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CAT 2025 Lesson : Verbal: Mar '25 to Apr '25 - RC Live Solving - 4 Mar 2025
Read the following passage & answer the questions that follow:
If a friend confided in you they had a fear of door handles or toenail clippings, would you laugh or sympathise? The instinctive reaction might be the former, but we can all get phobias of absolutely anything, and some can be debilitating...
Phobias are described as an overwhelming and debilitating fear of something. They are more pronounced than just fears alone. A dislike of rats, for example, is pretty common. But if it extends to musophobia (a fear of mice or rats), then it can be life-changing. “One person called our helpline who was so scared of rats they couldn’t even say the word ‘rat’ itself,” explains Trilby Breckman, a development manager at the charity organisation Triumph Over Phobia (TOP UK). “It was stopping her going out for fear of seeing one.”
Breckman cites similar stories, including a teenager with a phobia of [chips] who struggled at social occasions. Another woman had a phobia of bananas, which caused problems at work and meant she couldn’t go to the supermarket without panicking. ...
The problem with phobias is that they often don’t make sense. [People don’t realise it’s the subconscious] where we have patterns and responses around spiders or whatever the phobia might be, which are triggered and make us feel uncomfortable. Delving beneath the surface to reveal the deeper – and potentially darker – causes can be a disturbing but ultimately rewarding journey. The “fast phobia cure” is one common treatment method that targets the traumatic episode or experience that caused the phobia. It involves getting the phobic to reimagine the incident, but from a different perspective. “It’s like watching a film in the cinema, so they’re not inside the experience, but looking at it from a detached point of view,” explains Guy Baglow, the director of Mindspa phobia clinic... Baglow cites an interesting case of a woman who had a fear of spiders that stemmed from the second world war. “When she was a little girl, there was an air raid and she and her mum ran to the shelter in the garden. A loud bomb exploded nearby, she was absolutely terrified and screamed, and it was at that point that a spider dropped down in front of her face,” says Baglow. “Of course, the spider then became associated with that fear. So things that are in that emotional snapshot can also trigger the same response. It’s called pattern matching. We used fast phobia therapy to change how that memory was experienced and removed the phobic trigger.”...
Some phobias can even be life-threatening – such as a fear of needles. “This can be a real problem if someone has cancer or high blood pressure and needs injections,” says Nicky Lidbetter, chief executive of Anxiety UK. ...Overall, the more that can be done to raise awareness, the better. “We need to get to a stage where everyone can openly talk about their phobia problems without being ridiculed or judged,” says Lidbetter.
1) How is a phobia different from general fear?
(1) A phobia is more intense and overwhelming than fear.
(2) People can acquire a phobia of literally anything, including fruits.
(3) Phobia can be cured, unlike general fears.
(4) A phobia is more subconscious than general fear.
2) Which of the following can cause phobias, based on the passage?
(1) Rats or insects
(2) Chips or zucchinis
(3) Glass
(4) All of the above
3) Which of the following is not cited as an issue with phobias?
(1) It can stop the sufferer from going out of the house.
(2) It can prevent the sufferer from living a normal life.
(3) It can cause the sufferer to be detached.
(4) People who have phobias can be ridiculed by others.
4) According to the passage, which of the following can cause an illogical phobia?
(1) Associating a particular food with a negative occurrence or idea
(2) A random trigger during a genuinely scary event
(3) Anything, from insects to objects to food items
(4) Extrapolating a fear to something more pronounced
Read the following passage & answer the questions that follow:
“Work Hard. Have Fun. Make History.” [reads a sign above Amazon’s newest UK “fulfilment centre” (or warehouse)]. Inside lies more than 40,000 sq m of shelving, packing lines and millions of products... Pickers constantly, and more or less silently, walk up and down the tower’s lengthy aisles, pushing carts into which they deposit items purchased by someone, somewhere online. Founded at the dawn of the web in 1994, Amazon is now reportedly worth 247bn (£157bn). But the company is not, in fact, hugely profitable. What keeps Amazon afloat? As for any business with tight margins, efficiency is key...
When you order an item online, the Amazon system quickly works out where the item sits in its inventory, and dispatches a human picker to go fetch it. [“We make the task as simple as possible,” explains general manager Henry Low. One of the first things that strikes you] is that the products aren’t organised logically – For instance, products on shelves are not organised by category. Instead, they are placed on shelves as if by random. An HDMI cable lies near to five copies of some Harry Potter sheet music. A brand of baby’s bottle is across the aisle from a drain water diverter. But there is method to this apparent madness. “Imagine picking one model of HDMI cable from a shelf of hundreds of them,” says Low. The pickers are not meant to have to think too long about what they’re retrieving – the whole process is designed to be as streamlined as humanly possible.
