1. Types of questions

Knowing and understanding the types of questions will help you to solve questions faster and more accurately. We recommend that you read the questions before reading the passage, and then read the passage. Note that you should only read the questions, not the options.

This will help you with:

1) Focussing on the key parts of the passage
2) Enhancing your accuracy
3) Solving questions quickly

The recommended approach is to read and identify the question types. Some questions can even be answered while you are midway in reading the passage.

The different question types are:

(1) Direct Single
(2) Direct Multiple
(3) Inferential
(4) Meaning
(5) Miscellaneous

1.1 Direct questions

Direct or factual questions are based on facts given in the passage. These can be solved by reading from the passage. These questions will test

1) Reading and comprehension
2) Focus (noticing key points in the passage)
3) Retention (remembering or noting down these points)
4) Vocabulary (often the correct option will use words different from the passage)
5) Speed (since these questions can be solved quickly)

You can easily answer such questions, as the answers would be known from the passage itself. However, you need to remember the points and solve these questions quickly. The examiners might also make such questions difficult by either asking us about minor points or having close options.

These questions can be further subdivided into two types.

1.1.1 Direct Single

Direct Single questions are those, whose answers are found in one part of the passage (e.g. 1 or 2 continuous sentences, 1 or 2 continuous paragraphs). This is key, as it means that we can find the answer in one part of the passage. This also means that we can solve these questions as soon as we find the answer. This seems counter-intuitive, but helps us to solve such questions accurately and quickly. If you solve a question immediately after reading the relevant paragraph, you will have a higher probability to choose the correct answer without being confused by other data which is given in the rest of the passage. You will also save time, by quickly finishing this question, instead of having to revisit the relevant paragraph once again.

Let us solve a question to get a better idea. Please note that we have provided an example with a short passage – identifying and solving questions midway through an RC is recommended only in longer passages (300 words or longer). For such short passages, you can also read the entire passage before solving the question. However, you should definitely read the question before reading the passage so that you know what to focus on, while reading the passage.

Example 2

Read the paragraph and answer the question which follows:

Much of the conversation around the decline in women’s workforce participation looks at what the workplace and the state can do to make women return to work. Better childcare facilities, more maternity leave, remote working facilities, safer commutes, better-lit streets, better public transport. While these solutions are all needed, these fail to take into account the paternalistic and traditional nature of the Indian household. Household work, childrearing and care, looking after the older people in the home, are all delegated to the women of the house. This is not just true of “them”, the blue-collar factory workers, it is true for “us”, the double standard bearing urban mass affluent homes. Private conversations with almost all the married women who work outside the home, mostly end with accepting this double standard of pretending equality at home when it exists only on the social chit chat circuit and in brave tweets about equality. Look around you — most of the men in leadership roles have women who either work out of home or are full-time home-makers.

What is the PRIMARY issue with women coming back to the workforce?

(1) Many women are married to men in leadership roles, and have to support them.
(2) Women do not have time as they are expected to take care of their homes and children.
(3) At home, there is no equality between men and women.
(4) Women need better facilities and safety.

Solution

This is a Direct question, as the question asks us for an issue which is mentioned in the passage. It is also a Direct Single, as we are looking for one particular issue, which is the main one.

In this passage, the author discusses the reason for the low participation of women in the workforce. He states that the state is actively providing facilities. However, the primary issue is the paternalistic and traditional nature of the Indian household. This is explained further – all household work and responsibilities are delegated to women. Therefore, we can select option (2) as the correct choice. Note that we can solve the question immediately after reading this sentence. However, we can read the entire passage as it's a short one.

Option (4), while a requirement, is not the primary reason – in fact, the author has stated that while these solutions are all needed, these fail to take into account the paternalistic and traditional nature of the Indian household.

Option (1) is an exception, as not every man will be in a leadership (senior) role. Option (3), while correct, does not by itself prevent women from working.

Answer: (2) Women do not have time as they are expected to take care of their homes and children.

1.1.2 Direct Multiple

Direct Multiple questions are slightly different. These are also factual and can be solved on the basis of the information given in the paragraph. However, we have to refer to multiple parts of the passage to get the information required to solve this question. Alternatively, we might need to verify facts from the passage to solve such questions. Therefore, we cannot solve such questions without reading the entire passage. We should solve such questions by verifying each option with the facts given the passage. This might mean revisiting a few paragraphs from the passage, but it is always better to take a bit of extra time to validate all the options. Otherwise, there might be some fact which we have missed or forgotten.

