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CAT 2025 Lesson : Reading Comprehension I - RC Solving Technique 1 – Solved Example
Example 6
Read the passage and answer the question which follows:
[Let's try cataloging the conspiracies on YouTube:] fake moon landing, flat Earth, 9/11 stuff, the Illuminati, anti-vaxxer propaganda, medical quackery, QAnon, global cooling, lizard people, robot overlords and [odder] things you’ve probably never heard of. Last month, YouTube said it would stop recommending “content that could misinform users in harmful ways—videos promoting a phony miracle cure for a serious illness, claiming the earth is flat, or making blatantly false claims about historic events like 9/11.” But the conspiracy videos continue to bubble up...
YouTube likes to say that this problematic stuff is “less than one percent of the content on YouTube.” This is true, simply because there is so much stuff on YouTube... But that doesn’t mean a smallish number of videos can’t assemble a vast audience. The deeper argument that YouTube is making is that conspiracy videos on the platform are just a kind of mistake. But the conspiratorial mind-set is threaded through the social fabric of YouTube. In fact, it’s intrinsic to the production economy of the site.
YouTube offers infinite opportunities to create, a closed ecosystem, an opaque algorithm, and the chance for a very small number of people to make a very large amount of money... [This is] why conspiracy videos get purchase on the site, and why they will be very hard to uproot. Inside each content creator on the late-capitalist internet, a tiny flame of conspiracy burns.
The internet was supposed to set media free, which, for the content creator, should have removed all barriers to fame. But it did this for everyone, and suddenly every corner of the internet was a barrel of crabs, a hurly-burly of dumb, fierce competition from which only a select few [scramble] out. They are plucked from above by the recommendation algorithm, which bestows the local currency (views) for reasons that no one can quite explain. This is the central question of the failing YouTuber: Is my content being suppressed?
I’m not above this [sort of] thinking. No one who [posts] on the internet is. Watch your story sink while another similar one rises to the top, and you, too, will wonder… It’s probably just random flux or luck, but that doesn’t make it feel less weird. As the psychologist Rob Brotherton [argues], “Our ancestors’ legacy to us is a brain programmed to see coincidence and infer cause.” And what that means, Brotherton says, is that “sometimes, [buying] into a conspiracy is the cognitive equivalent of seeing meaning in randomness.”
And what place introduces us to a more random distribution of viewlessness and extreme popularity than YouTube?... Creators are responsible for YouTube’s massive revenues, and yet they are individually powerless to dictate the terms of their relationship, even strung together in so-called multichannel networks of creators...The content-production system has created a kind of conspiracist politics that is native to YouTube. It’s a creepy circle... As the vast majority of YouTubers are failing at YouTube, there is a constant production line minting people who feel wronged...
So it’s not that conspiracy content made YouTube viewers more prone to believe conspiracies. It’s that the [mechanics] of content production on YouTube itself made conspiracy content more likely to be created and viewed. And these forces have reinforced each other for years, hardening them against the forms of control that YouTube can exert.
1) What, according to the author, is the flaw in YouTube’s deeper argument mentioned in the 2nd paragraph?
(1) 1% of YouTube is still a very high number of videos.
(2) The conspiracy mindset is inherent to YouTube’s working environment.
(3) YouTube is trying to convince people that conspiracy content is a mere aberration.
(4) Conspiracy videos might be only 1% of the content, but they can gather a large audience.
This question is a Direct Single question – the author mentions YouTube's arguments as well the issues with them in the second paragraph. The deeper argument is the second one mentioned (conspiracy videos on the platform are just a kind of mistake). The flaw (issue) with this argument is directly mentioned in the next sentence (But the conspiratorial mind-set is threaded through the social fabric of YouTube). This helps us infer that option (2) is the correct choice.
Options (1) and (4) describe the flaw for the first argument, and hence, can be eliminated.
Option (3) describes the deeper argument, not the flaw in the argument, and hence, can be eliminated.
You should be careful to find the relevant answer for the question asked. You can see here that all the options are factually correct, but only option (2) answers the question asked. Thus, it is the correct choice.
Answer: (2) The conspiracy mindset is inherent to YouTube’s working environment.
2) How did the internet setting media free impact YouTube content creators negatively?
(1) There is now intense competition to make the best videos.
(2) What started as fun has transitioned into a desperate chase for views and revenues.
(3) Only a few people are selected by the recommendation algorithm.
(4) There is a lot of competition as anyone can become a content creator.
This is mentioned in option (4), which is the correct choice.
Option (1) is close, but is factually incorrect, as best videos are not mentioned in this passage. In fact, the author says that that no one can quite explain the reasons for the recommendation algorithm selecting one video over the others. Therefore, we can eliminate option (1).
Options (2) and (3) are about YouTube's impact, whereas the question is about the negative impact of the internet. Thus, we can eliminate these two options, and select option (4) as the correct choice.