When an item is collected by hand, the picker scans it with a handheld device to ensure that the correct object has been taken. And every item’s progress throughout the warehouse is constantly monitored thanks to a series of points at which it is scanned again – for example at the moment of being labelled with the customer’s name and address. ...
[The human element] is arguably the weak link in the efficiency chain, and new computer-based systems that promise to automate Amazon’s operations even further might one day take over the ferrying of products themselves. Kiva Systems is a little-known Amazon subsidiary which develops hi-tech warehouse robotics. Instead of human pickers going to and from shelves in a large space, the shelves themselves are mobile and travel on wheels to stationary pickers who simply lift off the required item. Dutifully, the robot shelves then return to their place...
And yet, [human involvement is], for the time being, still crucial and evident. Human workers [are also] responsible for packing products in boxes (the size of which is predetermined by an algorithm) and stuffing packing paper and vouchers in along with the purchased item... Later, of course, these packages will be driven to homes and businesses up and down the country by human drivers for delivery. Still, with Amazon now experimenting with the idea of delivery-by-drone, it’s not clear for how long exactly that part of the chain will go unmodified.
“Work Hard,” said the sign near the entrance. On the warehouse floor, it’s apparent that the largely anonymous people who handle your online purchases take the first part of this mantra seriously.
1. How does Amazon maintain efficiency?
(1) By using the work of as many humans as possible.
(2) By using technology to make the supply process efficient.
(3) By tracking the efficiency of its employees.
(4) By automating as many tasks as possible.
2. Why does Amazon not stack identical items together?
(1) It would be time-taking to find a particular item from many models.
(2) The workers can make mistakes and send out the wrong model.
(3) The products are stacked illogically, almost as if by random.
(4) Items which are ordered more commonly are stacked at the front of the warehouse.
3. Which of the following can be expected to continue to be carried out by humans in Amazon’s fulfilment centres?
(1) Picking the correct item.
(2) Packing the correct item.
(3) Scanning the correct item.
(4) Delivering the item to the buyer.
4. Why does the author state that “the human element is arguably the weak link in the efficiency chain”?
(1) Humans are slower that machines.
(2) Humans are prone to make errors.
(3) Kiva Systems’ robots are more efficient than Amazon’s workers.
(4) It is not given in the passage.
Read the following passage & answer the questions that follow:
[CAT 2017 Slot 1]
Understanding where you are in the world is a basic survival skill, which is why we, like most species come hard-wired with specialized brain areas to create cognitive maps of our surroundings. Where humans are unique, though, with the possible exception of honeybees, is that we try to communicate this understanding the world with others. We have a long history of doing this by drawing maps – the earliest version yet discovered were scrawled on cave walls 14,000 years ago. Human cultures have been drawing them on stone tablets, papyrus, paper and now computer screens ever since.
Given such a long history of human map-making, it is perhaps surprising that it is only within the last few hundred years that north has been consistently considered to be at the top. In fact, for much of human history, north almost never appeared at the top, according to Jerry Brotton, a map historian... “North was rarely put at the top for the simple fact that north is where darkness comes from,” he says. “West is also very unlikely to be put at the top because west is where the sun disappears.”
Confusingly, early Chinese maps seem to buck this trend. But, Brotton, says, even though they did have compasses at the time, that isn’t the reason that they placed north at the top. Early Chinese compasses were actually oriented to point south, which was considered to be more desirable than deepest darkest north. But in Chinese maps, the emperor, who lived in the north of the country was always put at the top of the map, with everyone else, his loyal subjects, looking up towards him. “In Chinese culture the Emperor looks south because it’s where the winds come from, it’s a good direction. North is not very good but you are in a position of the subjection to the emperor, so you look up to him,” says Brotton.
Given that each culture has a very different idea of who, or what, they should look upto it’s perhaps not surprising that there is very little consistency in which way early maps pointed. In ancient Egyptian times the top of the world was east, the position of sunrise. Early Islamic maps favoured south at the top because most of the early Muslim cultures were north of Mecca, so they imagined looking up (south) towards it Christian maps from the same era (called Mappa Mundi) put east at the top, towards the Garden of Eden and with Jerusalem in the centre.
So when did everyone get together and decide that north was the top? It’s tempting to put it down to European explorers like Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Megellan who were navigating by the North Star. But Brotton argues that these early explorers didn’t think of the world like that at all. “When Columbus describes the world it is in accordance with east being at the top,” he says “Columbus says he is going towards paradise, so his mentality is from a medieval mappa mundi.” We’ve got to remember, adds Brotton, that at the time, “no one knows what they are doing and where they are going.”
