CAT 2016 Previous Year Question Paper

Passage 1

Archivists have a saying that the most important tool of their profession is the wastepaper basket. It sounds like a joke against a discipline devoted to preservation, but it states a working truth. No institution can keep everything, and an archive that tried would soon become unusable: the record of what mattered would be buried under the record of everything else. Selection is not a failure of the archive's mission; it is the mission.

The digital age was supposed to dissolve this problem. Storage became so cheap that, for the first time, the question of whether to keep something seemed to have an easy answer: keep it all, and let search engines sort it out later. Many organisations adopted precisely this policy, often without ever deciding to. Emails, drafts, logs and duplicate files accumulated simply because deleting them required a decision and keeping them did not.

The results have been less liberating than expected. Keeping everything turns out to be a way of postponing judgement rather than avoiding it, and postponed judgement grows more expensive with time. A historian looking for the reasoning behind a decision may find ten thousand messages in which the decision is mentioned and none in which it is explained, because the explanation took place in a meeting no one recorded. Abundance of material is not the same as abundance of evidence. Worse, formats age. A file that can no longer be opened is not preserved in any meaningful sense, and the effort of migrating vast, undifferentiated collections from one format to the next can exceed the effort that careful selection would have demanded in the first place.

There is also a subtler cost. Selection forces an institution to articulate what it thinks it is for. When archivists decide which records of a hospital, a ministry or a company deserve to survive, they must form a view about which activities were significant and to whom. That view can be wrong, and later generations often criticise earlier archivists for discarding the papers of people deemed unimportant at the time. But the remedy for biased selection is better selection, made explicit and open to challenge, not the abandonment of selection altogether. An archive that keeps everything has not escaped bias; it has merely hidden its biases in the design of its search tools, where they are harder to see and to contest.

None of this means that cheap storage is a curse. It allows archivists to be generous at the margins, keeping material whose value is uncertain instead of discarding it by default. The point is narrower: technology has changed the cost of keeping things, but not the need for judgement about what is worth finding.

1. The primary purpose of the passage is to

   1. argue that cheap digital storage has made archival selection unnecessary.
   2. criticise earlier archivists for discarding the papers of unimportant people.
   3. argue that deliberate selection remains central to archiving even though storage is now cheap.
   4. explain how search engines decide which records are relevant.
   Answer and explanation

   Answer: C (argue that deliberate selection remains central to archiving even though storage is now cheap.)

   The passage opens by calling selection 'the mission', shows why 'keep everything' fails, and closes by saying technology changed the cost of keeping 'but not the need for judgement'. A is the view it rejects; B and D are side points.

2. The author's statement that 'abundance of material is not the same as abundance of evidence' is best illustrated by which example from the passage?

   1. Thousands of messages mentioning a decision while none explains the reasoning behind it.
   2. Storage becoming so cheap that organisations keep all their files.
   3. Archivists using the wastepaper basket as their most important tool.
   4. Files becoming unreadable as formats age.
   Answer and explanation

   Answer: A (Thousands of messages mentioning a decision while none explains the reasoning behind it.)

   The sentence immediately follows the historian example: plenty of material mentions the decision, but none of it is evidence of why it was made.

3. With which of the following statements would the author most likely agree?

   1. Because storage is cheap, archivists should keep everything and rely on search tools.
   2. Search tools are neutral and therefore free archives from the biases of human selection.
   3. Selection criteria that are stated openly are preferable to biases built invisibly into search tools.
   4. The choices of earlier archivists have generally been vindicated by later historians.
   Answer and explanation

   Answer: C (Selection criteria that are stated openly are preferable to biases built invisibly into search tools.)

   The fourth paragraph says the remedy for biased selection is 'better selection, made explicit and open to challenge', and that keeping everything only hides bias in search tools. A and B contradict the passage; D contradicts the remark that later generations often criticise earlier archivists.