Answer: (4) There is a lot of competition as anyone can become a content creator.
3) Which of the following is not given as a reason for people creating or watching conspiracy theories?
(1) Evolution has resulted in humans chasing cause and effect.
(2) There is a lot of randomness in YouTube content recommendations.
(3) YouTube content creators are heavily incentivised to create any content which will garner more views.
(4) The YouTube ecosystem leads to a lot of content creators failing to garner views and make money.
Option (1) is mentioned in the fifth paragraph, where the author tells us that our ancestors (i.e. evolution) have left us a brain that infers cause even without one. Therefore, we can eliminate this option.
Option (2) is mentioned multiple times, the strongest being what place introduces us to a more random distribution of viewlessness and extreme popularity than YouTube in the penultimate paragraph. Thus, this option can also be eliminated?
Option (3) is not mentioned in the passage and hence, is the correct choice.
Option (4) is mentioned in the fourth paragraph (fierce competition from which only a select few [scramble] out) and in the penultimate paragraph (the vast majority of YouTubers are failing at YouTube). Thus, this option can also be eliminated.
Answer: (3) YouTube content creators are heavily incentivised to create any content which will garner more views.
4) Why does the author call a conspiracy “the cognitive equivalent of seeing meaning in randomness”?
(1) A conspiracy misleads us in seeing patterns where there are none.
(2) Only the smartest people can make sense of randomness.
(3) We are destined to keep chasing meaning in a random universe, and conspiracies are no different.
(4) YouTube’s recommendation algorithm is opaque, like our random universe.
Option (1) explains this meaning clearly, using the word patterns for meaning or cause.
Option (2) is not factual, as we do not know that smart people will not fall prey to this evolutionary error.
Option (3) is harsh, and extrapolates the meaning to the entire universe, which is not given in the paragraph.
Option (4) does not explain the meaning as well option (1), it merely compares YouTube's algorithm with the universe. As we do not know if the entire universe is random, we cannot select this option.
Therefore, we can eliminate the other options and select option (1) as the correct choice.
Answer: (1) A conspiracy misleads us in seeing patterns where there are none.
[Let's try cataloging the conspiracies on YouTube:] fake moon landing, flat Earth, 9/11 stuff, the Illuminati, anti-vaxxer propaganda, medical quackery, QAnon, global cooling, lizard people, robot overlords and [odder] things you’ve probably never heard of. Last month, YouTube said it would stop recommending “content that could misinform users in harmful ways—videos promoting a phony miracle cure for a serious illness, claiming the earth is flat, or making blatantly false claims about historic events like 9/11.” But the conspiracy videos continue to bubble up...
YouTube likes to say that this problematic stuff is “less than one percent of the content on YouTube.” This is true, simply because there is so much stuff on YouTube... But that doesn’t mean a smallish number of videos can’t assemble a vast audience. The deeper argument that YouTube is making is that conspiracy videos on the platform are just a kind of mistake. But the conspiratorial mind-set is threaded through the social fabric of YouTube. In fact, it’s intrinsic to the production economy of the site.
YouTube offers infinite opportunities to create, a closed ecosystem, an opaque algorithm, and the chance for a very small number of people to make a very large amount of money... [This is] why conspiracy videos get purchase on the site, and why they will be very hard to uproot. Inside each content creator on the late-capitalist internet, a tiny flame of conspiracy burns.
The internet was supposed to set media free, which, for the content creator, should have removed all barriers to fame. But it did this for everyone, and suddenly every corner of the internet was a barrel of crabs, a hurly-burly of dumb, fierce competition from which only a select few [scramble] out. They are plucked from above by the recommendation algorithm, which bestows the local currency (views) for reasons that no one can quite explain. This is the central question of the failing YouTuber: Is my content being suppressed?
I’m not above this [sort of] thinking. No one who [posts] on the internet is. Watch your story sink while another similar one rises to the top, and you, too, will wonder… It’s probably just random flux or luck, but that doesn’t make it feel less weird. As the psychologist Rob Brotherton [argues], “Our ancestors’ legacy to us is a brain programmed to see coincidence and infer cause.” And what that means, Brotherton says, is that “sometimes, [buying] into a conspiracy is the cognitive equivalent of seeing meaning in randomness.”
And what place introduces us to a more random distribution of viewlessness and extreme popularity than YouTube?... Creators are responsible for YouTube’s massive revenues, and yet they are individually powerless to dictate the terms of their relationship, even strung together in so-called multichannel networks of creators...The content-production system has created a kind of conspiracist politics that is native to YouTube. It’s a creepy circle... As the vast majority of YouTubers are failing at YouTube, there is a constant production line minting people who feel wronged...
So it’s not that conspiracy content made YouTube viewers more prone to believe conspiracies. It’s that the [mechanics] of content production on YouTube itself made conspiracy content more likely to be created and viewed. And these forces have reinforced each other for years, hardening them against the forms of control that YouTube can exert.
