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CAT 2025 Lesson : Reading Comprehension II - Logical Reasoning
5. Selecting the Correct Option
Many times, we might be torn between two or more options while answering questions. This usually happens because the examiners have put in two options which are similar, or which both seem logical. This usually occurs in exams, and is a good test of whether we will be a good manager. Managers will have to choose between two or more strategies at work, and this is a test of the same.Some of the sample question types where we feel that two options are correct can be:
| Question type | Concern |
| Direct Single |
1. Two options might both seem factual and based on the passage 2. All the options might seem wrong |
| Direct Multiple |
1. Two options might both seem right (both could be in line with the passage, or seem factual) 2. Two options might both seem exceptions (when the question is similar to All of the following is true, based on the passage EXCEPT) 3. All options might feel incorrect (to be eliminated) |
| Inferential |
You might feel that two or more options are suitable for the following types of questions: 1. What the author will agree/support or disagree with 2. Which will prove/strengthen or disprove/weaken the author's view 3. What is the key purpose/key message |
| Meaning |
1. One option might seem correct based on the meaning of the phrase, while another might be matching the context 2. One option might have an explanation, while another has an example |
| Miscellaneous | 1. More than one option might be suitable for source, title, etc. |
In such cases, we can either use logical reasoning to arrive at the correct option, or to eliminate the wrong one. When you are torn between two options, elimination is usually a quicker and easier technique. We will be discussing both these techniques with examples.
5.1 Logical Reasoning
While selecting the correct option, we can use logical or critical reasoning to understand what is the correct answer. You need to look for options which are:1) In line with the author's viewpoint
2) Answering the question which has been asked
3) Factual
4) Logically sound
5) In sync with the passage
Let us solve some examples to understand better.
Example 12
Read the passage below and answer the questions:
Six years after dropping an average of 129 pounds [1 pound is about 0.5 kg] on the TV program “The Biggest Loser,” [the participants] were burning about 500 fewer calories a day than other people their age and size. This helps explain why they had regained 70 percent of their lost weight since the show’s finale... [This is just the latest example of research showing that in the long run dieting is rarely effective] and does more harm than good...
The root of the problem is not willpower but neuroscience. Metabolic suppression is one of several powerful tools that the brain uses to keep the body within a certain weight range... When dieters’ weight drops below it, they not only burn fewer calories but also produce more hunger-inducing hormones and find eating more rewarding. The brain’s weight-regulation system considers your set point to be the correct weight for you, whether or not your doctor agrees. If someone starts at 120 pounds and drops to 80, her brain declares a starvation state of emergency, using every method available to get that weight back up to normal...
As a neuroscientist, I’ve read hundreds of studies on the brain’s ability to fight weight loss. I also know about it from experience... After about five years, 41 percent of dieters gain back more weight than they lost. Long-term studies show dieters are more likely than non-dieters to become obese over the next one to 15 years. That’s true in men and women, across ethnic groups, from childhood through middle age. The effect is strongest in those who started in the normal weight range...
Much of what we understand about weight regulation comes from studies of rodents, whose eating habits resemble ours... When tasty food is plentiful, individual rodents gain different amounts of weight, and the genes that influence weight in people have similar effects in mice. Under stress, rodents eat more sweet and fatty foods. Like us, both laboratory and wild rodents have become fatter over the past few decades. In the laboratory, rodents learn to binge when deprivation alternates with tasty food — a situation familiar to many dieters. Rats develop binge eating after several weeks consisting of five days of food restriction followed by two days of free access to Oreos. Four days later, a brief stressor leads them to eat almost twice as many Oreos as animals that received the stressor but did not have their diets restricted. A small taste of Oreos can induce deprived animals to binge on regular chow, if nothing else is available...
In people, dieting also reduces the influence of the brain’s weight-regulation system by teaching us to rely on rules rather than hunger to control eating. People who eat this way become more vulnerable to external cues telling them what to eat. In the modern environment, many of those cues were invented by marketers to make us eat more, like advertising, supersizing and the all-you-can-eat buffet. Studies show that long-term dieters are more likely to eat for emotional reasons or simply because food is available. When dieters who have long ignored their hunger finally exhaust their willpower [and overeat,] leading to weight gain.
1) In which of the following ways does our brain make us gain any lost weight back?
