the unhappiness of the rich confirmed. Politicians latched on, and governments from Thailand to Britain began to think about how to maximize gross national happiness instead of gross national product. If economic growth does not produce happiness, said the new wisdom, then there was no point in striving for prosperity and the world economy should be brought to a soft landing at a reasonable level of income. Or, as one economist put it: 'The hippies were right all along'.

If this is true, then what is the point of celebrating the continuing defeat of death, dearth, disease and drudgery, if it does not make people happier? But it is not true. The debate began with a study by Richard Easterlin in 1974, which found that although within a country rich people were generally happier than poor people, richer countries did not have happier citizens than poor countries. Since then the 'Easterlin paradox' has become the central dogma of the debate. Trouble is, it is wrong. Two papers were published in 2008 analysing all the data, and the unambiguous conclusion of both is that the Easterlin paradox does not exist. Rich people are happier than poor people; rich countries have happier people than poor countries; and people get happier as they get richer. The earlier study simply had samples too small to find significant differences. In all three categories of comparison - within countries, between countries and between times - extra income does indeed buy general well-being. That is to say, on average, across the board, on the whole, other things being equal, more money does make you happier.

There are some exceptions. Americans currently show no trend towards increasing happiness. Is this because the rich had got richer but ordinary Americans had not prospered much in recent years? Or because America continually draws in poor (unhappy) immigrants, which keeps the happiness quotient low? Who knows? It was not because the Americans are too rich to get any happier: Japanese and Europeans grew steadily happier as they grew richer despite being often just as rich as Americans. Moreover, surprisingly, American women have become less happy in recent decades despite getting richer.

Of course, it is possible to be rich and unhappy, as many a celebrity gloriously reminds us. Of course, it is possible to get rich and find that you are unhappy not to be richer still, if only because the neighbour - or the people on television - are richer than you are. Economists call this the 'hedonic treadmill'; the rest of us call it 'keeping up with the Joneses'. And it is probably true that the rich do lots of unnecessary damage to the planet as they go on striving to get richer long after the point where it is having much effect on their happiness. However, this does not mean that anybody would be necessarily happier if poorer - to be well off and unhappy is surely better than to be poor and unhappy.

What does the author want to show through this passage?

1) In general, poor people are happier than rich people.

2) In general, rich people are happier than poor people.

3) Studies showing that happiness and income are directly correlated are wrong.

4) Studies showing that happiness and income are inversely correlated are wrong.

Which of the following cannot be inferred from this passage?

1)It is possible for a society to reach the ceiling of maximum happiness, and not get any happier despite getting richer.

2) Striving to maximize one's own wealth - and therefore happiness - can have a negative effect on other people's happiness.

3) Part of the happiness gained by being rich lies in knowing that you are richer than certain other people.

4) Hippies believe that one should strive to maximize happiness rather than economic success.

Which of the following, if true, best explains why American women have become less happy in recent decades despite getting richer?

1) Despite achieving near equality with men in almost all aspects of life, American women feel dissatisfied that they have been unable to achieve complete equality with men.

2) Along with ever-increasing prosperity, America also faces an epidemic of ever-increasing crime and social inequality, leading to a decrease in the happiness among Americans.

3) American women have become richer in recent decades due to greater career opportunities opening up to them, but this has had a negative effect on their domestic lives.

4) American women have greater educational and career opportunities than most other women in the world, and they pursue these instead of focusing on their personal lives.

Which of the following is the least likely source of this passage?

1) A book called The Economics of Happiness, published in 2005

2) A book called Prosperity and Happiness, written in 2011

3) An article called 'Global Trends in Happiness', published in 2009

4) An article called 'Debunking the Easterlin Paradox', written in 2014


-IMS

1342


Hello people, This is Nitin a current student of ISB and an engineer from IIT Madras. I need some help of students preparing for the competitive exams currently. So if any one of you is willing to help please msg me. I will just take 15-20 mins of your time.