1) What, according to the author, is the flaw in YouTube’s deeper argument mentioned in the 2nd paragraph?
(1) 1% of YouTube is still a very high number of videos.
(2) The conspiracy mindset is inherent to YouTube’s working environment.
(3) YouTube is trying to convince people that conspiracy content is a mere aberration.
(4) Conspiracy videos might be only 1% of the content, but they can gather a large audience.
Solution
This passage is about YouTube being unable to control conspiracy theories. The author makes the case that this is primarily because of YouTube's ecosystem and opaque algorithm.This question is a Direct Single question – the author mentions YouTube's arguments as well the issues with them in the second paragraph. The deeper argument is the second one mentioned (conspiracy videos on the platform are just a kind of mistake). The flaw (issue) with this argument is directly mentioned in the next sentence (But the conspiratorial mind-set is threaded through the social fabric of YouTube). This helps us infer that option (2) is the correct choice.
Options (1) and (4) describe the flaw for the first argument, and hence, can be eliminated.
Option (3) describes the deeper argument, not the flaw in the argument, and hence, can be eliminated.
You should be careful to find the relevant answer for the question asked. You can see here that all the options are factually correct, but only option (2) answers the question asked. Thus, it is the correct choice.
Answer: (2) The conspiracy mindset is inherent to YouTube’s working environment.
2) How did the internet setting media free impact YouTube content creators negatively?
(1) There is now intense competition to make the best videos.
(2) What started as fun has transitioned into a desperate chase for views and revenues.
(3) Only a few people are selected by the recommendation algorithm.
(4) There is a lot of competition as anyone can become a content creator.
Solution
This is another Direct Single question, which can be solved immediately after reading the fourth paragraph. We need to find out how the internet has negatively impacted YouTube content creators. The author tells us that the internet has set media free, allowing content creators to create as much content as they want to. The negative impact is that this has enabled everyone in the world to create content, leading to fierce competition (the author has used crabs as an analogy for competitive content creators).This is mentioned in option (4), which is the correct choice.
Option (1) is close, but is factually incorrect, as best videos are not mentioned in this passage. In fact, the author says that that no one can quite explain the reasons for the recommendation algorithm selecting one video over the others. Therefore, we can eliminate option (1).
Options (2) and (3) are about YouTube's impact, whereas the question is about the negative impact of the internet. Thus, we can eliminate these two options, and select option (4) as the correct choice.
Answer: (4) There is a lot of competition as anyone can become a content creator.
3) Which of the following is not given as a reason for people creating or watching conspiracy theories?
(1) Evolution has resulted in humans chasing cause and effect.
(2) There is a lot of randomness in YouTube content recommendations.
(3) YouTube content creators are heavily incentivised to create any content which will garner more views.
(4) The YouTube ecosystem leads to a lot of content creators failing to garner views and make money.
Solution
This is a direct multiple question, and we can solve it by validating each option with the passage. Any option that is given can be eliminated.Option (1) is mentioned in the fifth paragraph, where the author tells us that our ancestors (i.e. evolution) have left us a brain that infers cause even without one. Therefore, we can eliminate this option.
Option (2) is mentioned multiple times, the strongest being what place introduces us to a more random distribution of viewlessness and extreme popularity than YouTube in the penultimate paragraph. Thus, this option can also be eliminated?
Option (3) is not mentioned in the passage and hence, is the correct choice.
Option (4) is mentioned in the fourth paragraph (fierce competition from which only a select few [scramble] out) and in the penultimate paragraph (the vast majority of YouTubers are failing at YouTube). Thus, this option can also be eliminated.
Answer: (3) YouTube content creators are heavily incentivised to create any content which will garner more views.
4) Why does the author call a conspiracy “the cognitive equivalent of seeing meaning in randomness”?
(1) A conspiracy misleads us in seeing patterns where there are none.
(2) Only the smartest people can make sense of randomness.
(3) We are destined to keep chasing meaning in a random universe, and conspiracies are no different.
(4) YouTube’s recommendation algorithm is opaque, like our random universe.
Solution
This is a meaning question, and we can solve the question after reading the relevant paragraph. In the fifth paragraph, the author explains that we have evolved to see meaning or cause even in randomness or coincidence. This means that we are inferring a causal relationship even where there isn't one. Let us read through the options to find one which has the same meaning.Option (1) explains this meaning clearly, using the word patterns for meaning or cause.
Option (2) is not factual, as we do not know that smart people will not fall prey to this evolutionary error.
Option (3) is harsh, and extrapolates the meaning to the entire universe, which is not given in the paragraph.
Option (4) does not explain the meaning as well option (1), it merely compares YouTube's algorithm with the universe. As we do not know if the entire universe is random, we cannot select this option.
Therefore, we can eliminate the other options and select option (1) as the correct choice.
Answer: (1) A conspiracy misleads us in seeing patterns where there are none.
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