(1) People tend to gain the weight back in stressful situations.
(2) It’s not our brain’s fault, it’s marketers’ fault.
(3) Our brain makes eating feel more rewarding that it was earlier.
(4) Our brain stops responding to rules and external cues.
Option (3) mentions the last reason, and therefore, is the correct choice.
Option (1) is irrelevant and can be eliminated.
Option (2) is incorrect, as the author has explained what the brain does. Similarly, option (4) is also incorrect as the author has told us that dieters are more vulnerable to external cues.
Therefore, we can eliminate all the options and select option (3) as the correct choice.
Answer: (3) Our brain makes eating feel more rewarding that it was earlier.
2) What does the experiment with the rats and Oreos prove?
(1) How rats get addicted to something which they did not eat earlier.
(2) That dieting and stress can lead to binge eating.
(3) The lack of one sweet treat can make us chase other food.
(4) Why people gravitate towards sweet treats in diets.
This is summarised in option (2), which is the correct choice.
We can eliminate option (1), which is speaking about addiction and not bingeing. Similarly, option (4) is also speaking about sweet treats and not bingeing.
Option (3), while factual, is a much smaller part of the study. Option (2) explains the main findings, and hence, we can eliminate option (3) in favour of option (2). Thus, option (2) is the correct choice.
Answer: (2) That dieting and stress can lead to binge eating.
3) What is the additional challenge faced by humans who want to control their weight today?
(1) Access to more food than that our ancestors had.
(2) Encouragement to overeat.
(3) Overeating due to emotional reasons.
(4) Doctors making us diet without realising that it is harmful.
As no option mentions this directly, let us consider the options. Option (1) is correct, but option (2) captures the part about marketing cues encouraging us to eat more. Encouragement is more apt than access.
Option (3) is a challenge, but not one which is applicable only today.
Option (4) is not mentioned in this passage, and can be eliminated.
Therefore, option (2) is the correct choice.
Answer: (2) Encouragement to overeat.
4) Who are the type of people vulnerable to external cues?
(1) People who follow strict diets.
(2) People who listen to their doctors.
(3) Everyone in today’s world, with ads, supersizing and the all-you-can-eat buffet.
(4) People who have been deprived of food, thereby resulting in changes in dopamine and other neurotransmitters in the brain.
Option (2) is incorrect.
Option (3) seems correct, but is not, as the author has told us that people who eat this way become more vulnerable to external cues telling them what to eat.
Option (4) is irrelevant and can also be eliminated.
Answer: (1) People who follow strict diets.
Six years after dropping an average of 129 pounds [1 pound is about 0.5 kg] on the TV program “The Biggest Loser,” [the participants] were burning about 500 fewer calories a day than other people their age and size. This helps explain why they had regained 70 percent of their lost weight since the show’s finale... [This is just the latest example of research showing that in the long run dieting is rarely effective] and does more harm than good...
The root of the problem is not willpower but neuroscience. Metabolic suppression is one of several powerful tools that the brain uses to keep the body within a certain weight range... When dieters’ weight drops below it, they not only burn fewer calories but also produce more hunger-inducing hormones and find eating more rewarding. The brain’s weight-regulation system considers your set point to be the correct weight for you, whether or not your doctor agrees. If someone starts at 120 pounds and drops to 80, her brain declares a starvation state of emergency, using every method available to get that weight back up to normal...
As a neuroscientist, I’ve read hundreds of studies on the brain’s ability to fight weight loss. I also know about it from experience... After about five years, 41 percent of dieters gain back more weight than they lost. Long-term studies show dieters are more likely than non-dieters to become obese over the next one to 15 years. That’s true in men and women, across ethnic groups, from childhood through middle age. The effect is strongest in those who started in the normal weight range...
Much of what we understand about weight regulation comes from studies of rodents, whose eating habits resemble ours... When tasty food is plentiful, individual rodents gain different amounts of weight, and the genes that influence weight in people have similar effects in mice. Under stress, rodents eat more sweet and fatty foods. Like us, both laboratory and wild rodents have become fatter over the past few decades. In the laboratory, rodents learn to binge when deprivation alternates with tasty food — a situation familiar to many dieters. Rats develop binge eating after several weeks consisting of five days of food restriction followed by two days of free access to Oreos. Four days later, a brief stressor leads them to eat almost twice as many Oreos as animals that received the stressor but did not have their diets restricted. A small taste of Oreos can induce deprived animals to binge on regular chow, if nothing else is available...
