CAT 2017 Previous Year Question Paper

Passage 1

A century ago, repair was so ordinary that it hardly needed a name. Shoes were resoled, collars turned, pots re-tinned and radios opened up by whoever in the street owned a soldering iron. Objects were expected to outlive several breakdowns, and the skills needed to nurse them through were spread widely, if unevenly, across households and neighbourhoods.

That expectation has eroded, and it is usual to blame manufacturers. There is some justice in the charge. Products are increasingly sealed with glue rather than screws, spare parts are withheld or priced to discourage their use, and diagnostic software is reserved for authorised technicians. Yet an account that stops at corporate design choices misses half the story. Repair also declined because the relative prices of labour and goods moved sharply in opposite directions. As factories grew more productive, a new toaster became cheap; as wages rose, an hour of a repairer's time became expensive. A repair that once cost a fraction of the price of a replacement now often costs more. Under those conditions, throwing a broken object away is not a moral failing but an arithmetic conclusion.

This matters for anyone who would revive repair. Campaigns that appeal to thrift or to a nostalgic ethic of care tend to attract enthusiasts while leaving ordinary behaviour unchanged. Making repair legally possible, by requiring manufacturers to publish manuals and sell parts, is necessary but may not be sufficient. If repair remains costlier than replacement, most people will go on replacing, whatever the law permits. The deeper task is to change the arithmetic: through tax rules that make labour cheaper relative to materials, through designs that make common faults quick to fix, and through prices that reflect the environmental cost of manufacturing new goods.

There is a further, less obvious obstacle. Skills that are not used are not passed on. When a generation grows up without seeing objects opened and mended, the very idea that a thing can be fixed fades from view. A broken phone is perceived not as a device with one faulty part but as a dead object. Rebuilding the habit of repair therefore requires repairs that are not only cheaper but visible: workshops in public places, schools that teach children to take things apart, and products whose insides are designed to be seen.

None of this will restore the world of resoled shoes and turned collars, nor should it. Many modern goods are cheaper and better than their predecessors precisely because of the efficiencies that made repair uneconomic. The goal is not a return to scarcity but a correction of incentives, so that keeping a thing working becomes, once again, the sensible choice rather than merely the virtuous one.

1. The author's attitude towards the practice of blaming manufacturers for the decline of repair is best described as

   1. complete agreement, since design choices fully explain the decline.
   2. outright rejection, since manufacturers have had no role in the decline.
   3. indifference, since the author considers the question unimportant.
   4. partial acceptance: the charge is fair as far as it goes but leaves out the shift in relative prices.
   Answer and explanation

   Answer: D (partial acceptance: the charge is fair as far as it goes but leaves out the shift in relative prices.)

   The author says 'there is some justice in the charge' but that an account stopping at design choices 'misses half the story', namely the changed prices of labour and goods.

2. By saying that discarding a broken object is 'not a moral failing but an arithmetic conclusion', the author implies that

   1. people who discard objects are poor at arithmetic.
   2. replacing rather than repairing is a rational response to the relative costs people face.
   3. manufacturers deliberately calculate how quickly their products will fail.
   4. moral campaigns are the most effective way to change consumer behaviour.
   Answer and explanation

   Answer: B (replacing rather than repairing is a rational response to the relative costs people face.)

   The sentence follows the observation that repair now often costs more than replacement; under those prices, replacing is the sensible calculation. D contradicts the next paragraph.

3. Which of the following measures would the author be most likely to support?

   1. A ban on the sale of new household appliances.
   2. An advertising campaign urging people to be thrifty.
   3. Rules that restrict repairs to authorised technicians.
   4. A tax structure that lowers the cost of labour relative to new materials.
   Answer and explanation

   Answer: D (A tax structure that lowers the cost of labour relative to new materials.)

   The third paragraph calls for 'tax rules that make labour cheaper relative to materials'. A contradicts the last paragraph (no return to scarcity), B is the kind of appeal the author says leaves behaviour unchanged, and C is one of the obstacles listed.

