Understand the POV method for CAT Reading Comprehension with examples and guided practice to identify the author’s viewpoint accurately.

The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
[CAT 2023 Slot 1]

Many human phenomena and characteristics – such as behaviors, beliefs, economies, genes, incomes, life expectancies, and other things – are influenced both by geographic factors and by non-geographic factors. Geographic factors mean physical and biological factors tied to geographic location, including climate, the distributions of wild plant and animal species, soils, and topography. Non-geographic factors include those factors subsumed under the term culture, other factors subsumed under the term history, and decisions by individual people. . . .

[T]he differences between the current economies of North and South Korea . . . cannot be attributed to the modest environmental differences between [them] . . . They are instead due entirely to the different [government] policies . . . At the opposite extreme, the Inuit and other traditional peoples living north of the Arctic Circle developed warm fur clothes but no agriculture, while equatorial lowland peoples around the world never developed warm fur clothes but often did develop agriculture. The explanation is straightforwardly geographic, rather than a cultural or historical quirk unrelated to geography. . . . Aboriginal Australia remained the sole continent occupied only by hunter/gatherers and with no indigenous farming or herding . . . [Here the] explanation is biogeographic: the Australian continent has no domesticable native animal species and few domesticable native plant species. Instead, the crops and domestic animals that now make Australia a food and wool exporter are all non-native (mainly Eurasian) species such as sheep, wheat, and grapes, brought to Australia by overseas colonists.

Today, no scholar would be silly enough to deny that culture, history, and individual choices play a big role in many human phenomena. Scholars don't react to cultural, historical, and individual-agent explanations by denouncing "cultural determinism," "historical determinism," or "individual determinism," and then thinking no further. But many scholars do react to any explanation invoking some geographic role, by denouncing "geographic determinism" . . .

Several reasons may underlie this widespread but nonsensical view. One reason is that some geographic explanations advanced a century ago were racist, thereby causing all geographic explanations to become tainted by racist associations in the minds of many scholars other than geographers. But many genetic, historical, psychological, and anthropological explanations advanced a century ago were also racist, yet the validity of newer non-racist genetic etc. explanations is widely accepted today.

Another reason for reflex rejection of geographic explanations is that historians have a tradition, in their discipline, of stressing the role of contingency (a favorite word among historians) based on individual decisions and chance. Often that view is warranted . . . But often, too, that view is unwarranted. The development of warm fur clothes among the Inuit living north of the Arctic Circle was not because one influential Inuit leader persuaded other Inuit in 1783 to adopt warm fur clothes, for no good environmental reason.

A third reason is that geographic explanations usually depend on detailed technical facts of geography and other fields of scholarship . . . Most historians and economists don't acquire that detailed knowledge as part of the professional training.

1) All of the following can be inferred from the passage EXCEPT:

(1) agricultural practices changed drastically in the Australian continent after it was colonised.
(2) individual dictat and contingency were not the causal factors for the use of fur clothing in some very cold climates.
(3) while most human phenomena result from culture and individual choice, some have bio-geographic origins.
(4) several academic studies of human phenomena in the past involved racist interpretations.

2) All of the following are advanced by the author as reasons why non-geographers disregard geographic influences on human phenomena EXCEPT their:

(1) dismissal of explanations that involve geographical causes for human behaviour.
(2) belief in the central role of humans, unrelated to physical surroundings, in influencing phenomena.
(3) lingering impressions of past geographic analyses that were politically offensive.
(4) disciplinary training which typically does not include technical knowledge of geography.

3) The examples of the Inuit and Aboriginal Australians are offered in the passage to show:

(1) how environmental factors lead to comparatively divergent paths in livelihoods and development.
(2) human resourcefulness across cultures in adapting to their surroundings.
(3) how physical circumstances can dictate human behaviour and cultures.
(4) that despite geographical isolation, traditional societies were self-sufficient and adaptive.