1343

Puys some help needed....I am unable to increase my speed and reduce time taken for doing rc. If I do increase speed it effects accuracy. Can you give me some tips on how to increase speed...like maybe reading keywords in questions and then scanning the para...Also how do u guys decide which rc to do and which to leave....this is all personal opinion.... I just wish to learn from your experience... And of course put it to practice so that I improve

1344

All your life you are told the things you cannot do. All your life they will say you are not good enough or strong enough or talented enough; they will say you are the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this. THEY WILL TELL YOU NO, a thousand times no, until all the no's become meaningless. All your life they will tell you no, quite firmly and very quickly.

AND YOU WILL THEM YES. - Nike

1345

Spot the error in the statement (if any).

All her life, Mrs. Foster had an almost pathological fear of missing a train, a plane, a boat, or even a theater curtain.

1346

RC:

Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity is a century old next year and, as far as the test of time is concerned, it seems to have done rather well. For many, indeed, it doesn't merely hold up: it is the archetype for what a scientific theory should look like. Einstein's achievement was to explain gravity as a geometric phenomenon: a force that results from the distortion of space-time by matter and energy, compelling objects - and light itself - to move along particular paths, very much as rivers are constrained by the topography of their landscape. General relativity departs from classical Newtonian mechanics and from ordinary intuition alike, but its predictions have been verified countless times. In short, it is true.

Einstein himself seemed rather indifferent to the experimental tests, however. The first came in 1919, when the British physicist Arthur Eddington observed the Sun's gravity bending starlight during a solar eclipse. What if those results hadn't agreed with the theory? 'Then,' said Einstein, 'I would have been sorry for the dear Lord, for the theory is correct.'

That was Einstein all over. As the Danish physicist Niels Bohr commented at the time, he was a little too fond of telling God what to do. But this wasn't sheer arrogance, nor parental pride in his theory. The reason Einstein felt general relativity must be right is that it was too Limited beautiful a theory to be wrong.

This sort of talk both delights today's physicists and makes them a little nervous. After all, isn't experiment - nature itself - supposed to determine truth in science? What does beauty have to do with it? 'Aesthetic judgments do not arbitrate scientific discourse,' the string theorist Brian Greene reassures his readers in his book The Elegant Universe. 'Ultimately, theories are judged by how they fare when faced with cold, hard, experimental facts.' Einstein, Greene insists, didn't mean to imply otherwise - he was just saying that beauty in a theory is a good guide, an indication that you are on the right track.

Einstein isn't around to argue, of course, but I think he would have done. It was Einstein, after all, who said that 'the only physical theories that we are willing to accept are the beautiful ones'. And if he were simply defending theory against too hasty a deference to experiment, there would be plenty of reason to side with him - for who is to say that, in case of a discrepancy, it must be the theory and not the measurement that is in error? But that's not really his point. Einstein seems to be asserting that beauty trumps experience come what may .

He wasn't alone. Here's the great German mathematician Hermann Weyl: 'My work always tries to unite the true with the beautiful; but when I had to choose one or the other, I usually chose the beautiful.' So much for John Keats's 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty.' And so much, you might be tempted to conclude, for scientists' devotion to truth: here were some of its greatest luminaries, pledging obedience to a different calling altogether.

What is the main point of this passage?

1) Beauty is not truth when it comes to scientific theories.

2) Scientists tend to prefer beautiful scientific theories over verifiable ones.

3) Some scientists, like Einstein, focus on the beauty rather than verification of scientific theories.

4) Einstein and other scientists have shown how beauty is an important quality of scientific theories.

Which of the following, if true, would not validate Einstein's views as stated in this passage?

1) Throughout history, the most successful and important scientific theories have been the most 'beautiful' ones.

2) Flawed experimental designs can sometimes invalidate scientific theories, in which case, the theories' beauty is a good guide to the truth.

3) The term 'beauty', as used by scientists, is merely another word for anything that throws light on the basic structure of the universe.

4) 'Beauty' in scientific terms merely means simplicity, and simple theories are more likely to be true.

Which of the following is true about Albert Einstein, as per this passage?

i] He thought himself superior to God.

ii] He and Niels Bohr were rivals.

iii] He and Brian Greene were friends.

iv] His theory of general relativity explained how gravity works.

v] His theory of general relativity suggested that light is bent by gravity.

1) [iv] and [v]

2) [i], [ii], [iv] and [v]

3) [ii], [iii], [iv] and [v]

4) [i] and [iv]

Elements of which of the following pairs do not belong together?