1) Which one of the following best describes what the passage is trying to do?
(1) It questions an explanation about how maps are designed.
(2) It corrects a misconception about the way maps are designed.
(3) It critiques a methodology used to create maps.
(4) It explores some myths about maps.
2) Early maps did NOT put north at the top for all the following reasons EXCEPT
(1) North was the source of darkness.
(2) South was favoured by some emperors.
(3) East and south were more important for religious reasons for some civilisations.
(4) East was considered by some civilisations to be a more positive direction.
3) According to the passage, early Chinese maps placed north at the top because
(1) The Chinese invented the compass and were aware of magnetic north.
(2) They wanted to show respect to the emperor.
(3) The Chinese emperor appreciated the winds from the south.
(4) North was considered the most desirable direction.
4) It can be inferred from the passage that European explorers like Columbus and Megellan
(1) Set the precedent for north-up maps.
(2) Navigated by the compass.
(3) Used an eastward orientation for religious reasons.
(4) Navigated with the help of early maps.
5) Which one of the following about the northern orientation of modern maps is asserted in the passage?
(1) The biggest contributory factor was the understanding of magnetic north.
(2) The biggest contributory factor was the role of European explorers.
(3) The biggest contributory factor was the influence of Christian maps.
(4) The biggest contributory factor is not stated in the passage.
6) The role of natural phenomena in influencing map-making conventions is seen most clearly in
(1) early Egyptian maps
(2) early Islamic maps
(3) early Chinese maps
(4) early Christian maps
Solution
1) (1) A phobia is more intense and overwhelming than fear.
2) (4) All of the above
3) (3) It can cause the sufferer to be detached.
4) (2) A random trigger during a genuinely scary event
1) (2) By using technology to make the supply process efficient.
2) (1) It would be time-taking to find a particular item from many models.
3) (2) Packing the correct item.
4) (4) It is not given in the passage.
1) (2) It corrects a misconception about the way maps are designed.
2) (2) South was favoured by some emperors.
3) (2) They wanted to show respect to the emperor.
4) (3) Used an eastward orientation for religious reasons.
5) (4) The biggest contributory factor is not stated in the passage.
6) (1) early Egyptian maps
If a friend confided in you they had a fear of door handles or toenail clippings, would you laugh or sympathise? The instinctive reaction might be the former, but we can all get phobias of absolutely anything, and some can be debilitating...
Phobias are described as an overwhelming and debilitating fear of something. They are more pronounced than just fears alone. A dislike of rats, for example, is pretty common. But if it extends to musophobia (a fear of mice or rats), then it can be life-changing. “One person called our helpline who was so scared of rats they couldn’t even say the word ‘rat’ itself,” explains Trilby Breckman, a development manager at the charity organisation Triumph Over Phobia (TOP UK). “It was stopping her going out for fear of seeing one.”
Breckman cites similar stories, including a teenager with a phobia of [chips] who struggled at social occasions. Another woman had a phobia of bananas, which caused problems at work and meant she couldn’t go to the supermarket without panicking. ...
The problem with phobias is that they often don’t make sense. [People don’t realise it’s the subconscious] where we have patterns and responses around spiders or whatever the phobia might be, which are triggered and make us feel uncomfortable. Delving beneath the surface to reveal the deeper – and potentially darker – causes can be a disturbing but ultimately rewarding journey. The “fast phobia cure” is one common treatment method that targets the traumatic episode or experience that caused the phobia. It involves getting the phobic to reimagine the incident, but from a different perspective. “It’s like watching a film in the cinema, so they’re not inside the experience, but looking at it from a detached point of view,” explains Guy Baglow, the director of Mindspa phobia clinic... Baglow cites an interesting case of a woman who had a fear of spiders that stemmed from the second world war. “When she was a little girl, there was an air raid and she and her mum ran to the shelter in the garden. A loud bomb exploded nearby, she was absolutely terrified and screamed, and it was at that point that a spider dropped down in front of her face,” says Baglow. “Of course, the spider then became associated with that fear. So things that are in that emotional snapshot can also trigger the same response. It’s called pattern matching. We used fast phobia therapy to change how that memory was experienced and removed the phobic trigger.”...
Some phobias can even be life-threatening – such as a fear of needles. “This can be a real problem if someone has cancer or high blood pressure and needs injections,” says Nicky Lidbetter, chief executive of Anxiety UK. ...Overall, the more that can be done to raise awareness, the better. “We need to get to a stage where everyone can openly talk about their phobia problems without being ridiculed or judged,” says Lidbetter.