4. The main purpose of the fourth paragraph is to

   1. identify a cultural obstacle to repair that persists even if repair becomes cheaper.
   2. show that repair skills were never widely distributed.
   3. argue that schools should replace workshops as the main venue for repair.
   4. explain why modern phones cannot be repaired.
   Answer and explanation

   Answer: A (identify a cultural obstacle to repair that persists even if repair becomes cheaper.)

   It introduces 'a further, less obvious obstacle': unused skills are not passed on and people stop seeing objects as fixable, so repairs must also be made visible. It is not a claim that phones are unrepairable (D).

Verbal ability

5. The five sentences below, labelled 1 to 5, form a coherent paragraph when properly ordered. Type in the correct order as a sequence of five numbers. 1. From that number comes the word still used for isolation imposed to prevent the spread of disease. 2. Medicine has since replaced symbolism with incubation periods, but the name has outlived its original arithmetic. 3. In the fourteenth century, some Mediterranean ports made ships arriving from plague-stricken places wait at anchor before anyone could land. 4. The figure, it is often said, owed less to medical observation than to the religious associations of the number forty. 5. The waiting period was eventually fixed at forty days, quaranta giorni in Italian. (type in your answer)

   Answer and explanation

   Answer: 35142

   3 sets the scene (ships made to wait). 5 fixes the period at forty days. 1 ('that number') gives the word derived from it. 4 comments on why forty was chosen. 2 closes by contrasting modern practice with the surviving name. Order: 3-5-1-4-2.

6. 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. As later snow piles on top, the flakes are compressed into ice and the air is sealed into tiny bubbles. 2. The archive is not permanent, however: a glacier that melts takes its record with it. 3. Every snowfall on a glacier traps a little air between its flakes. 4. By drilling out a core and analysing these bubbles layer by layer, scientists can read the composition of the atmosphere from hundreds of thousands of years ago. (type in your answer)

   Answer and explanation

   Answer: 3142

   3 starts the process (air trapped by snow). 1 continues it ('later snow', bubbles sealed). 4 explains how 'these bubbles' are read. 2 adds the caveat with 'however'. Order: 3-1-4-2.

7. The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage. Parents sometimes worry that raising a child in two languages will slow the child's development. Bilingual children do occasionally mix words from both languages, and their vocabulary in each language, counted separately, may be smaller than that of a monolingual child of the same age. But when words from both languages are counted together, their total vocabulary is typically comparable, and the mixing reflects skill in drawing on two systems rather than confusion between them.

   1. Apparent signs of delay in bilingual children largely disappear once both languages are taken into account.
   2. Bilingual children have smaller vocabularies and are often confused between languages.
   3. Parents should avoid raising children in two languages.
   4. Mixing languages shows that bilingual children are more intelligent than monolingual ones.
   Answer and explanation

   Answer: A (Apparent signs of delay in bilingual children largely disappear once both languages are taken into account.)

   The passage grants the apparent signs (mixing, smaller per-language vocabulary) and argues they vanish or are reinterpreted when both languages are considered. B and C reverse the conclusion; D claims more than the passage.

Set 1

A project team of exactly four members is to be selected from seven candidates. P, Q and R are from Engineering; S and T are from Finance; U and V are from Marketing. The selection must satisfy all of the following conditions:

1. The team must include at least one member from each of the three departments. 2. P and S cannot both be selected. 3. If Q is selected, U must also be selected. 4. R and V cannot both be selected. 5. T can be selected only if R is also selected.

8. How many different teams satisfy all the conditions? (type in your answer)

   Answer and explanation

   Answer: 5

   Case analysis (or listing all 35 groups of four and checking each) leaves exactly five valid teams: PRTU, QRSU, QRTU, QSUV and RSTU.

9. Which candidate must be in every valid team?

   1. Q
   2. R
   3. S
   4. U
   Answer and explanation

   Answer: D (U)

   U appears in all five valid teams (PRTU, QRSU, QRTU, QSUV, RSTU). Why: a team without U needs V for Marketing; V excludes R, so T is excluded too (condition 5); Q is excluded (condition 3, needs U). That leaves only P, S and V, too few for a team of four (and P and S cannot be together anyway), so every valid team contains U.