4. Which of the following is NOT presented in the passage as a drawback of keeping everything?

   1. The price of storage hardware rises as collections grow.
   2. Judgement that is postponed becomes costlier over time.
   3. Migrating large undifferentiated collections between formats can be very laborious.
   4. Biases are concealed in the design of search tools.
   Answer and explanation

   Answer: A (The price of storage hardware rises as collections grow.)

   The passage says storage became cheap and never claims its price rises. B, C and D are all named costs.

Verbal ability

5. The four sentences below, labelled 1 to 4, form a coherent paragraph when properly ordered. Type in the correct order as a sequence of four numbers. 1. This division of labour lets lichens colonise surfaces where neither partner could survive alone, from bare rock to the bark of trees in polluted cities. 2. A lichen looks like a single organism, but it is really a partnership. 3. Recent studies have complicated the picture further by finding a third partner, a yeast, embedded in the outer layer of many common lichens. 4. A fungus provides structure and shelter, while an alga or cyanobacterium living inside it makes food by photosynthesis. (type in your answer)

   Answer and explanation

   Answer: 2413

   2 states the idea (a partnership). 4 describes the partners' roles. 1 refers back to 'this division of labour'. 3, with 'further', adds the recent complication. Order: 2-4-1-3.

6. Five sentences related to a topic are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the sentence that does not fit and type in its number. 1. The first lending libraries in many towns were funded by subscriptions from their members rather than by the state. 2. Members paid an annual fee and in return could borrow a fixed number of volumes at a time. 3. Committees of subscribers chose which books to buy, often arguing at length over novels, which some considered frivolous. 4. Over time, as town councils took over the funding, the fee disappeared and the collections were opened to everyone. 5. E-readers let users enlarge the font, which helps readers with poor eyesight. (type in your answer)

   Answer and explanation

   Answer: 5

   Sentences 1–4 trace the history of subscription libraries. Sentence 5 is about a feature of modern e-readers and does not belong.

7. The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage. Conservationists have long treated introduced species as threats to be eradicated. Yet in some degraded landscapes, non-native plants now provide the only food and shelter available to native birds and insects. Removing them without first restoring native vegetation may do more harm than leaving them in place. The question to ask, therefore, is not where a species came from but what role it plays in the ecosystem as it now exists.

   1. Introduced species should never be removed from any landscape.
   2. Native birds and insects prefer non-native plants to native ones.
   3. Conservationists have been mistaken about every introduced species.
   4. Whether to remove a non-native species should depend on its present ecological role, not merely on its origin.
   Answer and explanation

   Answer: D (Whether to remove a non-native species should depend on its present ecological role, not merely on its origin.)

   The passage concludes that role, not origin, should guide the decision. A and C overgeneralise; B is not claimed (the plants are the only option available, not preferred).

Set 1

The table below gives the number of units produced by five factories, P, Q, R, S and T, of a company in each of the first four months of a year.

8. Which factory recorded the highest percentage increase in production from January to April?

   1. P
   2. R
   3. S
   4. T
   Answer and explanation

   Answer: B (R)

   Increases from January to April: P 24/120 = 20%, Q 31/200 = 15.5%, R 55/80 = 68.75%, S 30/150 = 20%, T 26/95 ≈ 27.4%. R is the highest.

9. In how many factories did production rise in every month compared with the previous month? (type in your answer)

   Answer and explanation

   Answer: 2

   P falls in April (150 to 144), Q falls in February (200 to 190) and S is flat from February to March (165, 165). Only R (80, 96, 108, 135) and T (95, 100, 110, 121) rise every month, so the answer is 2.

10. The total production of the five factories in March was approximately what percentage of their total production in January?

    1. 108%
    2. 112%
    3. 115%
    4. 121%
    Answer and explanation

    Answer: C (115%)

    January total = 120 + 200 + 80 + 150 + 95 = 645. March total = 150 + 210 + 108 + 165 + 110 = 743. 743 ÷ 645 ≈ 1.152, i.e. about 115%.