1) How is a phobia different from general fear?
(1) A phobia is more intense and overwhelming than fear.
(2) People can acquire a phobia of literally anything, including fruits.
(3) Phobia can be cured, unlike general fears.
(4) A phobia is more subconscious than general fear.
2) Which of the following can cause phobias, based on the passage?
(1) Rats or insects
(2) Chips or zucchinis
(3) Glass
(4) All of the above
3) Which of the following is not cited as an issue with phobias?
(1) It can stop the sufferer from going out of the house.
(2) It can prevent the sufferer from living a normal life.
(3) It can cause the sufferer to be detached.
(4) People who have phobias can be ridiculed by others.
4) According to the passage, which of the following can cause an illogical phobia?
(1) Associating a particular food with a negative occurrence or idea
(2) A random trigger during a genuinely scary event
(3) Anything, from insects to objects to food items
(4) Extrapolating a fear to something more pronounced
Read the following passage & answer the questions that follow:
“Work Hard. Have Fun. Make History.” [reads a sign above Amazon’s newest UK “fulfilment centre” (or warehouse)]. Inside lies more than 40,000 sq m of shelving, packing lines and millions of products... Pickers constantly, and more or less silently, walk up and down the tower’s lengthy aisles, pushing carts into which they deposit items purchased by someone, somewhere online. Founded at the dawn of the web in 1994, Amazon is now reportedly worth 247bn (£157bn). But the company is not, in fact, hugely profitable. What keeps Amazon afloat? As for any business with tight margins, efficiency is key...
When you order an item online, the Amazon system quickly works out where the item sits in its inventory, and dispatches a human picker to go fetch it. [“We make the task as simple as possible,” explains general manager Henry Low. One of the first things that strikes you] is that the products aren’t organised logically – For instance, products on shelves are not organised by category. Instead, they are placed on shelves as if by random. An HDMI cable lies near to five copies of some Harry Potter sheet music. A brand of baby’s bottle is across the aisle from a drain water diverter. But there is method to this apparent madness. “Imagine picking one model of HDMI cable from a shelf of hundreds of them,” says Low. The pickers are not meant to have to think too long about what they’re retrieving – the whole process is designed to be as streamlined as humanly possible.
When an item is collected by hand, the picker scans it with a handheld device to ensure that the correct object has been taken. And every item’s progress throughout the warehouse is constantly monitored thanks to a series of points at which it is scanned again – for example at the moment of being labelled with the customer’s name and address. ...
[The human element] is arguably the weak link in the efficiency chain, and new computer-based systems that promise to automate Amazon’s operations even further might one day take over the ferrying of products themselves. Kiva Systems is a little-known Amazon subsidiary which develops hi-tech warehouse robotics. Instead of human pickers going to and from shelves in a large space, the shelves themselves are mobile and travel on wheels to stationary pickers who simply lift off the required item. Dutifully, the robot shelves then return to their place...
And yet, [human involvement is], for the time being, still crucial and evident. Human workers [are also] responsible for packing products in boxes (the size of which is predetermined by an algorithm) and stuffing packing paper and vouchers in along with the purchased item... Later, of course, these packages will be driven to homes and businesses up and down the country by human drivers for delivery. Still, with Amazon now experimenting with the idea of delivery-by-drone, it’s not clear for how long exactly that part of the chain will go unmodified.
“Work Hard,” said the sign near the entrance. On the warehouse floor, it’s apparent that the largely anonymous people who handle your online purchases take the first part of this mantra seriously.
1. How does Amazon maintain efficiency?
(1) By using the work of as many humans as possible.
(2) By using technology to make the supply process efficient.
(3) By tracking the efficiency of its employees.
(4) By automating as many tasks as possible.
2. Why does Amazon not stack identical items together?
(1) It would be time-taking to find a particular item from many models.
(2) The workers can make mistakes and send out the wrong model.
(3) The products are stacked illogically, almost as if by random.
(4) Items which are ordered more commonly are stacked at the front of the warehouse.
3. Which of the following can be expected to continue to be carried out by humans in Amazon’s fulfilment centres?
(1) Picking the correct item.
(2) Packing the correct item.
(3) Scanning the correct item.
(4) Delivering the item to the buyer.
4. Why does the author state that “the human element is arguably the weak link in the efficiency chain”?
(1) Humans are slower that machines.
(2) Humans are prone to make errors.
(3) Kiva Systems’ robots are more efficient than Amazon’s workers.