4) The author criticises scholars who are not geographers for all of the following reasons EXCEPT:
(1) their rejection of the role of biogeographic factors in social and cultural phenomena.
(2) their outdated interpretations of past cultural and historical phenomena.
(3) their labelling of geographic explanations as deterministic.
(4) the importance they place on the role of individual decisions when studying human phenomena.

The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
[CAT 2024 Slot 3]

Moutai has been the global booze sensation of the decade. A bottle of its Flying Fairy which sold in the 1980s for the equivalent of a dollar now retails for $400. Moutai’s listed shares have soared by almost 600% in the past five years, outpacing the likes of Amazon. . . .

It does this while disregarding every Western marketing mantra. It is not global, has meagre digital sales and does not appeal to millennials. It scores pitifully on environmental, social and governance measures. In the Boy Scout world of Western business it would leave a bad taste, in more ways than one.

Moutai owes its intoxicating success to three factors—not all of them easy to emulate. First, it profits from Chinese nationalism. Moutai is known as the “national liquor”. It was used to raise spirits and disinfect wounds in Mao’s Long March. It was Premier Zhou Enlai’s favourite tipple, shared with Richard Nixon in 1972. Its centuries-old craftsmanship—it is distilled eight times and stored for years in earthenware jars—is a source of national pride. It also claims to be hangover-proof, which would make it an invention to rival gunpowder....

Second, it chose to serve China’s super-rich rather than its middle class. Markets are littered with the corpses of firms that could not compete in the cut-throat battle for Chinese middle-class wallets. And the country’s premium market is massive—at 73m-strong, bigger than the population of France, notes Euan McLeish of Bernstein, an investment firm, and still less crowded with prestige brands than advanced economies. Moutai is to these well-heeled drinkers what vintage champagne is to the rest of the world.....

Third, Moutai looks beyond affluent millennials and digital natives. The elderly and the middle-aged, it found, can be just as lucrative. Its biggest market now is (male) drinkers in their mid-30s. Many have no siblings, thanks to four decades of China’s one-child policy—which also means their elderly parents can splash out on weddings and banquets. Moutai is often a guest of honour.

Moutai has succeeded thanks to nationalism, elitism and ageism, in other words—not in spite of this unholy trinity. But it faces risks. The government is its largest shareholder—and a meddlesome one. It appears to want prices to remain stable. Exorbitantly priced booze is at odds with its professed socialist ideals. Yet minority investors—including many foreign funds—lament that Moutai’s wholesale price is a third of what it sells for in shops. Raising it could boost the company’s profits further. Instead, in what some see as a travesty of corporate governance, its majority owner has plans to set up its own sales channel.....

In the long run, its biggest risk may be millennials. As they grow older, health concerns, work-life balance and the desire for more wholesome pursuits than binge-drinking may curb the “Ganbei!” toasting culture [heavy drinking] on which so much of the demand for Moutai rests. For the time being, though, the party goes on.

1) Which one of the following is both a reason for Moutai’s success as well as a possible threat to that success?

1. Its appeal to the rich.
2. Government involvement in its business.
3. Its appeal to the older age group.
4. Chinese love of liquor filled celebration.

2) In the context of the passage, it is most likely that the author refers to Moutai’s marketing strategy as “the unholy trinity” because

1. there is nothing holy about marketing techniques for liquor.
2. it exposes the firm to long term risks.
3. it contradicts the Western strategy of marketing.
4. it profits from Chinese nationalist feelings.

3) The phrase “would make it an invention to rival gunpowder” has been used in the passage in a sense that is

1. metaphorical.
2. substantive.
3. synonymical.
4. literal.

4) In the context of the passage we can infer that to succeed in the liquor industry in China, a marketing firm must consider all of the following factors affecting the Chinese liquor market EXCEPT that

1. there is money to be made from marketing to the middle class.
2. the government may control the pricing of products.
3. there are few competitors to meet the demands of high end liquor consumers.
4. the competition for winning over the middle class is very stiff.