1) Niels Bohr - Denmark

2) Brian Greene - String theory

3) Arthur Eddington - Solar eclipse

4) Hermann Weyl - 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty.

-IMS

1347

RC:


What do we mean by 'colour'? This might seem uncontentious enough. In spite of the old solipsism that I can never know if my experience of 'red' is the same as yours, we all agree when the term is appropriate and when it is not. Yet there are hordes of 'lower-level' colour terms in most modern languages over which the scope for dispute is limitless: when does puce become russet, burgundy, rust-red? This is partly a matter for perceptual psychology; but the language of colour reveals much about the way we conceptualize the world. Linguistic considerations are often central to an interpretation of the historical use of colour in art.

Pliny claimed that painters in Classical Greece used only four colours: black, white, red and yellow. This noble and restrained palette, he said, is the proper choice for all sober-minded painters. After all, didn't Apelles, the most famous painter of that golden age, choose to limit himself within this austere range?

We cannot check the accuracy of this claim, for all of Apelles' works are lost, along with almost every other painting his culture produced. Yet we do know that the ancient Greeks possessed a considerably wider range of pigments than these four. As for the Romans, no fewer than twenty-nine pigments have been identified in the ruins of Pompeii. Might Pliny have exaggerated the paucity of Apelles' palette? And if so, why? In part, the reason might be metaphysical: four 'primary' colours equate neatly with the Aristotelian quartet of elements: earth, air, fire, water. But the breadth of colour use in classical painting may also be obscured by linguistics. In interpreting archaic writings on the use of colour in art, there is, for example, ample scope for confusion between red and green. The medieval term sinople could refer to either red or green until at least the fifteenth century. The Latin word caeruleum carries a similar ambiguity between yellow and blue.

There is no Latin word for brown or grey, but this does not imply that the Roman artists did not recognize or use brown earth pigments. How could red and green ever be conflated? From a modern-day perspective this appears absurd, because we have in our minds Isaac Newton's rainbow spectrum and its corresponding colour terminology, with its seven bands firmly delineated. The Greeks saw a different spectrum, with white at one end and black at the other - or more properly, light and dark. All the colours lay along the scale between these two extremes, being admixtures of light and dark in different degrees. Yellow was towards the light end (it appears the brightest of colours for physiological reasons). Red and green were both considered median colours, midway between light and dark - and so in some sense equivalent. The reliance of medieval scholars on Classical Greek texts ensured that this colour scale was perpetuated for centuries after the temples of Athens stood in ruins. In the tenth century AD, the monk Heraclius still classified all colours as black, white and 'intermediate'.

Thus whether or not an artist considers two hues to be different colours or variants of the same colour is largely a linguistic issue. The Celtic word glas refers to the colour of mountain lakes and straddles the range from a brownish-green to blue. The Japanese awo can mean 'green', 'blue' or 'dark', depending on the context; Vietnamese and Korean also decline to distinguish green from blue. Some languages have only three or four colour terms.

Which of the following, if true, does not explain why Pliny claimed that painters in Classical Greece used only four colours?

1) There were only four basic words for colours in the ancient Greek language.

2) Using a simplistic colour palette was in keeping with the austere Greek philosophy.

3) The Classical Greeks considered colours such as blue and purple to be shades of black.

4) Classical Greek painters mixed the four colours together in various ways to create a wider range of colours in their work.

Choose a suitable title for this passage.

1) The Language of Colour

2) Colour in Classical Greek Art

3) Colour: In the Past and Present

4) Colour: Nomenclature vs. Perception

Why, according to the author, did ancient people refer to red and green using the same terms?

1) They saw colours differently than we modern people do.

2) They had only one word to cover both colours, viz. sinople.

3) In their colour scheme, red and green were nearly the same.

4) They deliberately did so in order to get around the colour restrictions in art.

The author of this passage is least likely to be a/an:

1) artist.

2) art historian.

3) historian.

4) linguist.

-IMS

1348

While driving under the influence of alcohol, the police pulled over Sumit.

Correct or incorrect?

1349


Guys if somebody has manorama yearbook 2014 pdf plz send it to my mail id. Or tell me a link to download it. I am trying to download from various sites but each and every time I face problems to do the same.