(4) It is not given in the passage.
Read the following passage & answer the questions that follow:
[CAT 2017 Slot 1]
Understanding where you are in the world is a basic survival skill, which is why we, like most species come hard-wired with specialized brain areas to create cognitive maps of our surroundings. Where humans are unique, though, with the possible exception of honeybees, is that we try to communicate this understanding the world with others. We have a long history of doing this by drawing maps – the earliest version yet discovered were scrawled on cave walls 14,000 years ago. Human cultures have been drawing them on stone tablets, papyrus, paper and now computer screens ever since.
Given such a long history of human map-making, it is perhaps surprising that it is only within the last few hundred years that north has been consistently considered to be at the top. In fact, for much of human history, north almost never appeared at the top, according to Jerry Brotton, a map historian... “North was rarely put at the top for the simple fact that north is where darkness comes from,” he says. “West is also very unlikely to be put at the top because west is where the sun disappears.”
Confusingly, early Chinese maps seem to buck this trend. But, Brotton, says, even though they did have compasses at the time, that isn’t the reason that they placed north at the top. Early Chinese compasses were actually oriented to point south, which was considered to be more desirable than deepest darkest north. But in Chinese maps, the emperor, who lived in the north of the country was always put at the top of the map, with everyone else, his loyal subjects, looking up towards him. “In Chinese culture the Emperor looks south because it’s where the winds come from, it’s a good direction. North is not very good but you are in a position of the subjection to the emperor, so you look up to him,” says Brotton.
Given that each culture has a very different idea of who, or what, they should look upto it’s perhaps not surprising that there is very little consistency in which way early maps pointed. In ancient Egyptian times the top of the world was east, the position of sunrise. Early Islamic maps favoured south at the top because most of the early Muslim cultures were north of Mecca, so they imagined looking up (south) towards it Christian maps from the same era (called Mappa Mundi) put east at the top, towards the Garden of Eden and with Jerusalem in the centre.
So when did everyone get together and decide that north was the top? It’s tempting to put it down to European explorers like Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Megellan who were navigating by the North Star. But Brotton argues that these early explorers didn’t think of the world like that at all. “When Columbus describes the world it is in accordance with east being at the top,” he says “Columbus says he is going towards paradise, so his mentality is from a medieval mappa mundi.” We’ve got to remember, adds Brotton, that at the time, “no one knows what they are doing and where they are going.”
1) Which one of the following best describes what the passage is trying to do?
(1) It questions an explanation about how maps are designed.
(2) It corrects a misconception about the way maps are designed.
(3) It critiques a methodology used to create maps.
(4) It explores some myths about maps.
2) Early maps did NOT put north at the top for all the following reasons EXCEPT
(1) North was the source of darkness.
(2) South was favoured by some emperors.
(3) East and south were more important for religious reasons for some civilisations.
(4) East was considered by some civilisations to be a more positive direction.
3) According to the passage, early Chinese maps placed north at the top because
(1) The Chinese invented the compass and were aware of magnetic north.
(2) They wanted to show respect to the emperor.
(3) The Chinese emperor appreciated the winds from the south.
(4) North was considered the most desirable direction.
4) It can be inferred from the passage that European explorers like Columbus and Megellan
(1) Set the precedent for north-up maps.
(2) Navigated by the compass.
(3) Used an eastward orientation for religious reasons.
(4) Navigated with the help of early maps.
5) Which one of the following about the northern orientation of modern maps is asserted in the passage?
(1) The biggest contributory factor was the understanding of magnetic north.
(2) The biggest contributory factor was the role of European explorers.
(3) The biggest contributory factor was the influence of Christian maps.
(4) The biggest contributory factor is not stated in the passage.
6) The role of natural phenomena in influencing map-making conventions is seen most clearly in
(1) early Egyptian maps
(2) early Islamic maps
(3) early Chinese maps
(4) early Christian maps
Solution
1) (1) A phobia is more intense and overwhelming than fear.
2) (4) All of the above
3) (3) It can cause the sufferer to be detached.
4) (2) A random trigger during a genuinely scary event
1) (2) By using technology to make the supply process efficient.
2) (1) It would be time-taking to find a particular item from many models.
3) (2) Packing the correct item.
4) (4) It is not given in the passage.
1) (2) It corrects a misconception about the way maps are designed.
2) (2) South was favoured by some emperors.
3) (2) They wanted to show respect to the emperor.
4) (3) Used an eastward orientation for religious reasons.
5) (4) The biggest contributory factor is not stated in the passage.
6) (1) early Egyptian maps
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