Example 3

Read the paragraph and answer the question which follows:

Much of the conversation around the decline in women’s workforce participation looks at what the workplace and the state can do to make women return to work. Better childcare facilities, more maternity leave, remote working facilities, safer commutes, better-lit streets, better public transport. While these solutions are all needed, these fail to take into account the paternalistic and traditional nature of the Indian household. Household work, childrearing and care, looking after the older people in the home, are all delegated to the women of the house. This is not just true of “them”, the blue-collar factory workers, it is true for “us”, the double standard bearing urban mass affluent homes. Private conversations with almost all the married women who work outside the home, mostly end with accepting this double standard of pretending equality at home when it exists only on the social chit chat circuit and in brave tweets about equality. Look around you — most of the men in leadership roles have wives who either work out of home or are full-time home-makers.

All of the following hinder women coming back to the workforce EXCEPT?
(1) Lack of support facilities for managing children.
(2) The need to support spouses who are in senior roles.
(3) Remote working facilities.
(4) Unsafe cities and infrastructure.

Solution

This is a Direct question, as we are questioned about the issues which prevent women from working. This is a typical Direct Multiple question – we need to find which option is NOT an issue. This implies that three of the options should be factual and given in the passage, whereas, one would either not be given OR not hinder women from working.

Let us review the options and verify them with the passage. Option (1) is about the lack of support facilities, which is mentioned in the passage (what the workplace and the state can do to make women return to work. Better childcare facilities, more maternity leave...). Therefore, this is an issue mentioned in the passage (since the state needs to work on this, these facilities are lacking), and we can eliminate this option.

Option (2) is also mentioned as an issue faced by women (most of the men in leadership roles have wives who either work out of home or are full-time home-makers). Therefore, we can eliminate this option.

Option (3), however, while given in the passage, is not an issue – lack of remote working facilities would be an issue. Remote working would actually enable more women to work.

Option (4) is also mentioned as an issue which the state needs to focus on (what the workplace and the state can do to make women return to work...safer commutes, better-lit streets, better public transport). Therefore, we can eliminate this option as well.

Thus, option (3) is the correct choice.

Answer: (3) Remote working facilities.

This is a short example with a short passage. In actual RCs, we will have to navigate multiple paragraphs to eliminate incorrect optioons. However, this is recommended so that you do not miss out a fact in the passage. Even if you are sure of the answer, spend a minute in eliminating the other options based on the passage or your notes.

1.2 Inferential questions

The answer to such questions can be derived from the passage, i.e., we will get the correct answer by inferring (concluding) the answer based on the information given in the passage. We will not get the answer directly from the passage. Instead, we need to understand the author's viewpoint and answer based on logical reasoning. These questions are very common in CAT and XAT, and test the following skills:

1) Reading and comprehension skills
2) Logical or critical reasoning
3) Ability to identify the author's viewpoint
4) Vocabulary (including contextual usage and idioms)

Some common types of inferential questions are:

(1) What is the purpose of the passage/key message of the author?
(2) Which of the following will the author agree/disagree with?
(3) Which of the following, if true, will strengthen/weaken the author's hypothesis?
(4) Which of the following, if false, will strengthen/weaken the author's viewpoint?
(5) Which of the following actions/solutions will the author support the most?

These questions are common in Analytical and Abstract passages. The XAT exam almost exclusively tests us with inference-based questions.

Such questions are typically more difficult than direct questions. However, there are certain techniques to get these right. In order to solve Inferential questions, you must first summarise the author's viewpoint before you read the options. For instance, if the examiners ask you “Which of the following will strengthen the author's viewpoint?”, then you need to summarise the author's viewpoint before you try and find an option which will strengthen the author's viewpoint. This will help you identify the correct option easily.

Sometimes, we might have inferential questions about a specific paragraph such as

(1) What is the author trying to state in the $3^{rd}$ paragraph?
(2) Which of the following can you infer from the first paragraph?

Such questions should be answered immediately after reading that paragraph. This will ensure that you are restricting your choice of answer to the facts in this paragraph. However, do summarise the author's viewpoint before you read the options.

Example 4

Read the following passage and answer the question that follows:

Fei Fei Li, the chief scientist for A.I. for Google’s cloud-computing unit, says that bias in technology “is as old as human civilization” and it’s human nature for members of the dominant majority to be oblivious to the experiences of other groups. Consider the A.I.-powered beauty contest that Russian scientists conducted in 2016. Thousands of people worldwide submitted selfies for a contest in which computers would judge their beauty based on factors like the symmetry of their faces. But of the 44 winners the machines chose, only one had dark skin. An international ruckus ensued, and the contest’s operators later attributed the apparent bigotry of the computers on the fact that the data sets they used to train them did not contain many photos of people of colour. The computers essentially ignored photos of people with dark skin and deemed those with lighter skin more “beautiful” because they represented the majority. This bias-through-omission turns out to be particularly pervasive in deep-learning systems in which image recognition is a major part of the training process. While studying gender-recognition technologies from Microsoft, IBM, and China’s Megvii, scientists found that the tech consistently made more accurate identifications of subjects with photos of lighter-skinned men than with those of darker-skinned women.

