BackALL MODULES
CAT 2025 Lesson : Verbal: Jan '25 to Feb '25 - RC Live Solving - 17 Feb 2025
The passage below is accompanied by a set of questions. Choose the best answer to each question.
[CAT 2020 Slot 1]
Few realise that the government of China, governing an empire of some 60 million people during the Tang dynasty (618–907), implemented a complex financial system that recognised grain, coins and textiles as money.... Coins did have certain advantages: they were durable, recognisable and provided a convenient medium of exchange, especially for smaller transactions. However, there were also disadvantages. A continuing shortage of copper meant that government mints could not produce enough coins for the entire empire, to the extent that for most of the dynasty’s history, coins constituted only a tenth of the money supply. One of the main objections to calls for taxes to be paid in coin was that peasant producers who could weave cloth or grow grain – the other two major currencies of the Tang – would not be able to produce coins, and therefore would not be able to pay their taxes. . . .
As coins had advantages and disadvantages, so too did textiles. If in circulation for a long period of time, they could show signs of wear and tear. Stained, faded and torn bolts of textiles had less value than a brand new bolt. Furthermore, a full bolt had a particular value. If consumers cut textiles into smaller pieces to buy or sell something worth less than a full bolt, that, too, greatly lessened the value of the textiles. Unlike coins, textiles could not be used for small transactions; as [an official] noted, textiles could not “be exchanged by the foot and the inch” . . .
But textiles had some advantages over coins. For a start, textile production was widespread and there were fewer problems with the supply of textiles. For large transactions, textiles weighed less than their equivalent in coins since a string of coins . . .could weigh as much as 4 kg. Furthermore, the dimensions of a bolt of silk held remarkably steady from the third to the tenth century: 56 cm wide and 12 m long... The values of different textiles were also more stable than the fluctuating values of coins. . . .
The government also required the use of textiles for large transactions. Coins, on the other hand, were better suited for smaller transactions, and possibly, given the costs of transporting coins, for a more local usage. Grain, because it rotted easily, was not used nearly as much as coins and textiles, but taxpayers were required to pay grain to the government as a share of their annual tax obligations, and official salaries were expressed in weights of grain. . . .
In actuality, our own currency system today has some similarities even as it is changing in front of our eyes.... We have cash – coins for small transactions like paying for parking at a meter, and banknotes for other items; cheques and debit/credit cards for other, often larger, types of payments. At the same time, we are shifting to electronic banking and making payments online. Some young people never use cash [and] do not know how to write a cheque . . .
1) According to the passage, the modern currency system shares all the following features with that of the Tang, EXCEPT that:
(1) it uses different materials as currency.
(2) it is undergoing transformation.
(3) its currencies fluctuate in value over time.
(4) it uses different currencies for different situations.
2) In the context of the passage, which one of the following can be inferred with regard to the use of currency during the Tang era?
(1) Currency that deteriorated easily was not used for official work.
(2) Copper coins were more valuable and durable than textiles.
(3) Currency usage was similar to that of modern times.
(4) Grains were the most used currency because of government requirements.
3) When discussing textiles as currency in the Tang period, the author uses the words “steady” and “stable” to indicate all of the following EXCEPT:
(1) reliable transportation.
(2) reliable supply.
(3) reliable measurements.
(4) reliable quality.
4) During the Tang period, which one of the following would not be an economically sound decision for a small purchase in the local market that is worth one-eighth of a bolt of cloth?
(1) Paying with a faded bolt of cloth that has approximately the same value.
(2) Making the payment with the appropriate weight of grain.
(3) Using coins issued by the government to make the payment.
(4) Cutting one-eighth of the fabric from a new bolt to pay the amount.
The passage below is accompanied by a set of questions. Choose the best answer to each question.
[CAT 2020 Slot 3]
I’ve been following the economic crisis for more than two years now. I began working on the subject as part of the background to a novel, and soon realized that I had stumbled across the most interesting story I’ve ever found. While I was beginning to work on it, the British bank Northern Rock blew up, and it became clear that, as I wrote at the time, “If our laws are not extended to control the new kinds of super-powerful, super-complex, and potentially super-risky investment vehicles, they will one day cause a financial disaster of global-systemic proportions.”... I was both right and too late, because all the groundwork for the crisis had already been done—though the sluggishness of the world’s governments, in not preparing for the great unraveling of autumn 2008, was then and still is stupefying. But this is the first reason why I wrote this book: because what’s happened is extraordinarily interesting. It is an absolutely amazing story, full of human interest and drama, one whose byways of mathematics, economics, and psychology are both central to the story of the last decades and mysteriously unknown to the general public. We have heard a lot about “the two cultures” of science and the arts—we heard a particularly large amount about it in 2009, because it was the fiftieth anniversary of the speech during which C. P. Snow first used the phrase. But I’m not sure the idea of a huge gap between science and the arts is as true as it was half a century ago—it’s certainly true, for instance, that a general reader who wants to pick up an education in the fundamentals of science will find it easier than ever before. It seems to me that there is a much bigger gap between the world of finance and that of the general public and that there is a need to narrow that gap, if the financial industry is not to be a kind of priesthood, administering to its own mysteries and feared and resented by the rest of us. Many bright, literate people have no idea about all sorts of economic basics, of a type that financial insiders take as elementary facts of how the world works. I am an outsider to finance and economics, and my hope is that I can talk across that gulf.