In people, dieting also reduces the influence of the brain’s weight-regulation system by teaching us to rely on rules rather than hunger to control eating. People who eat this way become more vulnerable to external cues telling them what to eat. In the modern environment, many of those cues were invented by marketers to make us eat more, like advertising, supersizing and the all-you-can-eat buffet. Studies show that long-term dieters are more likely to eat for emotional reasons or simply because food is available. When dieters who have long ignored their hunger finally exhaust their willpower [and overeat,] leading to weight gain.
1) In which of the following ways does our brain make us gain any lost weight back?
(1) People tend to gain the weight back in stressful situations.
(2) It’s not our brain’s fault, it’s marketers’ fault.
(3) Our brain makes eating feel more rewarding that it was earlier.
(4) Our brain stops responding to rules and external cues.
Solution
This passage warns us against the issues with dieting. The author starts by citing examples where people who have lost weight have gained most of it back. This question is a Direct Single question, as we can learn the ways in which the brain ensures that we gain lost weight back in the second paragraph. The brain uses metabolic suppression (slowing down of our metabolism), increased hunger-inducing hormones and makes eating seem more rewarding.Option (3) mentions the last reason, and therefore, is the correct choice.
Option (1) is irrelevant and can be eliminated.
Option (2) is incorrect, as the author has explained what the brain does. Similarly, option (4) is also incorrect as the author has told us that dieters are more vulnerable to external cues.
Therefore, we can eliminate all the options and select option (3) as the correct choice.
Answer: (3) Our brain makes eating feel more rewarding that it was earlier.
2) What does the experiment with the rats and Oreos prove?
(1) How rats get addicted to something which they did not eat earlier.
(2) That dieting and stress can lead to binge eating.
(3) The lack of one sweet treat can make us chase other food.
(4) Why people gravitate towards sweet treats in diets.
Solution
This experiment is mentioned in the fourth paragraph. The author tells us that rats learn to binge (eat excessively) if their food is restricted. The author also tells us that rats whose food is restricted may eat more when stressed, and can binge on regular food if sugary snacks (like Oreo biscuits) are unavailable.This is summarised in option (2), which is the correct choice.
We can eliminate option (1), which is speaking about addiction and not bingeing. Similarly, option (4) is also speaking about sweet treats and not bingeing.
Option (3), while factual, is a much smaller part of the study. Option (2) explains the main findings, and hence, we can eliminate option (3) in favour of option (2). Thus, option (2) is the correct choice.
Answer: (2) That dieting and stress can lead to binge eating.
3) What is the additional challenge faced by humans who want to control their weight today?
(1) Access to more food than that our ancestors had.
(2) Encouragement to overeat.
(3) Overeating due to emotional reasons.
(4) Doctors making us diet without realising that it is harmful.
Solution
The key word in this question is today. We need to look for challenges faced by people currently. These challenges are mentioned in the last paragraph (the words modern environment help us infer this). The author tells us that dieters are more vulnerable to external cues, which are designed by marketers many times (advertising, supersizing and the all-you-can-eat buffet).As no option mentions this directly, let us consider the options. Option (1) is correct, but option (2) captures the part about marketing cues encouraging us to eat more. Encouragement is more apt than access.
Option (3) is a challenge, but not one which is applicable only today.
Option (4) is not mentioned in this passage, and can be eliminated.
Therefore, option (2) is the correct choice.
Answer: (2) Encouragement to overeat.
4) Who are the type of people vulnerable to external cues?
(1) People who follow strict diets.
(2) People who listen to their doctors.
(3) Everyone in today’s world, with ads, supersizing and the all-you-can-eat buffet.
(4) People who have been deprived of food, thereby resulting in changes in dopamine and other neurotransmitters in the brain.
Solution
This answer can also be derived from the last paragraph. The author has told us that dieters are more vulnerable to external cues, as they follow rules instead of their body. Therefore, option (1) is the correct choice.Option (2) is incorrect.
Option (3) seems correct, but is not, as the author has told us that people who eat this way become more vulnerable to external cues telling them what to eat.
Option (4) is irrelevant and can also be eliminated.
Answer: (1) People who follow strict diets.
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