11. Suppose each factory's production in May changes, relative to April, by the same percentage as its April production changed relative to March. How many factories will produce more than 150 units in May?

    1. 1
    2. 2
    3. 3
    4. 4
    Answer and explanation

    Answer: C (3)

    May = April × (April ÷ March). P: 144 × 144/150 = 138.24. Q: 231 × 1.1 = 254.1. R: 135 × 1.25 = 168.75. S: 180 × 180/165 ≈ 196.4. T: 121 × 1.1 = 133.1. Q, R and S exceed 150, so 3 factories.

12. The difference between the compound interest and the simple interest on a sum for 2 years at 8% per annum (compounded annually) is ₹96. What is the sum?

    1. ₹12,000
    2. ₹18,000
    3. ₹15,000
    4. ₹20,000
    Answer and explanation

    Answer: C (₹15,000)

    For 2 years, CI − SI = P × r² = P × 0.08² = 0.0064P. So 0.0064P = 96 and P = ₹15,000.

13. A boat goes 30 km upstream and 44 km downstream in 10 hours. It goes 40 km upstream and 55 km downstream in 13 hours. What is the speed of the boat in still water, in km/h? (type in your answer)

    Answer and explanation

    Answer: 8

    Let u = 1/(upstream speed) and d = 1/(downstream speed). 30u + 44d = 10 and 40u + 55d = 13. Multiply the first by 4 and the second by 3: 120u + 176d = 40 and 120u + 165d = 39, so 11d = 1, d = 1/11 and the downstream speed is 11 km/h. Then 30u = 10 − 4 = 6, u = 1/5 and the upstream speed is 5 km/h. Speed in still water = (11 + 5)/2 = 8 km/h.

14. The roots of x² − 7x + k = 0 differ by 3. What is k?

    1. 8
    2. 12
    3. 14
    4. 10
    Answer and explanation

    Answer: D (10)

    The roots add to 7 and differ by 3, so they are 5 and 2. Their product k = 10.

15. What is the remainder when 7¹⁰⁰ is divided by 9? (type in your answer)

    Answer and explanation

    Answer: 7

    7³ = 343 = 9 × 38 + 1, so 7³ leaves remainder 1. 7¹⁰⁰ = (7³)³³ × 7 leaves remainder 1 × 7 = 7.

16. A chord of length 16 cm is at a distance of 6 cm from the centre of a circle. What is the radius of the circle?

    1. 8 cm
    2. 9 cm
    3. 12 cm
    4. 10 cm
    Answer and explanation

    Answer: D (10 cm)

    The perpendicular from the centre bisects the chord, giving a right triangle with legs 8 and 6. Radius = √(64 + 36) = 10 cm.

17. The average of five numbers is 24. When one of them is removed, the average of the remaining four is 22. What number was removed? (type in your answer)

    Answer and explanation

    Answer: 32

    Sum of five = 120 and sum of four = 88, so the removed number is 120 − 88 = 32.

18. Two fair dice are thrown. What is the probability that the sum of the numbers shown is 8?

    1. 1/6
    2. 1/9
    3. 5/36
    4. 7/36
    Answer and explanation

    Answer: C (5/36)

    Favourable outcomes: (2,6), (3,5), (4,4), (5,3), (6,2), i.e. 5 out of 36.

19. The sum of the first n terms of the arithmetic progression 3, 7, 11, … is 210. Find n. (type in your answer)

    Answer and explanation

    Answer: 10

    Sₙ = (n/2)[2 × 3 + (n − 1) × 4] = n(2n + 1). n(2n + 1) = 210 gives n = 10, since 10 × 21 = 210.

20. A town's population increases by 10% in the first year, falls by 10% in the second year and increases by 20% in the third year. What is the net change over the three years?

    1. 19.8% increase
    2. 18.8% increase
    3. 20% increase
    4. 21% increase
    Answer and explanation

    Answer: B (18.8% increase)

    Multiplier = 1.1 × 0.9 × 1.2 = 1.188, an increase of 18.8%.