My need to understand is the same as yours, whoever you are. That’s one of the strangest ironies of this story: after decades in which the ideology of the Western world was personally and economically individualistic, we’ve suddenly been hit by a crisis which shows in the starkest terms that whether we like it or not—and there are large parts of it that you would have to be crazy to like—we’re all in this together. The aftermath of the crisis is going to dominate the economics and politics of our societies for at least a decade to come and perhaps longer.
5) Which one of the following best captures the main argument of the last paragraph of the passage?
(1) The aftermath of the crisis will strengthen the central ideology of individualism in the Western world.
(2) Whoever you are, you would be crazy to think that there is no crisis.
(3) In the decades to come, other ideologies will emerge in the aftermath of the crisis.
(4) The ideology of individualism must be set aside in order to deal with the crisis.
6) Which one of the following, if true, would be an accurate inference from the first sentence of the passage?
(1) The author has witnessed many economic crises by travelling a lot for two years.
(2) The author’s preoccupation with the economic crisis is not less than two years old.
(3) The author is preoccupied with the economic crisis because he is being followed.
(4) The economic crisis outlasted the author’s preoccupation with it.
7) Which one of the following, if false, could be seen as supporting the author’s claims?
(1) The economic crisis was not a failure of collective action to rectify economic problems.
(2) Most people are yet to gain any real understanding of the workings of the financial world.
(3) The huge gap between science and the arts has steadily narrowed over time.
(4) The global economic crisis lasted for more than two years.
8) All of the following, if true, could be seen as supporting the arguments in the passage, EXCEPT:
(1) The failure of economic systems does not necessarily mean the failure of their ideologies.
(2) The story of the economic crisis is also one about international relations, global financial security, and mass psychology.
(3) The difficulty with understanding financial matters is that they have become so arcane.
(4) Economic crises could be averted by changing prevailing ideologies and beliefs.
9) According to the passage, the author is likely to be supportive of which one of the following programmes?
(1) An educational curriculum that promotes developing financial literacy in the masses.
(2) The complete nationalisation of all financial institutions.
(3) An educational curriculum that promotes economic research.
(4) Economic policies that are more sensitively calibrated to the fluctuations of the market.
[CAT 2020 Slot 1]
Few realise that the government of China, governing an empire of some 60 million people during the Tang dynasty (618–907), implemented a complex financial system that recognised grain, coins and textiles as money.... Coins did have certain advantages: they were durable, recognisable and provided a convenient medium of exchange, especially for smaller transactions. However, there were also disadvantages. A continuing shortage of copper meant that government mints could not produce enough coins for the entire empire, to the extent that for most of the dynasty’s history, coins constituted only a tenth of the money supply. One of the main objections to calls for taxes to be paid in coin was that peasant producers who could weave cloth or grow grain – the other two major currencies of the Tang – would not be able to produce coins, and therefore would not be able to pay their taxes. . . .
As coins had advantages and disadvantages, so too did textiles. If in circulation for a long period of time, they could show signs of wear and tear. Stained, faded and torn bolts of textiles had less value than a brand new bolt. Furthermore, a full bolt had a particular value. If consumers cut textiles into smaller pieces to buy or sell something worth less than a full bolt, that, too, greatly lessened the value of the textiles. Unlike coins, textiles could not be used for small transactions; as [an official] noted, textiles could not “be exchanged by the foot and the inch” . . .
But textiles had some advantages over coins. For a start, textile production was widespread and there were fewer problems with the supply of textiles. For large transactions, textiles weighed less than their equivalent in coins since a string of coins . . .could weigh as much as 4 kg. Furthermore, the dimensions of a bolt of silk held remarkably steady from the third to the tenth century: 56 cm wide and 12 m long... The values of different textiles were also more stable than the fluctuating values of coins. . . .
The government also required the use of textiles for large transactions. Coins, on the other hand, were better suited for smaller transactions, and possibly, given the costs of transporting coins, for a more local usage. Grain, because it rotted easily, was not used nearly as much as coins and textiles, but taxpayers were required to pay grain to the government as a share of their annual tax obligations, and official salaries were expressed in weights of grain. . . .
In actuality, our own currency system today has some similarities even as it is changing in front of our eyes.... We have cash – coins for small transactions like paying for parking at a meter, and banknotes for other items; cheques and debit/credit cards for other, often larger, types of payments. At the same time, we are shifting to electronic banking and making payments online. Some young people never use cash [and] do not know how to write a cheque . . .
1) According to the passage, the modern currency system shares all the following features with that of the Tang, EXCEPT that:
(1) it uses different materials as currency.
(2) it is undergoing transformation.