Which of the following solutions would the author recommend to minimise the bias in technology?

A. When Tay, Microsoft's sophisticated AI powered social chatbot picked up racial slurs from trolls, Microsoft engineers taught Tay to ignore offensive and foul words.
B. When Facebook's algorithms pushed fake news to the top of newsfeeds based on click rates, Facebook reduced the number of news items in feeds.
C. Amazon, while developing an AI-based system to identify rotten fruits, introduced several additional pictures of rotten fruits to train the system as images of fruits on the internet generally look good.
D. AI programmers are providing facial recognition software bots access to a diverse set of humans across gender, race, weight and age.

(1) A only (2) B and C (3) A, C and D (4) C and D only

Solution

In the passage, the author tells us that a key issue in AI bias is bias-through-omission, because they have not been exposed to the minorities. Therefore, we should search for options where programmers or companies are focussing more on these outliers. Note that we are understanding the author's view (bias-through-omission based on the passage and the examples cited), and then using logical reasoning to review the solutions given here.

We can eliminate statements A and B, because Microsoft and Facebook are trying to avoid the problem.

In statement C, Amazon is actually trying to provide more access to outliers (in this case, spoiled fruits), because the internet has more pictures of gorgeous fruit. Similarly, in statement D, AI programmers are increasing AI software's access to minorities. Therefore, we can infer that the author would recommend the solutions outlined in statements C and D. Therefore, option (4) is the correct choice.

Answer: (4) C and D only

1.3 Meaning questions

Meaning questions are a special type of question which occur sometimes in CAT. These questions are rare in other exams. These are not the typical meaning questions, where the examiners ask us the meaning of a tough word or idiom. Instead, we are quizzed on the meaning of longer phrases within the passage, which are usually symbolic or metaphorical. The meaning of the given phrase can be derived from the context of the passage, especially that particular paragraphs. Meaning questions are closer to inferential questions, as we have to understand the meaning of a symbolic phrase based on the author's viewpoint (not the literal meaning).

Such meaning questions can be solved immediately after reading that particular paragraph.

Example 5

Read the paragraph and answer the question which follows:

I had a strange moment last week that helped me realize that Facebook — the social media platform I’ve used for more than a decade — is about to go extinct. And, like the dodo bird and carrier pigeon, it probably doesn’t see it coming. I have the privilege of teaching a bunch of fantastic teenagers aged 14–16. They’re all digital natives with a high degree of cultural savvy, a strong distaste for anything that violates their personal privacy, and a nose for political bullshit. So naturally, none of them have Facebook. In truth, the reality for Facebook is actually far worse...More and more of my [middle-aged] friends are cutting the royal-blue cord, after watching The Social Dilemma or reading eye-opening books like Hooked.

What does the author mean by “cutting the royal-blue cord”?

(1) People now understand the significance of the blue colour in the Facebook website.
(2) Existing Facebook are not using their Facebook accounts any more, or deleting their accounts.
(3) People are distancing themselves from Facebook in favour of more private networks.
(4) People are more independent than earlier, having cut many ties.

Solution

Cutting the royal-blue cord is a combination of the idiom cutting the cord (shortened from cutting the umbilical cord, which means distancing or becoming less dependent on one's parents, advisors or mentors) and the royal-blue colour, referring to Facebook.

Combining these two aspects, we can infer that author is speaking about people distancing themselves from Facebook, i.e., either reducing their usage or deleting their accounts. This is mentioned in option (2). note that the author is speaking about middle-aged friends who have used Facebook, not the younger kids who do not use Facebook.

Option (1) is taking the word blue literally, which is not what this passage is about. Therefore, we can eliminate this option.

Option (3) is bringing in privacy from the younger generation's preference, which is unrelated to this phrase. Therefore, we can delete this option as well.

Option (4) is not speaking about Facebook at all – it's only explaining the idiom cutting the cord. As it is not complete, it can be eliminated.

Thus, option (2) is the correct choice.

Answer: (2) Existing Facebook are not using their Facebook accounts any more, or deleting their accounts.

1.4 Miscellaneous questions

The question types mentioned above are the most common questions in CAT, as well as all other MBA entrance exams. Some other questions which might occur (albeit rarely), are

1) Which of the following would be a suitable title for the passage?
2) Which of the following source could this passage be taken from?
3) What is the tone of the passage?
4) What could the profession of the author be?
5) Which of the following could be a suitable ending to this passage? What could the next paragraph be about?
6) Which of the following is the meaning/synonym/antonym of _______ (word or idiom in the passage)

These questions are mostly meta-questions (questions about the passage), or vocabulary questions. Such questions occur once in a while, especially in other exams (not CAT or XAT). These questions are discussed in detail in this lesson.