My mail id is [email protected]

thank you in advance

1350

"So, once an economy is actually in recession,"

now the correction mentioned to this sentence is "So, once an economy is actually in a recession,"

what is wrong with the first statement, why cant an economy be in recession...?? Is this actually an error -CAT 2007

1351

Doubt "It is said that democratic government originated in the city-states of ancient Greece"

Shouldnt it be structured thus, "It is said that the democratic government originated in the city-states of ancient Greece"- CAT 2007

1352

Puys I have a query...not relevant to the thread but this one is the most active..please reply

I have enrolled for TIME mocks..but my VA performance has been dismal, barring a few..basicaly i need good sections...so which one should i opt for? IMS, CL, any other? @Dark_Passenger @sav-9 

THANK You!! 

1353

1. I am ________ to sell anything I want.


  • licenced
  • licensed

0 voters

1354

How to solve those fill in the blank questions... I have noticed people employing logical techniques..please help ...

@shri ramdev @aman bharti @amit @ms perseverance and all... 

1355


  • There’s Mr. Som, whom they say is the best singer in the country.
  • B)There’s Mr. Som, who they say is the best singer in the country.
  • C)There is Mr. Som, whom they say is the best singer in the country.
  • D)There is Mr. Som who, they say is the best singer in the country ...Choose correct

1356

RC

Seeking a competitive advantage, some professional service firms (for example, firms providing advertising, accounting, or health care services) have considered offering unconditional guarantees of satisfaction. Such guarantees specify what clients can expect and what the firm will do if it fails to fulfill these expectations. Particularly with first-time clients, an unconditional guarantee can be an effective marketing tool if the client is very cautious, the firm's fees are high, the negative consequences of bad service are grave, or business is difficult to obtain through referrals and word-of-mouth. However, an unconditional guarantee can sometimes hinder marketing efforts. With its implication that failure is possible, the guarantee may, paradoxically, cause clients to doubt the service firm's ability to deliver the promised level of service. It may conflict with a firm's desire to appear sophisticated, or may even suggest that a firm is begging for business. In legal and health care services, it may mislead clients by suggesting that lawsuits or medical procedures will have guaranteed outcomes. Indeed, professional service firms with outstanding reputations and performance to match have little to gain from offering unconditional guarantees. And any firm that implements an unconditional guarantee without undertaking a commensurate commitment to quality of service is merely employing a potentially costly marketing gimmick.

1. The primary function of the passage as a whole is to
(A) account for the popularity of a practice
(B) evaluate the utility of a practice
(C) demonstrate how to institute a practice
(D) weigh the ethics of using a strategy
(E) explain the reasons for pursuing a strategy

2. All of the following are mentioned in the passage as circumstances in which professional service firms can benefit from offering an unconditional guarantee EXCEPT:
(A) The firm is having difficulty retaining its clients of long standing.
(B) The firm is having difficulty getting business through client recommendations.
(C) The firm charges substantial fees for its services.
(D) The adverse effects of poor performance by the firm are significant for the client.
(E) The client is reluctant to incur risk.

3. Which of the following is cited in the passage as a goal of some professional service firms in offering unconditional guarantees of satisfaction?
(A) A limit on the firm's liability
(B) Successful competition against other firms
(C) Ability to justify fee increases
(D) Attainment of an outstanding reputation in a field
(E) Improvement in the quality of the firm's service

4. The passage's description of the issue raised by unconditional guarantees for health care or legal services most clearly implies that which of the following is true?
(A) The legal and medical professions have standards of practice that would be violated by attempts to fulfill such unconditional guarantees.
(B) The result of a lawsuit of medical procedure cannot necessarily be determined in advance by the professionals handling a client's case.
(C) The dignity of the legal and medical professions is undermined by any attempts at marketing of professional services, including unconditional guarantees.
(D) Clients whose lawsuits or medical procedures have unsatisfactory outcomes cannot be adequately compensated by financial settlements alone.
(E) Predicting the monetary cost of legal or health care services is more difficult than predicting the monetary cost of other types of professional services.