(3) its currencies fluctuate in value over time.
(4) it uses different currencies for different situations.
2) In the context of the passage, which one of the following can be inferred with regard to the use of currency during the Tang era?
(1) Currency that deteriorated easily was not used for official work.
(2) Copper coins were more valuable and durable than textiles.
(3) Currency usage was similar to that of modern times.
(4) Grains were the most used currency because of government requirements.
3) When discussing textiles as currency in the Tang period, the author uses the words “steady” and “stable” to indicate all of the following EXCEPT:
(1) reliable transportation.
(2) reliable supply.
(3) reliable measurements.
(4) reliable quality.
4) During the Tang period, which one of the following would not be an economically sound decision for a small purchase in the local market that is worth one-eighth of a bolt of cloth?
(1) Paying with a faded bolt of cloth that has approximately the same value.
(2) Making the payment with the appropriate weight of grain.
(3) Using coins issued by the government to make the payment.
(4) Cutting one-eighth of the fabric from a new bolt to pay the amount.
The passage below is accompanied by a set of questions. Choose the best answer to each question.
[CAT 2020 Slot 3]
I’ve been following the economic crisis for more than two years now. I began working on the subject as part of the background to a novel, and soon realized that I had stumbled across the most interesting story I’ve ever found. While I was beginning to work on it, the British bank Northern Rock blew up, and it became clear that, as I wrote at the time, “If our laws are not extended to control the new kinds of super-powerful, super-complex, and potentially super-risky investment vehicles, they will one day cause a financial disaster of global-systemic proportions.”... I was both right and too late, because all the groundwork for the crisis had already been done—though the sluggishness of the world’s governments, in not preparing for the great unraveling of autumn 2008, was then and still is stupefying. But this is the first reason why I wrote this book: because what’s happened is extraordinarily interesting. It is an absolutely amazing story, full of human interest and drama, one whose byways of mathematics, economics, and psychology are both central to the story of the last decades and mysteriously unknown to the general public. We have heard a lot about “the two cultures” of science and the arts—we heard a particularly large amount about it in 2009, because it was the fiftieth anniversary of the speech during which C. P. Snow first used the phrase. But I’m not sure the idea of a huge gap between science and the arts is as true as it was half a century ago—it’s certainly true, for instance, that a general reader who wants to pick up an education in the fundamentals of science will find it easier than ever before. It seems to me that there is a much bigger gap between the world of finance and that of the general public and that there is a need to narrow that gap, if the financial industry is not to be a kind of priesthood, administering to its own mysteries and feared and resented by the rest of us. Many bright, literate people have no idea about all sorts of economic basics, of a type that financial insiders take as elementary facts of how the world works. I am an outsider to finance and economics, and my hope is that I can talk across that gulf.
My need to understand is the same as yours, whoever you are. That’s one of the strangest ironies of this story: after decades in which the ideology of the Western world was personally and economically individualistic, we’ve suddenly been hit by a crisis which shows in the starkest terms that whether we like it or not—and there are large parts of it that you would have to be crazy to like—we’re all in this together. The aftermath of the crisis is going to dominate the economics and politics of our societies for at least a decade to come and perhaps longer.
5) Which one of the following best captures the main argument of the last paragraph of the passage?
(1) The aftermath of the crisis will strengthen the central ideology of individualism in the Western world.
(2) Whoever you are, you would be crazy to think that there is no crisis.
(3) In the decades to come, other ideologies will emerge in the aftermath of the crisis.
(4) The ideology of individualism must be set aside in order to deal with the crisis.
6) Which one of the following, if true, would be an accurate inference from the first sentence of the passage?
(1) The author has witnessed many economic crises by travelling a lot for two years.
(2) The author’s preoccupation with the economic crisis is not less than two years old.
(3) The author is preoccupied with the economic crisis because he is being followed.
(4) The economic crisis outlasted the author’s preoccupation with it.
7) Which one of the following, if false, could be seen as supporting the author’s claims?
(1) The economic crisis was not a failure of collective action to rectify economic problems.
(2) Most people are yet to gain any real understanding of the workings of the financial world.
(3) The huge gap between science and the arts has steadily narrowed over time.
(4) The global economic crisis lasted for more than two years.
8) All of the following, if true, could be seen as supporting the arguments in the passage, EXCEPT:
(1) The failure of economic systems does not necessarily mean the failure of their ideologies.
(2) The story of the economic crisis is also one about international relations, global financial security, and mass psychology.
(3) The difficulty with understanding financial matters is that they have become so arcane.
(4) Economic crises could be averted by changing prevailing ideologies and beliefs.
9) According to the passage, the author is likely to be supportive of which one of the following programmes?
(1) An educational curriculum that promotes developing financial literacy in the masses.
(2) The complete nationalisation of all financial institutions.
(3) An educational curriculum that promotes economic research.
(4) Economic policies that are more sensitively calibrated to the fluctuations of the market.
Want to read the full content
Unlock this content & enjoy all the features of the platform
Subscribe Now
