CAT MCQs on Critical Reasoning: CAT Questions for Practice with Solutions

CAT Questions

• 1.

  About 96% of Scandinavian moths have ears tuned to the ultrasonic pulses that bats, their predators, emit. But the remaining 4% do not have ears and are deaf. However, they have a larger wingspan than the hearing moths, and also have higher wing-loadings—the ratio between a wing's area and its weight—meaning higher maneuverability. Which one of the following can be best inferred from the above passage?
  

  • A higher proportion of deaf moths than hearing moths fall prey to bats.
  • Deaf moths may try to avoid bats by frequent changes in their flight direction.
  • Deaf moths are faster than hearing moths, and so are less prone to becoming a bat's dinner than hearing moths.
  • The large wingspan enables deaf moths to better receive and sense the pulses of their bat predators.
    
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• 2.

  Statement: All successful entrepreneurs are risk-takers.
  Conclusion: If a person is not a risk-taker, they cannot be a successful entrepreneur.
  Is the conclusion valid?
  

  • Yes
    
  • No
    
  • Partially valid
    
  • Cannot determine
    
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• 3.

  Szymanski suggests that the problem of racism in football may be present even today. He begins by verifying an earlier hypothesis that clubs' wage bills explain 90% of their performance. Thus, if players' salaries were to be only based on their abilities, clubs that spend more should finish higher. If there is pay discrimination against some group of players—fewer teams bidding for black players thus lowering the salaries for blacks with the same ability as whites—that neat relation may no longer hold. He concludes that certain clubs seem to have achieved much less than what they could have, by not recruiting black players. Which one of the following findings would best support Szymanski's conclusion?
  

  • Certain clubs took advantage of the situation by hiring above-average shares of black players.
  • Clubs hired white players at relatively high wages and did not show proportionately good performance.
  • During the study period, clubs in towns with a history of discrimination against blacks under-performed relative to their wage bills.
  • Clubs in one region, which had higher proportions of black players, had significantly lower wage bills than predominantly white clubs in another region.
    
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• 4.

  The problem of traffic congestion in Athens has been testing the ingenuity of politicians and town planners for years. But the measures adopted to date have not succeeded in decreasing the number of cars on the road in the city centre. In 1980, an odds and evens number-plate legislation was introduced, under which odd and even plates were banned in the city centre on alternate days, thereby expecting to halve the number of cars in the city centre. Then in 1993 it was decreed that all cars in use in the city centre must be fitted with catalytic converters, a regulation had just then been introduced, substantially reducing import taxes on cars with catalytic converters, the only condition being that the buyer of such a 'clean' car offered for destruction a car at least 15 years old.
  Which one of the following options, if true, would best support the claim that the measures adopted to date have not succeeded?
  

  • In the 1980s, many families purchased second cars with the requisite odd or even number plate.
  • In the mid-1990s, many families found it feasible to become first-time car owners by buying a car more than 15 years old and turning it in for a new car with catalytic converters.
  • Post-1993, many families seized the opportunity to sell their more than 15 year-old cars and buy 'clean' cars from the open market, even if it meant forgoing the import tax subsidy.
  • All of the above.
    
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• 5.

  The theory of games is suggested to some extent by parlour games such as chess and bridge. Friedman illustrates two distinct features of these games. First, in a parlour game played for money, if one wins the other (others) loses (lose). Second, these games are games involving a strategy. In a game of chess, while choosing what action is to be taken, a player tries to guess how his/her opponent will react to the various actions he or she might take. In contrast, the card-pastime, 'patience' or 'solitaire' is played only against chance. Which one of the following can best be described as a "game?"

  • The team of Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary climbing Mt. Everest for the first time in human history.
  • A national level essay writing competition.
  • A decisive war between the armed forces of India and Pakistan over Kashmir.
  • Oil Exporters' Union deciding on world oil prices, completely disregarding the countries which have at most minimal oil production.
    
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• 6.

  Argentina's beef cattle herd has dropped to under 50 million from 57 million ten years ago in 1990. The animals are worth less, too: prices fell by over a third last year, before recovering slightly. Most local meat packers and processors are in Financial trouble, and recent years have seen a string of plant closures. The Beef Producers' Association has now come up with a massive advertisement campaign calling upon Argentines to eat more beef - their "juicy, healthy, round, plate-Filling" steaks. Which one of the following, if true, would contribute most to a failure of the campaign?

  • There has been a change in consumer preference towards eating leaner meats like chicken and fish.
  • The price of imported beef has been increasing, thus making locally grown beef more competitive in terms of pricing.
  • The inability to cross breed native cattle with foreign breeds has not increased production to adequate levels.
  • Animal prices pressure the producers to supply more beef at a higher cost, lowering their profit margins.
    
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