5. Which of the following hypothetical situations best exemplifies the potential problem noted in the second sentence of the second paragraph (lines 14-17)?
(A) A physician's unconditional guarantee of satisfaction encourages patients to sue for malpractice if they are unhappy with the treatment they receive.
(B) A lawyer's unconditional guarantee of satisfaction makes clients suspect that the lawyer needs to find new clients quickly to increase the firm's income.
(C) A business consultant's unconditional guarantee of satisfaction is undermined when the consultant fails to provide all of the services that are promised.
(D) An architect's unconditional guarantee of satisfaction makes clients wonder how often the architect's buildings fail to please clients.
(E) An accountant's unconditional guarantee of satisfaction leads clients to believe that tax returns prepared by the accountant are certain to be accurate.

6. The passage most clearly implies which of the following about the professional service firms mentioned in line 22?
(A) They are unlikely to have offered unconditional guarantees of satisfaction in the past.
(B) They are usually profitable enough to be able to compensate clients according to the terms of an unconditional guarantee.
(C) They usually practice in fields in which the outcomes are predictable.
(D) Their fees are usually more affordable than those charged by other professional service firms.
(E) Their clients are usually already satisfied with the quality of service that is delivered.


1357

Which is correct ?

A European

An European ?

1358

Direction for questions 31 to 33: The passage given below is followed by a set of three questions. Choose the most appropriate answer to each question.

This is the new, and twisted, conformism that Adorno speaks about, a deviation from the rules of music and the submission to the logic of industry. This new conformism results in regressive listening: Regressive listening is tied to production by the machinery of distribution, and particularly by advertising . . . nothing is left for the consciousness but to capitulate before the superior power of the advertised stuff and purchase spiritual peace by making the imposed goods literally its own thing.

The overwhelming power of symbols and imagery through advertising is a subtle manifestation of domination. The commercialization of art, in this case music, is but part of the totalizing tendency of the culture industry, for "culture now impresses the same stamp on everything." In the specific case of art, its commercialization produces an artificial 'need' in the consumers and thereby relegating the status of art to mere entertainment. The culture industry not only undermines the autonomy of art but extirpates from it its internal logic. The culture industry imposes on the artwork a logic external to it, that is, of "standardization" and "rationalization."

An artwork is standardized according to what is familiar with the consumers, a familiarity which has been pre-determined by the culture industry itself; the predominance of Hollywood films is typical of this. The process of distribution should also be made rational-standardization of course inheres within this scaffolding- "the technique of the culture industry is, from the beginning, one of distribution and mechanical reproduction . . .." This is seen in the chronological production of a movie (Da Vinci Code)-from its very conception to its distribution through different types of media, the cinema and later on the consumption of DVDs. An integral element of this scaffolding is of course "media-hype," that is, the mobilization of a synergy of various media (the hocus-pocuses range from flyers, billboards, TV, radio, the internet, down to mobile ringtones) and the production of products which are intended to promote a film (ranging from T-shirts, caps, down to McDonald's soda cups with Superman or Star Wars characters printed on them!). The proliferation of family TV programs such as Idol, for example, shows how the culture industry separates the form and content of art (singing/music) from the artist and his/her work. In a singing competition like Idol musical talent comes secondary to appearance and the supposed marketability of the contestant; at the end of the day, a contestant is gauged not by talent but by the size of his/her fan-base.


It can be inferred that 'regressive listening'

(a) involves yielding to the stronger argument of the industry.

(b) is a new form of conformism.

(c) leads to the commercialisation of spirituality.

(d) is a deviation from the rules of the industry.


According to the passage, which of these is a weakening factor imposed on art by the culture industry?

(a) The rationale and logic of consumers is dominated through the use of advertising.

(b) Art is relegated to the status of mere entertainment.

(c) The autonomy of art is weakened and threatened.

(d) A false need is created within consumers thereby reducing the eminence of art


It can be inferred that the purpose of the last paragraph is to

(a) assert the fact that art is judged by the marketability factor as opposed to the talent factor.

(b) discuss the media-hype that is generated for any form of art linking with the commercialisation of the art itself.

(c) substantiate the argument that the culture industry has led to art taking the form of something that is regulated.

(d) present a case to change the current nature of the art industry and to disallow the influence of media-hype.

1359

can someone post some source for rules of comma? the usage which part of sentence should have a comma and all.


1360

can anyone let me know if i could score 90-95 %ile in verbal ability section just y doing the ar part