10. If V is selected, which of the following must be true?

    1. R is selected.
    2. T is selected.
    3. Q and S are both selected.
    4. P is selected.
    Answer and explanation

    Answer: C (Q and S are both selected.)

    With V, R is out (condition 4), so T is out (condition 5). Engineering must come from P or Q. The only valid team with V is QSUV: if P were chosen, S would be excluded and there would be no Finance member. So Q and S are both selected.

11. Which of the following is a valid team?

    1. P, Q, S, U
    2. R, S, U, V
    3. Q, R, T, U
    4. P, Q, T, U
    Answer and explanation

    Answer: C (Q, R, T, U)

    PQSU breaks condition 2 (P and S). RSUV breaks condition 4 (R and V). PQTU breaks condition 5 (T without R). QRTU satisfies all conditions: three departments covered, no forbidden pair, Q with U, T with R.

12. A sum of money doubles itself in 5 years at simple interest. In how many years will it become four times itself at the same rate?

    1. 10
    2. 20
    3. 25
    4. 15
    Answer and explanation

    Answer: D (15)

    Doubling means interest of 100% in 5 years, i.e. 20% a year. Becoming four times needs interest of 300%, which takes 300 ÷ 20 = 15 years. (10 is the trap answer from doubling the time.)

13. A car covers the first half of a journey at 40 km/h and the second half at 60 km/h. What is its average speed for the whole journey, in km/h? (type in your answer)

    Answer and explanation

    Answer: 48

    For equal distances the average speed is the harmonic mean: 2 × 40 × 60 ÷ (40 + 60) = 4800 ÷ 100 = 48 km/h.

14. If 2ˣ⁺¹ + 2ˣ = 96, then x equals

    1. 4
    2. 6
    3. 5
    4. 7
    Answer and explanation

    Answer: C (5)

    2ˣ⁺¹ + 2ˣ = 2ˣ(2 + 1) = 3 × 2ˣ = 96, so 2ˣ = 32 and x = 5.

15. How many integers from 1 to 500, inclusive, are divisible by 3 or by 7? (type in your answer)

    Answer and explanation

    Answer: 214

    Multiples of 3: 166. Multiples of 7: 71. Multiples of 21: 23. By inclusion–exclusion, 166 + 71 − 23 = 214.

16. What is the area of an equilateral triangle whose perimeter is 36 cm?

    1. 48√3 cm²
    2. 72 cm²
    3. 36√3 cm²
    4. 72√3 cm²
    Answer and explanation

    Answer: C (36√3 cm²)

    Each side is 12 cm. Area = (√3/4) × 12² = 36√3 cm².

17. A trader buys pens at 5 for ₹40 and sells them at 4 for ₹40. What is his profit percentage? (type in your answer)

    Answer and explanation

    Answer: 25

    Cost price per pen = ₹8 and selling price per pen = ₹10. Profit = 2/8 = 25%.

18. In how many distinct ways can the letters of the word LEVEL be arranged?

    1. 60
    2. 20
    3. 30
    4. 120
    Answer and explanation

    Answer: C (30)

    LEVEL has 5 letters with L twice and E twice: 5! ÷ (2! × 2!) = 120 ÷ 4 = 30.

19. If f(x) = 2x + 3 and g(x) = x² − 1, what is the value of f(g(3))? (type in your answer)

    Answer and explanation

    Answer: 19

    g(3) = 9 − 1 = 8, and f(8) = 2 × 8 + 3 = 19.

20. What is the curved surface area of a cylinder of radius 7 cm and height 10 cm? (Take π = 22/7.)

    1. 594 cm²
    2. 880 cm²
    3. 440 cm²
    4. 1540 cm²
    Answer and explanation

    Answer: C (440 cm²)

    Curved surface area = 2πrh = 2 × (22/7) × 7 × 10 = 440 cm².